Downtowne Coffee
12oz Coffee (that's right - just mutherfuckin' coffee)
Everything bagel with cream cheese
First, let me give a shout-out to Gene Burnett. He is the talented singer-songwriter currently serenading us with his guitar. The main reason I want to take a moment to mention him is because of the little postcard/flyer thingy left around the coffeehouse. There's a little write-up on the back explaining that he is giving his music away for free. He doesn't want to be rich and famous, he just wants to make music and be happy. He says he is making more money now giving his music away online and with a digital tip jar than he made selling his music. As he puts it on his little postcard, "I only want to do what feels most deeply right and this is it." So there you go, people: GeneBurnett.com. It's a good ethos and happens to be good music.
I didn't have a particular tie-in in mind when I decided to include that little shout out, but then the cynical thought hit me, "I wonder if he got his postcards done by VistaPrint." And I remembered that watch too much TV. And that does tie-in to this article/bloggy thingy: my boys watch too much damn TV. And that's my fault. How do I know they watch too much? Let me relate a little skill little Henry has picked up.
A little while ago, I was walking with the boys, and Henry started pointing at a car and repeating, "Gopher fur!" He repeated it, deliberately, several times, but I couldn't figure out what he was talking about. He has come a long way with his speech but it's still often hard to understand him. I think I said something like, "Yes, honey, it's a car." I think he repeated back, "Car," and then, "Gopher fur!" again.
Later on at home, at the end of a Ford commercial, Henry deliberately restated the words, "Gopher fur!" to the TV. The tag line on the Ford commercial - "Go further." Oh. Not "gopher fur" - "go further." I thought it was cute and little advanced that he had recognized the Ford logo on the car and had been able to connect it to the tag line from the commercial. I think he had just turned three, after all. I also thought, "too much TV." But Henry's prowess was not limited to Fords.
Soon, I began to recognize, whenever he saw the car on the street... "Toyota: Let's go places," and, "Su-ba-woo" (Subaru), and my favorite - as voiced by Henry's namesake, Henry Rollins - "Infinity: Inspired performance," which Henry pronounces as, "Spider formance." He also says, "Akira," for Acura, which I know will make some of my anime-loving friends smile.
So, while all of this is cute and speaks highly of Henry's intellect, it also speaks of my bad habit of leaving the TV on too damn much.
It is amazing what the boys absorb. They can see something once and be repeating it later that night. Or they can see or hear something a thousand times and not seem to take it in at all (like, "It's time to put the toys away!"). They seem not to, anyway. But I'm certain now that everything is sticking - and that really worries me. I am shocked that I have not yet heard the words, "erectile dysfunction," from either of them. I am sure they don't understand what it means, because right now all they can associate it with is a lot of slow-motion shots of smiling middle-aged couples playing sports and laughing and dancing slow with their foreheads together. Not very interesting to them now, but the words are in there, I have no doubt.
The hardest part about this revelation that they're getting too much screen time is that I have done very little to amend that. In fact, there are a lot of things I do as a parent that I really wish I did not. It's like trying to lose weight: you know what you ought to be doing (eating your greens, getting some exercise) but you somehow can't seem to get yourself to do it. And that's depressing. It is for me, anyway... although, to be fair, depression is kinda what I do.
I don't get them enough exercise, their diet is wanting, I'm not consistent with their daily schedule... but much worse than all that, I yell too much and I've really taken to the swearing. The other day, as I was hanging up the phone, instead of the usual, "Bye-bye, Daddy," from the backseat, I heard, "Bye-bye, motherfucker." Yes, I laughed. And then I tried to explain that that is one of Mommy's mad words (though I think he probably got it from Daddy) and that he shouldn't use it. Mommy shouldn't use it, either (not all the time, anyway), and she's trying not to. She's trying to stop talking in the third-person, too.
Henry and I have been talking a lot about our feelings. When we're mad, especially. We acknowledge whatever it is we're feeling - like disappointment at having to leave the playground, or frustration when he's shrieking an inch from my ear (I have gone partially deaf for short periods of time) - and we try to take a breath and let those feelings be and redirect ourselves. Oliver has his moments, too, but Henry is more like me. He's sensitive and seems to feel everything a little deeper and a little longer.
I've talked before about dealing with mental health stuff. A few months ago, I began a group therapy class. I word it that way, specifically, because it wasn't really a "processing" group where you go around and hash out all your baggage. It was a class and it just finished last week. We learned about Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, or ACT. You may or may not have heard of it before. The heart of it, as the name implies, was learning how to be aware of what you are really feeling (mindfulness) and how to accept what you are feeling it instead of trying to fight it. It's the fighting it that makes the feeling more intense.
If you've ever had a panic attack or a public "break-down" then you can probably understand how the fear of the break-down, the fear of the panic, is often what causes the attack. When you practice recognizing what you're feeling and both disconnecting from it while acknowledging and accepting it, then the intensity will generally die down and pass. "I'm having the sensation of a rapid heartbeat... I'm having the thought that everyone is looking at me... I'm having the feeling of disappointment..." Like I'm having a burrito for lunch. Whatever you're experiencing is there, but it isn't who you are, and it is a passing thing. That make's it easier to feel the next thing, which you hope is relief and something more positive.
Obviously, there's a lot more to it, but that's what I've been working on. Instead of getting mad at Henry for his frustrating inconsistencies - like the one time we really have to be somewhere he decides he doesn't know how to put on his own shoes and socks - I'm trying to put myself in his mind (or mood) and acknowledge whatever might be the hold up.
"I know you're disappointed because you wanted to watch Pocoyo - I like Pocoyo, too... And you're probably mad at Mommy for yelling. I was getting frustrated because I don't want us to miss our appointment. But I shouldn't have yelled - I'm sorry." And hopefully that and a hug will get things moving again. It works sometimes. I also figured out that his socks were getting too small and he was having trouble doing it on his own. Sometimes he'll tell me, "too small," and sometimes he just gives up and kinda checks out while I get more frustrated and yell-y, and that just makes it all worse.
Children are the embodiment of all those uncontrollable emotions. Neither you nor they have the ability to control what they are feeling or how they act because of them. All you can do is accept what they (or you) are feeling and control the actions you take in response.
Over this last week, there was Father's Day and there was my mother's birthday. I didn't call either of them (I sent a card and left a Facebook post, respectively). I meant to, but... well, hey, they raised me. And neither of them are really bad parents. They love me and taught me many good and useful things. They tried to do what they thought was best. But they couldn't know everything that I was going to need to learn that they never taught me. Like how to get to bed on time and how to keep my house clean and how to be happy with myself.
But they did teach me how to think for myself instead of just accepting the words or opinions of others. They gave me good music and wonder for the Universe. And because of my mom, my purse is prepared for just about any eventuality.
This week, Stephen Colbert said a beautiful and emotional farewell to his mother at the beginning of one of his shows. I can only hope that I can be a mother like that, who will earn that kind of send off when I, one day, depart. Even if I do let the boys watch the Comedy Central at this tender age...
Yesterday, when we got into the car, the Sargent Pepper's CD I had been listening to started playing. From the back seat I heard Henry say in his adorable 3-year-old lisp, "Rock 'n Roll!" A moment later, this was echoed by Oliver's excited little shriek - "Wock 'n Woll!"
Yes, babies. This is rock 'n roll.
Maybe I'm not such a bad mom after all.
Saturday, June 22, 2013
Friday, June 14, 2013
Making the bed while you're lying in it.
Mix Sweet Shop
12 oz Americano
(surreptitious oatmeal cookie from my purse)
This is supposed to be a short, quick blog since it's late (and Friday!) and I've got to get home before too long. It will probably go long anyway. I'm trying to do this a day early this week so that I can stay home tomorrow and try to "deal" with the chaos there. Why? In short, I flooded the front room. Just a bit.
Last week was hot as all heckers, so I maneuvered out the portable a/c unit, stuck the exhaust vent in the window, and stressed over how to keep the door to the room open to get that cool air while keeping boys out of it. The front room, you see, is the "closet" room. We moved the beds to the back room and turned the front room into the dumping ground for everything else we didn't want the boys getting in to. Of course, that meant it became the life-sized junk drawer for everything I wanted to be dealing with but somehow could never get to. Boxes of mail that just need to be sorted into "shred" piles and "file" piles... stretching back for years now as time pushes on past my intentions, still stuck in the mire.
I hate that room. As my thighs are the physical representation of my mistreatment of my health, this room is the physical representation of me not getting my shit together. The contents of that room loom over me. Well... "loomed" would be more correct. By the time I finally entered, noticed the funky smell, and approached the corner of the room with the a/c unit (to finally put the laundry away from several days previous), my foot squelched on a patch of carpet several feet away from the unit. Crap. Apparently, in the disorder of the room, the little black stopper that keeps the excess condensation from dripping out the back was dislodged, lost. It also doesn't help that we haven't cleaned the vent part in, oh, I don't know if we've ever cleaned it in the three years we've had it, leading to an inordinate amount of drippage.
So, despite the impressive absorbancy of several Sham-Wows, we destroyed the chip-board flooring beneath the carpet. Our friendly neighborhood handy man was literally shoveling it out yesterday morning. It has since been replaced with new plywood, new padding, and the now dry old carpet has been stretched back into place. However, it's Friday and we won't be able to get it cleaned until some time next week.
It may have occurred to you that this room sounds like it must be empty now to have done all this work. It is. And where has the contents of the junk drawer gone? Mostly to the kitchen. Three of the four bookcases and all of the books, and some other goodies. The boxes of paperwork ended up in the playpen (the toys are under the table) covered by a blanket - partly, to not engender the curiosity of the boys, and partly so I don't have to look at the damn mess.
My typical reaction to all this disorder is to get over-stressed, over-whelmed, and shut down. I'm trying to be optimistic and look at it as an opportunity to start fresh. I am mistrustful of my optimism, though. I do this every time I move, at the start of every school year. I'm going to be organized, I'm going to keep a routine - I'm going to "get my shit together." I swear I'm still carting stuff around from two decades ago, just waiting for me to go through it and toss it out. And this disorder has cost me more than just mental health and storage space - it has cost me real tangible dollars. Like however much it's going to cost for all this floor repair, because I was too overwhelmed to even enter the room and notice the water beneath my feet... because there was too much disorder to keep the stopper safely in place, or because I am too disordered to keep up with the regular cleaning and maintenance of my home... I know that might sound a little harsh or excessive. Let's just say it's representative of some of the other consequences I'd rather not catalog.
