Exploding Brains (or): Lady BlackHart's Stalker

I have a stalker. He's been making himself known since I was about seven years old, slipping in and out of my life, with no recognizable pattern or schedule. I tried to ignore him but he's kind of a primadonna. By high school, he had me cornered. He'd kick up violent temper tantrums that couldn't be ignored. I complained about him, of course, but I was a kid. Who'd bother to stalk a kid? Maybe if I just relaxed, he'd get bored and go away. He didn't...well that's not true. He went on an extended vacation and then suprised me by showing up at my senior prom (the cheap champagne and wine coolers I'd sucked down in the limo only fueled him) He attempted to show up at my wedding but I fought him off by feeding him drugs (Advil-What were you thinking?) Poisen the stalker and he'd get the message and disappear forever, right? Fat chance. Truth be told, he's managed to make it to quite a few family gatherings, holidays, celebrations, even vacations.


My stalker has a name. Say it with me: "Mi Graine". Mr. Graine is a fat pain in the neck (pun intended). When he appears, even the smell of shampoo can make my head throb. Lights are torture, sound is magnified by a million decibals. Mr. Graine has a special trick. He reaches into my chest, pulls out my heart and stuffs it into a corner my brain so I can feel it beating against my skull. No kidding, Mr. Graine is one sick bastard, and he only grows stronger with age. You'd think I'd have figured out how to tame him after all these years. I haven't.


It doesn't help that I'm kind of a flake. If I manage to show up at for my annual physical, I tend to forget about Mr. Graine. I tell my doctor I haven't got anything in particular that bothers me, because unless my stalker has accompanied me into the office (which had never happened) I won't even remember him. I'm so used to being 'bothered' by him, he's become more of an upleasant habit than anything else...or he was until a couple of years ago. Apparently, he's got too much time on his hands because he's been showing up a little more than he used to and his tantrums are exacerbated by the sound of dogs barking, children whining, and cheap perfume.


Mr. Graine finally slipped up (only took him three bloody decades) when he decided to tag along to my last doctor's appointment. She knew what the trouble was before I said a word(Maybe the fact that I was writhing on the floor with my hands glued to my temples was the giveaway?) She and Mr. Graine aren't the best of friends. She knows him when she sees him and she claimed to have just the thing to send him on his way, which was good, as I'd discovered that Asperin, Acetominophen and Ibuprophen were no match for him. Once, in desperation, I took some Vicodin, but Mi Graine wasn't impressed. I took two of them and discovered that not only did my head still hurt, I was queasy and everything seemed sort of 'tilty' and all I wanted to do was climb into bed and sleep the day away. (and really? Is it safe to be high on Vicodin with two kids in the house? I might as well just leave them home alone for the day and give them matches to play with.) Vicodin was not an option.


At first, I didn't get the scrip filled. I left it in my purse and vowed to find a more natural approach to fending off the stalker, like relaxation exercizes, guided imagery, whatever I could find in the health food store. It didn't work. My mom found an article on a website that listed the more common causes of migraine. It was blamed on food. Stop eating the things that trigger the headache, problem solved. In theory, this was a simple fix, almost too simple...then I read the article:


Avoid the following: Aged cheeses (I'm supposed to live on Kraft cheese slices??? Does this include cheese puffs?), bananas, figs, raisins, beer, wine, hard liquor, red wine, dairy products (so forget ice cream, butter...oh yeah, and forget the cheese slices after all!), fermented and pickled products, citrus fruits, papaya, passion fruit, red plums, seasoned salt, soy sauce, MSG, avocadoes (no guacamole), chocolate ( like that's gonna happen) lentils, nuts, peanuts and peanut butter, onions, pea pods, lima bean pods, nitrite containing meats and processed meats, saccharin/aspartame (diet sodas), sulfites in shrimp and processed potatoes, yeast containing products (no donuts).....oddly, apples weren't on the list and these things trigger a migraine for me in two seconds flat. Basically, I'm left with two choices. One: live with the migraines or, 2: or just say no to chocolate cake, ice cream, donuts and diet coke...which, in my opinion, isn't living at all. I did, however, give up lima beans. Its a start.

