Lice suck. Blood.

It was a full year ago that I first dealt with the dreaded head lice.  I wrote about it, foolishly thinking after that one day, that initial shampoo and brush out, and follow up, that the problem was gone.  Oh, me.  The lice were not in fact gone, and everyone in our family got it.  I got used to the bugs, and they didn’t scare or creep me out as much as I had thought they would, but they lingered. Oh, lord, did they linger.  I used RID on two of my kids and myself to get rid of them.  I scraped my scalp daily for weeks after Jo found a shitload of bugs on my head.  With the long hours I was working then, and my partner working evenings, nearly all of the nit combing went to me.  The lice stuck around for a long time, though I washed their sheets, wrapped up their stuffed animals in bags and put them in the basement for weeks, and tried to keep up on the relentless combing. 

                We didn’t truly get rid of the lice until we moved from Spokane to Billings, MT.  My mother-in-law has a bad-ass nit comb like I’ve never seen.  My partner told me stories of how hard his mom used to comb their heads with it when they had lice.  She never used any RID or anything on their heads, just combed religiously.  After Mom-in-law got ahold of my kids, the lice were gone. 

Sorry, I know it's gross, but you need to know what they look like. 
My daughter's hair is not that thick, so they're easy to spot when
they're adults.  SICK.

                Until a couple of months ago, that is.  My sister-in-law and her 4 kids moved in with my in-laws, who live only a few blocks from us. My in-laws are raising an additional 2 kids, so my nieces and nephews are here often.  They spend the night, they hang out at the Y together, they nap together, they play together, they use each other’s brushes and wear each other’s clothes.  One morning my 4 year-old nephew came upstairs, groggily scratching his head.  Oh, no, I thought.  I checked his head, and sure enough, nits (eggs).  Since then the kids have been passing the damn lice around.  Since the first episode in Spokane, I knew I wouldn’t use pesticides on my kids’ heads again (ugh, how could I do that in the first place?!  Know better, do better).  Well, my son had a few nits and I had my partner buzz his head.  Gone.  But then, my littlest girl with her fine, curly hair got them.  I began looking into natural remedies.  My cousin had told me to wash their hair with vinegar.  Apparently it loosens the grip of the lice and the nits to the hair.  The louse will lay an egg on the individual hair, near the scalp, and sometimes the nit comb won't even get it off.  I ended up going through their hair meticulously, grabbing each nit with my thumb and index finger and sliding it all the way down off the hair.  Then I’d crush it.

                So if you are dealing with lice, here’s my advice:  DON’T use Rid, the shampoo OR the spray.  I tried this method, but it was implausible.  It sounded great, but in practice it sucked ass.  I put that much soap on my little girl’s head, and I couldn’t brush through it, let alone blow dry it.  Fuck that method.  Mayonnaise in the hair, followed by a shower cap and left on overnight, is supposed to be a good method. But I also read that lice can hold their breath for over 8 hours!  Gross.

                What you need to do is get your infested person in the tub.  Wash the hair however you want, then put in some conditioner.  I read that coconut smell is yucky to lice, but who knows.  I went and picked up some Suave, that cheap shit.  Slather the hair.  Comb it first with a brush or comb to get the tangles out, and have the kid lean up against the side of the tub.  Lay a white towel on your lap (so you can see the buggers), and get your comb out.  I also use a paper towel on top of the towel, to wipe the comb off.  You’ll want to crush the little fuckers when you find them, even the nits.  And that’s hard to do on the towel, so when I find one I grab the paper towel and put it on the hard edge of the tub and crush the louse with the handle end of the comb.  I divide my girl’s hair and put half up in a little clip while I work on the other half.  Comb through the hair, making sure you get the comb right down on the scalp, because that’s where they like to hang out.  The big egg-layers can be as long as your pinky nail.  When you’re done combing, rinse the hair and then blow dry it.  The lice apparently do not like the heat.  Also, don’t bother washing the crap out of all the bedding or freezing the stuffed animals.  Just toss them allin the dryer for 20 minutes on the highest heat.  The heat will help—lice can’t survive super hotness.    