The amount of work that needs to be done to fix all this could be achieved in a day... if I had no babies underfoot and a team from HGTV with a budget to redesign and update for all my storage needs. As it is, with pittance pay, two toddlers, fibromyalgia, no sleep, and the Daily Show to watch every night... let's just say it's like trying to pay off a credit card making only the minimum payments. If that. Maybe the destroyed floor is the analog for your credit finally crashing and having your account sent to a collections agency.
However difficult it is to cope with the reality of having no access to even the microwave and babies (and husband) underfoot, I cannot shut down. There is no ideal way to deal with this situation so I just have to deal with it as it is. It will take longer, for sure. It will not go as planned. There's a good chance it will not have a great result. The trick - I have been told - is accepting all that. As is, however it is. This is going to be like trying to make the bed while you're lying on top of it. Or, as one of my favorite memes put it... "Trying to clean with children in the house is like brushing your teeth while eating Oreos."
But that's life, isn't it? We seldom get the chance to step back and reexamine our lives, and we never get to step out of them altogether to fix them. You are living your life as you try to make it the life you want to live. You may have a long-term goal but every step you take towards it is also a part of it.
So be it.
12 oz Americano
(surreptitious oatmeal cookie from my purse)
This is supposed to be a short, quick blog since it's late (and Friday!) and I've got to get home before too long. It will probably go long anyway. I'm trying to do this a day early this week so that I can stay home tomorrow and try to "deal" with the chaos there. Why? In short, I flooded the front room. Just a bit.
Last week was hot as all heckers, so I maneuvered out the portable a/c unit, stuck the exhaust vent in the window, and stressed over how to keep the door to the room open to get that cool air while keeping boys out of it. The front room, you see, is the "closet" room. We moved the beds to the back room and turned the front room into the dumping ground for everything else we didn't want the boys getting in to. Of course, that meant it became the life-sized junk drawer for everything I wanted to be dealing with but somehow could never get to. Boxes of mail that just need to be sorted into "shred" piles and "file" piles... stretching back for years now as time pushes on past my intentions, still stuck in the mire.
I hate that room. As my thighs are the physical representation of my mistreatment of my health, this room is the physical representation of me not getting my shit together. The contents of that room loom over me. Well... "loomed" would be more correct. By the time I finally entered, noticed the funky smell, and approached the corner of the room with the a/c unit (to finally put the laundry away from several days previous), my foot squelched on a patch of carpet several feet away from the unit. Crap. Apparently, in the disorder of the room, the little black stopper that keeps the excess condensation from dripping out the back was dislodged, lost. It also doesn't help that we haven't cleaned the vent part in, oh, I don't know if we've ever cleaned it in the three years we've had it, leading to an inordinate amount of drippage.
So, despite the impressive absorbancy of several Sham-Wows, we destroyed the chip-board flooring beneath the carpet. Our friendly neighborhood handy man was literally shoveling it out yesterday morning. It has since been replaced with new plywood, new padding, and the now dry old carpet has been stretched back into place. However, it's Friday and we won't be able to get it cleaned until some time next week.
It may have occurred to you that this room sounds like it must be empty now to have done all this work. It is. And where has the contents of the junk drawer gone? Mostly to the kitchen. Three of the four bookcases and all of the books, and some other goodies. The boxes of paperwork ended up in the playpen (the toys are under the table) covered by a blanket - partly, to not engender the curiosity of the boys, and partly so I don't have to look at the damn mess.
My typical reaction to all this disorder is to get over-stressed, over-whelmed, and shut down. I'm trying to be optimistic and look at it as an opportunity to start fresh. I am mistrustful of my optimism, though. I do this every time I move, at the start of every school year. I'm going to be organized, I'm going to keep a routine - I'm going to "get my shit together." I swear I'm still carting stuff around from two decades ago, just waiting for me to go through it and toss it out. And this disorder has cost me more than just mental health and storage space - it has cost me real tangible dollars. Like however much it's going to cost for all this floor repair, because I was too overwhelmed to even enter the room and notice the water beneath my feet... because there was too much disorder to keep the stopper safely in place, or because I am too disordered to keep up with the regular cleaning and maintenance of my home... I know that might sound a little harsh or excessive. Let's just say it's representative of some of the other consequences I'd rather not catalog.
The amount of work that needs to be done to fix all this could be achieved in a day... if I had no babies underfoot and a team from HGTV with a budget to redesign and update for all my storage needs. As it is, with pittance pay, two toddlers, fibromyalgia, no sleep, and the Daily Show to watch every night... let's just say it's like trying to pay off a credit card making only the minimum payments. If that. Maybe the destroyed floor is the analog for your credit finally crashing and having your account sent to a collections agency.
However difficult it is to cope with the reality of having no access to even the microwave and babies (and husband) underfoot, I cannot shut down. There is no ideal way to deal with this situation so I just have to deal with it as it is. It will take longer, for sure. It will not go as planned. There's a good chance it will not have a great result. The trick - I have been told - is accepting all that. As is, however it is. This is going to be like trying to make the bed while you're lying on top of it. Or, as one of my favorite memes put it... "Trying to clean with children in the house is like brushing your teeth while eating Oreos."
But that's life, isn't it? We seldom get the chance to step back and reexamine our lives, and we never get to step out of them altogether to fix them. You are living your life as you try to make it the life you want to live. You may have a long-term goal but every step you take towards it is also a part of it.
So be it.
Saturday, June 8, 2013
The Un-fan.
Mix sweet shop
12oz Soy Mocha
I don't get the obsession with celebrity. I have been trying to think of any famous person that I would just completely lose my shhh-tuff over (ohai, mom). Name your biggest, sexiest, richest movie star, rock star, whatever, and I would probably not say a word to them if they were right here in front of me. There are more than a few that would get a smile, or maybe a polite nod - some might even get an eyebrow pop, and an extra long glance of appreciation when they're not looking. But the truth is, I treat anyone this way just walking down the street. I am just polite, friendly, and I respect peoples' space.
There are a handful of notable people I might legitimately geek out over, just a bit - Stephen Colbert and Neil DeGrasse Tyson come to mind. If I had the chance, I'd love to hang out and chat. But I really cannot picture myself getting all giggly and hyperventilate-y over them. Or anyone for that matter. Seriously. President Obama? "Leader of the Free World?" Oh-ho, you better sit down, buddy, 'cause I have words for you, sir. That would be my greatest stress (outside of the retinue of Secret Service staring me down) - trying to condense my opinion down to the handful of moments allotted under such a meeting.
For most people, though, under most circumstances, I don't think I'd say a word. I know some celebrities like to be acknowledged for their work, but I don't think a one of them wants to be accosted non-stop by rabid fan-girls and -boys who think they have some right to this person just because they're famous. I cannot think of anything I have to say that is so important that I would interpose myself into a complete stranger's life at the most inopportune moments. Especially not for my own gratification. If I felt truly compelled to speak to someone, I'd apologize for the interruption, offer my appreciation (or whatever) for their work (or whatever), and then I'd leave them the hell alone. I wouldn't ask for an autograph (that is another thing I do not understand). I doubt I'd ask for a picture. It would be pretty close to the level of interrupting someone to compliment their hat.
So what is behind the cult of celebrity in our culture? Why do people think that these celebrities are something greater than mere human beings? And, more importantly, why do they feel they have the right to unfettered access? I understand that these famous people are familiar to us, in a distant sort of way. I've run into my small share of famous people, and it's jarring at first. They are the familiar stranger. There's a weird kind of intimacy. But you know their faces they way you know national monuments you've never been to but have seen all your life. They are like the Grand Canyon or the Statue of Liberty. And you can read all the books you want, look at all the pictures, the movies... but you don't know the place till you're there.
But the Grand Canyon and the Statue of Liberty are things that we are all, on some level, entitled to. Celebrities are not. They are just people. They have their public professions, and they have their private lives. Paparazzi and the like will argue that celebrities want to be gawked at and photographed and interrogated. I call bull pucky! Yes, some people want to be famous for the sake of being famous and popular. I think even those people have their limits, though. But whatever the percentage of reluctance for for fame for any given celebrity, it does not change the fact that the rest of us have no inherent right to their life story.
I did not appreciate the level of ferocity of the paparazzi until I was nearly mowed down by three of them in pursuit of Paris Hilton. At the time, I was working as an assistant manager in a movie theatre in West Los Angeles, so I made a point of informing the other managers on duty that we had a VIP guest, so that we could keep an eye out for any inappropriate behavior from fanboys or paparazzi. As soon as I announced this, however, one of the other managers bolted for the door. Apparently, she was a huge fan. I could only shake my head.
As I write this, Moby's "Porcelain" has just started playing overhead. (I think this is the second time I've mentioned him in a blog, come to think of it). I guess this would be the one celebrity I would probably introduce myself to were he to wander into this coffeehouse. Because Moby - I think I do owe a word of thanks to him.
After all, Henry and Oliver are just a little bit his fault.
There are many things that had to happen for my boys to exist. First and foremost, Greg and I had to celebrate certain holidays irresponsibly. But go back farther - our parents had to meet, had to hook up... the Big Bang had to do some banging, too... All things had to happen as they happened for the world to exist as it does with our boys in it. We had to make all the decisions we made throughout our lives - including the decisions to get on moby.com and sign up for the message boards that were once hosted there. That's right - Greg and I met online. On Moby's website.
And before you accuse me of hypocrisy, you should know that I am not a "fan" - not because I don't like his music. After more than a decade, I still cannot seem to get "Play" out of my car, no matter how many times I take it out of the CD holder. But I am clearly not the fangirl type. He had (has?) an amusing blog, and it was before Facebook. That's my excuse.
So, while the ending of apartheid in South Africa may still have been necessary for the world to manifest in such a way that Greg and I would meet in time to have our two beautiful boys, Moby would be a more direct catalyst for their existence. For that, I would take the time to say thank you. If I thought he'd get it, maybe I'd even send him a little card with a family pic (not the one with the handsy Santa Claus) and the brief tale of our unusual courtship.
Either way, I would still not freak out. Because I am not a fan. I equate "fan" with "fanatic." But I do appreciate his work. I guess I am the un-fan.
