I watched the memorial service at Fort Hood yesterday. I cried, I sang the anthem. TAPS made me really sob. But it was a good, cathartic cry. I felt like the fallen and their families deserved my attention. The battle crosses and final roll call drove home the absence of those 13 men and women. The President's speech was so perfect. It was so nice to learn some about each person - about who they were as a person and as a soldier.

Today is Veteran's Day. I wish all veterans well and thank them for their service.

I want to wish some safety to all of my friends in Alabama and Florida as Ida nears the coast.

I know she's kicking up storms for us in Houston today.

Be careful and take care!

Thanks to all of y'all for your advice and support about my new mission of eating better. It means a lot. Really.

Last night, Mom, Sis, and I went to dinner and then to see The Men Who Stare at Goats. We decided on TGI Friday's. I figured I would get a salad. Turns out they have a whole section with smaller portions! I ended up getting the petite sirloin with broccoli. I'd been craving steak for WEEKS. The filet was 6 oz instead of the 12 oz on the regular menu. I was pleased. The movie was FANTASTIC. I laughed so hard. George is so cute but can pull off the crazy/weird very well. I love his comedy work. It was weird with Ewan having an American accent, but it was still great. Kevin Spacey and Jeff Bridges were also standouts. GO SEE THIS MOVIE.

UT won yesterday morning 35-3 over Central Florida. YAY! I expected nothing less. The first quarter was so messy. My facebook status was something along the lines of "WTF Longhorns?" However, my boys started to get their shit together late in the 2nd and then looked like the team I love in the second half. I hate that it takes that long for them to really settle in to play. They can't do that when playing in the Big 12 Championship and certainly not in the National Championship game (if we don't lose before then). I'm disappointed that LSU lost, but whadda ya gonna do HEY! [/craig]

The good thing about my new mission to eat better is that Sis has gone through this already. While her thing was to go from eating the no-fat no-sugar things and to just regular food, she is still a good resource for things like helping me work on the compulsive thought processes and helping me figure out how to get Mom on board. To have someone who can empathize with the bingeing is so helpful, because then I don't feel as crazy. To see her in recovery now gives me hope that I can do it.

We went to Walmart last night after the movie to get a few things. Since Mom threw such a hissy fit about my eating the whole bag of potato chips this week, I bought a giant bag of snack-size bags of Lays, Doritos, Cheetos, and Fritos so she has stuff to take to work. And I have a fixed portion to eat if I just HAVE to have some chips. And it wasn't that expensive. I have water, iced tea, and propel in the fridge, and I have been able to avoid drinking the coke, sprite, and gingerale that's in there. Go me! I think as long as I have more healthy options around, I shouldn't be as tempted to binge on unhealthy stuff.

Max slept with me last night. Just like he used to. It was kind of nice, actually. And he seemed to enjoy it immensely.

Oh! Last night, Wanda Sykes' show premiered on FOX at 10pm CST. Funny as hell. But I mainly watched because a good friend from high school is a member of the cast. I'm so proud of him, I can't even say. He's one of the most famous/well known drag queens on Fire Island/Key West. Wanda met him on the island and insisted that he join her show. His stage name is Porsche, and he's fabulous. He looks really pretty as a girl. All of his FI friends were commenting on his facebook page last night about knowing him when he was just doing shows there. I was all, "I knew you when you were just starting to figure out that you wanted to do drag." I know Porsche's last name (which she doesn't use now because she's reached Madonna/Cher status). I know the house he grew up in and love his mother who used to substitute teach at the high school. Anyway, the show was so fucking funny (as long as you're cool with tons of gay jokes). I am amazed that Rupert Murdoch would front the money for a show that is the complete antithesis of what he stands for (and what appears on FOX News). I mean, you have a black lesbian and a drag queen doing all kinds of sex jokes and praising Obama instead of making fun of him. Anyway, y'all should watch - it's Saturdays at 10pm Central.

