dreamattack | a dialogue in pictures

lost two months to the demon pain. one step forward, six steps back. negative progress. not even the flat bliss of physical stagnancy. only the brain wastes away each day, lost to the endless cycle of sunrise, sleep, and drugs. the ferrets run circles around my feet. the cats each squeeze their own way into my field of attention, hoping to both affect my health & mood, and to draw the rewards of affection, scritching, perhaps the occasional ferret treat.

my memory is like baby swiss, carbonated cheese, like the bones of birds, so full of emptiness, buoyed by the nothingness contained within. I tremor, I lurch, I twitch. I no longer recall the sensation of consistent balance. my limbs swim and surge intermittently with pricking needles, ripples of electricity, stretches of excruciating hyper-sensation, and plots of deep painful numbness. movement is a dice roll. I cannot predict which, what and whither will elicit the roiling spasms that drop me like a gunshot.

my circadian no longer has rhythm. my sleep cycle is flipped upside-down. I really have lost all concept of date, time, & space. while at first consideration this may seem liberating, it makes things much more confusing. it pokes more holes in my memory balloon.

my physician is finally sending me to another neurologist, a spine center. at this point, I’d gladly allow myself to be showered by the warm gamey spray of chicken blood from the knife of a voodoo high priestess, if it would restore me to my former physical self.

on the positive side, I haven’t had too much trouble keeping up with my blog, and I’ve actually lost weight (forgetting to eat all day.) I’ve had more time to spend with my toddler ferts. I’m starting to catch up on my sleep debt. I’ve had time to spend making love to photoshop. *shrug* every day as it comes.

Durga ~ Hindu goddess of moral order & righteousness. She protects mankind from evil and misery by destroying evil forces such as selfishness, jealousy, prejudice, hatred, anger, and ego. Goddess Durga represents a united front of all Divine forces against the negative forces of evil and wickedness. She is also known as a protector of children & those who cannot defend themselves.

I channeled Durga today, and didn’t even know it.

While working the information desk today, I observed a small 5-ish-year-old child was verbally assaulted by another patron. While this patron is an adult, his mentality is that of someone much, much younger. No excuse, in my opinion.

The little boy, his older brother and grandmother were down at the checkout desk, checking out. TLB seemed to be one of those quiet serious little men - probably very shy and reticent to begin with. He seemed to be deriving great and simple joy from standing by the entrance gate to the library and holding the gate bar open, very serious & politely, for all entering patrons.

The adult “child” entered, behind several other amused adults, and proceeded to shout at the little boy, telling him not to hold the gate for him and that he wanted to do it himself. I immediately sent my loudest shushhhh flying down the ramp. The adult “child” continued to yell at the little boy about how “hard-headed” the child was, his voice dwindling down into unintelligible insults. The little boy, stunned, burst into tears and ran back to hide behind his grandmother. The grandmother was obviously stunned herself, and assumed a furious posture, but the very large size of the adult “child” along with his obviously unstable mental state held her frozen in intimidation. The big scary “child” turned away, still muttering angrily to himself, and headed to the payphone to call his mother.

I watched this play out about 20 yards away, the adrenaline throbbing in my temples, grabbed my stupid cane (back still fucking evil) and hurtled myself toward the big bully. Two things get me this riled - people hurting children in any way, and people hurting animals in any way. I instinctively defend these defenseless creatures. And being one of the department managers, I felt it my duty to address the situation.

Our overgrown child bully has been coming into the library for years. He has a limited understanding of acceptable social behavior in the first place. He has no concept of volume control. He has had to be asked to leave on a number of occasions for disturbing other patrons. It is unfortunate, because he really cannot help his mental difficulties, but even children need to be disciplined for being mean to other children.

