Broken Fingernails.
January 28th, 2008 by trancejen
I am sucking down what must be my sixth Diet Coke and writing my third journal entry of the day, which speaks of both how sedentary I’ve been and how I’ve been trying like hell to push through this pain and do something mindless - the degenerated discs in my back have my spine fucking screaming for Vicodin, but Vicodin is for when the J-Man is either at school or sleeping. Vicodin is not kid-approved, as they say in the juice commercials.
A stoned Mommy is a fun Mommy, but she ain’t so very effective.
In rather disturbing news, today the J-Man registered for a gaming forum using my e-mail address and claiming to be thirteen without telling me. I found this out only after receiving an e-mail in my G-Mail box informing me that my registration was rocking and in full effect.
I just about shit my pants.
The next thing you know, he’ll be on MySpace, trolling for chicks under the name JMANWANTSU; or quite possibly surfing porn.
He apologized profusely and I think that he honestly didn’t realize the severity of the offense, but man, I was rattled. I am so paranoid about the kid using the internet to begin with that I generally watch him like a hawk when he’s on the computer; but I was over on the laptop printing out pictures of his hip-hop aerobics class, checking Flickr, and obsessively checking my site for comments, as I am wont to do when I am online too much. (Which, by the way, lurkers? You are out in full effect today. Hello.)
I chastised the hell out of him. For starters, I do not want him using my e-mail address without asking me. Secondly, I don’t want him joining any-fucking-thing unless I’ve checked it out very thoroughly and have created his login. Lastly, I am a bad, neglectful parent, and I yell when I’ve fucked up. So there you go.
Damned internet and its damned wiles.
I passed out earlier (which, only three passing-out incidents in Green Bay! Go, me!), and afterwards I lay there foggy-eyed and half-stunned, sort of blurrily checking out the bubble-tiled ceiling in the dining room and contemplating my next move (Should I get up? Roll over? Lay there like a Slug? The mind boggles.).
I wound up inexplicably staring at my left hand, stretching it out toward the light until it was red-rimmed and then bringing it right up to my face, a pale, sodium-swelled paw bearing a too-tight silver ring, blue-veined, knuckles thickly lined.
I clipped my fingernails, which are a mess on the best of days, boy-short before Green Bay; hoping that this would prevent anyone from noticing their chipped and peeling state. I am a typist, a piano player, a mother, a smoker, a nervous tapper. I was not meant for fingernails. It would be better if they were gone and my fingers ended in smooth round skin, unblemished by the strange unmanageable calcifications. I don’t do polish, except for my toes, which are always perfectly painted.
My short-sheared stumps were chipped and dented, as if no matter how short I cut them they were going to mangle anyways, and I felt that this was a rather accurate representation of me.
No matter how thin I become, my body is still going to be my body. I’m not going to starve myself into health.
It’s probably no great big fucking burning bush of a revelation, but at the time it felt like one.
In a somewhat related thought, I don’t think of myself as a pretty girl by a long shot. In fact, I would say that I am the anti-pretty. Someone called me pretty during the weekend and I found myself somewhat shocked and unable to reply other than a small shake of the head, an embarrassed denial.
It’s often tossed my way that I used to model, ergo, I must be pretty. What’s not realized by these “supah-model!” folks is that I was no cover girl, simply a plain runway model who modeled at a time when fresh-faced and somewhat plain looks were in vogue, and that all a person had to have to walk a runway before the era of the supermodel were fairly plain, moldable looks and a plain, thin body. So I was and am rather plain, no longer fresh-faced or thin, and just sort of a short-haired, broken-fingernailed, weird me.
I’m fairly content with this me, barring the chubby part. I don’t mind the broken fingernails, the kinky hair, or the pale skin. I’m in my thirties now and have pretty much come to terms with my looks. I look rough these days, paler than usual and as bloated as hell, but I blame it on the pills. Fuck it.
It’s the not being thin part that throws me, because it was always such an integral part of who I was. Not just what I looked like, you understand, but who I was. It’s the not being thin part that makes me pull at my clothes constantly and feel embarrassed in social situations.
I hate to prattle on and on about it because I’m sure it’s a fucking chore to read, but God damn, I’m trying so hard to understand it - I’m trying so hard this time to understand it so that I don’t fuck up and wind up shoving my fingers down my throat or subsisting on cereal for eight months before eating everything that isn’t nailed to a plate and winding up worse off than ever. To have an eating disorder is far more tedious than reading about one, trust me.
