strange musings of a distracted spunk

A dark subject like depression has no place sitting pool-side, wearing an old blue and green bikini and soaking up the sun. There were no tears. There was no sitting around a table, drinking out of red glasses and hashing out my complicated history. It was a simple fact, laid bare for me to read on his lips.

“I think you’re depressed,” he said. “I think you’ve been depressed for a long time.”

Does the depression wear itself on my skin like a gaping wound, taunting anyone who dares come near? Or perhaps as I stand here, my skin opening like window shutters and exposing my vulnerabilities to anyone walking by. “Broken heart!” it exclaims on my right kneecap, whereas my left middle finger knuckle declares, “She doesn’t know what she wants!” My ribcage pulses out, “Daddy complex!” and my nose flibbers, “Have you found home yet?”

The first time depression called, she kept me up all night. I’d fall fleetingly asleep just before sunrise and nap fitfully, until my alarm went off. The vibrating disk under my head only made me want to throw my hands up in despair and call out of work. The second time she swept into my life, I wised to the ways of Tylenol PM. It might have only given me three to four hours straight, but that was three to four hours more than I was getting.

I’m not sure when she came calling again. It was subtle this time. I fell prey to her cliche, of the depressive that never gets out of bed. The one who sees the mess in the room but ignores it in favor of laying in bed. The one who when confronted with a family situation begins to feel itchy and out of her own skin. After just two hours with my extended family, an internal war waged.

Side A: They haven’t seen you in months! Indulge them! You don’t have to be social! Just nod your head and pay attention to the four babies!

Side B: Do you really want to pay attention to four babies or make conversation about things you don’t care about when you could be at home, in bed, with pajamas on and reading a book?

Side B won. Side B always wins these days. Side B spent a full two minutes trying to come up with a wish after her belated birthday candle was blown out by an enthusiastic two year old. Is a wish still effective if it’s made after the candle blows out? Had Side B or Side A even managed to declare a wish, this line of questioning might be more valid.

The last time I can so acutely remember feeling so tee-tot-ery was when I met an old coworker for dinner. After three years of working together and several more of being friends, he saw right through me. Perhaps I was as shaky as a drug addict in need of his next fix; except in my case, the addiction had no name. He said, “DS. Why don’t you take the bus back to New Jersey with me? I’ll drive you to your parents’ house.” Something about his voice, his course of action made me say okay. Maybe it was because he was more definite than I had ever felt.

I just wanted to get home that night, crawl into the bed that had been mine since I was fourteen. I had begun to develop an irrational dislike for tunnels, and that night we got stuck in the Lincoln Tunnel. Suddenly, I wanted to scream, fling myself off the bus, run through the tunnel, through the fumes of hundreds of cars marking the walls with their scent, back to open air. I wanted to shake people and cry and sob and list back and forth, because goddamnit, we were stuck in the fucking Lincoln Tunnel and I was going to die if I didn’t get some fresh air and breathe and why is he able to sleep next to me so calmly, as though we’re not all going to suffocate, and not even my ipod or furious fingers texting is going to save me. I had visions of the tunnel collapsing, of drowning and feeling so exhausted and being stuck on this damn bus and not being able to swim out to the surface.

Ironic for the girl who has no qualms about getting on a plane.

I couldn’t breathe. I began to hyperventilate. Tears began streaming down my face. I clicked through my ipod, looking for a song that might calm me down. I almost tapped him on the shoulder, to save me from myself, but I couldn’t bring myself to do that, to expose myself under such vulnerable conditions.

We emerged to a horrendous accident, and yet, I couldn’t bring myself to feel horror for anyone else but myself. Was it an anxiety attack? Or did depression just have me deep in her throes?

I’m a junkie waiting for her next fix, but I don’t know what my fix is anymore. I can sit by a pool in an old blue and green bikini and laugh and dive and splash, but I’m a stranger to my own skin. I can be in the presence of my family and love them for who they are, but I can’t stand a single minute of it. My bed is my prison and my home.

She’s back.

Ready for a secret?

Normally, I’m pretty happy with my body image. Normally, I like how my boobs snugly fit a bikini top and how my bermuda shorts ride low on my hips and make me feel sexy. I knew that even if I put on a pair of jeans with a sweatshirt, I would still get looks as I walked down the street, because I am pretty cute. But lately, over the last few weeks, I’ve become victim to self-hatred towards my body.