I hobble-wobble-marched down the ramp, right up to our bully, interrupted his telephone and calmly but with no uncertain terms in my voice, informed him that what he did to the little boy was completely unacceptable behavior, and that he had two choices: march his butt over there and apologize to that sobbing little boy, or exit the library and not return. He tried to argue with me about how hard-headed the child was being. I continued in my most frighteningly calm and no-nonsense voice, that the little boy was just trying to be nice to people and that yelling at him was very very mean. I took the sharp tone of a grown-up chastising a child, fueled and unleashed by the giddy duet of adrenaline and pain medicine. He begrudgingly agreed to apologize to the child, and I followed him over to the desk. While the apology left much to be desired, my expectations weren’t that high. I turned around and continued to openly castigate our bully, letting him know that if I ever witnessed or heard of him doing something like that again, he would not allowed to come back inside the library. I collected his name & dismissed him, telling him we’d be keeping several close eyes on him.

I turned around to the stunned and impressed looks of patrons and co-workers alike.

I went over to the little boy, whose tears were starting to dry up, and told him how sorry I was that the crazy man was mean to him. I made the international sign of cuckoo around my left ear, and smiled warmly at him. He brightened a bit. His grandmother started to breathe again, relieved. I told her that he wasn’t “all there” and she suggested to the boys that he be added to their prayers. (can you hear my eyes rolling?)

I turned around and started to make my way back to my abandoned post. My own supervisor caught up with me and told me that I had looked like I’d been possessed. I think I was.

Crazed Moon

Crazed through much child-bearing
The moon is staggering in the sky;
Moon-struck by the despairing
Glances of her wandering eye
We grope, and grope in vain,
For children born of her pain.

Children dazed or dead!
When she in all her virginal pride
First trod on the mountain’s head
What stir ran through the countryside
Where every foot obeyed her glance!
What manhood led the dance!

Fly-catchers of the moon,
Our hands are blenched, our fingers seem
But slender needles of bone;
Blenched by that malicious dream
They are spread wide that each
May rend what comes in reach.

– William Butler Yeats

The story of Quizno the ferret who was burned

I’m enraged by this story. It’s made all the more personal by the fact that it happened so close to home, and by the probability that the ferrets involved in this story were related to our babies. We bought our ferts from the Little Rock PetCo (I know, evil evil evil, but there are few if any local breeders or shelters & I fell in love with these two babies, PetCo and Marshall’s be damned.) And we bought them at about the same time the other two were purchased from a store just across the river. Odds are high that they at least rubbed noses back at “the farm.”

Please visit this website that has been set up in order to raise funds for Quizno’s continuing medical care. It also gives a lot of information about the court case, how this tragedy came to happen, a list of donors, and Quizno’s current condition.

Quizno’s abusers will be standing trial on their citatation for cruelty to animals, which is a misdemeanor in our state. The call is out for people in the area to gather and attend the court hearing, if for no other reason to show the court & the offenders just how many people think their actions are deplorable.

Below is the original post by the woman who rescued Quizno, posted on rec.pets.ferrets.

To whom it may concern:

My name is Kelly Haughay and I work part time at the North Little Rock Petco.

On May 3, 2003 I answered a phone call from a very upset customer who had purchased two ferrets from our store on April 9, 2003. He stated that we lied to him and told him that ferrets do not kill each other. I told him that I have never heard of that happening and that I have three ferrets myself and have never had a problem with them. He explained to me that the female ferret had killed the male ferret and was eating his head. He told me that when they tried to remove the dead ferret from the cage the female attached them.

He was very irate and wanted to know what we were going to do about it. I told him that he would have to speak to my manager and transferred his call to her. She spoke with him and told him that he would need to speak with our general manager who would be in later that day.

When the general manager arrived he was advised of the situation and contacted some higher people in the company. They instructed him to return everything that the man had purchased including both ferrets and all of his accessories. He spoke with the customer who was still very upset and told him that he would refund his money if he would bring everything back to our store.

The man said okay and hung up the phone. About ten minutes later the man called back and spoke with the general manager again. He told him that his girlfriend tried to get the dead ferret out again and was attacked again. He said that she was fed up with it and that she threw everything away. My general manager was shocked and asked him to repeat himself. The man said once again that his girlfriend had got fed up with the ferrets and threw them in the dumpster. The man said that he was going to take the loss and that he was done with it.