Before the movie, Mom, Sis and I went to Target to kill some time between dinner and show time. I was trying on pants, and Sis was trying on shirts. We were both being critical of our bodies (Sis refuses to even go clothes shopping unless she's slightly drunk). We decided that shoe shopping is the antidote. Shoes are the refreshing lime wedge to follow the bitter tequila shot of your body image issues. Unfortunately, Sis is currently forbidden to try on shoes by her podiatrist since she's still healing from surgery. However, I tried on every sexy heel I could get my hands on. OMG. There were these flats that were suede on the outside and shearling fur on the inside. THE MOST SOFT AMAZING-FEELING SHOES EVAR. EVAR. If you want cute but comfy shoes, you need these. I am so going back soon to buy some.

Saw the nutritionist yesterday. I don't think she normally works with eating disorders, because as I was talking about trauma and how I coped (and how Sis coped in the completely opposite way) and she seemed totally weirded out. I'm going to be asking her if there's a nutritionist in the Harris County system who DOES do work with ED patients. I'm thinking that this woman mainly works with the poor parents in the area to educate them how to feed their kids well and other stuff like that. I'm seeing a nutritionist in the first place because my triglycerides are in the 400s. That's SERIOUSLY bad. A product of an empty carbs/fast food/crap food diet that's been going on for YEARS. She asked me why I hadn't tried to fix my eating habits earlier. She didn't seem to understand what I was saying... I explained that my focus for the last 10 years has been just staying alive, so doing something beneficial was a low priority. I was in so much emotional pain, and eating made me feel better. I completely didn't care about calories or fat content, because I just cared about stopping the hurt. I also didn't care because the dark, damaged part of me rather wanted me to have a stroke or heart attack so I wouldn't have to do anything more drastic to die. Now that I'm a little more balanced emotionally, and no longer suicidal on a regular basis, I can focus on things to keep me alive, like exercising and eating better. However, she threw so much at me, I have overloaded. She wanted me to reduce both portion size and what I'm eating. Even though I explained that we needed to take this rather slowly or else I would just give up on it entirely. And that's already the case... yesterday, I got nothing but tea and a salad. I ate veggies as snacks. Today? Thus far I've had a double cheeseburger and a large regular coke. I have asked Mom to go to the store with me later so I can get some more healthy things so I have food in the house and not have to feel like I need to go out for fast food. Because having nothing in the house is always my downfall. My other downfall is not having any alternatives to my normal craving foods available. Mom bought sour cream and onion ruffles the other day. I have said on many occasions that a bag of potato chips in the house will ALWAYS disappear, because it's one of my biggest binge foods. And, if Mom wants to have chips, she needs to either buy the snack-size bags (which force me to only eat a small amount instead of the whole back in a sitting), and/or buy me some alternative. Like, she could have bought some baked lays or baked cheetos for me and I would have eaten those instead. Last night, she literally said, "So, I can NEVER have potato chips in the house again?" I really felt like saying, "YES DAMMIT. Not having chips in the house ISN'T THAT MUCH TO ASK." But, instead of getting mad, I calmly explained again about alternatives and snack sizes. Her response was that the snack-size ones are too expensive because you are just paying for packaging. I told her that it was critical for a while until I get to a point where I can be better about portion size. I mean, WTF. She KNOWS this is a problem and needs to listen to me as to how to help me get better. I get really frustrated and hurt when she gets all "you're messing with what I can eat" on me. She made the changes as Sis was recovering from the anorexia/bulemia. Why can't she do the same for me? Once again, it's the problem with being a compulsive overeater/binge eater. You just look fat and lazy, not actually sick, so it's a lot harder to get people to support you in recovery.

Thank GOD I had some therapy. Dialectical Behavioral Therapy has saved my life. Literally. It's a particular therapy approach that focuses on being aware of your feelings and learning how to have a feeling without letting it take over your life. Anyone who suffers from depression and/or anxiety really needs to check this out. Where I used to get so completely pissed at Mom about something, I am now able to stay calm. When she starts to ramp up and freak out, I don't ramp up and freak out with her. We haven't had a real screaming fight since I got about two weeks into the IOP prep group. It's so fabulous.

In other news, Texas is finally actually PLAYING football. The first quarter of this game against Central Florida was so horrid. But things are getting better now. Whew.

