I took these pictures at the Oct. 5 OWS march to Zuccotti Park in New York. Then my dear friend Dean set them to my song, My Life of Crime, which I wrote about ten years ago when I was so ill but had no health insurance.

I would get tests,… Read full post »

OK, I've been waiting to write about this because I didn't know if it was gonna stick. But it has, and so here is the announcement: I quit smoking. As of March 22, 2011, I have been a non-smoker, although I do confess, I have been seen occasionally slipping behind a…

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Lady Gaga is everywhere. When I scan the channels there she is--in yet another interview, another video, another performance, another commercial. And I admit, I can't get enough of it.

But while I'm enjoying the ride, there's a lingering malaise that's sitting in the pit of my stomach like an…

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I had a strange dream last night in which glaciers were beginning to form all around New York and I could see the ice getting higher and higher, climbing ever closer to my apartment window, which meant that I'd soon be encased in ice. I knew that my car was parked…

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When I first started this blog over two years ago, the biggest issue I grappled with, other than the chronic pain, was whether or not God existed. My suffering was so great that my vision of the world became incredibly narrow, and it seemed that all I saw was suffering all…

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For my birthday last week, my dear friend Janet gave me the book The Power, which is the much-anticipated follow-up to the bestseller The Secret by Rhonda Byrne.

Even though I never read The Secret, a number of years ago, Janet and I were big fans of the Law of Attraction (LOA)… Read full post »

When the bad days erupt, they can feel like a slow controlled explosion, with each passing hour feeling worse than the one that just came before.

This past week, I’ve been trying to reduce my morphine dose, as I'm seeing a new holistic doctor in New York City, who has put me… Read full post »

I'd forgotten how dazzling, exciting and soothing daily journal writing can be.

After the holidays had ended, I was feeling such a terrible void, which isn't that unusual, I suppose, at this time of year, but the whole season seemed to have a void to it, despite how busy I was.…

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Make no mistake—no matter how much one thinks he or she has accepted being in a state of chronic pain, the bad days cause reflection on those that were better, before the unacceptable occurred and we were unalterably changed forever. 

And it’s on those days that I realize that at… Read full post »

I recently saw a 2009 interview with the stunningly talented pop sensation Lady Gaga and was aghast, not only because of her genius and creativity, but because this poised, wise, already-an-icon diva is just 23 years old, basically at the beginning stages of her career, with something like 15 million… Read full post »

It's been so long since I’ve made an entry. In re-reading my last post, it's inspiring to report that my apparent acceptance of this chronic pain has had a lasting effect, one that has produced a stretch of creativity I haven't had in years.

My new apartment is exploding in colors,…

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I had a big insight.

There I was on Thursday, experiencing one of the worst pain days I've had since this whole ordeal began six years ago. Absolutely nothing I did worked to ease the burning and aching in my face, so I did the only thing that I knew for sure… Read full post »

HELP!!! I'M DYING FOR A CIGARETTE!!! I'm having an operation next week, and in order to not develop complications, I must stop smoking and drinking TODAY. ACK! This is worse than when I got my nose pierced last week! This is worse than that time I screwed up my haircut and… Read full post »

I haven’t written since mid-December, which means a whole winter has passed yet again. I haven’t been lazy, though, even though I can so often define myself that way.

My cat became deathly ill in late December to the tune of $3,000, and then a sudden twist of fate (the…

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I've always been the fix-it gal. Since an early age, I thought that if I just said the right thing, did the right thing, talked and walked the right way, then I could control the people around me. Growing up, obviously the first two people I tried to fix were my parents.… Read full post »

Today the pain is relentless and over the top. I just got off the phone with my friend Anne and I was sobbing. I said the truth that I've been thinking of for awhile now, which is that I don't want to live this way anymore. It's not that I don't…

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In my last post, I said that if all things really are relative, then the truths I learned about emotional health during my years in therapy should at least have some application to healing my physical state, which is one of chronic pain.

So I decided to do a five-day diet of…

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While shaving my head a few minutes ago (when's the last time you heard a woman say that?), I thought about my old therapist, for some reason. A couple of months ago, her daughter had called to tell me that she'd finally passed away of Alzheimer's.

I was a patient of this…

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Ever since I can remember, I've always questioned the meaning of life, even as a teenager, which back then made me think that I was insane...seriously. While all of my friends seemed to go about the daily business of boys, school, skin issues and just general life, I always had a…

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It would seem impossible that I could live a life without painkillers at this moment. This morning was a bad one that required one morphine pill, a Xanax and three Vicodins to get the pain to a somewhat bearable level, but I can no longer stand what these medications are doing… Read full post »

I'm a loser
The Lotto ticket says
I'm a bruiser
Veins are running red
Like a river
Flowing to the sea of redemption
Flowing back to me

I'm a bleeder
The gurney and the lights
I'm a cheater
Saved again in spite
Of the sorrow
Tears are running red
Like a river
Flowing from my head

And I say...
Strike up another number… Read full post »

Well, Open Salon has done it again. In my darkest hour, I poured my heart out in a post, feeling somewhat guilty for expressing such a bleak mood concerning the bleak circumstances of my life, yet instead of chastisement (which at this stage of my life I still fear), OSers opened…

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I've so had it. I try to stay positive, try to be hopeful, try to think of the bigger picture, but in all honesty, today I'm fed up.

I haven't written here in awhile simply because of the malaise of chronic pain. I actually had a decent summer pain-wise, and after my… Read full post »

Make no mistake, I'm experiencing the mother of all boredom attacks.

I can't remember when my life has felt this dull. With all the things I love to do--write, paint, make music, dance, bike--you'd think something would catch my interest. But nope. I got nuthin'. I don't even feel like watching TV… Read full post »