Eh Bien, And So

First things first...here's to a whole year of TFtHM. Feel free to sing a chorus of "Happy Blogiversary to Parce" if you're so inclined, and here's hoping we're all here together this time next year. At some point in the next few days, in honor of the Western New Year, I'll try to put together a highlights links reel of Year In Review, but no promises, as I've got a lot going on between now and then.

In other news, while the back has not entirely stopped its bitching and moaning (as well as causing one of the more amusing Chrimmus-church experiences of my life, about which I will tell you in a moment), the damage is not as bad as I originally perceived. After putting up with it for essentially 6 days, helped along by various muscle relaxers, pain pills and the ever-wonderful Midol and Midol-analog, I said to hell with it two nights ago and went for a visit to the kind and ever-blessed folks at Vanderbilt's ER.

They just built a new facility which meant that I barely had to wait at all (having 70 beds plus the children's ER right across the way helps with the excessive wait time). The nurse who checked me in and I had some giggles: I gave my usual "No, or we'd best page the Pope" answer to the question about the possibility of me being pregnant, which amused her highly. They've also added the question "Is anyone hurting you at home?" to the standard triage form, which, while it's not a funny subject AT ALL, prompted me to say "No...well, the kitten, but he don't mean to, he loooooves me," which led to a showing off of the bloody bruise he created last week when being chased by the Middle Kitty across my sleeping form, and a more serious discussion where we swapped war stories about dealing with abused and battered women (me from my stint as a deputy clerk). She was super-nice and complimented my Docs, which (since I was wearing one of my absolute favorite outfits ever) made me quite happy, got me settled into a room, and was openly jealous of the vibrating lumbar pillow that my sismilarly back-pain afflicted sister had thoughtfully given me for Xkzule. Come to think of it, several of the staff were fairly admiring of it, so, hey, sis, thanks. The thing's come in super handy.

All of the staff were similarly fab, including the doctors. The first one took a look at the hurty, did the normal pushing and "does it hurt here, does it hurt here, does it...sorry, ok", and had me bend to check my preexisting curvature. Her fear was that I had walking pneumonia, which can present with a similar pain, but she thought that because the pain was localized and I had no fever, that it was neither that nor a cracked rib. She got the attending in to be sure, though; he told me we could do x-rays if I wanted, but "You can ID right where the pain is coming from, you have no fever, your lungs sound mostly clear, and you look fabulous, so if you'd rather go home..." (I have carried that compliment around like a present for two days; seriously, if I look fabulous while braless in a hospital gown, either hell has frozen over or losing all this weight has made me significantly hotter than I thought. Or the doctor was just trying to make me feel better, but -- shut up and let me have my moment.)

So, apparently, I have pulled one or more of the muscles that connect my right scapula to my spine, which is why it hurts to breathe (or move, or stand, or bend, or scratch my ass...). They gave me some very fine pills and some of the massive, kick-ass ibuprofens, and I went to CDHSarah's for a night of somewhat blurry and all-seated revelry. We woke up and went to the Axis of Evil-Mart, for which I had been given a $50 gift certificate from the ParceRents, almost all of which went on new fabric -- I think I'm going to make a skirt and have enough black/silky/shiny stuff left over to make a new altar cloth, as well as some nice dark blue fleece for a new fall/winter ritual outfit, and some pretty gauzy rainbow stuff for a new headwrap.

Speaking of ritual stuff, as soon as I'm done here (which must be shortly, as time's a-wasting) I am going into the ParceRoom to, despite the protestations of my muscles, move some furniture. I went to see the Very Wise And Almost All-Knowing Tish today, because, as happens, I am in a strange period of mental freeze, some of which is probably due to Saturn being in Leo (and for those of you who care to, click the link about the Pope above and you'll see that I predicted this last December), but most of which has to do with the fact that I have absolutely NO IDEA what I want to do with myself in the new year. I'll do my own yearly reading quite soon, of course, but she tends to see things clearly and lay them out for you straight, it's always good to get a second voice of reason when you're in a state of confusion, and since we're buddies she also agreed to let me pay her for the reading at the end of the week when I can cash my check, since she had no appointments.

I'm not going to give all the details here, but -- after letting me know that yes, this rocky patch of mental weirdness is going to continue through the next six months or so until Saturn hauls his corpulent, fucking-shit-up ass into the next sign to bother them for a year and a half -- once it's over there are good things in the works. Much of the reading focused on the main issue at the moment: my upcoming court date, the outcome of which was not immediately apparent as the cards appeared contradictory. She laid a side spread, looked me right in the face and said, "Why is your magic not working for you?" (I love Tish with all my heart, but sometimes her level of psychic perception is not only a bit creepy but an actual pain in the butt.....not even the people who practice with me had really been aware that, except for very small things, I haven't been able to do the things I'm accustomed to doing as a matter of course for quite a long time, and have, to a degree, stopped trying.)

