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Another Rerun...

Breakfast at Gigi's: The Early Years
Take Two

Day 93 in Detroit. Body still intact.

While my new home is somewhere in downtown Detroit, my family still holds court on the West Coast. Once a week or so my mother and I play phone tag until we eventually end up catching one another. It usually goes something like this:

"Gigi, this is your mother! Pick up the phone! I know you're there!" That all said to my voice mail.

Mom still hasn't grasped the concept of modern technology and insists that I'm just being a bad daughter by listening to her plead with my "answering machine" and not picking up. I've explained over and over that I cannot hear her leaving messages for me. Yeah, ok, so I can see her name pop up on my phone when she calls, and one could argue that by not answering, I was technically dodging her calls... But that person would be a jerk. And obviously doesn't have a mother.

Don't get me wrong, I love my mother terribly! I always enjoy our weekly chats and usually end up in tears from laughing so hard when we talk. My mom is funny! I'm not so sure that she works at it, like a stand up comedian, but rather, mom's innate funniness comes from a place that can't be honed. You either have it or you don't. Mom has it. And with age, she just gets funnier. I know that she suspects that sometimes I'm laughing at her and not with her, and she's probably right, but mom has a great sense of humor and can roll with the punches. She's not so high and mighty that she can't laugh at herself. Thank god!

So last night, mom and I had our weekly chat and she didn't fail to amuse me. The rundown this week:

1. My brother had a tragic accident with a skill saw and is now living with a height challenged thumb. Admittedly, not funny on the surface, but come on... I can now call him Stumpy! And that's funny.

2. Mom's computer "has come down with a terrible virus"- her words. She told me in a manner that you might whisper to your girlfriend, "I hear Marge has come down with the Alzheimer's". I could almost imagine her shaking her head in serious consternation over the whole downfall of modern technology. When I asked her what virus her computer had (yeah, like I would know?) she gravely told me that it had Spyware. I audibly gasped, but really only for affect, since I don't really know what that is. I suspect that it's something that most computers become afflicted with at some time or another but didn't know that it was deadly.

Sadly, due to the critical state of her computer, mom wasn't able to see the cool pictures that I sent her of the crackhouse across the street from my apartment. I was wondering why I hadn't heard back from her. I figured those pictures would have warranted a "stop what you're doing, drop everything and buy your daughter a one way ticket back to California" kind of response. I was beginning to think that she didn't care. But it turns out that the Spyware disease just ate the pictures. Asshole! I was really looking forward to mom's opinion of the crackhouse. Well, this just buys me time to scoot down to the end of my street and take pictures of the hookers sporting their new spring fashions. Those will make a lovely addition to my crackhouse retrospective. That should really get mom's heart beating!

P.S. Mom, if you're reading this, you know I love you! And I hope that you're laughing!

A Rerun

Since I don't seem to have any time to write new posts I've decided to run some old posts that I'm fond of. This is the very first post I ever wrote:

March 2004

A friend of mine suggested keeping a log of how many days I could go without getting stabbed and/or shot. So far, I'm happy to report, I have experienced neither offense to my person. My mother is happy about that as well.

A BRIEF SYNOPSIS OF MY FIRST WEEK IN MOTOWN

Day 1- Arrived at Detroit International Airport to find snow on the ground. Giddy with excitement, I couldn't wait to see urban squalor! I'm a writer, by trade, and a novelist, in my dreams, and thought that Detroit would provide me with life experience that I just couldn't find living in the posh stuccoed suburb of LA that I had surreptitiously escaped. Unfortunately, it was dark when my plane landed and so all I was able to see was the world's largest tire (Detroit-Motor City) on my way into the city. Downtown Detroit. My new home.

Day 2- Find apartment. Attempt to blend in. Ha! Amazing I wasn't car jacked my first full day here.

Day 3- Found dingy basement apartment smaller than my bathroom back home. Went to fabric store in attempt to "liven up the place". Bought Martha Stewart like fabric for curtains, briefly forgetting that I didn't know how to sew and that I didn't like Martha Stewart. Detroit scared me into discovering roots in my Anglo Saxon ancestors. Didn't know that I was part of Martha's bloodline. Already learning new things about myself.