Sis moved back upstairs last night after having spent 6 weeks recovering from her first bunion surgery by living in Mom's room. This meant Mom slept on the couch again. She was getting crankier and crankier as time went on. Thank God I didn't engage her in the cranky. Now she has her own room back for a few weeks until Sis has surgery on her other foot. Maybe I can convince Mom to do convert the dining room into a makeshift bedroom for her next time. Just push all of the furniture against the walls, put up an air mattress, and hang some curtains to seal it off. It might help her sleep some. Since Mom is no longer out in the living room all of the time, Max has decided that he needs to climb the stairs to cuddle with me all the time. He used to sleep in my room during the winter when I was a teenager. Max's presence in my room is seriously annoying Fluffy, because she wants to be my cuddle kitty. But she has Sis now, and I think Max has told her so. It's just too funny.

Harris County's pharmacy is pissing me off AGAIN. But what's new, right? So, after trying every SSRI under the SUN to find one that didn't make me crazier, Lexapro was it, and I've proven that when I'm off of it for only 2 days,  I turn into CRAZY!Em. Naturally, this wonder drug is expensive, and Harris County has decided that it won't pay the extra money for it. This forces Mom to now shell out $130/month to keep me sane. Yay. The woman who does all the paperwork for this stuff hasn't gotten back to me about whether or not my doctor can appeal the committee's decision to not get me my drugs, or what the fuck happened to the prescription assistance paperwork I did for Lexapro's manufacturer. Because it'd be a hell of a lot better to get the meds for free/almost free.

I'm also probably going to drop out of the IOP. I had a breakdown on Monday (precipitated by the lack of  Lexapro, but it had been building for a while anyway), and realized that all I was really getting out of IOP was tired. I get up at 5:30 to commute an hour (in good traffic) to sit and listen to other people's problems for four hours, then sit in more traffic for 45 minutes to get home. I find that I'm good at providing feedback to others, but everyone else is so self-absorbed that they are unable to help me out much. So I'm putting in way more that I am getting out at this point. There is one woman who has no self esteem whatsoever and is perfectionistic, yet refuses to do stuff like comb her hair. She's otherwise functional, just batty. And has the most annoying mannerisms EVER. I think what's annoying is that she reminds me of me at about age 12, where all of my self-esteem was externalized, and I was trying to be perfect so people would like me. It took another 15 years, but I finally figured out that perfection was unattainable, and what bitchy Casey said didn't really mean that I sucked as a person. So I tend to want to constantly yell at this woman "YOU"RE 54!! GROW UP ALREADY!!" I spent last Wednesday getting lectured to for an hour by a dietetic student who actually had a full-on Valley Girl accent. I shit you not. She sounded EXACTLY like the girl who does the "Oh My God Becky" dialogue at the beginning of "Baby Got Back." This student was so stupid I would have mocked her, but she was already using the accent I would have used to mock her. There was nowhere else to go with the impression, and that actually frustrated me. She was even smacking her g um. You know, I was so stuck on the living caricature in front of me that I only just stopped to realize something: Do Valley girls even sound that way anymore? And, if so, what was she doing in Texas? She was too young to have grown up during the original Valley Accent Wildfire that spread across America and still has me saying "like" and "dude."

I emailed Dr. Shah (my kick-ass psychiatrist who is still the only person who I think really cares and is doing the job because he wants to, not because he's forced to), and let him know about my missing Lexapro and my feelings about IOP (since he's the medical director for it and was the one who referred me there). I want to know what he thinks before doing anything else.

I'm so headachy due to allergies. Yay!

Okay. Now for something happy/funny to balance all the woe:


What makes this one for me is the "WTF are you doing?" look on the background cat's face.

I can't believe I haven't updated since Oct. 12. Bad Em. BAD.

