From the The Universal Household Assistant or What Every One Should Know (1884):

Things to try. — Try popcorn for nausea.    Try cranberries for malaria.    Try a sun-bath for rheumatism.    Try ginger ale for stomach cramps.    Try clam broth for a weak stomach.    Try cranberry poultice for erysipelas.    Try a wet towel to the back of the neck when sleepless.    Try swallowing saliva when troubled with sour stomach.    Try eating fresh radishes and yellow turnips for gravel.    Try eating onions and horseradish to relieve dropsical swellings.    Try buttermilk for removal of freckles, tan, and butternut stains.    Try taking your cod liver oil in tomato catsup, if you want to make it palatable.    Try hard cider -- a wine-glass three times a day -- for ague and rheumatism.    Try taking a nap in the afternoon if you are going to be out late in the evening.    Try breathing the fumes of turpentine or carbolic acid to remove whooping cough.    Try a cloth wrung out from cold water put about the neck at night for sore throat.    Try snuffing powdered borax up the nostrils for catarrhal "cold in the head."    Try walking with your hands behind you if you find yourself becoming bent forward.    Try a silk handkerchief over the face when obliged to go against a cold piercing wind.    Try planting sunflowers in your garden if compelled to live in a malarial district.

When my sister (ellynx) was last in Boston, she took me shopping and bought me an amazing silk dress. I wore it for the first time last night.


( +1 )

My sister was in town this weekend. She arrived Friday, and quite late that evening we went out to Stanza, a cigar bar in the North End. Cigar bars are the only bars in Boston in which the patrons are still allowed to smoke, and there are only three of them. Christian, my brother-in-law, shared his staple brand of cigar with me, which I have already forgotten the name. That matters not, as he said he was planning on sending me more and I'll simply read the labels then.

purpleglitter and I spent much of the Saturday with my sister (ellynx), Christian, and my niece Maddy. At lunch we met Christian's parents, then the five of us sans Christian's folks went for a walk around Boston Commons.

I really adored Maddy. I haven't seen her in several years, and she's now six and much bigger than I remember her. She held my hand most of the time we were together and wow can she talk and talk and talk. She also has boundless energy, as a six year old should, and easily wore me out with her calvinball-style games in the park. She's quite bright and has a keen interest in oceanography, only she is worried about how much oceanlife will still be around when she is an adult. I hope her worries don't come to pass.

Later, my sister and I went shopping in Chinatown. She got me a nice silk dress and a silk robe. I'm very excited about them, and they are currently by far my finest articles of clothing.

My sister is everything I'd like to be. She has had her own share of problems; but she is generous, kind, intelligent, strong, beautiful, and successful. While I share some of those qualities to some extent, she not only embodies them all — she embodies them all with a style, boldness, take-no-shit attitude I could only hope for. My sister is one of the most amazing people I know.

A couple hours ago, purpleglitter noticed a squirrel outside her apartment that while alive was not moving. She called my attention to it, and we decided to try and help it. I attempted to see if it could move, and was able to stroke its back with a piece of cardboard without it running. I used a piece of folded cardboard to try to pick it up. It ran a couple feet then collapsed again. I did end up successfully picking it up and placing it in a box. I called Angell Memorial to see if they could help, but they said they would most likely just euthanize it if we brought it in. So, purpleglitter and I put the squirrel on her back porch along with some water and food and wrapped the squirrel in a silk skirt for warmth. I think it is safer in the box than laying on the ground outside the house. Something would surely have come along in short order to harm it. I have the box set up so that it will be easy for the squirrel to get out, but hard for anyone else to see the squirrel is in there. I hope it is okay, and I will check on it in the morning. An empty box is what I hope to find.

Apparently the crimson silk bathrobe I've been wearing around town is prissy. Who knew?

( fashion meme )

I had a great time yesterday. neodarkling came over for tea. And a wonderful tea we had. pillowkisser cam home in the middle of our tea. With her came posterchild, someone I had never met before. The two of them joined us for tea. I very much enjoyed meeting posterchild. I hope she comes around again sometime. I fully intend to be having many small tea gatherings from now on.