12oz Soy Mocha
I don't get the obsession with celebrity. I have been trying to think of any famous person that I would just completely lose my shhh-tuff over (ohai, mom). Name your biggest, sexiest, richest movie star, rock star, whatever, and I would probably not say a word to them if they were right here in front of me. There are more than a few that would get a smile, or maybe a polite nod - some might even get an eyebrow pop, and an extra long glance of appreciation when they're not looking. But the truth is, I treat anyone this way just walking down the street. I am just polite, friendly, and I respect peoples' space.
There are a handful of notable people I might legitimately geek out over, just a bit - Stephen Colbert and Neil DeGrasse Tyson come to mind. If I had the chance, I'd love to hang out and chat. But I really cannot picture myself getting all giggly and hyperventilate-y over them. Or anyone for that matter. Seriously. President Obama? "Leader of the Free World?" Oh-ho, you better sit down, buddy, 'cause I have words for you, sir. That would be my greatest stress (outside of the retinue of Secret Service staring me down) - trying to condense my opinion down to the handful of moments allotted under such a meeting.
For most people, though, under most circumstances, I don't think I'd say a word. I know some celebrities like to be acknowledged for their work, but I don't think a one of them wants to be accosted non-stop by rabid fan-girls and -boys who think they have some right to this person just because they're famous. I cannot think of anything I have to say that is so important that I would interpose myself into a complete stranger's life at the most inopportune moments. Especially not for my own gratification. If I felt truly compelled to speak to someone, I'd apologize for the interruption, offer my appreciation (or whatever) for their work (or whatever), and then I'd leave them the hell alone. I wouldn't ask for an autograph (that is another thing I do not understand). I doubt I'd ask for a picture. It would be pretty close to the level of interrupting someone to compliment their hat.
So what is behind the cult of celebrity in our culture? Why do people think that these celebrities are something greater than mere human beings? And, more importantly, why do they feel they have the right to unfettered access? I understand that these famous people are familiar to us, in a distant sort of way. I've run into my small share of famous people, and it's jarring at first. They are the familiar stranger. There's a weird kind of intimacy. But you know their faces they way you know national monuments you've never been to but have seen all your life. They are like the Grand Canyon or the Statue of Liberty. And you can read all the books you want, look at all the pictures, the movies... but you don't know the place till you're there.
But the Grand Canyon and the Statue of Liberty are things that we are all, on some level, entitled to. Celebrities are not. They are just people. They have their public professions, and they have their private lives. Paparazzi and the like will argue that celebrities want to be gawked at and photographed and interrogated. I call bull pucky! Yes, some people want to be famous for the sake of being famous and popular. I think even those people have their limits, though. But whatever the percentage of reluctance for for fame for any given celebrity, it does not change the fact that the rest of us have no inherent right to their life story.
I did not appreciate the level of ferocity of the paparazzi until I was nearly mowed down by three of them in pursuit of Paris Hilton. At the time, I was working as an assistant manager in a movie theatre in West Los Angeles, so I made a point of informing the other managers on duty that we had a VIP guest, so that we could keep an eye out for any inappropriate behavior from fanboys or paparazzi. As soon as I announced this, however, one of the other managers bolted for the door. Apparently, she was a huge fan. I could only shake my head.
As I write this, Moby's "Porcelain" has just started playing overhead. (I think this is the second time I've mentioned him in a blog, come to think of it). I guess this would be the one celebrity I would probably introduce myself to were he to wander into this coffeehouse. Because Moby - I think I do owe a word of thanks to him.
After all, Henry and Oliver are just a little bit his fault.
There are many things that had to happen for my boys to exist. First and foremost, Greg and I had to celebrate certain holidays irresponsibly. But go back farther - our parents had to meet, had to hook up... the Big Bang had to do some banging, too... All things had to happen as they happened for the world to exist as it does with our boys in it. We had to make all the decisions we made throughout our lives - including the decisions to get on moby.com and sign up for the message boards that were once hosted there. That's right - Greg and I met online. On Moby's website.
And before you accuse me of hypocrisy, you should know that I am not a "fan" - not because I don't like his music. After more than a decade, I still cannot seem to get "Play" out of my car, no matter how many times I take it out of the CD holder. But I am clearly not the fangirl type. He had (has?) an amusing blog, and it was before Facebook. That's my excuse.
So, while the ending of apartheid in South Africa may still have been necessary for the world to manifest in such a way that Greg and I would meet in time to have our two beautiful boys, Moby would be a more direct catalyst for their existence. For that, I would take the time to say thank you. If I thought he'd get it, maybe I'd even send him a little card with a family pic (not the one with the handsy Santa Claus) and the brief tale of our unusual courtship.
Either way, I would still not freak out. Because I am not a fan. I equate "fan" with "fanatic." But I do appreciate his work. I guess I am the un-fan.
Saturday, June 1, 2013
The Best of the Best of the Best!!!
Evo's Coffee Lounge
12oz soy mocha
almond pastry thingy
What if we didn't value dominance?
I asked that question, rhetorically, in some other blog that I'm too lazy to look up. The question came back to me in a roundabout way today because of a dress. The dress I'm wearing today is very pretty but it's definitely shorter than I typically wear. My legs almost never see this much daylight, and even my farmer's tan is at risk of being evenly burned. So, when I found that I was a little anxious getting out of the car to take the short walk to the coffeehouse, I decided to explore where that feeling was coming from.
Answers were not hard to find. First, I found a fear of attention that was a little too positive, if you know what I mean. I have received the message that if you dress attractively, and with less fabric obstruction, then you are making yourself a target for attack. Then the flip side fear revealed itself. What if I wasn't attractive enough to be wearing a dress that revealed so much of my socially offensive body? The Group would surely turn against me for my inferior legs and flabby arms... It's amazing what you find in your head when you look inside it. And once I saw all these feelings, they lost their power. Not only are they not reflective of the over-arching reality, but screw those guys, anyway.
There's a great meme going 'round the internet that goes...
How to get a bikini body:
1. Get a bikini.
2. Put it on your body.
TA-DA!
The truth is, if I saw someone of lesser cheekbones and wider girth wearing this same dress, I wouldn't give a rat's ass about her supposed flaws - they wouldn't even register. I'd probably stop her to say what a lovely dress it was and how great she looked. Despite all the messaging from society and all your fears from high school, most people don't care. They don't have the emotional reserves to judge you because they're too busy worrying what other people will think of them.
This is not to say that there aren't people who judge you and try to condemn you and bully you. I'm saying that it's just not so many as you think. And I think that those who do it are acting on that social value I mentioned before: dominance. Everything about our society is infused with this idea of ranking, and specifically the rank of Number 1. It used to be about which class you belonged to - peasantry, gentry, royalty. Unless you were the king, there was always someone better than you (hence, the phrase "your betters"). And when the king was reminded that even he was below Him, suddenly royalty were divinely chosen and referred to with the royal "we" because, if he couldn't be above God, he was going to share the top of the platform with Him.
I can't say I know enough of the subtle evolution of this idea through history - perhaps it was meritocracy itself - but as the class system started to fall away, society kept up this rationale for dominance. The common man had to at least be the best at something: the smartest, the strongest, the fastest. Competition for dominance... so you can feel secure, free even... For women, whose security evolved to mean something provided for her by a husband instead of derived from a solid marital partnership - or from that shocking notion of her own professional efforts - the competition became focused on her rank in beauty. The prettiest girl gets the richest husband and is, thus, the most secure. The most happy. Sure. We've come a long way, but we are not a lot closer to freeing ourselves from this mentality.
And can we just take a moment to recognize how dumb is the objectification of women? Reducing women to mere objects is like trying to quench your thirst with diet coke. It get's your mouth wet, but it doesn't hydrate your body. It over-stimulates you so that you don't have adequate time to get all the nutrients you need - in this case, the emotional nutrition of a healthy relationship. Oh, and it's full of aspartame which is so poisonous they advise pregnant women not to drink it... and it actually causes you to crave more sugar because your body recognizes that you've tricked it with empty calories and withheld promised sweetness.
So, yeah... objectification is dumb and poisonous.
The notion of not thinking that The Best is the best is so contrary to everything we've been taught that it's hard to even contemplate. What would society look like? What if there was no value in being the richest? Would the environment be as devastated, workers as exploited? What if we didn't care who wore it better? Could we all but eliminate the market for plastic surgery? And anti-depressants? What if we didn't care which sports team had gone undefeated?
Who won?
Who cares?
As I listen to the man with the guitar singing outside, I wonder how much happier would we all be if we didn't care who was the best singer and just encouraged everyone to sing?
Even when we try to "value" the non-winners in our society, we still frame it by rank. It's okay that this kid is too scrawny to be on the football team because he's a whiz at math. As in, he's smarter than other people - he's better than other people at something. What if he isn't good at math? What if this kid really isn't good at anything? He's not a genius, he's not an athlete, he's not creative. The kind message is that he's still part of society and we can put up with his existence in a magnanimous sort of way. But the full message is that he has no real value to society and the rest of us with better scores in whatever are just tolerating him. In fact, we're sacrificing ourselves in some way - our time or money or whatever - to take care of him. And that increases our superiority.
What bullshit.
But people are afraid of this specter of mediocrity. People actually argue against raising minimum wage, for example, because they are afraid that if people have enough to survive then they will become complacent and never strive to better themselves, and we would all be doomed. Doooomed, people! This is nonsense. This is some kind of throwback to a primitive state of the world. Then, it would be a problem if no one in your tribe felt like putting the work in to farm or hunt. If they all got fat and lazy they would be easy pickins for that lion or that war-mongering tribe over the hill. Everyone had to work because it was life or death, not just for the slacker, but for the whole tribe. But that isn't the world we live in now.
So... the origin of the work ethic is understandable, and even of the value of superiority and dominance, because strength and survival were so intertwined. And later, the need to justify the rights and privileges being demanded by the lesser members of society would obviously continue the tendency towards proving some type of comparative superiority. Or at least potential for superiority. But nowadays, we need to step back and see this supposed value for what it is: Insecurity.
Fear.
And I am so sick of this notion of American Exceptionalism... It's just another excuse to justify some kind of dominance or other. I do believe that the ideas upon which America was founded are exceptional to human history. That is because the foundational concept of this country is that all human beings are equal to all others, even those who happened to be born in other countries. There is nothing different in American DNA that would justify our dominance over any other person or country. We are all the same monsters and all the same angels and we have all the same human rights.