                Just being vigilant is the best advice I can give you.  Learn about the lice life cycle.  If you get all of the big egg-layers out, the ones that hatch won’t lay eggs for 10 days.  And don’t worry—lice can’t jump from kid to kid.  They can’t even live very long if they are not on skin.  Don’t be a-scared, just be aware. 

"A Million Hours Left to Think of You, and Think of That"

*I am not an expert. I am just a person sharing a piece of my story*

I have only told three people outside of counselors that I self-injure. The counselors, surprisingly, or perhaps not, both had the same nonchalant attitude about it, like if they showed it was a large concern, it would become a bigger problem. Maybe this is how they are taught to treat it? And they always ask: “Why do you think you do it?” and I give the real and honest answer, “To make a physical manifestation (yes, I say that. I’m a poet) of the pain I feel on the inside on the outside.” Seeing blood or feeling a burning pain from the emotional or mental distress, in whatever way, makes it seem less serious BECAUSE it can be SEEN. The pain can be visualized. I’ve placed it outside of myself. 

When pain isn’t tangible, it seems less real. And when what you are feeling doesn’t seem real, you feel insane. So, there came a point for me when I needed the injury, the wound, the blood to feel a bit more ok.

It started small. I’d bite a nail to a jagged edge and run it on my skin until it burned. Then, until it bled. I have a scar from the time an ex-boyfriend wouldn’t let up on a lecture that before I knew it, I was flying to Washington D.C. with a significant cut from digging and digging the night before.

I found myself finding relief in restaurant bathrooms during stressful situations, or what I now know to be panic attacks.

I changed my method over time to get faster blood results and, honestly, the Washington D.C. dig had caused a seeable scar. I had to draw blood, feel pain, and not scar and the new method allowed me to accomplish this goal.

Self-Injury is not about a cry for help. It’s self-therapy. If it was a cry for help, self-injurers wouldn’t work so hard to hide it. This is my own opinion. It is unhealthy self-therapy, but it is what it is: an extensive symptom of my diagnosed depression and anxiety.

According to the Self-Injury Foundation, “research shows that the main reason people self-injure is to regulate intense emotional states; that is, to feel better” and that scratching, cutting, burning, biting, facial picking and other self-harm behaviors are exhibited by those who self-injure.

I haven’t self-injured in a few weeks, but I am glad I found the Self-Injury Foundation website. The information there has given me perspective about why I self-injure. Reading that my self-injury isn’t because I’m “crazy” and am, in fact, self-medicating in an unhealthy way has helped me understand my motives more.

If you, or someone you know, self-injures, please visit www.selfInjuryfoundation.com or contact your doctor.

Drinking is dumb

I don’t drink alcohol very often.  I used to, though.  I started drinking in high school when I began dating an older dude who introduced me to the wonders of Black Velvet.  He also introduced me to heartache when he dumped me and began dating another girl, a girl I considered a friend.  I then took up drinking to dull the pain of a broken heart, as well as to escape being pulled in all directions by my parents and their terrible, ugly divorce proceedings.  I drank pretty heavily for the next seven or eight years, but I never liked the taste of it—any of it.  Beer I hated the least, so that was my beverage of choice. 

                While I was drunk, I slept with at least fifteen dudes.  Some I still don’t know if I slept with,  but the clues pointed me in that direction.  I stopped drinking when I met my first husband.  Most of my life had been spent trying to win the love of a boy, and that’s a different story, but once I had one, I didn’t drink much.  The older I got, the worse my hangovers got.  A few years later, though, my husband and I split, and even though I was happy about that, I was nervous.  I was back in the dating game, and I pretty quickly got burned.  And then I started dating a great guy who drank, so I went through another phase of drinking.  Eventually, though, I slowed down and stopped, because I still never liked drinking.  I liked being drunk, but I hated it going down and I hated the next day.  Even if I drink a little bit, I feel like crap for a whole day.  So I pretty much stopped.  I drank a little in graduate school, mostly because EVERY.  SINGLE.  FUNCTION. outside of school involved everyone getting sloppy drunk, and I suppose I wanted to fit in, and to fit in I needed to be chatty, and I’m not a Chatty Cathy by nature.  So even though I only got tipsy three or four times during my two years of grad school, I still drank way more than my usual. 

