The Body Pathetic

Cassandra Disque | May 5, 2009

I remember when my body worked. I can feel those memories in me, beneath my skin and in my muscles, buried behind the current, never-ending pain. For some people, it’s their sense of smell, taste, sight, or hearing that are most acute, and therefore, most ingrained in memories. For me, because of my sensitivities, it’s [...]

nowhere to send to

Cassandra Disque | July 27, 2008

Dear you: You caught my eye right away, the very first time I met you. I don’t know why or what it was about you, but something drew me in. That same thing continues to do so. I’ve been thinking about you a great deal. All the general cliches, like the way your eyes light [...]

Chutes and ladders, with more ladders than chutes

Cassandra Disque | April 15, 2008

When most of the people on my flist started reading my journal, I was a fuckup queen. It’s not that I didn’t know what to do with my life — the problem was that I had known what I wanted and then started getting diagnosed left and right with a bunch of chronic conditions and [...]

yup

Cassandra Disque | December 7, 2007

Dear universe, More days like this one, please. Thank you. – A satisfied consumer.

I wish I could let go for him

Cassandra Disque | September 19, 2007

When I was little — real little, less than four-years-old; probably before that, even, probably before my brother was born, but I still remember this — I insisted that I was going to marry my grandfather. I guess you could say he was the first person I fell for, even if it was in that [...]

"The Drag of Gimp"

Since 1996, my life has been a long journey of visiting one doctor after another. I look more or less fine, but I'm not. My daily pill count is like playing the dozens with a hospice patient. One doctor will say I'm doomed, and send me to another for treatment, but the treating doctor will find nothing within his or her area of practice that can be treated.

My life is better than a comedy, better than a drama. Anyone who has done this knows what I mean when I say that you have to not only know the rules, but also play the part in order to be allowed in the game. Most people find what we go through in the medical merry-go-round to be unbelievable, which is why I call it "The Drag of Gimp."


About the author

Cassandra Disque

Extemporaneous flibbertigibbet with bone lumps growing out of my coccyx. I was born in 1981. I was another case of "too much, too young," or at least I wanted to be. Now I'm leaning toward "too little, too late," as my body conks out on me, and I find I haven't done hardly any of the things I wanted. This is supposed to happen to people twice my age, so you might find my perspective on life to be a little unusual -- as in, I find just about everything to be hysterically funny, because there's little use in worrying when it's all going to go kaput.