After the store closed that night I asked my general manager about the ferret. He told me what happened and I was very upset. I asked him what we were going to do about it and he said that we could do nothing. I asked him why and he said that it was against store policy to give his information to any body. I asked him if I could call the man and find out where he lived so I could come and get the ferret. He said no to that as well. I saw the mans information sitting on the desk in the office and I got his address off of the form. I promised my general manager that I would not try to contact the man I only wanted the ferret.

My fiancé went with me to try and find the apartment complex. We finally found it and I ran to the first dumpster that I saw. I saw a cage in the dumpster and looked down and saw a ferret curled up in a ball beside the dumpster. I picked her up and my fiancé shined the light on her. Then we realized that she had been set on fire. She was okay but her fur was scorched all over. We left the apartment complex and met the North Little Rock Police Department at a nearby intersection.

The police also called North Little Rock Animal Control who came to the scene and signed the ferret over to me. I went with them back to the apartment complex to retrieve the cage for the ferret. The mans girlfriend was at the apartment and she told the police that she threw away the ferrets. She was issued a citation by animal control and given a court date of May 13, 2003. The man arrived shortly after that and was very upset.

The animal control officer went to that trash can and discovered that the dead ferret had also been set on fire. I took the cage and put it in my car. Then the man stated to the police officer that it was his cage and he wanted it back. I was appalled but the police officer said to go ahead and give him back his cage to avoid an altercation.

I took the ferret immediately to the After Hours Animal Clinic on Smoky Lane. She was very dehydrated and emaciated. She was lucky enough to only have a couple of first degree burns on her upper back and lower stomach. She also urinated on the examination table and it was fluorescent green.

He said that she looked okay aside from the obvious injuries and gave me some food to take him with me. On May 7, 2003 I took her to the North Hills Animal Clinic for a follow up visit. They said that she looked pretty good considering what she had been through and sent her home with me.

On the morning of May 9, 2003 I had to take her back to the Clinic because her stomach was very swollen and she was having difficulty breathing. They took some x-rays and said that everything looked okay but that they wanted to keep her for observation over the weekend. Her stomach had gone down but now she is going to have to have surgery on her back. There is a patch of skin that is “rotting” away down her back. This was most likely caused by neglect.

As you can imagine I am now developing a rather large vet bill. She is having to stay at the clinic until enough skin comes off to perform the surgery.

I was wondering if there was anything that you could do to help me pay for the medical bills or sue the person that did this to her. I have already paid over $500 so far and we are not sure how much the surgery will cost. I have not received any support from Petco. They were actually considering firing me for giving the police the mans information. I do not believe that they are going to fire me though.

I have kept all of the receipts and also a copy of the police report. Please let me know what to do and feel free to forward my information to anyone that you think can help me. She is the sweetest ferret and I am very glad that I found her.

I am sorry that I had to send this out in mass but I am desperate. Anything you can do to help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you very much,

Kelly Haughay

kittykelly28@hotmail.com

Kristi ,I highly recommend you don’t look at the pictures. Some of them are really bad.

sloth, technology, insomnia …

it’s an ugly sight to behold .

me: laying in bed, blogging-ing in the dark via my newish Dell Axim (viva tiny wireless card!) at 4am. My back screaming holy curses at my persistent, yet seemingly involuntary, string of laaaaaaate nights spent trapped inside one form of technology or another. I’m miserable for sleep, but I can’t seem to commit. Nothing I’m doing is very important, but I almost feel compelled into dysfunction, even though I am excruciatingly exhausted.

I can’t help but worry about myself. & wonder why I’m posting about this right now instead of sleeping the sleep of the freshly dead.

well, my family isn’t so “little” anymore … but Moby is!

He followed me home from the store on Friday. His big brother & sister lurve him to pieces. Isn’t he the sweetest little brown-nosed thing you done evah saw!!!

warning - ugly pile of self-pity contained within

I fool myself into thinking that I am a much nicer, more calm, organized, understanding, sage of a person.

There are moments when I turn the corner and am faced with the ugly fact that the reality of my insides doesn’t mesh with my highly inaccurate concept of self.