Basically, my life has consisted of only a few things:
-  Intensive Outpatient Program at the local charity psych hospital. It's Mon/Weds/Fri from 8:30-12:30 in the morning. It's interesting, I'm learning a lot, but it's so emotionally intensive (though the name does warn of that) that I end up really tired afterwards.
-  Driving Sis around since she's still healing from her first of two bunion surgeries. Her right foot looks amazing now. She's finally walking on it without a boot, and doing very well. However, this means I am almost constantly in the car between the 45 min commute to therapy and 45 minutes back and forth to her therapy appointment twice a week, and now we're also adding physical therapy in the afternoons on Monday/Weds. OY.
-  Mom and I ARE GETTING ALONG. It's so freaking unbelievably amazing. It seems that my learning how to regulate my emotions and not provoke her while in therapy has caused her to not react to me as badly. And, when she does start to get upset, I don't tend to get upset with her, so nothing ever escalates. IT"S AMAZING. We haven't fought in weeks.
-  The stress of therapy and driving Sis around, plus the weather, has created a horrible fibromyalgia time. I'm almost constantly in pain, but I'm learning how to push through it. (One of my goals in therapy is to learn how to push through bad times to get what I need to get done, done.)
- My thyroid is also funky. This means even more pain and hot flashes like I'm in menopause. And, naturally, the public health system is so backed up that I can't see an endocrinologist to fix me until mid January. *eyeroll*

Today, I'm home instead of at therapy because of a bunch of stuff -
-I had a migraine all day yesterday, and woke up with its remainder ache.
-There was a huge wreck on the road that I take to therapy and it was going to take over 2 hours just to get to the hospital.
-I was willing to stick it out on the road, but my headache came back full force after having crawled only 5 miles down the road in 30 minutes.
-To top it off, the Starbucks I use didn't have working brew machines, so I couldn't get my usual coffee. I was afraid this was a bad omen, and then I got on the road and found out how long my commute would be. It was TOTALLY a bad omen. I'm going to medicate myself to the gills and hope that I can get Sis to PT this afternoon at 2:30. 

I need to figure out how to get to the hospital using the bus. Today would have been doable if I could have ridden the bus. Grr.

So: in summary...
Good - I'm learning how to function like a normal human being and I'm not fighting with Mom anymore.
Bad - My body hates me and tries to make sure I feel like crap every day. I'm tired as hell all the time.
Good - I have learned how to push through the pain most days like normal people.

Random:
NASA launched its first test Ares rocket the other day. I still think the new system looks like a flying pencil.

I am trying VERY HARD not to throttle the pharmacy staff at the clinic again. I now understand why they have little tiny windows between us.

() I'd really like a full do-over for today. Just have the clock set back to about 9pm last night and redo everything from there. *headdesk rpt x infinity*

I realized I haven't really updated in a while. At one point, I had this whole long post in my head. I've forgotten most of it now. So, instead, I'm going to just hit the highlights:

1. Sis had the first of two surgeries to correct her bunions last Friday (a little over a week ago). The podiatrist that did the procedure is fabulous and did an amazing job. I'm currently the butler/driver for her. In the past, I was always resentful of having to drive her around. This time I'm actually finding it fulfilling to help out. Go figure.

2. I start the intensive outpatient therapy program (IOP) at the hospital on Monday. I will be there M/W/F from 8:30-12:30. Twelve hours of intensive therapy per week. However, the prep group I've been attending twice a week has been most helpful, so I'm rather optimistic about this. And, I figure, if I can do something as intensive as this, I can do just about anything that requires attendance, like school or a job.

3. I'm planning on going back to school soon. Hopefully in spring, but probably in summer. My ultimate goal is the optometry program at U of H. First, though, I have to get my associates and then transfer to U of H for my bachelors. But at least I have a plan and goals now.

4. Mom is still stressed, but we're starting to figure out how to work together without creating havoc. Mainly it's that I'm a lot less excitable when Mom gets upset, thanks to all the therapy I've already done. I've found that now I can just stay calm while Mom has a freak out. It is super-empowering to know that.

5. I'm now addicted to Facebook. I'm getting back in touch with friends I haven't talked to in 10 years or more. That's so fabulous. To know that these people still want to be my friends and keep in contact with me after all of this time warms my heart.