Perhaps I should start from the beginning. As an overactive, skinny stick who danced five days a week, the biggest complaint I often had was my butt was too bony. It hurt to sit on the ground and other people’s laps. Almost twenty years later, I still have that complaint, but the rest of me has rounded out. I chalk it up to puberty and events in my life that happened when I was seventeen. I didn’t realize how much weight I had gained until post-college, when I was almost thirty pounds heavier than I was when I had entered.

The thing about my body is, I’m not petite and I’m not small boned. I have shoulders; broad ones. They look great in halter tops and spaghetti straps, but they will never look delicate. I’ve got curves, hips that jut out but my stomach tends to be pretty flat; I rock a four-pack pretty easily. I most definitely do not have an ass, but I more than make up for it in the chest region. My legs are muscular; maybe not as muscular as they were when I danced, but my calf muscles are still pretty huge. I’ve been mistaken for a soccer player numerous times.

When everything went down with D last year, I couldn’t figure out how to move out of the zombie phase. One day, a friend suggested I go to the gym with her. I was never a good gym-goer; I felt it was too isolated and too machine oriented. But something clicked that day, and suddenly, I started hitting the gym three, four, five times a week. I would go at the end of my day, after work and class, getting home close to midnight. I felt good about myself, and it showed. The weight I gained in college melted away, and I found myself gravitating towards more feminine clothes, something my high-school and college-self rarely did. But more importantly, I wasn’t mourning the loss of D anymore. I was redirecting my energy to a place where I didn’t have to think, where I could just move and somehow, that blank slate let me move forward.

I struggled a bit when I first moved to California. Living in a strange house where I couldn’t make food or bring home food meant I ate out a lot. And cheaply. When you were only making 800 bucks a month (thanks AmeriCorps!), gourmet meals are not exactly an option. But when I found my apartment, I got back into the rhythm; of cardio, pilates, then weights. I would be at the gym for an hour and a half to two hours, and I felt solid. Comfortable. It helped that a boy loved me, inside and out, even when he was 1800 miles away. For some reason, having someone who thought I was impossibly sexy somehow made me feel even more sexy, which was never a term I would have applied to myself until he came along.

When he and I broke up for the first time in December, I lost the motivation to go to the gym. Sneaks of depression would slither in, and all I wanted to do was go home, curl up in my bed, and zone out with a book or a movie. I didn’t want to think. I was afraid to think, because unlike D, GDB would somehow crawl into the furthest recesses of my mind, even when I was running at top speeds on the elliptical. I wasn’t willing to cry in front of other people at the gym. So I hid from it all at home, where no one could see me cry.

I struggled with my body and him for the next few months. He and I were so up and down, he infiltrated my thoughts so often, I thought it best to find as many distractions as I could. I would go to the gym, but it would only be a half-hearted effort. Finally, when I walked away in March, I started to feel good about myself again. I struggled with how my body had grown softer, but I wasn’t afraid of facing my innermost thoughts at the gym anymore. I still felt sexy, even when it wasn’t GDB who left me messages every day, as much as it was Rebound Boy. I was back in a rhythm. I liked myself and my body.

Of course, that’s when the world shifted again. Remember when I got fired? And had to deal with an asshat of a roommate? And GDB came back? And oh yeah. I traveled for a month and a half. Oh right. And broke up with GDB for good. All in the last two months. Yeah. I’m still recovering from that.

So I’ve taken solace on my parents’ couch, in my bed, eating their food, most of which is not what I would keep in my own house. I’ve seen pictures of myself from Thailand compared to pictures of myself from this past weekend, and something feels wrong. My clothes don’t feel right. My body feels strange and bigger than usual. I don’t feel sexy, at all. I don’t even really feel attractive. I’m putting on my more masculine clothes, hiding my body again, because I’m not happy with my body as it is anymore.

I won’t say pounds because I try not to go by pounds as much as I try to go by how my clothes feel, but I do want to get back to where my body was. Where I felt tight and fit, where I wasn’t afraid to wear my more feminine clothes because I felt pretty and light, and mainly, where I felt damn sexy. Part of me wonders if it’s because I’ve finally ended something where I felt like the most insanely attractive thing in the world in GDB’s eyes, and am I not able to see myself in that same light? I honestly can’t answer that today. For the first time in a long time, I am taking a break from relationships (if you haven’t heard Alanis Morrissette’s “Moratorium,” I suggest you download it now), from positive reinforcement from guys I find attractive, and from feeling like I have someone I want to dress up for.