The me that I realize that I now am, is clumsy, forgetful, unintentionally thoughtless, slothful, laid back to the point of intellectual coma, non-confrontational (in rl), insecure, crushed by criticism, hypersensitive, and materialistic.

I’m still organized, but only in jerks and starts, and only because it is a necessity. Without my odd hierarchical obsessive senses of rightness, I couldn’t function at all.

Over the last couple of years, I’ve had to face both some uncomfortable truths about myself, and some things of which I am not proud.

Sometimes I forget that while I may live in a relatively tolerant city, it is still a city in Arkansas, and that Arkansas is in the South, and that the South is renown for its intolerance of homosexshuls.

We are lucky in that our library happens to be one of the most liberal institutions in the state. We’re probably the only public institution that offers same-sex partner benefits, but quietly, so as not to freak out the redneck voters, and definitely the only public institution where our many gay employees can be, and are, comfortable being out. I can’t count the number of women dancing together at our last Christmas party!

When I first came to work here, almost six years ago, I was amazed by both the acceptance & the openness. Having been raised by a lesbian, having spent a great deal of my teenage years embraced by her little corner of the “gay community,” and having been violently gay-bashed numerous times in jr. high, I’d grown not only to prefer the company of homosexuals to heteros, but I developed a sizable chip on my shoulder, on behalf of my “family,” and bristled at the slightest hint of homophobic behavior. “That’s my mama, and my Queen Auntie Don you’re talking about motherfucker!” I gauged whether I’d date or even have friendships with people based on their reaction to me outing myself as a child of the gay community. I still do. I can’t tolerate intolerance!

One of my co-workers, some of you may know her as K., we’ll just call her Jane, for the purpose of this post, put up a wonderful & thorough book display for Gay & Lesbian Pride Month. She covered both fiction and non-fiction, took some recommendations from the Queen High Lesbian: Keeper of the GLBT Book Lists, she created a nice colorful banner, and set it up in the display area at the front of the library (no kicking homosexshuls to the display area in the back of the library.) I was very proud of both the display and of her, as it was her first time, and she was a little nervous.

So imagine the collective disgust when only days after poor Jane put up her display, a complaint was emailed to the head of our library (via the webmaster, who disseminated multiple copies to those of us in the know) - detailing his outraged offense at our audacity for not only displaying such books, but for encouraging, nee SHOVING, the gay lifestyle down the throats of the library public.

What the complainant failed to realize, and really, how could he know, is that the head of our library is a lesbian. *cue raucous laughter* Take that, you stupid bigoted motherfucker.

What follows is his email, which has been edited, of course, to provide anonymity even to stupid bigoted motherfuckers, as per the law in our state.

After you’ve finished screaming at the computer screen, keep scrolling for the amazingly calm, reasonable and professional response from Our Fearless Leader, Xena: Warrior Librarian Head.

All names have been changed to amuse and humiliate both the innocent & the guilty.

Greetings Central Library,
I was extremely disappointed yesterday to see the book display you had set up promoting the homosexual lifestyle. While I would really like to rant and rave about this matter, my guess is that it would be much less enjoyable for you. Discretion would seem then to dictate a different course of expression. In that spirit, I would like to set forth some questions:

* Would the library have had this display twenty-five years ago?
* Assuming the answer is “no,” what has happened to change your policy?
* When did the debate on our culture’s acceptance of homosexuality end?
* Who made the decision that it was over?
* Was it the media? Was it Hollywood? The intelligentsia? The American Psychiatric Association?
* Was it when the word “homophobe” was coined and applied to anyone who disagreed with the view that homosexuality was normal?
* Why does it now seem to be assumed there is no place for a serious discussion of homosexuality and that any attempt to question it stems strictly from intolerance?
* How tolerant of a viewpoint is this?