What if, instead of valuing dominance, we valued excellence? And excellence not because it makes one superior but because it could be the best path to make one happy and fulfilled. Competing to win leaves you vulnerable to unhappiness if others succeed. Competing to be excellent leaves you satisfied knowing you have achieved the best you are capable of achieving, no matter which place you finish in. An excellent human being does not provoke or suppress others. An excellent human being encourages others to be excellent. And that is the greatest value for all of us.
So, I charge you now to live by these great and simple words of wisdom given to us by Wyld Stallyns:
"Be excellent to each other."
Oh, and, "party on, dudes."
12oz soy mocha
almond pastry thingy
What if we didn't value dominance?
I asked that question, rhetorically, in some other blog that I'm too lazy to look up. The question came back to me in a roundabout way today because of a dress. The dress I'm wearing today is very pretty but it's definitely shorter than I typically wear. My legs almost never see this much daylight, and even my farmer's tan is at risk of being evenly burned. So, when I found that I was a little anxious getting out of the car to take the short walk to the coffeehouse, I decided to explore where that feeling was coming from.
Answers were not hard to find. First, I found a fear of attention that was a little too positive, if you know what I mean. I have received the message that if you dress attractively, and with less fabric obstruction, then you are making yourself a target for attack. Then the flip side fear revealed itself. What if I wasn't attractive enough to be wearing a dress that revealed so much of my socially offensive body? The Group would surely turn against me for my inferior legs and flabby arms... It's amazing what you find in your head when you look inside it. And once I saw all these feelings, they lost their power. Not only are they not reflective of the over-arching reality, but screw those guys, anyway.
There's a great meme going 'round the internet that goes...
How to get a bikini body:
1. Get a bikini.
2. Put it on your body.
TA-DA!
The truth is, if I saw someone of lesser cheekbones and wider girth wearing this same dress, I wouldn't give a rat's ass about her supposed flaws - they wouldn't even register. I'd probably stop her to say what a lovely dress it was and how great she looked. Despite all the messaging from society and all your fears from high school, most people don't care. They don't have the emotional reserves to judge you because they're too busy worrying what other people will think of them.
This is not to say that there aren't people who judge you and try to condemn you and bully you. I'm saying that it's just not so many as you think. And I think that those who do it are acting on that social value I mentioned before: dominance. Everything about our society is infused with this idea of ranking, and specifically the rank of Number 1. It used to be about which class you belonged to - peasantry, gentry, royalty. Unless you were the king, there was always someone better than you (hence, the phrase "your betters"). And when the king was reminded that even he was below Him, suddenly royalty were divinely chosen and referred to with the royal "we" because, if he couldn't be above God, he was going to share the top of the platform with Him.
I can't say I know enough of the subtle evolution of this idea through history - perhaps it was meritocracy itself - but as the class system started to fall away, society kept up this rationale for dominance. The common man had to at least be the best at something: the smartest, the strongest, the fastest. Competition for dominance... so you can feel secure, free even... For women, whose security evolved to mean something provided for her by a husband instead of derived from a solid marital partnership - or from that shocking notion of her own professional efforts - the competition became focused on her rank in beauty. The prettiest girl gets the richest husband and is, thus, the most secure. The most happy. Sure. We've come a long way, but we are not a lot closer to freeing ourselves from this mentality.
And can we just take a moment to recognize how dumb is the objectification of women? Reducing women to mere objects is like trying to quench your thirst with diet coke. It get's your mouth wet, but it doesn't hydrate your body. It over-stimulates you so that you don't have adequate time to get all the nutrients you need - in this case, the emotional nutrition of a healthy relationship. Oh, and it's full of aspartame which is so poisonous they advise pregnant women not to drink it... and it actually causes you to crave more sugar because your body recognizes that you've tricked it with empty calories and withheld promised sweetness.
So, yeah... objectification is dumb and poisonous.
The notion of not thinking that The Best is the best is so contrary to everything we've been taught that it's hard to even contemplate. What would society look like? What if there was no value in being the richest? Would the environment be as devastated, workers as exploited? What if we didn't care who wore it better? Could we all but eliminate the market for plastic surgery? And anti-depressants? What if we didn't care which sports team had gone undefeated?
Who won?
Who cares?
As I listen to the man with the guitar singing outside, I wonder how much happier would we all be if we didn't care who was the best singer and just encouraged everyone to sing?
Even when we try to "value" the non-winners in our society, we still frame it by rank. It's okay that this kid is too scrawny to be on the football team because he's a whiz at math. As in, he's smarter than other people - he's better than other people at something. What if he isn't good at math? What if this kid really isn't good at anything? He's not a genius, he's not an athlete, he's not creative. The kind message is that he's still part of society and we can put up with his existence in a magnanimous sort of way. But the full message is that he has no real value to society and the rest of us with better scores in whatever are just tolerating him. In fact, we're sacrificing ourselves in some way - our time or money or whatever - to take care of him. And that increases our superiority.
What bullshit.
But people are afraid of this specter of mediocrity. People actually argue against raising minimum wage, for example, because they are afraid that if people have enough to survive then they will become complacent and never strive to better themselves, and we would all be doomed. Doooomed, people! This is nonsense. This is some kind of throwback to a primitive state of the world. Then, it would be a problem if no one in your tribe felt like putting the work in to farm or hunt. If they all got fat and lazy they would be easy pickins for that lion or that war-mongering tribe over the hill. Everyone had to work because it was life or death, not just for the slacker, but for the whole tribe. But that isn't the world we live in now.
So... the origin of the work ethic is understandable, and even of the value of superiority and dominance, because strength and survival were so intertwined. And later, the need to justify the rights and privileges being demanded by the lesser members of society would obviously continue the tendency towards proving some type of comparative superiority. Or at least potential for superiority. But nowadays, we need to step back and see this supposed value for what it is: Insecurity.
Fear.
And I am so sick of this notion of American Exceptionalism... It's just another excuse to justify some kind of dominance or other. I do believe that the ideas upon which America was founded are exceptional to human history. That is because the foundational concept of this country is that all human beings are equal to all others, even those who happened to be born in other countries. There is nothing different in American DNA that would justify our dominance over any other person or country. We are all the same monsters and all the same angels and we have all the same human rights.
What if, instead of valuing dominance, we valued excellence? And excellence not because it makes one superior but because it could be the best path to make one happy and fulfilled. Competing to win leaves you vulnerable to unhappiness if others succeed. Competing to be excellent leaves you satisfied knowing you have achieved the best you are capable of achieving, no matter which place you finish in. An excellent human being does not provoke or suppress others. An excellent human being encourages others to be excellent. And that is the greatest value for all of us.
So, I charge you now to live by these great and simple words of wisdom given to us by Wyld Stallyns:
"Be excellent to each other."
Oh, and, "party on, dudes."
Saturday, May 18, 2013
Skepticism is more of a "Hmm" than a "HA!"
Cafe 116
Rawanda "Pour-Over" (coffee)
Mexican Tea Cookie
Rustic Veggie Soup
Yep, it's a frou-frou coffeehouse today. But it's pretty good stuff. I just felt like hanging downtown, occupying some valuable window real estate for a few hours.
So. I posted that phrase - skepticism is more of a "Hmm" than a "HA!" - and I was very disappointed at the number of "Like"s it didn't get. I thought I'd said something profound. Apparently, I must elaborate.
First, there's a lot of bad science out there. There's pseudoscience and conspiracy theories, and a lot of skewed headlines that take a legitimate study that says one thing and make it sound like it's saying another thing entirely. There are a lot of - okay, a WHOLE LOT of - people using scientific studies or statistics to back up claims that those studies don't show. I'll give you an example:
One of the claims that opponents of same-sex marriage make is that "studies show" that gay people are more likely to abuse children. I looked this up. The studies being referenced actually show the exact opposite. In the two major surveys in question, the perpetrators were overwhelmingly male. They were also overwhelmingly men who identified themselves as straight. Men who identified themselves as gay were disproportionately less likely to be abusers: only 1 or 2 out of a hundred in one study, and zero in the other study. To my recollection. But opponents of gay marriage make their claims based on the fact that both male and female children were abused by these mostly male predators. They are conflating the abuse of these boys with consensual adult homosexuality. By that logic, prison rape (or just prison sex) would count as "gay sex," and we would then have to conclude that we are incarcerating gay Americans at a greatly disproportionate rate to the overall population. Something should be done!
But the hot anti-logic du jour has to be the rampant conspiracy theorists terrorizing our political system. That's such a hostile sounding sentence when I reread it. Let me throw down the caveats. First, conspiracy theorists have been around since long before the beginning of this country, and they occupy all points along the political spectrum. And I do not categorically disdain conspiracy theorists. They are actually kinda "my people," and I will beg apologies now for some of the dumbass things I have said, especially as a teenager. That does not, however, mean that I only like the conspiracy theories that align with my political philosophies. The point is that not all conspiracy theories are created equal.
The reason that I would deride birthers, for example, is that there is nothing about their claims that stands up to scrutiny. Upon scrutiny, it is plainly clear that the originator of the myth is biased and has a history of making false claims that have been subsequently debunked. The logic used to explain the planning of this conspiracy is highly convoluted. And the fact that legally recognized documents have been produced throughout the lifetime of the president that have faced no question makes it an improbable claim. The long-form birth certificate should never have had to be produced because of the ridiculousness of this myth. I don't have a long-form birth certificate, but the DMV and Social Security Administration (and, thus, Homeland Security) were completely satisfied with my short-form birth certificate. Why would it suddenly no longer adequately show my age and place of birth if I chose to run for office? Oh, that's right - it is adequate, just for everyone else except this guy.
If you are too lazy to scrutinize, and if you are being told by people you trust to be honest arbiters of information (FOX News, elected officials) that the birth certificate is suspect, then it's easy to see how the myth could have been sustained for so long. At this point, though, after all the vetting, the production of the long-form birth certificate, and the verification by a bi-partisan assortment of government officials, if you're still a birther then you have no desire to be otherwise. You don't want the truth, you just want to have a reason to hate the guy.