Still, the headaches didn't go away. I finally got the prescription filled, but was afraid to take it. I had visions of myself loping around the house like a drunken zombie, unable to care for my children, drooling like an idiot. So, I waited. Until Saturday. My head was close to detonating at that point and I figured it was now or never. I swallowed the pill and waited for some miraculous change. I started to feel a little spacey (I'm blonde, not an unusual feeling for me!) but Mi Graine was still there. But then he was gone. Just completely gone.

Two hours later, Kevin found me sitting on the back patio playing games on my iTouch. I hadn't moved from the chair since I swallowed the pill. For one thing, I was afraid if I moved Mi Graine would taken notice and come back...and truth be told...'spacey' would have been an improvement as I was too tired to move.

I'm not sure this side-effect is any better than just accepting Mi Graine. I'm totally unproductive with a headache and just as unproductive after taking the medication. Additionally, I think I fall into the 'intoxicated' category after ingesting said medication, meaning I'm in no shape to drive, supervise my children or operate kitchen appliances. It's a toss-up and I'm back to square one....BlackHart: 0 Mi Graine: 1. The game continues....

CNN: Fair and Balanced -or-People Magazine in Disguise?

Is it just me or has news journalism reached a new low? Wherever I turned, it got weirder and weirder last night. Opened my laptop, see this little Michael Jackson tidbit ...and then it just went downhill from there. I turned on the television and the cable news shows were the equivalent of reading People magazine (Not that I don't like People magazine, mind you, just not for relevant information). Here are the highlights:

Child-Rearing: What NOT To Do: I'll admit it, I once bought a backpack leash for my toddler...before you freak out, let me explain. We'd planned a trip to Disneyland and I was having panic attacks about how easily she could wander away in a crowd of people. So, I went to the local Target and bought one. (That was three years ago. It is still in the box it came in, I chickened out.)

In any event, some lady in Alabama was captured on cell phone video dragging her kid through a Verizon store on a leash,..the kid is on his back sliding along the floor and mom is hauling tail so he's getting the ride of his life. This might not be quite so heinous if he didn't appear to have the leash around his neck. Here's the story. Can't quite believe it? Here's the video. First of all, as a mother, I know we all have moments of total frustration. However, at what point could this ever be considered a reasonable response to a toddler's less-than-perfect behavior? Why didn't she just write "Arrest Me: I routinely harm small children" on her forehead? This calls for mandatory sterilization, if you ask me. Nobody should be allowed to pass their idiot genes on to future generations....except she already did.

John And Kate Plus Eight: The Gosselins have hit the skids and FINALLY split up. I don't care if Kate sounds like the Wicked Witch of the West while being filmed. If I had eight kids to deal with and a husband like him, I'd sound a lot worse than she does. He walks around like an idiot with his mouth hanging open until he's expected to actually do something...which he always screws up. He's lucky he got out of that marriage with certain body parts intact. I'd have sent him out of there a eunach. (For the record, I could have fifteen children with my husband and he'd have every single one of them dressed, fed and off to school with their homework done before I even got out of bed in the morning....damn, I really did win the husband lottery....did I mention he's the reason I didn't have to break out the leash in Disneyland???)

Note to whatever 22-year-old booty call JG's currently romancing: You are a bloody idiot. Eight children couldn't get him to act like an adult, he's not going to change. Run like hell. (and for goodness sake, use birth control, his child support payments are already going to be spread pretty thin.)