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This afternoon, dan4th surprised me with a visit. We went to the dreaded Saturday-before-Christmas mall. Very entertaining. With my crimson silk bathrobe billowing behind me, I walked with him watching the normals rush for last minute gifts that will probably be returned by people they don't really like. Normals are so entertaining to observe. Scurrying here and there, unaware of the Greater World around them. I swear I'll never figure them out.

Of course, I say this with my own giftgiving endeavor in shambles. However, I will be invoking dan4th's 12 days of Christmas theory, and thusly have until January 6^th to get people presents.

Last Thursday, I went to my 3:00pm evaluation at the Crisis Center at the Lexington Center for Mental Health. We were evaluated by a person name Susan for about half an hour and she determined we were in need of hospitalization. I was okay with that, but made it clear that we did not want to go back to Holy Family. I told them "Anywhere but Holy Family.".

After I had been waiting in the waiting room for quite some time (I don't know exactly how long, time was a blur), Susan came back and told us that she had section 12ed (involuntary committed) us to Holy Family. I told her I wasn't going to go. I asked her to find someplace else. I begged her to find someplace else. She replied that it was too late, I was already section 12ed to Holy Family.

I told her that I wasn't going to back to Holy Family. I started for the door. Susan told me that if I left, she'd have to call the police. I left anyway.

Knowing the police would be coming for me, and that they'd eventually find me, I made my way quickly to the Brooks Pharmacy in a nearby stripmall. At Brooks, I bought 2 bottles of Nyquil, a bottle of sleeping pills, and some candy.

Leaving Brooks, I saw a police car entering the parking lot. I quickly ducked into a clothing store. Pretending to browse behind the racks, I kept an eye on the window. The police car drove slowly by, but didn't see me.

A minute or two later, I peeked out of the store. The police car was still in the lot look in the windows. I quickly and calmly walked in the direction opposite the way the police were heading. I walked into McDonalds and out the other side.

I scurried off into the woods and took the sleeping pills, washing them down with one of the bottles of Nyquil. I also ate a few of the candies.

After the drugs had started taking effect, I decided I wanted to say goodbye to some of those I love. I was in a quite delirious state at the point, and didn't fully realize the risk of capture involved in such an endeavor. I left the woods and walked back to the strip mall. I brought my bag of goodies with me, because I didn't want to litter. I noticed another police car enter the lot, and I quickly ducked back into the McDonalds and sat down at one of the tables.

The police officers spotted me this time. I was pretty unmistakable in my satin and velvet pajamas, silk bathrobe, wild pigtails, and cats eye glasses. I'm sure the officers didn't have much of a problem identifying me at all.

As the police entered, I quickly finished what little was left the bottle of Nyquil, and downed a few stray sleeping pills that had fallen into the bag. Not the wisest move at that point, I admit, but I wasn't thinking very clearly.

The police asked me if I was Karen Luketin. To which I replied truthfully, "No". Our name is Beverly Luketin. I showed them our ID to prove it, holding my thumb over the word "Luketin". I said smugly, "See, my name is Beverly". Of course, the police took the ID, looked at it, and noted that my last name was Luketin. They knew I was who they were looking for.

The preceded to ask me about the pills, about which I was very cryptic. Knowing what I had taken, they called in an ambulance. They told me that they had me on a section 12, and there was nothing I could do.

When the ambulance arrived, the police told the paramedics that they were to wait, that the crisis center was sending it's own ambulance. However, when I collapsed simi-conscious onto the ground, the paramedics said they weren't waiting any longer, and rushed me to the emergency room at Waltham Deaconess Hospital.

