It's as if I am 22 all over again. I am at Denny's at almost 2 am . I miss Julian my partner in crime in after hours chats and excessive coffee consumption. So what led me on this trip down memory lane?!
 It all started with the car...
 Being a semi responsible Sagitarius I was checking my gauges off and on. All Good. So I was free to sing along to the likes of Adam Lambert and the Sisters of Mercy. ( Hey! I have eclectic tastes) . Then I looked down again and all of a sudden it's running hot past the red "H" mark. The warning end of the gauge, oh no...
 Being a woman alone in the desert wasn't a fun thought. This happens in a random section of the desert that was apparently abandoned by the God's.
 I pull off where there is nothing but a dirt road and a stick street name marker.
 I got a cell phone call out to my Dad. " Is it this , Is it that?! "
" Let the engine cool"
Lots of back and forth.
" Ok the engine is cooler, try it now.."
 I made it a few inches up the highway before it runs hot again. Cussing and rolling my eyes I pull over.  I'm in a curve of the road where I can't help thinking any truck will side swipe me at any time. So I nervously let the car rest again. I tried to get up to an exit so when I call AAA I can give them a stab at a possible location.. there was no exit in sight. The gauge was dancing past the "H" again.
 It took 4 calls to AAA for my location to even be verified as Google was giving them different areas. Finally got a driver who knew where I was in the dead airy desert stretch between exits. Almost 2 hours later , I am sweating and smelling like a dead animal holding my bladder and trying to write poetry to distract myself.  I have mentally adandoned my plans at this point. Disappointed and aggravated.
 A big burly AAA Driver guy shows up.  He is not quite friendly but certainly looks capable after all he can drive that huge tow truck. I cracked a few jokes and he melted like butter on summer pavement. We discuss the options , The garage will be useless no mechanics past 3, only "The tire guys" are there...  This stops me , no point in trying to get it looked it with no one there. He confirms it's the weekend and no one will be in til Monday. So he double checks my fluids , finds the coolant to be empty by then. Luckily I had enough left over coolant and waters ( Thank you Dasani!) to fill it . So he said he'd follow me for a few exits to check on me and he'll keep going unless I pull over..
 So I could be chicken and go back home or say to heck with it and go on into the desert. Well I was in the middle area really either way I would have been at risk to some degree. A smart person may have said " That's it I am going home". Being the stubborn rebel that I am ... Once the coolant took residence I dumped my inner chicken and beamed for Joshua Tree.
 I have been blessed with kind and talented friends. Enough motive to drive with crossed fingers and more dance music bouncing on into the desert. & Seeing talented musicians all night. Quality time with special people, can't replace these memories.
 In the chaos my hotel room gets taken away and rented out to another. Lovely....
This is where the Denny's came in. It was so dark I could not see the roads well and after a few attempts and getting " No Vacancy " chatting with the waitress and writing some poetry sounded good. Hitting a blank at first this is what I wrote.. what you are reading now. Having eaten nothing but pork rinds and rock star drinks all day I picked up a menu. Another Rock star drink and I'd have a heart attack I was quite sure. At this point I wanted buckets of water, just non stop ice water. ( I am now wearing this in my face!) With a stomach full of fried dead pigs skin and grape flavored energy drinks I never thought ice water would taste so good.
 I was dropping, maybe I could curl up in a back booth and no one will notice . A cat nap could be in order, that wasn't going to happen. Summer has not been kind to me... Health stuff, $$ stuff, you name it stuff... The lack of plumbing in the past week wasn't ideal, I didn't dare take water pills.... and all that water was in the front of me the entire trip like an H20 baby waiting to be born. My stomach stuck into the steering wheel and wouldn't fit behind the table at the fixed booths at Denny's.. Ugh. I wanted to call upon the " Cindy Crawford Genes Fairy" that night to easily fit in a booth and nap. It just wasn't in the cards.
 I wondered how long I'd last napping on my purse before I would slip and fall face down on the newly mopped floor.
 After the chaos, and bacon! & all the bumps in the roads.. I finally found a hotel room in the sunrise of morning and immediately showered.
 My sincere apologies to anyone I hugged the night before. In my affections I mostl likely forgot I smelled like a dead monkey by that point! ( But hey at least you are appreciated!) I had all the girlie stuff packed , hair conditioner, nail polish , make up , rose scented skin cream , a change of clothing, it remained in the trunk as I made the first show by 15 minutes. Whew! I was thrilled not to miss a thing! But yeah.. instead of being comfortable and looking like a normal showered and rested person my hair was all windows down desert dry blown out  = thyroid stylin' , chipped nail polish with car grease under my fingernails.. it was just bad.. I felt like the sewer dropped me off. Ha!
 Such an adventure. Not all a toss , someone thought I was only 27!  (  They're possibly having been drunk is of no consequence ,  I am still taking the misguided compliment!! LOL ). 
 Almost $800 later.. my car gets fixed and looked at... I am rolling my eyes. I take it for a bit of a drive to "test" it... still going up and down.. gauge was enough to concern me. At this point I was expecting more chaos, had my eyes squinting..  I had to get it checked again before I left in the morning.
 That night my sinus' decided to gift me with a massive presssure & headache. I could barely sleep , being an insomniac also and yeah the energy drinks were making things worse. ( No one ever accused me of being bright!).  I could have had some quality sleep by morning hours , but I had to get the car looked at and wanted to beat the heat if I was indeed going home. There was a new set of mechanics there, I had less confidence in these fellows. I did not want to wait til 3pm and then head back in the heat of the day. I checked my fluids and braved it...
 The gauge was still giving me back and forth... but I made it and blared Concrete Blonde most of the way!  The highlight of my trip home was getting flipped off for driving too slow. Hey ,  I have my talents..... #Joshuatree #roadtrip #dennys #writing #writers #trips #cartrouble