And there's the difference between questioning for the sake of finding the truth and questioning for the sake of validating your opinion. I don't have a problem questioning the official storyline, questioning common beliefs. I find no reason to believe that this government couldn't be hiding something. America isn't inherently impervious to corruption. However, I don't believe it is inherently corrupt, either. Because of the very vastness of the government, and of the many checks on authority we have built in to the system, I think it is much more unlikely to have corruption across the board. I think we are losing many of those checks, though, and that is inherently dangerous. For now, though, I think that corruption, where it exists, tends to be localized and limited. Which is not to say that a handful of corrupt officials can't do far-reaching damage, just that it is not likely to be the whole system working against you.
Logically, speaking.
And that's all science is: the method of logic. Some people deride science as if it's some kind of mean-spirited religion. An institution of kill-joys. True scientists - skeptics, in general - are only out to find the truth. We may all like it when science validates some of our preconceived opinions, but we value the truth more, even when our beliefs are proved wrong. And not just partial truth. The whole truth. And even then, we'll still add an asterisk.
The problem with a lot of unconventional or conspiratorial theories, is that there is often some amount of truth to them. That's why I like watching those Ancient Aliens shows on the History Channel. They often will bring up some bit of trivia that is true and that I was previously unaware of. The problem is that they will then make conclusions that are not makeable. The beauty and the burden of science is that science says only what it can say. If it's good science, well-designed and focused in its scope, then it will be able to say a lot. Mostly, it will be able to say what "isn't." If it's weak, all it can do is offer more questions, at best, and confuse, at worst.
So, if you're still confused about what I mean by "hmm" versus "HA!" I'll try one last time to be explicit. When someone offers an explanation, a bit of knowledge or information, a skeptic will say, "hmm," and will then analyze the proposed information logically if they want to reach a conclusion about its veracity. A skeptic will not immediately say, "HA! See? I was right, and you're an idiot!" if they are offered something that appeals to their biases. Even smart people do this; it's part of our base instincts. But it's important to guard against this reflex... read the label before you eat that chocolate bar someone has just handed you...
Unless you like the taste of sweet, sweet bullshit.
Rawanda "Pour-Over" (coffee)
Mexican Tea Cookie
Rustic Veggie Soup
Yep, it's a frou-frou coffeehouse today. But it's pretty good stuff. I just felt like hanging downtown, occupying some valuable window real estate for a few hours.
So. I posted that phrase - skepticism is more of a "Hmm" than a "HA!" - and I was very disappointed at the number of "Like"s it didn't get. I thought I'd said something profound. Apparently, I must elaborate.
First, there's a lot of bad science out there. There's pseudoscience and conspiracy theories, and a lot of skewed headlines that take a legitimate study that says one thing and make it sound like it's saying another thing entirely. There are a lot of - okay, a WHOLE LOT of - people using scientific studies or statistics to back up claims that those studies don't show. I'll give you an example:
One of the claims that opponents of same-sex marriage make is that "studies show" that gay people are more likely to abuse children. I looked this up. The studies being referenced actually show the exact opposite. In the two major surveys in question, the perpetrators were overwhelmingly male. They were also overwhelmingly men who identified themselves as straight. Men who identified themselves as gay were disproportionately less likely to be abusers: only 1 or 2 out of a hundred in one study, and zero in the other study. To my recollection. But opponents of gay marriage make their claims based on the fact that both male and female children were abused by these mostly male predators. They are conflating the abuse of these boys with consensual adult homosexuality. By that logic, prison rape (or just prison sex) would count as "gay sex," and we would then have to conclude that we are incarcerating gay Americans at a greatly disproportionate rate to the overall population. Something should be done!
But the hot anti-logic du jour has to be the rampant conspiracy theorists terrorizing our political system. That's such a hostile sounding sentence when I reread it. Let me throw down the caveats. First, conspiracy theorists have been around since long before the beginning of this country, and they occupy all points along the political spectrum. And I do not categorically disdain conspiracy theorists. They are actually kinda "my people," and I will beg apologies now for some of the dumbass things I have said, especially as a teenager. That does not, however, mean that I only like the conspiracy theories that align with my political philosophies. The point is that not all conspiracy theories are created equal.
The reason that I would deride birthers, for example, is that there is nothing about their claims that stands up to scrutiny. Upon scrutiny, it is plainly clear that the originator of the myth is biased and has a history of making false claims that have been subsequently debunked. The logic used to explain the planning of this conspiracy is highly convoluted. And the fact that legally recognized documents have been produced throughout the lifetime of the president that have faced no question makes it an improbable claim. The long-form birth certificate should never have had to be produced because of the ridiculousness of this myth. I don't have a long-form birth certificate, but the DMV and Social Security Administration (and, thus, Homeland Security) were completely satisfied with my short-form birth certificate. Why would it suddenly no longer adequately show my age and place of birth if I chose to run for office? Oh, that's right - it is adequate, just for everyone else except this guy.
If you are too lazy to scrutinize, and if you are being told by people you trust to be honest arbiters of information (FOX News, elected officials) that the birth certificate is suspect, then it's easy to see how the myth could have been sustained for so long. At this point, though, after all the vetting, the production of the long-form birth certificate, and the verification by a bi-partisan assortment of government officials, if you're still a birther then you have no desire to be otherwise. You don't want the truth, you just want to have a reason to hate the guy.
And there's the difference between questioning for the sake of finding the truth and questioning for the sake of validating your opinion. I don't have a problem questioning the official storyline, questioning common beliefs. I find no reason to believe that this government couldn't be hiding something. America isn't inherently impervious to corruption. However, I don't believe it is inherently corrupt, either. Because of the very vastness of the government, and of the many checks on authority we have built in to the system, I think it is much more unlikely to have corruption across the board. I think we are losing many of those checks, though, and that is inherently dangerous. For now, though, I think that corruption, where it exists, tends to be localized and limited. Which is not to say that a handful of corrupt officials can't do far-reaching damage, just that it is not likely to be the whole system working against you.
Logically, speaking.
And that's all science is: the method of logic. Some people deride science as if it's some kind of mean-spirited religion. An institution of kill-joys. True scientists - skeptics, in general - are only out to find the truth. We may all like it when science validates some of our preconceived opinions, but we value the truth more, even when our beliefs are proved wrong. And not just partial truth. The whole truth. And even then, we'll still add an asterisk.
The problem with a lot of unconventional or conspiratorial theories, is that there is often some amount of truth to them. That's why I like watching those Ancient Aliens shows on the History Channel. They often will bring up some bit of trivia that is true and that I was previously unaware of. The problem is that they will then make conclusions that are not makeable. The beauty and the burden of science is that science says only what it can say. If it's good science, well-designed and focused in its scope, then it will be able to say a lot. Mostly, it will be able to say what "isn't." If it's weak, all it can do is offer more questions, at best, and confuse, at worst.
So, if you're still confused about what I mean by "hmm" versus "HA!" I'll try one last time to be explicit. When someone offers an explanation, a bit of knowledge or information, a skeptic will say, "hmm," and will then analyze the proposed information logically if they want to reach a conclusion about its veracity. A skeptic will not immediately say, "HA! See? I was right, and you're an idiot!" if they are offered something that appeals to their biases. Even smart people do this; it's part of our base instincts. But it's important to guard against this reflex... read the label before you eat that chocolate bar someone has just handed you...
Unless you like the taste of sweet, sweet bullshit.
Sunday, May 12, 2013
Fun with Fibromyalgia
Evo's Coffee Lounge
12oz Iced Soy Mocha
If I were taking care of my fibromyalgia condition properly, then I would not be drinking a sugary caffeinated beverage right now. Let this not distract you from all my helpful tips, but let it remind you that it is necessary to tend to your spiritual happiness as you also tend to your physical well-being.
Sure.
I find myself explaining this stuff a lot, both what fibromyalgia is, and also how I cope with it. This shall be a lengthy one broken up into Prologue and Practical Fibromyalgia Stuff. There's some important stuff in each part that relates to each other, good stuff about stress in general, but I put the bolds in if you want to skip a bit. First, Prologue...
The first thing to know about fibromyalgia is that it is, in fact, real. Let no one, not even an old and venerable family doctor, tell you that it's all in your head. I once told my brother when he asked me that question - gently - that I didn't know if it had all started in my head, but it was definitely in my body now, and the trick was figuring out how to get it back up there. I didn't know that it was fibromyalgia then. I knew that I had a mysterious and severe allergy that had just preceded this intense and debilitating pain in my back. My doctor had asked at the onset about other fibromyalgia symptoms but I had dismissed them. Well, of course, I had pain elsewhere, but I was out of shape and I had always had aches and pains somewhere or other. And nothing was so bad as that one spot. So we tested for other conditions, ruled them out, and went with the theory that I was experiencing muscle spasms related to the allergy. We went through a few kinds of pain killers and I ended up on 400mg of Celebrex every day, as well as 40mg of Zyrtec for the allergy, for the next several years. Just so I could get through the day.
And you don't need to take my word that fibromyalgia (FS for short) is a legitimate thing just because someone as poor as me isn't going to shell out that amount of money on pills unless I absolutely have to. There is now demonstrable evidence of FS. According to the Mayo Clinic (I checked out their FS DVD from the library) MRIs of FS patients show that those patients' brains light up brighter and in different places to the same level of pain stimulus than the control subjects. I also heard on one of those doctor shows that there are measurable increases in stress hormones in the spinal fluid of FS patients. The muscles also function differently. When you curl your arm, for example, as the "inside" muscles contract the "outside" muscles normally relax, and vice versa for the opposite motion. Not so for FS sufferers. All the muscles stay tense for both motions.
Practically speaking, though, most doctors are not going to scan your brain to make a diagnosis. They're going to rely on your reported history, check that you have pain at at least 11 of 18 trigger points throughout your body, and ask about an assortment of side conditions - insomnia (basically standard), depression, IBS, TMJ, hypersensitivity to light or sound, sinus problems, and many more. About a dozen or so conditions, I think. And then, they're going to run a bunch of tests for other conditions, like lupus or rheumatoid arthritis, to rule them out. If those show up negative, your doc may prescribe one of the newer fibromyalgia drugs, and/or any variety of pain killers, and hope you're not an addict.
Here's the next thing to remember about fibromyalgia. The medical establishment is not sure what or why it is. They're not even exactly sure how those FS drugs are supposed to work on the condition. They have some ideas, they've made a lot of progress, found a lot of correlations, but they're still not sure. The prevailing theory is that the nerves of FS sufferers are overactive (over-reactive, might be a better way to phrase it), for some reason. There is another theory, though, that the problem is at the receiving end of the signal - in your head.
