It's Just The Worms

Ever since I was 10, I have known that I have worms.

It explains everything so completely to me. It's all about the worms really.

When I was 10, I was watching some daytime TV show that was talking about how people can go for many, many years while parasites are slowly eating, reproducing and disintegrating them from the inside out. How most people don't even know that they have them until they just suddenly drop dead. They got them from walking barefoot outside (which I still do to this day, but see, I am already infected) or from eating things that were not refrigerated properly (how could it have been, when 6 people were in the refrigerator 24/7?).

From that moment on, I cold feel them, see them everywhere, throughout my body, on my eyeballs, hear them rustling around in my ears.

I was not just clumsy, the worms were multiplying in my brain and destroying my equilibrium.

I was not just an average kid that caught 3-4 colds per year, obviously the worms were using my sinus cavity as a nesting ground for their eggs.

The social awkwardness that has always made me feel as though I was on the outside looking in at all of the clean, shiny, happy, normal people of the Earth? It was the worms eating away at my soul.

In the last 3 years, since developing my illness (that I know is really just wreckage from the worms) I have been tested, poked, prodded, MRId, endoscopied, CT scanned, X-rayed and ultrasounded. They have yet to find the sneaky little boogers. I try not to say appointment times out loud, in the hopes that the worms will not catch wind, just this once, and someone will finally find them.

When I die and they autopsy my body, they will finally discover them. And then everyone will know, it was really just the worms after all.


(S enjoyed my post about losing my job so much and felt that it shows my psychotic nature so clearly that she encouraged me to tell you about more of my neurotic fears. She says that they make her laugh.)

The Soundtrack

After watching Grey's Anatomy this past Thursday (which I thought was awesome and riveting and so powerful), it's made me think about how music touches each of our lives, how music is kind of the common denominator of us, how each person (whether cognizant of it or not) has their own personal soundtrack. Like a fingerprint, no two people have the same soundtrack, but everyone has one.

Classic rock (Lynard Skynard, The Beatles, Meatloaf, Eric Clapton, Bob Seger, The Allman Brothers, Don McLean, Pink Floyd, U2, and Tears for Fears) encompasses the bulk of my childhood. My father loved to crank the stereo when he got home from work in the evening and my sister and I would dance and twirl and jump. We would laugh and sing along to all of the songs that we knew the words to. I truly believed that Kenny Rogers would be my first husband, my sister fell madly in love with Willie Nelson.

When MTV was introduced, our world shifted. Suddenly, we had access to visual aids to the songs that we heard on the radio. Cyndi Lauper swirled and jumped, Madonna wore diamonds, and Toni Basil was a cheerleader. For months after it was introduced, MTV was the only TV channel that our family watched.

As we grew, we developed our own taste in music. Top 40 was our (sometimes unfortunate) choice. We rocked out to the Fresh Prince, Def Leppard, Guns N Roses, Whitney Houston, New Edition and later to New Kids on the Block, Bel Biv Devoe, Milli Vanilli, Vanilla Ice, Fine Young Cannibals and Gerardo (ugh, I admitted it).

Anytime that I hear any of this music today, I am transported into a land of innocence and despair, of emotional and physical abuse, of fear and nostalgia for my sister.

As my taste in music matured, I started listening to Toad the Wet Sprocket, Pearl Jam, Simon and Garfunkel, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

When J and I started driving around in my pink Escort, we were blaring Reba McEntire, Deana Carter, The Judds, Patsy Cline, Shania Twain and LeAnn Rimes. We would sing as if in our own personal concert, with a careless abandon that I had never really known before, belting it out for anyone and everyone to hear.

When I met my husband, he incorporated rap, R&B and hip hop to my repertoire. Soon I was jamming to R Kelly, Bone Thugs N Harmony, Warren G and the Notorious BIG as well as the collection of Don McLean, Simon and Garfunkel, and Pearl Jam that I had on tape.

Now, I feel like I have an eclectic and sometimes scattered soundtrack.

I love angry rap in the morning when I am running late to work, fighting with rush hour traffic down country roads, surrounded by jacked up trucks that are covered in dust and mud.

I adore a good country song that speaks to my heart (think Dixie Chicks "Not Ready to Make Nice") or any power ballad from a strong female (Brandi Carlile, "The Story").

I like Christian Contemporary music when traveling with Z in the car or if I am feeling down and need to be lifted back up again with a reminder of the God that I serve and his plan for me.

If I am scanning and catch one of the "oldie but goodie" songs of my past, I will crank it up, turn off the air and put down all of the windows. I will let myself be transported back to those emotions, back to that time. There are some days that the memories are too close, too harsh, others that I am just happy. Happy to go back for a moment and see where I have been.

I wonder what Z's soundtrack will be, I wonder if she will hear all of the old songs and think of me or her dad. I wonder if she will approach those memories with fear or longing, with apprehension or welcome the memories to envelope her soul.

What's your soundtrack? Am I completely off base?

The Bad Word Police

The Hubs and I don't really use a lot of foul language. In fact, it is very rare to hear us use a full curse word.

We may call the slow moving old lady riding down the street a "B", but never a "bitch". We may yell "S" if we burn ourselves, but we don't scream out "shit". You may hear me say "eff" or "effing", but I rarely ever drop the F-bomb, even in print.

Z does not have a concept of bad words, but she hears kids talking about so-and-so saying a bad word. Apparently, she has compiled herself a list of bad words, and if you use them, especially if she does not want to hear them, she will let you know.

Here is the list that I have compiled of Z's bad words:

Hate - especially when used in reference to her bad behavior

Ugly - again used in reference to her behavior as in "Z, you are acting so ugly right now"

Stupid - really, stupid is a bad word, but if I see something on TV, like the Friday song that strikes me that way, I usually let that one slip out.

Shut up - usually when Hubs and I are talking and I say, "Shut up, no way!"

Don't  - As in "Don't jump on my couch", "Don't draw on my walls", "Don't climb on the chairs"

No - especially anytime that she is not getting her way

Time Out - furthering the reason to go time out.

Go to your room - in response to an escalated time out

Clean up your toys - what kind of horrible mother am I?

Eat your food - seriously, these are some really offensive words

Mean - in reaction to her actions.

Stop - As in "Stop hitting me", "Stop that's a parking lot or a street", "STOP IT RIGHT NOW!"

When she recognizes any of the offensive material streaming from either of our mouths, she rushes into the room and gasps, "Momma, that is a BAD word!" She point her little finger at me and then orders that I go to the corner. It never works out that way, but she really believes that these are bad words.

I am so very grateful that she does not know how truly bad words can be. How words like fat, ugly and stupid can tear down your spirit, can hurt you in ways that fists never could. The emotional abuse that I have dealt with in my life has torn down more of me than the physical abuse ever could.

I hope that it's a lesson that she never has to learn.