I want to dress up for me. But more importantly, I want to feel like I CAN dress up for me, when I am back to being comfortable in my own skin. I want to shed the weight I’ve gained in the last two and a half weeks of being home. I want to remember what it was like to walk down the street and turn heads. I’m not there yet. But hopefully, even though my routine is at best a joke, at worst, a pretense, I’ll get there again.

The thing about being me is I don’t exactly fit into the hearing world. But I don’t exactly fit into the deaf world either. I don’t pay attention to hands moving, unless it’s to accentuate the shapes their mouths make. But I can’t turn around and hold a full-fledged conversation with someone standing behind me either. My version of hearing involves context clues, lip-reading, and making the most of my hearing aid. It’s in this way that I often pass for hearing.

But I cringe every time I hear someone speak in a deaf voice, their words sounding out what it should look like, rather than what it sounds like. The whining tones annoy me, irrationally, because I would sound like that too if it weren’t for modern inventions.

I don’t suppose I’ll ever know what really happened. My mother’s side says I was born deaf. My father’s side says I had an ear infection and lost my hearing. Neither side accounts for my ability to speak as clearly as I do, with the exception of an s, z, x, and ch. It’s pretty difficult to repeat sounds you can’t hear; after a while, between the fast speaking and the overactive brain, my language can get sloppy. I can pronounce the hiss of an ’s’, but more often, it sounds like a ‘th’ because I simply don’t care enough to focus on bringing my teeth together. I can pronounce the choppiness of a ‘ch’, but that requires moving my tongue to the back of my mouth, when I could just leave it behind my teeth for a ’sh.’

My kind of hearing works for me. I can take my hearing aid out when I’m tired of hearing the world, when I’m tired of hearing just how much noise there is, when I just want to curl up with a book and read and rely on my visual sense and imagination instead.

But then, my kind of hearing was challenged. Mysteriously, randomly, some of the nerves in my cochlear wiped out, and took approximately 30 decibels of sound that I previously had had with them. For someone who was only operating at about 27%, 30 decibels is a lot to lose. I was suddenly plunged from severe to profound, the last label before you fall off the cliff into total silence. I wanted it back. My hearing aid was no longer powerful enough; I had to adapt. Certain sounds got lost. I used to be able to hear most birds chirping with my hearing aid. I couldn’t anymore. I used to be able to hear crickets and sopranos hitting the highest notes. I couldn’t anymore. My speech patterns changed; they became sloppier. I couldn’t have a conversation with someone standing behind me as easily anymore; I needed to really focus on lip reading to understand the words tossed my way.

When I had lunch with my childhood best friend a year ago, she immediately noticed the difference. She said, “You sound a bit different. And you never had to pay this much attention to me when we were younger.” It was startling, but acute the way she so accurately diagnosed the changes.

I had the opportunity to recoup my losses. Still do, in fact. When those 30 decibels wandered away, I became an unlikely but eligible candidate for a cochlear implant; a device that for all intents and purposes recreates the cochlear and electromagnetically works to simulate sound in your ear.I was warned that I heard so abnormally well with my hearing aid that I may never reach that same stage with my cochlear implant.

It didn’t matter, I said. I’m impulsive at best, brash at worst. Just give me the implant, I said. I was afraid of not being able to communicate anymore, of losing the grip I had on the hearing world, of my connection to my family and friends. Who would hire me if I couldn’t hear anymore? What would I do? I took so much for granted, the idea of not having any hearing at all scared me out of my wits.

So I had the surgery. I woke up with a sore neck from my head being turned all the way to the left so they could operate on my right ear. I missed the American Idol finale where Ruben Studdard beat out Clay Aiken, which I thought was a travesty. I was knocked out by pills, though I don’t remember being in much pain. Just feeling the scar behind my ear, where they had sliced open my head to relieve pressure on my ear. I can still feel it sometimes, a line behind my ear, though no such line exists anymore.

A month later, they turned the implant on for the first time. And for the first time in twelve years (as I had flushed my hearing aid for the right ear down the toilet accidentally on purpose when I was seven), there was sound filtering through my right ear. It didn’t sound like much. White noise, maybe. But it was sound, nonetheless, where there hadn’t been sound before. Suddenly, I was faced with the reality of it all. There was sound coming from my right ear, while my left ear kept disappearing. There was sound coming from my right ear, but my brain was so unprepared, I had a sudden headache. How do you retrain your brain to hear? To translate the signals sent from false nerves from the ear that had previously been as useful as an appendix.