                And today, I don’t drink for all of those reasons mentioned, plus one more:  Someone I love very much is an alcoholic.  And I am so pissed at ALL THE ALCOHOL IN THE WORLD, by which I suppose I mean the culture we live in.  For fuck’s sake, I can’t read a Facebook status, tweet, blog post, whatever, without the casual mention of alcohol.  It’s fucking ridiculous.  “Had a rough day, lol, going to get my drink on.  Watch out, yo!”  “Mommy needs her bottle.” 

We couldn't help but wonder when we'd get
our own gin blossoms to giggle about.

                I really do not understand the alcohol culture.  Go out for dinner—drink!  Stay at home with your partner—drink!  Take out the garbage—that deserves a martini!  It pervades EVERYTHING.   And here’s a thing I don’t get:  Mention how your kids make you want to drink, and you’re a normal mom.  Mention how your kids make you want to take a toke, and by god, you’re going to get blasted and possibly reported to the authorities. 

                FUCK THAT.  Our society tells us to go out and drink, drink, drink your life away.  You’ll look cool, you’ll have that extra burst of confidence, you’ll be able to dance, you’ll get up the nerve to call that girl or boy, you’ll be friends with the cool people, the next day you’ll be able to tweet about how totally wasted, sauced, sloshed, tanked, pickled, and fucked up you were.  At the same time, we’re pissed beyond all belief about the person who gets five DUIs.  We’re outraged when a drunk fight breaks out and someone is hurt or killed.  With good reason, these anger feelings.  But it’s a very mixed message we’re getting.  Drink responsibly.  Talk about an oxymoron. 

NaMeWriMo: I'm in.

It’s almost November.  I’ve attended 3 Halloween parties this weekend.  I am feeling done with Halloween, before it even arrives.  Ah, well.  It’ll be done soon and then I can steal all the Reese’s peanut butter cups and Snickers from my kids baskets…er, to freeze.  Yeah. 

                Last year I participated in NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month.  Actually, since I’m a Nonfictionista, I participated in National Memoir Writing Month, or NaMeWriMo.  The goal is, you write 1500 words a day, every day, during November.  At the end of the month, you’ve written enough words to make a novel.  Note: YOU HAVE NOT WRITTEN A NOVEL.  A lot of writerly folks eschew NaNoWriMo, saying that people just write and write and write and then think they’re done and try to get their manuscript published.  Well, obviously, that’s dumb.   Days, weeks, and years of revision would obviously be the next step, not rushing out queries or self-publishing that shit.  That seems obvious to me. 

                I didn’t even come close to finishing the 50,000 words or whatever.  But I got 50 pages out of it, and that’s more than I’d written for a while.  I’ve worked on some of my 2011 NaMeWriMo stuff, but not nearly enough.  I’ve not written much for the past year, which makes me sick.  I’ve got this writing degree and I can’t let this go.  But it’s been a tough year for me.  I’ve been working 10 to 12 hours a day, 5 and sometimes 6 days a week, and there’s been a ton of personal stress that I can’t write about, but suffice it to say when I do get the chance to write, I’m too down or tired.  Lately, I haven’t been working as much because my medical transcription job has been partially outsourced.  Some clinics stayed with my boss’ company, which I am not an employee of but an independent subcontractor, so we still have some work, but only about half of what I normally would get.  This is going to hurt by my next paycheck, so that sucks.  But it does leave me time for writing. 

                Which  brings me to NaMeWriMo.  I need this; I need the release, I need the focus.  I need to write a shitload.  So here I go, starting Thursday.  Wish me luck…no, wish my butt on the couch and my fingers on the keyboard.  I’ll let you know if I need a kick in the ass.