How long have I been here?

It’s hard to keep the days straight around here. This truly is Hotel California. Speaking of, the real Hotel California is near here. It is an insane asylum in the desert. People don’t leave because there is no where to go but desert. Normally, I would call something like that a mental facility or something like that, but it really looks more like a place to get people out of the way rather than a treatment center. Not that where I am is really an asylum, but it is hard not to feel a little like I am locked up since I am under more strict controls that I ever have been. Last night I got yelled at a little for going to the bathroom without finding a staff member to come with me, and I had to really work it to find a time to take a shower when I wasn’t on observation. I should probably go outside more often, but I’ve been spending most of my free time lying on the heating pad. I’ve been asking for Tylenol, which helps my back. It was hard to sleep last night because of the backache and I had a bad headache too. This morning the headache is better but I am bloated. One of the staff talked to me about how to pick my meals to reduce the bloating. I don’t want to eat meat, but some of the meat substitutes are not sitting well with me. The fruit here is really good but the rest of the food I really don’t want any part of. We are supposed to drink two glasses of water or a glass of water and tea (except lunch is just water) with each meal and snack. Even that is hard because of the bloating and because I don’t want to have to pee and go through the whole thing of getting someone to go with me. I’m pretty fixated on how I feel physically because it is hard to ignore right now.

I am also taken with a panic of what I am missing while I’m here. Last night my co-ed hockey team had a play-off game, and my women’s hockey team played my bestie’s team on Friday night. They started their season three weeks ago and I won’t be able to come back for at least a month. I cried last night because I was so upset I couldn’t be there. I am worried about my pets and that my husband will stop loving me. I’ve been super-crabby lately and I worry he will decide he is happier without me. I felt like I was withdrawing from people for the last year, and I’m not sure if I will be able to come back into a social life, or heal enough to do that, or if I do, if my friends will let me.

This morning I noticed two references to lightning rods. I was reading the music review section in the Los Angeles Time. Amanda Shires album “Down Fell the Doves” is on Lightning Rod Records, and a review for Public Image Ltd.’s first album “First Issue” says:

“The primal scream of the post-punk era, John Lydon’s first post-Sex Pistols project is, in retrospect, as influential as his work as a lightning rod punk singer in a cartoon shock-punk band.”