I would take my hearing aid out and listen to music with my cochlear implant on. I could pick out the rhythms, the bass, but how much of that was from memory and how much of that was from actual sound? Suddenly, I was faced with my worst fear. It wasn’t about losing my hearing. I had done that. I could handle that. But what if this implant, with my hearing aid, showed me all the sounds I didn’t know existed before? It’s a bit like telling a full man he’s still hungry. How can you know he’s hungry if he feels full? I felt that I had all the sound in the world that I needed. I could hear my cats purr, I could dance along to the beat, I could even listen to the quiet still of a summer night at my parents’ camper. Was I ready to recategorize the world, when I thought I had it already carefully labeled?

So I put the cochlear implant down. Five years later, I’ve only touched it here and there. The magnet in my head is a party trick, to stick refrigerator magnets on and joke about how I’m the most electronic of all my friends. Until last night, when I watched a documentary about a couple who decide to get cochlear implants at the age of sixty five years. Sixty five years of never hearing sound, and they’re willing to trade all that to hear what the rest of the world can. Was it easy? No. Is it ever easy?

But I wonder. What am I so afraid of? Even as I write this, I still can’t summon the courage to take out the cochlear implant and tuck it behind my ear. What would have to change for me to accept it? Am I waiting for more decibels to drop, to lose my hearing for good? Am I waiting for some sort of sign, that I’m ready to hear again, if I’ve ever heard before? Or am I just really…a fucking coward? Who will let her fears of not knowing the world as it was anymore override her fears of never hearing again?

The trouble with my kind of deaf is you don’t really fit in either category. You hear but you don’t. You reject the deaf community outright, but you don’t exactly fit into the hearing one either. Is it time to make a change?

What do you do when your vibrator breaks?

A. E-mail the following?

Hello!

This might be a bit of a strange e-mail, but my rabbit habit vibrator broke. Not because of overuse (perhaps from underuse?) but simply, because the battery pack fell off. The shaft no longer works, though the bunny ears twitch quite well, but there is something to be said about trying to use a vibrator when it has wires sticking out and a battery pack hanging off. A vibrator in general is not nearly as appealing as a genuine cock, and sadly, a vibrator with wires (and somewhat reminiscent of a floppy dick) is even less so. And yes, I am quite aware that this is slightly absurd; I should really just go out and find another penis, but I just broke up with the one I really liked best.

Is there any way I can get an exchange for my vibrator? I only bought it in mid-February, and it broke in the beginning of May, but I was unable to do anything about it as I was traveling for the next month and half. Now that I’m back in one place, I’d like to see what can be done about getting my Rabbit Habit fixed. Thank you!

B. Research vibrator repair shops? I feel like the people who work in a vibrator repair shop would be akin to the kind of guy who puts on a used condom. Ick.

C. Suck it up and shell out money for a new one, even though I currently have to hide the old one behind my bed, where I fear my cats may find it and use it like a toy for their amusement. Kitten + twitching bunny ears = hours of entertainment/mortification.

In which case, I need recommendations. The Rabbit Habit’s clitoral part works well enough for me, but I’d like a bit more stimulation vaginally. Suggestions?

1. I started this blog.
2. I got published. Twice.
3. I kicked a boy out of bed.
4. I tried changing the world.
5. I hugged a cactus in Arizona.
6. I went to Seattle and Vancouver.
7. I stepped in two oceans and one sea.
8. I quit one job and got let go from another.
9. I found joy again in taking a pen to the page.
10. I didn’t have any emergency trips to the hospital!
11. I took a dance class with Taye Diggs, who clapped me on the shoulder.
12. I walked away from the one person who often made me feel the most secure.
13. I met some amazing people, yet I always end up on the opposite coast.
14. I moved cross-country by myself, to a place I had never been.
15. I road tripped from San Diego to San Francisco.
16. I had a bike go all transformers on me.
17. I found a softer, more reserved me.
18. I learned I have awful travel luck.
19. I went to Thailand and Japan.
20. I realized my own strength.
21. I lived the same day twice.
22. I moved. Five times.
23. I fell in love.

Here’s to year 24; may it be as enlightening and exciting as 23.