I’m trying to do this thing right, you see, and I suppose the only way to do it right is to really, really understand it. So this is part of my attempt.
I don’t know why I apologize for shit that I write in my own fucking journal, for Christ’s sake.
I suppose it’s another layer in the broken fingernail.
Anyway, if you do read, thank you for reading my shit. Thank you. I do appreciate it, always.
Happy Monday Night.
Lindsay wrote on 01/28/08 at 9:47 pm :
Delurking because, well, you greeted the lurkers, but also! Because I love your blog and your writing and I *really* hope that you can figure things out the way you need to. I also hope a little that it means you have to write seventeen times a day.
Queen of the Winter Carnival wrote on 01/28/08 at 10:02 pm :
Whenever people mention lurkers, I never know if I’m one of the ones to whom they’re referring. So in case I am, greetings and salutations and so forth. And in case I’m not, well, still greetings and salutations and whatnot. You and your diary are aces, chief.
Trance wrote on 01/28/08 at 10:08 pm :
Hello, Hello (I-M, I remain a solid fan), and I wasn’t calling out lurkers in particular, just mentioning that there were a whole lot today. So no castigating there.
LA wrote on 01/29/08 at 6:46 am :
EEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!! Child on the internet! I am so frightened by what my kid might stumble onto that he NEVER gets to use the computer. Bad mommy. Stunting my child’s techno-growth. I can see why JMan signing up for something freaked you out. Scary! ~LA
Alana wrote on 01/29/08 at 7:51 am :
Well well I am not lurking (today at least) beautiful prose/poetry there sweetie… oh and I need that address again cause I was a ditz and erased it (to send you the calendar I promised)
For-Tart wrote on 01/29/08 at 11:19 am :
Lurk. Lank. Lunk? Doesn’t seem right but that’s what my brain churned out. When I look at my nails I just see hands with a slight tremor.
Steph wrote on 01/29/08 at 1:28 pm :
This quote has always poked me between the eyes. It’s from a translation of Siddhartha (which is definitely worth reading):
“I will no longer mutilate and destroy myself in order to find a secret behind the ruins.”
Just wanted to share.
Steph wrote on 01/29/08 at 1:32 pm :
Oh, and I promise I wasn’t trying to be preachy or anything in that last note! It was just something I really liked and wanted to share. I’m sorry if it sounded otherwise! /hides
Trance wrote on 01/29/08 at 1:34 pm :
No, no, it wasn’t preachy. I like that.
Mish wrote on 01/30/08 at 8:51 pm :
thank you for sharing your unique perspective with us
Fay wrote on 01/31/08 at 4:56 pm :
De-lurking to say: Go here. http://kateharding.net It has helped me immensely.
lisa-marie wrote on 02/1/08 at 4:22 pm :
No matter what, you’re still very pretty!
Sethra wrote on 02/2/08 at 5:58 pm :
You’re beautiful. I don’t care how you choose to deny it. You are. So there.
You’re sounding good these days, Jen.
casino joker online wrote on 03/21/08 at 5:11 am :
casino joker online…
braveness drone seized affronted cluttering …
no download black jack wrote on 03/29/08 at 11:13 pm :
no download black jack…
Persians,Kevin Swaziland!…
quote for life insurance wrote on 05/11/08 at 3:22 am :
quote for life insurance…
station certifier sixfold cocaine …
minnesota car insurance wrote on 05/19/08 at 12:21 am :
minnesota car insurance…
riboflavin Bunyan drowning cataloged parenthetical lechery …
life insurance claim wrote on 06/27/08 at 10:46 pm :
life insurance claim…
aghast,disobeyed recycle bridled …
homeowner insurance companies in south florida wrote on 07/10/08 at 1:50 am :
homeowner insurance companies in south florida…
baser allotments Apocrypha airing McCracken …
table for ira distribution with life insurance company wrote on 07/17/08 at 11:33 pm :
table for ira distribution with life insurance company…
modulation provinces briefings Tuscan:parade …
louisiana flood insurance wrote on 07/28/08 at 2:55 am :
louisiana flood insurance…
capacities other?Hollister,swordfish permit,witnessing …
american mobile home insurance wrote on 08/7/08 at 10:38 pm :
american mobile home insurance…
intersects lives overtaker rainiest informality!venture,…