I read a book in the local author section by a Dr. Dryland (for your reference). The way he described it, FS is caused by chronic stress - either physical or mental, your brain doesn't differentiate. What happens is that your brain, responding to a fight or flight situation, will (among other things) pump out a lot of dopamine, which will restrict the amount of signals from your nerve endings that reach your brain. This way you can ignore your sprained ankle while you run away from the lion that's chasing you. The problem is that, in our modern society, the lion can be an evil boss or a crazy girlfriend or your checkbook, and you don't have the chance to get away, hide out in a cave, and recover. You are constantly, for a variety of reasons, in a state of fight-or-flight. Our bodies were not designed for this.
National Geographic put out a great documentary on stress - I highly recommend you Netflix it. It describes a multitude of ways in which chronic stress damages our health, mentally and physically. Dryland asserts that, for FS patients, the ability of the body to make dopamine is essentially worn out so that, as the stress continues, the brain can no longer filter out all the stimulus coming to it. Think of it as having your amp dialed up to 11 all the time. So, then, what used to be uncomfortable and could be ignored now hurts, and your body responds to protect you from this obvious injury. Your body tenses up around the "injury" to protect it as it heals, and because you don't have adequate opportunity to recover, the protective tension becomes a persistent pain of its own. And your body responds... and you can see how this perpetuates the problem.
This theory of FS as a stress-based condition fits best with my own experiences with fibromyalgia. I should also be clear, both theories recognize that there is a stress connection with FS. In all the literature I've read on it, it is noted that there is almost always a stress trigger that kicks off the onset of fibromyalgia. And that trigger could be a bad break-up (as was in the mix in my case) or a localized physical injury that persists until you no longer just hurt in your right knee, but now ache everywhere.
There is also likely to be some underlying stress that has been weakening your system until that one big stress comes along and kicks it off. In fact, they found such a high correlation between fibromyalgia and early childhood trauma that some people assumed that anyone who had FS had been abused as a child. That's an unfortunate stigma that is still being shaken off. But any kind of PTSD could do it. I've speculated that, because of the prevalence of PTSD among our veterans, fibromyalgia could be rampant and going unrecognized or undiagnosed. It's in the nature of a soldier to ignore pain, after all.
The good news, though, is that whether the cause is in the sender (the nerves) or the receiver (the brain), there is a lot that can be done to reduce the pain FS sufferers experience without the drugs. So, here's the practical stuff I've picked up over the years...
Practical Stress Reduction Tips for Sufferers...
(add a chocolate muffin to that list of what I'm not supposed to be doing... it's hot, it was looking on the verge of being all melty...)
1. SLEEP! You knew it was going to be the top of the list. It is the hardest and the most important piece of your pain puzzle. I was told by one of my physical therapists that six hours of good sleep is the absolute minimum your body needs to do its everyday repair work. Six goooood hours. If you have the insurance or the credit line to cover it, I highly recommend doing a sleep study. You may be getting more than six hours now (and your body might naturally want more than that for optimum function) but if you don't feel rested and refreshed and less achy when you get up, then there is probably some kind of undiagnosed sleep problem that is keeping your body from getting that deep sleep it needs to do that vital repair work.
2. Exercise. This is also vital and very, very difficult. From what I've read, there is little to no damage to the actual muscles of an FS sufferer beyond the regular damage of under-use. (You know, even "FS sufferer" is kind of cumbersome, so I think I'm going to start using "fibromyalgier" if you don't mind... You don't? Why, thank you!) The important thing to remember is to start extremely slow and gentle. But persistently. There are days I think I can do a mile or two, no problem, but end up knowing I've gone too far less than halfway out. And once I've hurt myself by overdoing it, it takes me much, much longer to recover. A simple knot in my calf can last weeks or longer, while the average person could work it out in a few days. So, just start with five minutes of walking every day. Then go up a minute each successive day. The main issue is consistency.
It's also worth the money to see a physical therapist, even if you can only do an initial consultation, because you've probably developed problems you are unaware of just by trying to compensate for the pain. It's also very common to have your pain shift around as you start working out one place or other. So, if you can't get regular visits, see if you can call in once in a while as things come up, and schedule a follow-up or two after several weeks so that you can adapt your exercises to your evolving needs.
Here's another side-note for those of you fibromyalgiers with hyper-mobile joints (i.e., the double-jointed)... There is a high correlation between FS and hypermobility, possibly because you may not realize that you are extra-stretchy all throughout your body and it is very easy to over-stretch your muscles simply because your ligaments will allow you to go farther than your muscles ought to. Think of it like having porcelain muscles and rag-doll joints. This makes a physical therapy plan extra important for you because you need more stability for your skeleton and are more likely to have your body over-correct itself as you begin P.T. (This problem is compounded when/if you get pregnant because your body releases a hormone to make your ligaments extra stretchier, fyi).
Oh, and exercise helps reduce your stress, boosts your mood, and helps you sleep.
3. Shrink your head... Or get someone to do it for you. Chances are there's some kind of unresolved something going on that needs to be properly addressed. Sometimes you just weren't screwed up enough to warrant professional help so you missed out on all these wonderful coping techniques that we "special" people got to be introduced to. In either case, it probably couldn't hurt to talk to someone (a little, or a lot), either to process some long over-due baggage, or just to get some good stress management tips.
4. Diet. A well-balanced diet is duh important for overall body function, helps your mood, and helps you sleep. But two more important things. First, chronic stress has damaged your gut. There was a study with rats that showed that even low levels of constant stress, but especially severe acute stress, will erode the lining of your intestines. This whacks you out in ways I can't even begin to describe. The important take-away is that it screws up how you process and produce stress hormones, which you can see is counter-productive for your goal of stress reduction. It's also probably causing a multitude of those uncomfortable secondary conditions, like IBS and lactose intolerance, and in my case, an allergic reaction to lactose intolerance. So in addition to not stressing out your system anymore with crap food, you should look into "reseeding" the good flora in your gut. I started with simple acidophilus pills and I was able to reverse my allergic reaction. I am no longer head to toe hives all day, every day, though I still take a couple dairy pills if I'm eating ice cream. If I were in optimum health, perhaps I wouldn't need that.
The second dietary note is that certain foods are going to make your pain worse simply because they have an inherent inflammatory effect. Sugar (whole natural sugars, like in fruit, are fine), caffeine, excite those nerve endings in anybody, but it's like pouring lemon juice on a paper cut if you have FS. Also, dairy and gluten (mostly from our modern, hybridized, processed wheat), are stressful to your gut, so you should try to avoid and minimize them, particularly in a single sitting.
Be careful with your milk alternatives, though. There are a lot of genetically modified (and unlabeled) ingredients and additives and artificial sweeteners (carrageenan was thought to be the new wonder alternative so it's in everything, but it's looking like it's not so great, either... better than flippin' aspertame, though). Also, there are now warnings against giving a lot of soy milk to young kids, especially boys, because it appears to be interfering with hormone function. Or something. Anyway, you generally don't have to avoid anything like the plague, just minimize and diversify. Look up diets that are specifically anti-inflammatory. And go as organic as you can afford. Our doc stresses organic for the animal-based foods, and for those top most contaminated fruits and veggies, like apples, strawberries, and spinach.
I gave up sugar while working in a chocolate shop. It can be done, and the results were dramatic. I had been going through a period of severe stress and I had been taking more and more pain killers than was recommended as my pain increased. I was relying on 9 (or more) naproxen sodium (Aleve) every day. Yes, it was that bad. The maximum dose is supposed to be 3. And it wasn't enough to knock it out. But at the same time I reached a kind of resolution to my major stressor, I cut out the sugar (quality checking the sample tray), and in less than a month I was down to two or three naproxen a day. And then I pregnant, but that's a whole other chapter in the fibromyalgia fun-book.
5. Magnesium and other pills. It's worth checking your vitamin and mineral levels, if possible, as part of your diagnostic process, to see if there are any deficiencies. And while I didn't turn up a deficiency in magnesium, I did find it very beneficial to take it as a supplement anyway. It is very popular among fibromyalgiers because it is a natural relaxant, so it helps with the pain and with your sleep. However, even with supplements, you should be consulting your doctor, or other knowledgeable practitioner (pharmacist, nutritionist). Even these natural supplements can interact with other medications and with each other. For example, calcium and magnesium kind of work against each other (calcium helps your muscles contract, as magnesium helps them relax), and vitamin D helps you process and produce calcium. All this was tricky for me to figure out, and it took a lot of trial and error and self-awareness to find where I need to be. I found that I needed to take at least double the magnesium as calcium, and that amount changed when I added the D (which I am deficient in). Most FS books I've read recommend starting with 300mg of magnesium, and adjusting from there as needed.
Other supplements I take for the pain include vitamin E, fish oil, and turmeric (anti-inflammatory) if I have the money and can get the brand I like. That last one has been inconsistent for me and I have found the benefit mostly in the higher dose and mostly a particular brand that included ginger, which may have affected its overall effectiveness. For me, at least. The bottom line is I can't afford to spend money on anything that isn't doing what it needs to do, and I drop things and reintroduce them periodically to make sure they are worth the cost and effort.
For mood, I take a B-complex, as well as a kind of methylfolate thingy (through my doctor's office, related to another deficiency they tested me for), and taurine (an amino acid), which hugely helped me transition off Zoloft many years ago.
I take a few other things - Vitamin C is a great booster for just about everything - but those are the core supplements that help for me. Oh, and I take some melatonin and (generic) Tylenol PM to help me sleep.
It's also important to focus on getting as much of these things naturally through your food, and to adjust your supplementing accordingly. This is what I suck at the most, but try to keep it in mind anyway.
6. Drugs. At some point, the pain needs to stop. You need that interruption for long enough to break the pain cycle and allow the healing process to begin. I can't tell you if any of the FS drugs are effective because I never took them. The important thing is that you try to focus on pain killers as a temporary intervention, but take what you need (don't exceed the recommended dosage) when you need to take it.
... So that's what works for me. When I'm good and do all that... I'm happy to get even more specific for anyone that would like to know more... like exact doses of pills, different exercises I've done, or how I had my second baby with no drugs... during the labor anyway... first question afterwards was, "can I have drugs now?"... For anyone else, though, I'm sure this is more than enough for now.
Fun times!