Thank you for indulging me and thank you even more if you are able to seriously consider these questions. It may sound disingenuous but it is not; I have no ax to grind with people who have chosen a homosexual lifestyle. I obviously disagree with their choice but it is just that, their choice. However, when we as a culture begin promoting such a lifestyle (through displays such as yours), I believe we have crossed a critical line. We are now holding up such a lifestyle up as an alternative to the traditional family. In this regard, homosexuality is as wrong as polygamy, bigamy, incest, inter-marriage, etc., all of these harm humanity by hurting the family. Every word spoken, every dollar of benefits given to homosexual “couples,” every piece of legislation passed endorsing their lifestyle, is ultimately a blow against the family. Civilizations that don’t protect the family don’t last very long.

We seem to have come to the conclusion that civilization’s general repulsion of the homosexual lifestyle throughout the ages is simply a prejudice of the ignorant and unwashed, like the ranting racist or people who are afraid of the internet. I believe this to be a superficial analysis born out of convenience and sentimentality as much as intellectual conviction. While societies past and present have certainly had small-minded, large-mouthed people who opposed the homosexual lifestyle, societies as a whole have rejected it for a greater reason, i.e., the well being of society.

Please reconsider the endorsement you are giving to a destructive lifestyle.

Sincerely,

Adolph McHitler (name changed for privacy)

- - - -

Mr. McHitler,

Thanks for your reasonably stated disagreement with one of our current displays.

Some of the questions you pose may not be ones that I can definitively answer, as they are admittedly still open for debate. Your question about who is responsible for the increased societal acceptance of homosexuality, for example, would be an excellent topic for public debate, and one which I would feel inadequate to answer.

The purpose with any of our displays is not to promote a particular point of view, but rather to promote awareness of materials that may be of interest to a significant number of our patrons. This is not the first year (though I don’t remember for how many years) we’ve created a display of materials on this subject matter to coincide with Gay and Lesbian Pride Month, and past displays have gotten expressions of approval and thanks from people who have used them to select books. I will concede that I don’t think this display would have been made twenty-five years ago, as I think that lack of interest in the subject, and the stigma attached to it, would have made such a display of little use to our patrons.

It is never our assumption with any materials we purchase, let alone display, that no one will object to them. There are many subjects which would have little or no representation at all if we used unanimous public acceptance as a criteria for purchase or display. Among the titles in our collection which have been challenged are books on potty training and diabetes, not to mention a vast array of fiction titles. We present a display every year in conjunction with Banned Books Week in which we display books which have been banned by various entities at various times in history. One of our branches will soon host a pre-release party for the newest entry in the controversial but very popular series of Harry Potter books. In each case, we realize and respect that some members of the public will not wish to read the highlighted books, or may in fact be offended by them. Again, our purpose is not to tell people whether they should agree or disagree with the material in any of our books, but to make available items and programs which will promote reading among all the people in our service area.

We respect your right to disapprove of any materials you find in the library, but hope that this explanation of our motivations will ease your disappointment somewhat.

Sincerely,

Xena: Warrior Librarian,
Head of the Main Library

It surprises me to realize that it’s been almost two weeks since I last posted. To be fair, I have been attempting to keep up with reading, and even occasionally commenting, but even those instances have been few and far between.

I’ve lost all concept of space and time. I’ve been swimming in an alphabet soup of pain and drugs. I’ve barely been able to make it in to work. I’ve tried to do some work from home, but haven’t self-regulated very well. I hate to admit how much I’ve liked being at home - alone - quiet. It almost makes the pain worthwhile. I sometimes forget what a solitary creature I am. Of course, I feel guilt about enjoying the time alone, about not fighting harder against the pain.

On one hand, this disconnection has been good for me. It’s pleasant to allow myself to drift, unfettered by the knowledge of what day it is, what time it is, where I have to be in the next hour, who’s looking over my shoulder, who’s critiquing my odd ways of doing things. It’s pleasurable - reminiscent of a free-fall float in a warm pool in a dim lit room. It’s heady, and dangerous. Because on the other hand, it relieves me of all obligation to the world, and my duties within it. I act without consequence, forget how to think, analyze and reason, and everything around me suffers from my inattention.

When I am home, I can relieve the pain, but it comes at a price, and threatens to keep the circle spinning infinitely into the future.