Day 4- Discovered new apartment was conveniently located next to dumpsters of Greek restaurant near my building. Brilliantly deduced this when a cockroach the size of Michigan found a home on my brand new pillow case (perfectly matching my Martha curtains that still were yet to be made). Maybe I'm not cut out for Detroit. Don't like sun, but don't like cockroaches more. And WHY was I now sleeping on sheets inspired by Martha? Lack of sunshine getting to brain.

Day 5- Told landlord to find a new tenant for his basement rat hole. He actually seemed sad to see me go. Probably suspected that my rent checks wouldn't bounce. Ha! Detroit-1, Gigi- 1.

Day 6- Find beautiful flat in a desolate part of town. Only $800 a month and 5 times as big as basement rat hole. Oozing with charm... and a highly suspicious stain on the floor directly inside the front door. Oozing of blood, too? I envision a "caller" with a weapon and a resident with a bullet hole (or three) lying on my beautiful wooden floors, life bleeding out where I now stand to remove my snow boots. Buy rug to hide stain. Take up martini habit to forget stain's existence.

Day 7- Hear first round of gunshots. Hit floor. Miss sunshine. Contemplate moving home and becoming banker or computer programmer.

A Coffee Break

The boy is sleeping and I'm drinking coffee, so for the moment, all is well in the world. Actually, life is great when Archie is awake, but I just can't get anything done. You should have seen my house before I blew through it like a cleaning tornado last night. I think that the mess could be blamed (in equal parts) on the fact that Bruno was out of town for 3 days, my thrill-a-minute depression and the little boy who has taken permanent residence in our home. He's not all that messy but he doesn't leave me with much time to clean up my own slovenly messes. Hence, a house that looks like squatters have moved in. All that's missing are the hypodermic needles littering the floor. And the Colt 45 bottles...

I'm actually feeling a little bit better than I was last week. A big component of my depression is the fact that I weigh more than I've ever weighed in my life. I ate everything in site while I was pregnant and now I'm paying for it. It's hard to look at yourself in the mirror or see your double chin in pictures and not want to hide from the world. But I've known all along that I wasn't going to sit by idly while my waistline continued to expand. I just needed to hear the all clear from my doctor before I could begin working out again. Unfortunately, once I had her permission I no longer had the drive to work out because I was feeling too blue. I've worked through this though and made two very important steps this week: I began taking yoga with Archie and I went to Curves to find out information about signing up. Once I get my next paycheck (yes, I'm back to my old job- don't ask) then I will be a woman of action. Finally.

On the subject of yoga... what a difference it makes to get your body in motion. It was so hard for me to get my butt there but I'm so happy that I did. Archie really enjoyed himself for the first half hour, which had me in stitches. The class is set up so that the yoga alternates between moms and babies. When it's time for the babies to do yoga the moms are supposed to ask the babies if they want to do yoga. It's so funny! So I asked Archie if he wanted to do yoga and he didn't scream so I took that as a sign of consent. He giggled through the entire thing, which of course had me giggling. I actually started crying because he was so cute and having so much fun. But then the fun ended when he quickly decided that he was over yoga, so I spent the second half of the class trying to keep him quiet. Somehow though, I ended up extremely sore the next day even though I don't really recall getting much of a workout.

Anyhow, I know that I said that I wouldn't post pictures of my little boy, but I have to. I don't think that anyone will be able to identify him on the street. He's not famous or anything.... yet.... So, here's some extreme cuteness to melt your heart and set your ovaries into overdrive. I dare you to resist the urge to reproduce! I dare you...

Wherever You Go, There You Are

This past month is the longest that I've ever been away from my blog. I tend to hibernate when I'm not feeling all that grand emotionally, and so I guess that you could say that I've been in a cave without internet access lately. It's been a rough time here and I haven't really wanted to talk about it. Until now.

First, let me say that my depression (because that's really what it is) has nothing to do with the baby. He's fabulous and every day is a joy with him. He's actually the bright spot in an otherwise dark time and I'm so happy for the respite that he provides.