12oz Iced Soy Mocha
If I were taking care of my fibromyalgia condition properly, then I would not be drinking a sugary caffeinated beverage right now. Let this not distract you from all my helpful tips, but let it remind you that it is necessary to tend to your spiritual happiness as you also tend to your physical well-being.
Sure.
I find myself explaining this stuff a lot, both what fibromyalgia is, and also how I cope with it. This shall be a lengthy one broken up into Prologue and Practical Fibromyalgia Stuff. There's some important stuff in each part that relates to each other, good stuff about stress in general, but I put the bolds in if you want to skip a bit. First, Prologue...
The first thing to know about fibromyalgia is that it is, in fact, real. Let no one, not even an old and venerable family doctor, tell you that it's all in your head. I once told my brother when he asked me that question - gently - that I didn't know if it had all started in my head, but it was definitely in my body now, and the trick was figuring out how to get it back up there. I didn't know that it was fibromyalgia then. I knew that I had a mysterious and severe allergy that had just preceded this intense and debilitating pain in my back. My doctor had asked at the onset about other fibromyalgia symptoms but I had dismissed them. Well, of course, I had pain elsewhere, but I was out of shape and I had always had aches and pains somewhere or other. And nothing was so bad as that one spot. So we tested for other conditions, ruled them out, and went with the theory that I was experiencing muscle spasms related to the allergy. We went through a few kinds of pain killers and I ended up on 400mg of Celebrex every day, as well as 40mg of Zyrtec for the allergy, for the next several years. Just so I could get through the day.
And you don't need to take my word that fibromyalgia (FS for short) is a legitimate thing just because someone as poor as me isn't going to shell out that amount of money on pills unless I absolutely have to. There is now demonstrable evidence of FS. According to the Mayo Clinic (I checked out their FS DVD from the library) MRIs of FS patients show that those patients' brains light up brighter and in different places to the same level of pain stimulus than the control subjects. I also heard on one of those doctor shows that there are measurable increases in stress hormones in the spinal fluid of FS patients. The muscles also function differently. When you curl your arm, for example, as the "inside" muscles contract the "outside" muscles normally relax, and vice versa for the opposite motion. Not so for FS sufferers. All the muscles stay tense for both motions.
Practically speaking, though, most doctors are not going to scan your brain to make a diagnosis. They're going to rely on your reported history, check that you have pain at at least 11 of 18 trigger points throughout your body, and ask about an assortment of side conditions - insomnia (basically standard), depression, IBS, TMJ, hypersensitivity to light or sound, sinus problems, and many more. About a dozen or so conditions, I think. And then, they're going to run a bunch of tests for other conditions, like lupus or rheumatoid arthritis, to rule them out. If those show up negative, your doc may prescribe one of the newer fibromyalgia drugs, and/or any variety of pain killers, and hope you're not an addict.
Here's the next thing to remember about fibromyalgia. The medical establishment is not sure what or why it is. They're not even exactly sure how those FS drugs are supposed to work on the condition. They have some ideas, they've made a lot of progress, found a lot of correlations, but they're still not sure. The prevailing theory is that the nerves of FS sufferers are overactive (over-reactive, might be a better way to phrase it), for some reason. There is another theory, though, that the problem is at the receiving end of the signal - in your head.
I read a book in the local author section by a Dr. Dryland (for your reference). The way he described it, FS is caused by chronic stress - either physical or mental, your brain doesn't differentiate. What happens is that your brain, responding to a fight or flight situation, will (among other things) pump out a lot of dopamine, which will restrict the amount of signals from your nerve endings that reach your brain. This way you can ignore your sprained ankle while you run away from the lion that's chasing you. The problem is that, in our modern society, the lion can be an evil boss or a crazy girlfriend or your checkbook, and you don't have the chance to get away, hide out in a cave, and recover. You are constantly, for a variety of reasons, in a state of fight-or-flight. Our bodies were not designed for this.
National Geographic put out a great documentary on stress - I highly recommend you Netflix it. It describes a multitude of ways in which chronic stress damages our health, mentally and physically. Dryland asserts that, for FS patients, the ability of the body to make dopamine is essentially worn out so that, as the stress continues, the brain can no longer filter out all the stimulus coming to it. Think of it as having your amp dialed up to 11 all the time. So, then, what used to be uncomfortable and could be ignored now hurts, and your body responds to protect you from this obvious injury. Your body tenses up around the "injury" to protect it as it heals, and because you don't have adequate opportunity to recover, the protective tension becomes a persistent pain of its own. And your body responds... and you can see how this perpetuates the problem.
This theory of FS as a stress-based condition fits best with my own experiences with fibromyalgia. I should also be clear, both theories recognize that there is a stress connection with FS. In all the literature I've read on it, it is noted that there is almost always a stress trigger that kicks off the onset of fibromyalgia. And that trigger could be a bad break-up (as was in the mix in my case) or a localized physical injury that persists until you no longer just hurt in your right knee, but now ache everywhere.
There is also likely to be some underlying stress that has been weakening your system until that one big stress comes along and kicks it off. In fact, they found such a high correlation between fibromyalgia and early childhood trauma that some people assumed that anyone who had FS had been abused as a child. That's an unfortunate stigma that is still being shaken off. But any kind of PTSD could do it. I've speculated that, because of the prevalence of PTSD among our veterans, fibromyalgia could be rampant and going unrecognized or undiagnosed. It's in the nature of a soldier to ignore pain, after all.
The good news, though, is that whether the cause is in the sender (the nerves) or the receiver (the brain), there is a lot that can be done to reduce the pain FS sufferers experience without the drugs. So, here's the practical stuff I've picked up over the years...
Practical Stress Reduction Tips for Sufferers...
(add a chocolate muffin to that list of what I'm not supposed to be doing... it's hot, it was looking on the verge of being all melty...)
1. SLEEP! You knew it was going to be the top of the list. It is the hardest and the most important piece of your pain puzzle. I was told by one of my physical therapists that six hours of good sleep is the absolute minimum your body needs to do its everyday repair work. Six goooood hours. If you have the insurance or the credit line to cover it, I highly recommend doing a sleep study. You may be getting more than six hours now (and your body might naturally want more than that for optimum function) but if you don't feel rested and refreshed and less achy when you get up, then there is probably some kind of undiagnosed sleep problem that is keeping your body from getting that deep sleep it needs to do that vital repair work.
2. Exercise. This is also vital and very, very difficult. From what I've read, there is little to no damage to the actual muscles of an FS sufferer beyond the regular damage of under-use. (You know, even "FS sufferer" is kind of cumbersome, so I think I'm going to start using "fibromyalgier" if you don't mind... You don't? Why, thank you!) The important thing to remember is to start extremely slow and gentle. But persistently. There are days I think I can do a mile or two, no problem, but end up knowing I've gone too far less than halfway out. And once I've hurt myself by overdoing it, it takes me much, much longer to recover. A simple knot in my calf can last weeks or longer, while the average person could work it out in a few days. So, just start with five minutes of walking every day. Then go up a minute each successive day. The main issue is consistency.
It's also worth the money to see a physical therapist, even if you can only do an initial consultation, because you've probably developed problems you are unaware of just by trying to compensate for the pain. It's also very common to have your pain shift around as you start working out one place or other. So, if you can't get regular visits, see if you can call in once in a while as things come up, and schedule a follow-up or two after several weeks so that you can adapt your exercises to your evolving needs.
Here's another side-note for those of you fibromyalgiers with hyper-mobile joints (i.e., the double-jointed)... There is a high correlation between FS and hypermobility, possibly because you may not realize that you are extra-stretchy all throughout your body and it is very easy to over-stretch your muscles simply because your ligaments will allow you to go farther than your muscles ought to. Think of it like having porcelain muscles and rag-doll joints. This makes a physical therapy plan extra important for you because you need more stability for your skeleton and are more likely to have your body over-correct itself as you begin P.T. (This problem is compounded when/if you get pregnant because your body releases a hormone to make your ligaments extra stretchier, fyi).
Oh, and exercise helps reduce your stress, boosts your mood, and helps you sleep.
3. Shrink your head... Or get someone to do it for you. Chances are there's some kind of unresolved something going on that needs to be properly addressed. Sometimes you just weren't screwed up enough to warrant professional help so you missed out on all these wonderful coping techniques that we "special" people got to be introduced to. In either case, it probably couldn't hurt to talk to someone (a little, or a lot), either to process some long over-due baggage, or just to get some good stress management tips.
4. Diet. A well-balanced diet is duh important for overall body function, helps your mood, and helps you sleep. But two more important things. First, chronic stress has damaged your gut. There was a study with rats that showed that even low levels of constant stress, but especially severe acute stress, will erode the lining of your intestines. This whacks you out in ways I can't even begin to describe. The important take-away is that it screws up how you process and produce stress hormones, which you can see is counter-productive for your goal of stress reduction. It's also probably causing a multitude of those uncomfortable secondary conditions, like IBS and lactose intolerance, and in my case, an allergic reaction to lactose intolerance. So in addition to not stressing out your system anymore with crap food, you should look into "reseeding" the good flora in your gut. I started with simple acidophilus pills and I was able to reverse my allergic reaction. I am no longer head to toe hives all day, every day, though I still take a couple dairy pills if I'm eating ice cream. If I were in optimum health, perhaps I wouldn't need that.
The second dietary note is that certain foods are going to make your pain worse simply because they have an inherent inflammatory effect. Sugar (whole natural sugars, like in fruit, are fine), caffeine, excite those nerve endings in anybody, but it's like pouring lemon juice on a paper cut if you have FS. Also, dairy and gluten (mostly from our modern, hybridized, processed wheat), are stressful to your gut, so you should try to avoid and minimize them, particularly in a single sitting.
Be careful with your milk alternatives, though. There are a lot of genetically modified (and unlabeled) ingredients and additives and artificial sweeteners (carrageenan was thought to be the new wonder alternative so it's in everything, but it's looking like it's not so great, either... better than flippin' aspertame, though). Also, there are now warnings against giving a lot of soy milk to young kids, especially boys, because it appears to be interfering with hormone function. Or something. Anyway, you generally don't have to avoid anything like the plague, just minimize and diversify. Look up diets that are specifically anti-inflammatory. And go as organic as you can afford. Our doc stresses organic for the animal-based foods, and for those top most contaminated fruits and veggies, like apples, strawberries, and spinach.