  My first gynocologist appointment in years and I noted her glances at my generous proportions. Her curl of lip tipping me off to how much I was offendeding her .  She claimed weight loss surgery would cure me. There is no cure , only maintenence and I am not trying to conceive. However I am sure the kickback she would have gotten would have been nice for her. I find office visits these days to be no more than a sales pitch.  I don't care for suggestions of major surgeries on first visits. 
Onto the follow up visit : I got weighed , lost 3lbs . Meaningless to me as I only have 224 pounds more to go and the road seems too long. A pretty brunette takes my blood pressure and looks surprised that it is good. Sorry to disappoint, but I do understand that I am perhaps not the "norm".  I let her take the cuff off and glance at her ideal figure and wonder what it's like to be considered "normal" by the masses.  She drops me off down the hall.
I found myself sitting in the white room where one often checks their watch every few seconds wondering when it will be all over with. I fiddle with my cell phone. Try to read but I can't concentrate. I attempt meditation which only turns into a brain salad of a laundry list of everything I have done wrong since birth. Mirroring the same inner dialogue I get before I attempt sleep at night.
 After what seemed like an entire algebra class length of time she entered. The blood work results in her tiny hands , she sat in her coral chiffon dress and said " It shows signs of PCOS". The sarcasm hung on my lips like an anvil.... yet I almost spilled " Tell me something I don't know" . Then she ventured peri menopause and maybe menopause in the following 6 months to two years... and there was something not resonating. PCOS can mimic peri menopause, I have felt like this since my teens. Granted the hormones seem to be on an upswing with an overly emotional anxiety monster at my door lately . But honestly I felt as if I were getting diagnosed by the check out clerk at the packie. When she made a veiled stab on her way out about my weight and "assumed" appetite I mentally fired her alongside my subtle shock.
 I read online that menopause was classified as 12 months or more of an absence of periods. If that is the case I had menopause about 12 years ago , now I am spotting almost every day. I moved across country and my cycle stopped for 3 years or so. It came back with a vengeance.
 So at that point I was jus thinking why do I not trust my own intuition?! I figured it was the PCOS. Symptoms got worse , they crawled back into the horrid box of my teens. Hadn't felt that bad in years. I was vomiting , sleeping off and on ( when I could get to sleep) with a bucket by the bed. Extreme depression, my body felt "lit" like some neon hormone was pulsating through my veins, my legs felt numb,  anxiety , nausea , my groin was heavy with some unknown weight. A heat on my nether regions. Miraculously only mild cramping and an occasional ice pick poke on my ovaries. All this was going on alongside life's little catastrophes and apparently my cure was assumed to be bariatric surgery. Because becoming thin and visually pleasing overrides acid in your stomach any day.
  My body is so broken by this endocrine disorder now I don' t know if I can tweak it. I am admittedly exhausted by the whole thing.  No longer a PCOS warrior I have drifted into a "PCOS Eeyore". The diseases are out there with weight we all hear it :  Cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, joint pain, cancer... the list can seem endless. And fat people are often treated as if this will be their chosen feat by way of endless bags of Doritos. I think the main thing that causes the weight = disease relation is that many of us DO NOT GO TO THE DOCTOR due to the judgments , ill treatments and pointless conversations. If people stop going to get checked out then yeah cancer is more likely not to get caught in time. Medical professionals can't figure this out?! Hiding from the outside world and its  poking and prodding. Fat people are not morally corrupt because they aren't thin. Anyone can get sick at any point in their lives the smart ones know this time bomb is hanging overhead. We are all on borrowed time. For some reason the fat ones deserve it in some peoples eyes... As long as the stereotypes keep going strong there will be lousy medical care for us , and places we do not feel comfortable. It is time to "bitch".
#PCOS #pcosawareness #hormones #Perimenopause #weightissues #sizeactvism #weightissues #doctorsvisits #fat #plussized #plussizeblogger #blogging #writing #BBW

Untitled , 90's era poem. By Cyni Poeti.

Under your abscence
You always assumed my glow was left behind in your pocket
In your drama I fell under your knife
The blade cuts so sweetly
Under the barren trees lay my bones
Remnants of your ego and frozen emotion
You have eaten me
My flesh and soul made you sparkle with promises
I just walked away with a razor blade down my veins
Standing on the edge of a pin
Holding the jar of everything and nothing in mangled hands
The blood now spatters around my timeless carousel