I guess that the best way to describe what has happened is that I've been blindsided by emotions and feelings that I thought had been laid to rest. What an interesting phrase to use, "laid to rest", because this has so much to do with the death of my father.

As you may know, my father took his own life in 2001, just a month after 9/11. His suicide was a complete and utter shock to me and rocked me to my very core. I sunk into such a deep depression that I never thought that I would be able to pull myself out of it. But two years later I did. And I thought that the reason that I was able to move on was that I had finally made some kind of peace with the whole situation. I thought that I had processed it and could put it behind me. I was wrong.

Let me go back just a little bit and tell you that my father's death was not the first suicide in my life. Nearly a decade before I had lost both a dear friend and my stepbrother to suicide. Their deaths occurred less than a year apart and were the first time that I had lost someone close to me. And I lost them both so close together.

After my father's death I became terrified of everything. On the day that I learned of his death I was saddled with an anxiety disorder that has never fully gone away. People have said that since I met Bruno my whole demeanor has become much more relaxed, but the truth is that I'm still always filled with some degree of fear or dread on any given day. It's as if any moment the whole world can fall out from under me. I live with that fear and sometimes it's more intense than others.

This anxiety has permeated every aspect of my life. Where I was once a vibrant social being I've morphed into a quiet and reserved wallflower. I used to walk into a room and command attention. Now I pray that no one looks too closely at me. I once had confidence in who I was and now I second-guess every decision that I make and every desire that I have. Somehow I've come to believe that I'm always in the wrong. That my needs aren't as important as other people's needs and that I'm taking up other people’s valuable time. I don't believe in myself anymore. And worse, I don't feel that I can share my feelings with others because I might hurt them.

And then they might take their own life.

This may sound egotistical to you. It sounds completely ridiculous to me too, except that it's the truth of how I feel. I'm terrified of hurting others or even "rocking the boat" because the results could be earth shattering. I feel this way because the last interaction that I had with my father was over a letter that I sent him. This letter told him how much he had hurt me by not standing up for me when I needed him most. I was harsh. I didn't mince words. I wanted to shock him and to force him into some kind of reaction. He was so flat in real life that I had to cut deep to elicited any kind of response from him. But I didn't intend to hurt him. I just wanted to make it so that he had to apologize because he was human and what human could read this letter without feeling anything? And I was his daughter. Didn't that mean anything? Didn't he feel anything for his little girl?

I never heard from my father after I sent the letter. I did however hear from my stepmother. She called to tell me that I had hurt my father very badly and owed him an apology. I never apologized. We never spoke again. Then he killed himself. To be fair, he didn't die immediately after I sent the letter. It was actually 3 years later. But I've never been able to shake the thought that I had something to do with his death. I hurt him and he couldn’t live with himself anymore. Jesus Christ. Do you know how much that hurts me?

So anyhow, all of this background is to show you where I've been in my head, off and on, for the past 5 years. Some days it's worse than others and up until recently it hasn't been too bad at all. But then I had a phone call on Thanksgiving weekend that brought the horror right back into full reality. Someone very close to me had disappeared and we suspected that it wasn't going to end well. I actually spent an entire day thinking that this person was already dead. That he had taken his own life. And I wasn't far off.

When he did turn up it was in a hospital on suicide watch. He had come very close. So close that I can't sleep at night anymore. And when I do sleep my dreams are filled with horrible nightmares that leave me panting for air and drenched in sweat. And I just want to crawl into a cave and sleep for the next millennium. Because if I'm sleeping then I can't get bad phone calls and no one can die and my life can't get turned upside down. Again.

That's where I've been for the past month. Terrified to answer the phone because the news on the other end could be too horrible to comprehend. And sad. Terribly sad. And angry that I live with this fear that feels like it will never go away. And afraid to share my feelings with anyone because the consequences are so uncertain that I can't take the risk.

So, after a two-year break from antidepressants, I'm back on the happy pills and waiting for the bliss to kick in. So far, nothing.