Bill Clinton Secures A Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free card: Okay, this one has bugged me for months, if only because I like Lisa Ling and can't imagine the terror of having my own sibling locked in a N. Korean prison for five minutes let alone be sentenced to 12 years there. One of those women is the mother of a preschooler and that must have been absolute torture. ( I could give you my opinion on a mother who intentionally goes anywhere near the N. Korean border for the sake of her career when she has a baby at home but I'm not here to bash the poor woman).

I'm just going to say that Bill Clinton should now be officially forgiven for ruining Monica Lewinsky's blue dress back in the nineties. He's kind of a hero, isn't he? (Did I say that in my out loud voice?) Well, you know what I mean.

I still think Kim Jong Il is a freaky psycho running around in silk pajamas, though, and he's a little too fascinated with plutonium for my liking, whether he let those journalists out or not. No brownie points for him....besides, he's already overdrawn in this department.

It's just good to know the two journalists at the center of all this made it safely back to American soil. (Now, would somebody please hide their damn passports...)

Pretty Boy Blogger Goes Ballistic: A nutjob in Pennsylvania is sick of being lonely and can't figure out why, if he exersizes himself into the 'perfect physique', lays in a tanning bed, smells nice (and bleaches his teeth from the look of the photos I've seen) why women aren't beating down his door to date him. It's too late to give him a heads-up, obviously, seeing as he's dead, but here are some tips for other single guys desperate for relationships:

1. Unless a guy has a star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame, there is no excuse for him to spend more time on his physical appearance than the average woman does on hers. Besides, what girl wants to date a guy prettier than she is?

2. Blogging about your desperation in the privacy of your own home is only eclipsed by blogging about your suicidal/homicidal daydreams in the privacy of your own home (not to mention actually admitting on your blog that you haven't had sex since the mid-eighties). Get a clue--> You are a total freak and most women have pretty keen freak-o-meters.

3. Unless you are the elephant man, personality trumps pretty-boy every time. Just so you know.

4. Whipping out your firearms and blowing away a gym filled with women is taking the "I have a crush on you so I'm going to pull on your pig tail at recess" thing a wee bit too far.

5. Do most men really care how they smell? I mean, so long as they shower and use deodorant, its all good...(refer to point 3, above).

6. Hey, I feel for any guy who hasn't gotten laid since the mid-eighties, truly I do, but wouldn't it have been simpler (and less of a headache, no pun intended) to hire a prostitute? I mean, if you're already planning on breaking the law, the least you could do is help out a working girl and leave the gym rats in peace.

Helter-Skelter Rides Again: One of the Manson family members is set to be released from prison. For those who rode into life on the coattails of the Baby Boomer generation and for Gen-X and beyond, Lynette "Squeaky"Fromme is the poster-child of why we should all 'just say no' to drugs. She thought Charles Manson was one cool dude and was sent to prison after pointing a gun at President Ford in 1975, not to mention being suspected of lacing hamburgers with LSD to poison a 'snitch'. In a perfect world, you shouldn't get a do-over after something like that. There's also some speculation that she'll be hooking up with another member of the Manson family after her release. This is scary, considering how well the buddy-system worked for them in the sixties.

Okay, I'm done....but in case you might still be wondering, in REAL NEWS....the Senate confirmed Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, today.

Best Friends Forever...and stuff

I just finished reading Jennifer Weiner's new book "Best Friends Forever" (thanking Kathy for making me jealous, since she went to JW's book signing in San Fran...which I wanted to do but it got me to download the book onto my Kindle in about five seconds flat.) Okay, so it got me to thinking about best friends. I grew up thinking 'best friends' meant something entirely different than I do now. My best friend was the one I gossiped too, called after a date for a recap, consulted for fashion advice, held my hand when my heart was broken and suffered in a hideous bridesmaid dress to please me. In return, I did the same for her. We had the same opinions, morals and views on life. We agreed on pretty much everything. Period.