-Why does Macy’s Wedding Registry keep sending me e-mails? Do they think I might be a customer soon? They have wild aspirations.

-My parents’ smallest cat makes noises like a robot. I’ve never heard anything like this, and I end up cracking up every time I hear a “Sqgruk.”

-It’s kind of nice having a shower that works. My apartment in Berkeley was excellent at being temperamental in temperature and pressure. This is why I often took baths.

-I’ve been shaving for at least twelve years. So explain to me why a chunk of my right leg is now missing?

-Kyle XY is quite a spectacular show, and they need to come out with the season 2 DVD ASAP. (We started watching this in the islands in Thailand. This is geek chic; who needs to go out and socialize when you can watch a boy without a belly button!) Also, why is Lisa still on Top Chef? And why did my family forget to DVR the last two weeks of So You Think You Can Dance? At least I get my dance fix tonight! *cheers*

-Twould be lovely if I could stay awake past 10. Last night I passed out at 9:45 pm. This does not bode well for my alertness at a bachelorette party on Saturday night.

-I’ve lost an inhaler, an earring rack, and 50 yen. Each one of these are in a different country. Awesome.

-When I invited D to come to a party next week, he said, “Are you sure it’s okay if I come? Won’t your friends want me to die?”

-GDB makes me laugh. He can stay for a bit.

-Family barbecues with mine and Thailand’s family are super fun, especially because he and I finish each other’s sentences and would tell stories and giggle hilariously. Also, I am craving a hot dog like no one’s business.

-One of my easiest snacks is a ketchup sandwich in a hot dog bun. My mom used to have to have my camp counselors take them away from me if I made that, but I’m such a picky eater sometimes that instead of picking at my food, it was easier to make a ketchup sandwich! I don’t know why it hasn’t caught on more.

-I think my hair is redder in California than it is in New York or New Jersey.

-I’m actually kind of digging not doing anything this week.

So here’s the deal.

We leave for Krabi tomorrow night. We stay on an island for four days (rain shower, bathtub, massages, gym, free wi-fi, a pool that goes into the ocean, etc.) We also will be snorkeling, windsurfing (if the water isn’t too choppy), and other water-based activity, as well as hiking and laying out on beautiful white beaches.

The issue is my skin. Regardless of how much suntan lotion I put on, inevitably, I get burnt somehow - usually in patches. Most recently, I ended up with a stripe from my collarbone to the center of my left breast. How? No idea. I’m also one of those fairest of the fair kinda girls; I’m basically what the Thai folk aspire to with their whitening lotions (think tanning lotions in reverse.)

Today, I’m sporting an awesome collar - front and back - of a sunburn that I got when exploring the ruins of the old capital of Thailand, Ayuthaya, even though I put on tons of SPF 50 suntan lotion (twice!) before we got there. There’s no way I can avoid the sun, but how can I keep from getting burnt to a crisp while snorkeling?

Thailand suggests buying swim clothes, such as board shorts and a surfer shirt but that’s called spending money I don’t have. If I absolutely have to, I will, but I’d MUCH prefer other options. That’s where you all come in. Help!

-I am a good wingman. For gay men. I met several Americans, Englishmen, and Canadians, and chatted them up, dragging Thailand into the conversation when I could

-We went to a bar where it was all teak wood, lounge-type furniture, a small little carriage seat in the middle of the lounge, stone horses hanging from the ceiling, ponds, steps, palm trees, etc. It was so inherently Asian, yet I cant quite put my finger on what made it so Asian. I was just super excited.

-On Sunday night we went to a gay bar named DJ, which is supposedly one of the hottest gay bars in all of Asia. We got there in time for the ladyboy show. Basically, the Thai culture is super accepting of transvestites and even have multiple terms for them; we recognize them as transsexuals, but they call them transsexuals or kathoey. I’m told the latter is more of a derogatory term, but the premise is that some Thai believe that being a kathoey is the result of transgressions in past lives. Anyhow, the ladyboy show featured thai men who had had hormone therapy, breast implants, and perhaps other surgeries done to play up their female side. Thailand has the best gender reassignment doctors in the world. Pea in a Pod pointed out how fascinating it is that a country we Westerners consider to be less…civilized…has more progressive views on gender and sexuality than we do back west.