The emergency room was a blur. I was plugged up to so many things, I felt like a borg. They fed me much charcoal. Apparently our heart rate went up to 175 while we were unconscious. Throughout the night I drifted in and out of consciousness. I made several delirious phone calls trying to tell people where I was. I kept talking to people, then turning my head to realize no one was there. I was hold and looking at things, only to find my hands were firmly and motionlessly folded on my stomach.

purpleglitter and zarthon tried to visit me around 3am, but the emergency room staff wouldn't let them see me. They were told that they weren't my "real" family, and that they would have to go. I didn't even find out that they had tried to visit until I talked to purpleglitter over the phone the following afternoon.

At some point after that, the emergency room staff decided we were in the clear physically. I was told that we were still going to Holy Family. I was very upset, and started ripping out the monitors and the IV. I told them there was no way I was still going after all that. Four orderlies held me down and I was given an quick injection. I awoke Friday afternoon at Holy Family.

This morning I called around trying to find free (or at least sliding scale) mental health services. I found one in Arlington (after calling around different mental health agencies). I called, and the secretary told me that everyone was in a meeting and they'd call me back.

-----

Around, 1:30, neodarkling came over. I'd met her briefly at the Diesel Café, just long enough for her to comment she liked my shoes and me to give her a wish pod. We found each other online through feline's journal.

Apparently she and I have some similar tastes in music. She is also one of the few people I have met outside of Columbia, MO that has heard of Odor of Pears.

Nothing like romping through the forest in crimson satin pajamas and a wonderfully flowing matching silk bathrobe! We went to the Great Meadow, only to find the path to the stepping stones was flooded. Without getting to the stepping stones, there is no way cross the Bog of Eternal Stench and get to the Magik Pond.

We walked around the accessible area of the Great Meadow for a while than headed back to my house. I was very very talkative today. Talk talk talk! I just couldn't shut up. Recanting past adventures.

Upon arriving back home, she left. Right before she left, I told her, "There's something important I don't know about you: your name". She mentioned she didn't know my name either. It was something that had simply never came up. Neither of us had ever asked. We then traded names in a introduction-type fassion

-----

I noticed that the Arlington Mental Health Clinic had never called me back, so I called them. The secretary said that the person who makes the initial calls was making her calls right then. About two minutes later, I got the call. Things went well at first. But towards the end of the conversation, I wasn't so sure I really wanted to deal with these people. I asked if anyone there had any training or experience with multiples. She answered "no." I explained that I wasn't sure if I wanted to let someone who didn't know what they were doing mess with our delicate balance. She told me, very snidely, that I could wait until I get MassHealth and try to find a better place. She told me that she would call me back later tonight, to see if I had made a decision as to if I really wanted help.

We've had mental health people who don't know how to deal with multiples simply make things worse. And, I don't think it would be helpful to see such a person. I was stressed out and went to bed.

Around 7:00 I woke up. purpleglitter suggested to me that I should ask them to help with issues like eating problems and cutting, and to leave everything else alone. At first this sounded like a great idea. And almost immediately after her suggestion, the person from the clinic called back. I asked her if that was possible. She answered that I could make such a request to whatever therapist I ended up being assigned to. I went ahead and made an appointment with intake Tuesday morning, and I should be able to start therapy within a couple weeks.

After the phone call, I realized that the eating problems and the cutting are tied into multiplicity issues. There's no real way to separate them. So, trying to deal with one exclusively seems like a futile prospect. That leads us back to the inept therapist screwing up what balance and stability we have left. I can't risk it. It's just not worth it.

While I find the nude body beautiful, I fail to find it "sexy". I don't know why, but nudity just doesn't have that spark for me. I find that people are often sexy when they are clothed. I really like how clothing works with the body. When I fantasize it almost always includes clothed people. I don't know how many other people feel this way. It seems that American culture is obsessed with the idea that "nude = erotic". I guess the link is probably drawn because nudity makes sexual stimulation easier to accomplish, but I don't think eroticism finds it's truest form in stimulation. I think eroticism is more in the longing to twist together with another one in unbridled desire. I believe it is about setting. I believe clothing only adds to the setting. Velvet and silk only add to sensations of touch. For me, clothing that complements the form, adds to it, is the most erotic of all. It tantalizes the eyes to explore and devour what is before them.