The Five Strands of A Sedentary Empress

October's Done, and I'm Tired.

I tried to watch the entire ghost hunt for Ghosthunters on the Space channel last night, but I couldn't do it. I was too exhausted, too drained of blood. The monthly cycle came on with a vengeance, after a night of gall bladder/stomach spasms the night before. That little episode had me watching 'Hollow Man' at three in the morning while rocking back in forth. I made a doctor's appointment for next Friday. It's time to do something about these weird attacks. Just when I am convinced it is all to do with anxiety, I am woken from a deep sleep with one, which leads me to believe it is actually physical, after all. I am afraid of committing to any sort of social obligation because these gut-twisting assaults are powerful and attention-hungry. Yesterday, I could have spent the morning at Kitty Kat's junior kindergarten Halloween party, running the 'open centres' and such, but the events of the night before left me flat and tired. I spent half the day asleep, and the other half feeling as though the witches were working a cauldron in my belly. Factor in major cramps (which have nothing to do with the attacks and are just an added bonus) and this was not my favourite Halloween.

The wee one was a princess, and I worked on her hair for an hour, curling ringlets into it and teasing it to get the volume her Barbie has. She wore a purple and gold gown, with white gloves and a hooped crinoline underneath, and I applied a little makeup, hoping to avoid that Jon Benet Ramsey look. I stayed home to give out candy while M. took her around the neighbourhood. There were less kids at our house this year, and I was a little disappointed by that. Sure, we get to eat the leftover candy, but this year I'd gotten into it a little more. I made incense burner pumpkins, spray painted them gold and stenciled leaves on them. We constructed a gingerbread house with sugar ghosts all over it and bubblegum pumpkins. M. carved a cat-face pumpkin for our jack-o'lantern. There was no running about this time, only preparation and creativity, though, not as much as some of our neighbours. I expected oodles of tiny princesses and spidermen and found myself staring longingly out the front window, watching little groups on the other side of the street as they marched happily down the sidewalk. Oh, I realized, we don't have a sidewalk on our side of the street. Mystery solved.

The wee one brought home tons of candy, and M. and I sifted through it to separate the good from the bad. Anything made in China immediately hit the garbage can, mostly gummy candies in the shape of teeth or hamburgers. Anything without a 'made in' label also hit the can, because they were probably also a product of the melamine nation. M. bogarted the Tootsie rolls, Starburst, sour candies and various other chewy, gobstopping stuff, while I made a small personal pile of Oh Henry's, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, M&M's and anything chocolatey that had nuts in it because I don't know how she'll react to them. Fortunately, her favourite things are lollipops and rockets, which are not my favourites or M's, so it all works out well. There are still loads of chips and popcorn, but we're all sort of working on our preferences at the moment. There's a sense of balance in it.

My sister K. called me yesterday morning. I wasn't sure she'd want to talk about her miscarriage, but she did. She was sore from the procedure performed to remove the 'tissue', but mostly she was just sad. She knew it was a possiblity that she might miscarry, but she'd never seriously imagined it would happen. She cried at one point while she tried to relay how she was told, and I sat silent, not knowing what words fit properly into a hole that big. 'Look,' I said 'there's nothing I can say that will make this seem better, but you know it's going to be okay. You know there will be another baby, and this wasn't a baby. It was a bunch of cells that had a very bright beginning before fading away. It was never anything more than that. This wasn't a child. It was a pregnancy that didn't take.' I knew she was nodding as her tears trickled over her cheeks.

It didn't help, she said, that the woman in the next hospital bed was talking about her own miscarriage for hours. She also mentioned the few abortions she'd had before this miscarriage, because 'you know, they weren't the right time for me, so I got rid of those', but this one, she'd said, had been planned. 'It isn't fair', the young woman moaned petulantly. My sister wanted to smash her face in.

'She blatantly tells me that she had abortions, that she didn't want those babies, but this one she'd wanted and she lost it anyway. I wanted to hit her, I really did.' Her anger overtook her sadness. 'I mean, wtf? Why would she tell me this? A stranger! A stranger who just lost a pregancy I really, really wanted. Why would I care about her? Why would I care about someone who willingly killed her own babies and is whining about the one that went away without her help? Psychopath.'

She's angry, it's her right. If I were in her position, I'd have asked the other woman to leave me alone so I could mourn the thing I'd been hoping for. Everyone's values are different, everyone has their own laundry list of beliefs and moral do's and don'ts. Looking at where you are, who you're sharing space with before you let out a torrent of personal words and ideas is imperative sometimes. When you're in a hospital room with a woman whose stomach is thick and round with the swell of an expectant mother and you can see her face is white and streaked with grief, you probably shouldn't talk about how many abortions you've had because the timing was off. That's just common sense.

I slept until nearly ten o'clock this morning. That is a little unusual. There is a fatigue in me, a November kind of tired that is in my face, in my body, in my head. My dreams are more bizarre, more emotional and they keep me longer. Last night, I dreamt that the man I'd loved before all the other men (my musician crush from years ago), was back in my life, somehow. Why my conscience brought him in I do not know. I know there were kisses, that there were hands running up and down my back, but what I remember the most was that he took me in his arms and hugged me close. I can still feel that hug as I sit here. I doubt the man even remembers me now, though we were friends way back when. I read somewhere that he's now touring with Chris Cornell, but that could be old news. Whenever I think to look him up on Google, he's with someone new, in a different city. We are completely different people and have gone in totally different directions. I'm not even sure I'd like him now, but the version of him from the earlier years, the ones of our friendship and awkward connection, was the one which held me tight while I lay sleeping.

It was lovely.