-Another thing that was so utterly interesting to me was the abundance of older white men with these younger gorgeous Thai men. Thailand has a huge sexpat culture, where it’s easy to get your needs met because anything goes. We would call these situations sugar daddies back east, but here, the emphasis is placed on the boys who are called “Money Boys.” The premise is they agree to accompany the older, and not necessarily attractive white men because the men buy them everything and give them money. It was interesting for me to watch - because when I wasn’t playing wingman, I was watching the crowd.

-Straight girls have no place in a gay club. I got pushed, shoved, and sat on. Twice. Apparently, my vagina makes me invisible. It took me a full five minutes to just get out of the club because everyone kept pushing me out of their way.

-Thai society decrees that every male be a monk at some point in his life, though it can be for as short as a week. Thailand dated a guy who had just finished a three month service in the monkhood. For some reason, it strikes me as slightly ironic, as I typically assume monks to be celibate and heterosexual.

-The gay scene here is HUGE. Granted, Thailand lives near one of the biggest red light districts in the city, where they have live sex shows (which I am also debating seeing), gay clubs, ping pong shows, and more. However, pornography is illegal here. Am I the only one who finds this slightly twisted?

-One thing that keeps overwhelming me is the sheer amount of people. Yes, I grew up in New York. Yes, I’m no stranger to crowded subways. But this is basically like Times Square overload. I often get swept up in a mass crowd of people, on the subway, walking, etc. Sometimes, I find myself almost running to get away from the crowd. We went to this mall called MBK, which is seven floors. And huge. It’s bigger than any mall I’ve ever seen in the U.S., more crowded, and slightly more terrifying. After about an hour there, I began to feel tired and cranky just because there was SO MUCH STUFF and SO MANY PEOPLE. Not to mention, I couldn’t try on any of the clothes because they are meant for tiny, petite Thai girls, and well, let’s face it. I have boobs. And I am not tiny and petite. Asia is giving me a fat complex.

-The temples? Are…amazing. I was more a fan of Wat Arun and Wat Phra Kaew than Wat Pho, though the Reclining Buddha inside was massively huge and impressive. The thing that gets me is I like learning the history behind these things when I’m at these sites. Because it’s easier to match up a story to something that was done, rather than try to remember everything you’ve read or seen beforehand. Even still, just the sheer magnificence of it is stunning. A few pictures!

And finally. Thailand has been seeing more of me than he’s seen since we were babies in the same crib (we grew up together.) He neglected to mention that we would be climbing steep steep stairs at Wat Arun. So I wore a sundress because it’s so ridiculously hot here. Sundress + steep stairs + wind = booty flashing DS. It would have been mildly funny, had it not been for the night before.

See, I had come home early from the club because I was getting a bit claustrophobic with all those people touching me accidentally, pushing me, or sitting on my lap. (Straight girls - invisible. I’m telling you.) I wanted to tell GDB about my experience, so we started talking over webcam. I had just taken a shower, so I hadn’t bothered getting dressed yet since Thailand wouldn’t be home for at least another hour. GDB typically doesn’t wear clothes either. We were talking about Thailand thus far and my experience at the gay club, and I was super hyper, when all of a sudden Thailand staggers in, completely drunk. I’m sitting on his bed naked, GDB is on my screen, visibly naked from the waist up, and Thailand announces how drunk he is. I immediately start trying to cover myself up, GDB is trying not to laugh, and Thailand doesn’t say anything for thirty seconds. Then he says, “Oh. You’re naked. And talking to GDB. And I’m drunk. I’m going to go into the other room.”

I tore a hole in my shorts trying to get them on before running out into the other room. Thailand apologizes for walking in on me naked, and adds, “It took me a few seconds to realize you were naked because I was too busy staring at GDB’s pecs of steel. Also. You have rather large breasts.” I’m not sure who laughed harder, me, Thailand, or GDB.

Two days before we hit up the Thai beaches! (Oh, I am SO excited.)

Disclaimer: May make boys and conservative folk uncomfortable.

Friday, April 11:

11:29 p.m.: YES!

11:31 p.m.: YES!

11:32 p.m.: That’s it?

Saturday, April 12:

7:59 a.m.: Did he just say he had unprotected sex with some girl on Thursday night? KICK HIM OUT! Thank god we used a condom. KICK HIM OUT! NOW! And don’t let that thing near me EVER AGAIN!

11:54 a.m.: Hm. I feel kinda scratchy. He…was a bit rough. And I do hate condoms. This is slightly inefficient in wild sexing ways.