Flash foward to the present. My best friend lives three hours away. Our lives are, for the most part, completely different. She works full-time as a paralegal (I'm an SAHM volunteering my time for my daughter's elementary school), she pays her own bills (my husband does that), she dates (Kevin and I try for date night but aren't always successful). She doesn't have to share the remote control (we have four, three of which I have no idea how to use) and when she goes out to grab a bite to eat, she doesn't have to negotiate on which restaurant to choose (Kevin gets sick of Mexican food...who gets sick of Mexican food???) She answers to no one (I call when I'm running late so Kevin doesn't think I'm dead on a highway).

I don't have time to do much gossiping lately and I don't work outside the home or do the singles' scene, so I haven't needed a whole lot of fashion advice. We've been there-done that with the bridesmaids dresses and proven that, in fact, we DO NOT agree on everything. We've gone years without seeing one another, often communicating via Facebook, as our lives have gone further in opposite directions. For all intents and purposes, we are totally different people with different outlooks on life. For better or worse, we should-and do-tend to hang out with other people, people with lifestyles like our own, stretching that BFF bond to the point it should probably snap in half...but it doesn't. That's EXACTLY why she's earned the title of 'BFF'.

I read books. She watches chick flicks. She's tall and thin with long dark hair. I'm short, blonde and could stand to drop a few pounds. She gave up sugar and caffeine to be a 'Skinny Bitch', I'm eating a neapolitan ice cream sandwich as I type (which is waaay more difficult than you'd think, and takes serious talent). She knows the names of all the new cocktails, I haven't had a buttery nipple since before I gave birth the first time (not that's she currently partaking of said alcoholic beverages, as she's become a 'skinny bitch'.)

She drove the three hours to my house last weekend and it took about five seconds (I'm not sure she'd even gotten out of her car) before I remembered what makes her my BFF: Nothing is off-limits. No joke is too risque, no behavior is cause for judgement, no words are off-limits. I could sit down and whip open a pack of cigarettes and pour myself a shot of Jack Daniels on the rocks and she wouldn't care. I could stand in the middle of a shopping mall at Christmas time singing "Santa Baby" at the top of my lungs and she would laugh hysterically (but chances are good that she'd eventually join in...assuming she didn't start it in the first place).

The history we share provided our foundation. We've seen eachother through eating disorders, bad relationships, raging disagreements, pregnancy (though only one of us managed to guzzle a bottle of castor oil the minute I went off for a weekend of skiing, meaning the second I got home, I rushed to the hospital to hold the baby that was NOT supposed to be born until I got there!--okay, that one is still a bit unforgiveable....). I remember racing (in high heels)both of us on motorized scooters (after waaay too many margaritas) while our children stood on the sidewalk in front of her house cheering us on. When they started running towards us, I was filled with excitement at having won the race....until they all ran past me. They weren't coming to high-five me on my ability to maneuver that scooter down the street, she'd tumbled off of hers. Luckily, the damage was minimal.

I remember slipping in a puddle of spilled beer in a nightclub and winding up face first on the floor (did not spill my drink, though) while trying to be sophisticated and sexy and cool. She helped me up, but not before dissolving into hysterical laughter, drawing the attention of everyone in the place. She helped me sneak into the apartment of a guy I'd dated (and had a huge crush on) to plant underwear under the bed, hair clips in the nightstand and spray the sheets with perfume when he had an old female friend fly into town one weekend....anything to get him back....didn't work...they had a disagreement before she got on the plane and I had a heck of a time trying to get my panties back.....so I married him.

I can be me, my true self, with my BFF. She's the only female on the planet who truly knows me, my heart, and loves me in spite of it and the reverse is just as true. Friends come and go, your BFF doesn't. Even when she's miles away, with years of distance between you, your hearts are still connected. The differences in our lives now won't be worth a hill of beans when we're old and racing down the corridors of our nursing homes. She'll still be the one that would forgive me just about anything, just as I would forgive her. We can live vicariously through one another, going in crazy different directions....but at the end of the day, we'll always have "Puta Creek".