6. So, basically, life is pretty good. That's so nice to be able to say.

We got some serious rain this morning. It was INSANE. Check out the radar image:



Y'all... we had rain and hail so strong I was afraid it would break the window. It was so strong, it was like being in a hurricane - and I know what a hurricane rain is like (thanks to Ike as seen in my icon). It was a serious storm.

These storms were along a cool front. It's 66 degrees outside at 8am. The high is going to be 81. OMG, that's INSANE.

...but right now I'm awake but still fasting for some bloodwork this morning. (The lab told me I HAD to, even though the doc and I had agreed that the main values we wanted weren't going to be effected by food, but whatever.) So I'm cranky and shaky and.. yeah.

So, instead of something more in-depth, enjoy these cartoons that made me laugh this morning:

where did gibbs' boat go? From what I remember, there's no way to get it out of the basement...

I do worry when I break a mirror. It's a completely irrational worry, so I don't pay too much attention to it. I tend to not walk under ladders, more because it's unsafe than because it's supposedly bad luck. As far as black cats... we have 2 in the house at the moment, and all the black cats we've had have never caused bad luck.

I'm really not traditionally superstitious about anything. I have some times where I have magical thinking - "If I do x, then y will/won't happen,"  - but not superstitions per se.

I keep forgetting to post. So much is going on. Someone remind me tomorrow and i'll update.

Texas 64  UT-El Paso (UTEP) 7

The only reason it wasn't a complete shut out was that UTEP lucked out intercepting a pass in the first minutes of the game. We answered with a 96-yd TD return on the kickoff, however. It was our game from then on. Mack played everyone from the first to the fourth-string quarterbacks. And our second and third stringers both made touchdowns! We rocked today.

I'm crossing my fingers for U of Houston tonight playing against Texas Tech. GO COUGARS!!!!

The new polls are out:

1 Florida (duh)
2 Texas (of course)
3 Alabama
4 Ole Miss
5 Penn State

Basically, I pegged it, though I didn't think Ole Miss would jump ahead of the Nittany Lions. However, I'm thrilled that U of Houston is at 17 (the first time in almost 20 years). Oklahoma's back up to #10 after their complete shut-out of Tulsa, and USC is down to #12. But! Cincinnati is ranked #14. WEIRD.

I am a little dubious about the AP boosting Miami all the way from #20 to #9 in one week. And to think I was just thinking to myself yesterday, "Hmm, I remember when Miami was a good team." I guess they are again.

I'm still thrilled that UT beat Tech last night. I'm going to be riding that emotional wave for a while.

TEXAS 34  Texas Tech 24

REVENGE AHAHAHAHAHAHA!! WE WON!! Last year was a fluke! A FLUKE I SAY!! That, and you don't beat the Horns in Royal's House. You just don't.

Next week we're up against UTEP. *yawn* At least it's on TV.

Also thrilling: Washington beating USC 16-13. And Florida State totally beat BYU. So the new top 5 will be something like, Florida, Texas, Bama, Penn State, and ... oh, who the hell knows at this point. Maybe LSU? I can't think of anyone else, really. Maybe Ole Miss?

Also, my neck and back are now mad at me because I kept doing Arsenio-type fist pumps and my own stupid end zone dances after every good play/score.

Sis got all cranky at me saying that I kept stressing her out because she would get comfortable and then jolt when I would yell. I was sitting downstairs on the couch watching the big livingroom tv. If I had been yelling like that in my room 6 feet from her door I think she would have been madder. My stance was that it's 4 hours every saturday. You can turn up the volume a little on your TV, or put in earplugs, or just go out somewhere for those few hours, while I enjoy myself by yelling at the TV like the players and refs can hear me.

sis just bitched me out for yelling at the game on the tv. It's saturday, what else would make me whoop and say "yeehaw" for pete's sake?

anyone else grammatically annoyed when the wrong word in a phrase is pluralized? For example: correct-"lines of scrimage" incorrect- "line of scrimages".

Tis talk like a pirate day! This be my token pirate-y post for I'll not be talkin' silly when speakin' about my football team. Arr, me hearties!