4:21 p.m.: Maybe taking a bath will make me feel better. I’m not usually this sore.

8:15 p.m.: She’s talking to GDB, isn’t she? It’s a shame she’s so darn attracted to him, and so unwilling to act on it, because he really knows how to get me going. Oh, but you know…he was really fun. And well…he and I, we just make magic together. It’s like witchcraft, ya know? Maybe he’ll come back someday and we can play.

9:31 p.m.: Delayed gratification anyone?

10:15 p.m.: HOW are they still talking?! Usually by this point, I’m in the picture.

11:01 p.m.: FINALLY!

Sunday, April 13:

9:45 a.m.: Fuck, it’s hot out. I’m itchy.

10:45 a.m.: Still itchy. Can we call out of work today? Who fucking works on a Sunday anyway?

8:00 p.m.: Finally! Take those clothes off and shower me! I need love! Hey, what’s all that stuff in your underwear?

9:00 p.m.: Pea in a Pod says we might have a yeast infection. Monistat, stat!

9:03 p.m.: Damn Walgreens. Closed. Reason #401 to move back to New York: 24 hour pharmacies.

Monday, April 14:

7:23 a.m.: Ack! Swollen! Red! ITCHY! SCRATCH ME! OWWWWWWW!

12:15 p.m.: Must. Run. To. Walgreens.

2:00 p.m.: Yay! Jack of all Trades is here! Now run to Walgreens, then eat lunch.

8:31 p.m.: Mmm. Monistat. So creamy.

Tuesday, April 15

8:45 a.m.: Ow.

8:47 a.m.: Ow.

8:49 a.m.: Please apply anti-itch cream. Now.

11:45 a.m.: *wiggle*

11:48 a.m.: *wiggle*

11:52 a.m.: Uh oh. Jack of all Trades is getting suspicious.

12:00 p.m.: FUCK! WHAT IF IT’S HERPES?!?!

12:01 p.m.: Call up-the-butt-gyno!

12:05 p.m.: No lady. We can’t hear the difference between two and three. If she asks you what time the appointment is, and you say two or three fifteen, and she can’t hear the difference between two and three over the phone, it’s probably best for you NOT to say, “Before four after one,” when she says, “Two, as in after one, or three, as in before four.” Thanks.

12:07 p.m.: Please don’t be herpes.

12:08 p.m.: FUCKER. I’m throwing flaming bags of poo at Google’s doorstep, addressed to Rebound Boy if it is.

12:09 p.m.: Please don’t be herpes.

12:10 p.m.: Please don’t be herpes. *wiggle*

12:11 p.m.: *wiggle* Oh my god! What if I can never have sex again without condoms?! I HATE CONDOMS!

12:13 p.m.: Jack of all Trades says this could be psychosomatic. We should have never slept with that skeevy asshole after he slept with that other girl a few weeks back.

12:14 p.m.: WHAT IF I CAN NEVER HAVE CONDOM-LESS SEX AGAIN?!

12:15 p.m.-2:00 p.m.: *various modes of wiggle, scratch, cross legs, and begging for no herpes, please.*

2:15 p.m.: BATH! NOW! COLD! I’m dying. Can you see me melting? I’m just going to be a hunk of melted flesh soon, and you will never have sex, ever ever again.

2:45 p.m.: Doctor! Doctor! Yay!!!!

3:00 p.m.: Helllooooooooo Doctor.

3:01 p.m.: “Oh boy that’s bad.” WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?

3:02 p.m.: “You can see it all the way out here.” DO I HAVE HERPES?! NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

3:03 p.m.: “This is just a really bad yeast infection.” *imagines a colony of yeast growing, munching, and generally entertaining themselves while making themselves at home in me.* YAY! It’s not herpes!!!

3:04 p.m.: *swab* *swab* *swab* *swab*

3:05 p.m.: *swab* “Yeah. It’s bad.”

3:09 p.m.: “I’m giving you two prescriptions, it’s that bad.”

3:10 p.m.: Hallelujah! It’s not herpes!

4:07 p.m.: I’m still throwing flaming bags of poo at Rebound Boy.

The last time this happened, I was just about to embark on my first spring break as a college student. My ear felt fuzzy, as though someone had rubbed gallons of wax into it, and then doused it with water that had solidified. It wasn’t something I noticed until I put my hearing aid in that morning and realized everything sounded off. What normally sounded more clear and precise (except for those pesky s’s) sounded as though someone had lowered the volume on the remote control of life without giving me any warning. I shook my head, thwacked it against my left hand, hoping to dislodge whatever it was that was stuck in my ear.