I told her. See, I did a bad thing a bit ago, the details of which I will also not disclose except to point out that it was "bad" only as relates to my personal relationship with Divinity, and not anything done to anyone else, about which I have had ongoing and lingering doubts and guilt. (And no, it had nothing to do with keeping or failing to keep the vow of celibacy, you perverts. When that comes to pass, I will shout it from the gee-dee rooftops.) She reminded me that "Thou art God", that we give our emotions and thoughts and human experience to God in exchange for the ability to create the lives we want for ourselves, and that the only reason God isn't talking to me the way God usually does is because I perceive myself as having not been forgiven for the original Very Bad Thing. "God hasn't forgiven you because you haven't forgiven yourself," she said, "and you know that, but knowing isn't the same as manifesting, so go home, go do the things to your tools and your space that you've been avoiding doing, get yourself right with yourself and God, and get your ass on this court thing, cause time's a'wasting and there's work to do." We talked a bit more about how to properly set those safeguards -- I don't want the arresting officer to get shot two days before the court date or anything drastic, I just want his alarm to fail to go off, for him to wake up thinking it's Thursday, for the evidence to get mysteriously misplaced, for his battery to die -- something benign, something that won't hurt him but will get me off scot-free.

In better news from the world o'Tish's reading, apparently once the rockiness has subsided and the court thing resolved itself, there is love coming back into my life (God be thanked!) and also a return of some kind to higher education, one that will actually lead to some form of material advancement. Because the cards themselves were so determined to focus on the major issues at hand (court and resolving the Very Bad Thing) that until those have resolved, everything else is very much in the realm of the general, and we'll look at the other once the big stuff has gone as it goes.

So, as soon as this is posted, I will go and bathe myself, disassemble every altar in the house, and recreate my sacred space -- a task I had been putting off for New Year's Eve, as it's also the New Moon, but was really avoiding for the reasons I've discussed. It will be difficult, and more so because my back is not liking the idea of moving the main altar (which is a two-piece hutch and not precisely lightweight). Then I will sit down and do the homework she assigned me. To help me, CDHSarah's ceremonialist husband has lent me his Seal of Solomon related to absolute success, which is on a chain around my neck, and his other seal related to intelligence, which is in my pocket as it requires repairs before it can be worn as jewelry, with instructions not to return them until court is over or I don't need them anymore, whichever comes first.

Oh yeah. I promised to tell you about the amusingness of Chrimmus-church, which I will do, not least because it gives me a few more seated minutes before the Massive Project begins. My parent's particular flavor of Christianity does not recognize Christmas as a religious holiday, but doesn't actively discourage its celebration. However, this means there are no special Christmas Eve services, and that Sunday service is held as normal, even in the rare event that it falls on Christmas Day. Oddly, this year I wanted to go (thinking that a friend I haven't seen in a while might be visiting his family, which was no dice, more's the pity), but was in ridiculous pain. So my wonderful mother gave me a very fine pain pill from her own stash of drugs-to-make-the-back-stop-hurting, and off we went to church.

I made it through Sunday School fine -- a bit sleepy, but I blamed that solely on being up until 2 am watching TV and trying to wrap presents without using the right side of my body. (I'm almost-but-not-really sorry that I won't be in Sunday school on New Year's Day -- my dad teaches the class I attend when I'm there, and they're going to study the fact that prejudice itself is a sin against God, which is a lesson I think more people need to hear.) 'Round about the beginning of actual service, however, I started feeling the woozy, floating feeling that only a very fine pain pill can provide. I made it through the announcements, the first prayer, the first 2 hymns, and then had distinct difficulty getting my eyes to open again after the second prayer -- not because I was trying to go to sleep, but because the muscles had decided that the VFPP meant they had no moral obligation to follow the commands my brain was issuing -- at which point I turned to my mother and said, "Give me the keys, I need to go sit in the car."

Bless her, she offered to go with me -- she told me later I had lost all my color and she was afraid I was going to fall out while walking up the aisle -- which I refused; I took the keys, went and curled up in the back of the Lincoln, and spent the rest of Chrimmus-church having a VFPP-induced nap, which I continued in my bed at home until the ParceSis, ParceBroInLaw, and ParceNephew showed up. God be praised! :)

So that's the news from here. Off to get right with God, y'all. Talk to you again before New Year's; hope your Xkzule was merry/happy/fruitful/full of yummy food. Namas'te!