you know what i am FINALLY figuring out? that no matter how much i talk, sing, draw and write about it, the pain - as they say in pop songs - stays locked up inside me. to some extent, it just lives there, it's part of me. but what i am also coming to realize is, that it IS the fuel to my fire. my friends say, again and again - god bless them - that i am a light. THIS is why i burn.
so be it. if the people who love me can live with it, then so can i.

so, i have called in sick to work. i am lying on a blanky in the grass, the sun is summer-kitchen warm on my legs. there is a cool breeze, there are daffodils. there are good things.
(please go to the latest day off - #22 - to see an illustration of this moment - as well as brett's birfday prezzie! HAPPY BIRFDAY BRETT!!! he's a prince of a guy. !snark!)

oddly enough, i also have this little handheld mechanical device, about the size of a large pager/small cellphone. it has wires that attach to your person via these little sticky pads. it electrocutes you with a mild pulse at intervals of about... (counting) every six seconds (the pulse lasts about that long, too). so .... (math. erg.) about five times a minute i get this little 'wubbbbbbb' into my hurty spots. i've got it set on 18%. i've TRIED up to 35%**, but i don't know how high it goes. i ASSUME it's to 100%. there's probably some folks who pay 'nice'* ladies in rubber skirts a LOT of $$$ to administer this thing set on 100. eek. it has "modes".
i hurt if i do anything for more than a few minutes. i feel like i'm up to my neck in a barrel of tar full of nails.
but there's daffodils, and warm sun - and days off. and i can write and draw in increments, dangit.

i'm keepin; the light on.
-s

*well, efficient.
**35% is STOUT.