It took me a few minutes of thwacking and shaking to realize that it wasn’t anything I had done. I had just gone to sleep and woken up, gotten dressed for my linguistics class. My hearing aid is the last thing I put in, always, because I take pleasure in absorbing the world visually. Although to be honest, I don’t know if I have always done that, or started doing that after moving out of my parents’ house, after the first time my hearing dropped overnight, the week before my senior prom. (My hearing or lack thereof has spectacular timing, you see.) It may have become a cultivated art, partially out of fear that I’ll wake up again with less hearing than I had the night before, or perhaps I genuinely do like relying on my body to direct cues to me in other ways. There’s something about watching the smoke sizzle in a frying pan, or the colors of a blaze burning underneath an omelette. I think there are more subtle nuances we lose touch of when we have more of our senses to guide the way.

That morning, when I put my hearing aid in, I didn’t need to test it against the shouts of my mother and sister in yet another early morning fight like I had the first time. I didn’t have to sit through AP Psychology, wondering if Sybil was laughing or crying. My ear had failed me yet again, somehow robbing me of 15 more decibels while I slept soundly, not even six hours of slumber. As though I had multiples of decibels to give, instead of only 30. Where I had once been hearing impaired, I was now deaf.

I didn’t know this, of course. All I knew was my hearing aid was no longer strong enough to compensate for my damaged nerves. A phone call, where I could barely distinguish the words from the individual consonants and vowels that made up each syllable was made to a friend who had been there the last time, when it dropped right before we said goodbye to our high school years. An e-mail to my professor, notifying her that I would not be making it to class today, and could I please make up my absence for that date after spring break? A translated phone call from my friend to my mother, where I could hear the worried tones of my mother’s voice in my head, but not in my ear, where I should have been able to hear her voice.

I sat. I waited. I watched the white text on the black screen at the bottom of my television. I made my bed, smoothed the corners and rounded out the pillows. I packed my bags. This wouldn’t be a one-day thing.

Another day, another activity, suddenly hushed tones. I had been up for hours, my alarm clock shocking me out of sleep and sending me on my way. My hearing aid is still the last thing I put on the morning, just before I run out the door.

A moment ago, the office had been vibrant, laughter shaking my cubicle, the plant on the filing cabinet just outside my walls creeping further in with every open and shut of a drawer. I shook my head, jerked it from side to side. Still quiet. My fingers stopped writing, my brain stopped firing synapses and all I could think was, “Oh please, not again.” It’s been more than five years since the last time, six since the time before that, and twenty one from the very first. I don’t remember the first. I don’t want to remember the last two.

I took my hearing aid out, examined the mold for wax. Perhaps the ear canal was torn, as has happened before? Negative. Was the hearing aid loose? Nyet. Can this really be happening? Please tell me this isn’t happening. I’m not ready for this. I don’t want to be completely deaf. If I lose this, I can’t wear a hearing aid again, and then what will happen to me?

My mind’s eye took me to my parents’ house in New Jersey, where I would have to move back to, where I sat and watched words on the screen, idly stroking my cat’s back while I waited for one of my parents to take me to an auditory therapist. Where we would try to teach my brain to accept sound coming from my right ear, where there hasn’t been sound, at least no more than buzzing, for as long as I can remember. My life here would be over. My life in New York would be over. Would I have to become dependent on sign, no longer privy to the conversations and neologisms of every-day dialogue? Would I forget what words sounded like, what voices sounded like, lose my own voice to become one of deaf-speak? Would I lose myself, my ability to fare on my own, and be unable to cope with the world when my ears had failed me at twenty three years?

I could feel the tears welling up in the corners of my eyes. I grabbed headphones and played my iPod, knowing that would be a false alarm because I could always hear music, even with a cochlear implant, something that makes little sense to me and anyone else. Wouldn’t that be the greatest of ironies to only hear music, and not be able to play? Would music become the language in which I expressed myself, unable to communicate otherwise?

The headphones came off. The sound resumed. My body relaxed, slightly, waiting for the most insignificant of cues to make my nightmare real. Like waiting for a period, the red drop of blood in your underwear to warn off any unexpected pregnancies, it was a false alarm.

I breathed.