I gave up sugar while working in a chocolate shop. It can be done, and the results were dramatic. I had been going through a period of severe stress and I had been taking more and more pain killers than was recommended as my pain increased. I was relying on 9 (or more) naproxen sodium (Aleve) every day. Yes, it was that bad. The maximum dose is supposed to be 3. And it wasn't enough to knock it out. But at the same time I reached a kind of resolution to my major stressor, I cut out the sugar (quality checking the sample tray), and in less than a month I was down to two or three naproxen a day. And then I pregnant, but that's a whole other chapter in the fibromyalgia fun-book.
5. Magnesium and other pills. It's worth checking your vitamin and mineral levels, if possible, as part of your diagnostic process, to see if there are any deficiencies. And while I didn't turn up a deficiency in magnesium, I did find it very beneficial to take it as a supplement anyway. It is very popular among fibromyalgiers because it is a natural relaxant, so it helps with the pain and with your sleep. However, even with supplements, you should be consulting your doctor, or other knowledgeable practitioner (pharmacist, nutritionist). Even these natural supplements can interact with other medications and with each other. For example, calcium and magnesium kind of work against each other (calcium helps your muscles contract, as magnesium helps them relax), and vitamin D helps you process and produce calcium. All this was tricky for me to figure out, and it took a lot of trial and error and self-awareness to find where I need to be. I found that I needed to take at least double the magnesium as calcium, and that amount changed when I added the D (which I am deficient in). Most FS books I've read recommend starting with 300mg of magnesium, and adjusting from there as needed.
Other supplements I take for the pain include vitamin E, fish oil, and turmeric (anti-inflammatory) if I have the money and can get the brand I like. That last one has been inconsistent for me and I have found the benefit mostly in the higher dose and mostly a particular brand that included ginger, which may have affected its overall effectiveness. For me, at least. The bottom line is I can't afford to spend money on anything that isn't doing what it needs to do, and I drop things and reintroduce them periodically to make sure they are worth the cost and effort.
For mood, I take a B-complex, as well as a kind of methylfolate thingy (through my doctor's office, related to another deficiency they tested me for), and taurine (an amino acid), which hugely helped me transition off Zoloft many years ago.
I take a few other things - Vitamin C is a great booster for just about everything - but those are the core supplements that help for me. Oh, and I take some melatonin and (generic) Tylenol PM to help me sleep.
It's also important to focus on getting as much of these things naturally through your food, and to adjust your supplementing accordingly. This is what I suck at the most, but try to keep it in mind anyway.
6. Drugs. At some point, the pain needs to stop. You need that interruption for long enough to break the pain cycle and allow the healing process to begin. I can't tell you if any of the FS drugs are effective because I never took them. The important thing is that you try to focus on pain killers as a temporary intervention, but take what you need (don't exceed the recommended dosage) when you need to take it.
... So that's what works for me. When I'm good and do all that... I'm happy to get even more specific for anyone that would like to know more... like exact doses of pills, different exercises I've done, or how I had my second baby with no drugs... during the labor anyway... first question afterwards was, "can I have drugs now?"... For anyone else, though, I'm sure this is more than enough for now.
Fun times!
Saturday, May 4, 2013
The darling buds of May...
Rogue Valley Roasting Co.
Big Iced Hibiscus Tea
Banana Bread
If you know and love me then you should come visit me. Right now. If you have only a lukewarm interest in me, personally, but had enough free time to kill to read this blog, then you should use me as an excuse to get to southern Oregon. It is epically gorgeous right now. It helps if you're into lush green parks and quaint (if somewhat overpriced) crafty, kitschy small-business-y stores. And Shakespeare. He's kinda big here. In all honesty, I have yet to go to a single play, but I enjoy all the Shakespeare puns around town (Puck's Donuts, As-You-Store-It, and the new Oberon's Tavern). I also admit to buying a giant eraser with the words, "Out damn spot!" printed on it. I kinda had to.
There is also a little Artisans Market thingy on the weekends that I wandered through today. It is so inspiring to see things, you know - made. The first stall had lovely hippy skirts and dresses, and I thought, I could do this. Then the different types of jewelry makers... I could braid hemp chokers... I could work with metal wire and pretty stones and crap like that... Oo, fabric again - pillows! Hats! Braided rugs! Pithy fridge magnets made out of metal bottle caps! A guy singing and playing guitar - I could... well, I could sing... while I sat at my little booth and made... whatever. Handmade journals. Purses. Useful things. I was so full of ideas and confidence for three whole blocks.
Then I got maudlin. Craft faire stuff. That's what I want to invest myself in?
If you haven't guessed, I'm in one of those "what the hell am I doing?" kind of mental states. What do I want to do? to be? Where do I want to be? Should we stay in Ashland? If not here - where?
Since I did not go straight back to work this time, after O-boy, I've been trying to reconcile myself with this non-employed state. I have thought about just trying to focus on being totally engaged with the boys, and getting a little "off time" on the weekend. But that has felt wasteful and unstructured and unproductive. The problem is that there is so much "week" that I can't take care of that it has to be done on the weekend. But I feel bad if I'm not doing something beyond the tasks of just staying alive. So I started this bloggy thingy, trying to cultivate some writing habit. Mixed success so far. I'm not really satisfied with how things are going, to be honest. But I feel like I have to stay with it, mostly for the sake of staying with it.
But to what end? I feel like I have things to say, arguments to make, for the "greater good" or something grandiose like that. But I mostly feel like I'm soapboxing the walls. Who cares what I have to say? What difference will it make? I look at the world and I cannot let it stand as it is. To watch the (expletives and adjectives deleted) people running things into the ground, to the detriment of all, it makes my stomach burn. But to put myself out there feels like I've just stepped out of the bathroom with my emotional skirt stuffed into my emotional undies.
I like Ben Fold's retort, "Do it anyway!" But do what?
Despite our fragile financial state, I've decided that it's a waste to continue to seek out a job that doesn't advance whatever ultimate goals I have. But I'm still not quite sure what it is I ultimately want to do. Before I die. I'm trying to remind myself of that to - in a healthy way. I'm going to do whatever I'm going to do and then I'm going to kick off. The future world will go on without me and then it, too, will fade, or explode. The current thinking of the great thinkers is that the universe will expand and cool and grow dark and still... and that'll be it for everything and everyone who may have been around at some point ever.
So who cares? Why get stressed about anything? Why stick around, especially if you have no afterlife in mind to scare you or to give you peace in thoughts of a perpetual life beyond a frozen universe?
Well, that's your existential quandary to square yourself with. For my part, I have chosen to live. And I shall respect the rest of those who have chosen the same. So if we're here, we're gonna do this whole life thing, then we need to make it liveable for each other. For "rough winds do shake the darling buds..." But it is May. The universe may die in winter, but the sun has just pushed ahead of the clouds, and the world is beautiful. Right now.
Big Iced Hibiscus Tea
Banana Bread
If you know and love me then you should come visit me. Right now. If you have only a lukewarm interest in me, personally, but had enough free time to kill to read this blog, then you should use me as an excuse to get to southern Oregon. It is epically gorgeous right now. It helps if you're into lush green parks and quaint (if somewhat overpriced) crafty, kitschy small-business-y stores. And Shakespeare. He's kinda big here. In all honesty, I have yet to go to a single play, but I enjoy all the Shakespeare puns around town (Puck's Donuts, As-You-Store-It, and the new Oberon's Tavern). I also admit to buying a giant eraser with the words, "Out damn spot!" printed on it. I kinda had to.
There is also a little Artisans Market thingy on the weekends that I wandered through today. It is so inspiring to see things, you know - made. The first stall had lovely hippy skirts and dresses, and I thought, I could do this. Then the different types of jewelry makers... I could braid hemp chokers... I could work with metal wire and pretty stones and crap like that... Oo, fabric again - pillows! Hats! Braided rugs! Pithy fridge magnets made out of metal bottle caps! A guy singing and playing guitar - I could... well, I could sing... while I sat at my little booth and made... whatever. Handmade journals. Purses. Useful things. I was so full of ideas and confidence for three whole blocks.
Then I got maudlin. Craft faire stuff. That's what I want to invest myself in?
If you haven't guessed, I'm in one of those "what the hell am I doing?" kind of mental states. What do I want to do? to be? Where do I want to be? Should we stay in Ashland? If not here - where?
Since I did not go straight back to work this time, after O-boy, I've been trying to reconcile myself with this non-employed state. I have thought about just trying to focus on being totally engaged with the boys, and getting a little "off time" on the weekend. But that has felt wasteful and unstructured and unproductive. The problem is that there is so much "week" that I can't take care of that it has to be done on the weekend. But I feel bad if I'm not doing something beyond the tasks of just staying alive. So I started this bloggy thingy, trying to cultivate some writing habit. Mixed success so far. I'm not really satisfied with how things are going, to be honest. But I feel like I have to stay with it, mostly for the sake of staying with it.
But to what end? I feel like I have things to say, arguments to make, for the "greater good" or something grandiose like that. But I mostly feel like I'm soapboxing the walls. Who cares what I have to say? What difference will it make? I look at the world and I cannot let it stand as it is. To watch the (expletives and adjectives deleted) people running things into the ground, to the detriment of all, it makes my stomach burn. But to put myself out there feels like I've just stepped out of the bathroom with my emotional skirt stuffed into my emotional undies.
I like Ben Fold's retort, "Do it anyway!" But do what?
Despite our fragile financial state, I've decided that it's a waste to continue to seek out a job that doesn't advance whatever ultimate goals I have. But I'm still not quite sure what it is I ultimately want to do. Before I die. I'm trying to remind myself of that to - in a healthy way. I'm going to do whatever I'm going to do and then I'm going to kick off. The future world will go on without me and then it, too, will fade, or explode. The current thinking of the great thinkers is that the universe will expand and cool and grow dark and still... and that'll be it for everything and everyone who may have been around at some point ever.
So who cares? Why get stressed about anything? Why stick around, especially if you have no afterlife in mind to scare you or to give you peace in thoughts of a perpetual life beyond a frozen universe?
Well, that's your existential quandary to square yourself with. For my part, I have chosen to live. And I shall respect the rest of those who have chosen the same. So if we're here, we're gonna do this whole life thing, then we need to make it liveable for each other. For "rough winds do shake the darling buds..." But it is May. The universe may die in winter, but the sun has just pushed ahead of the clouds, and the world is beautiful. Right now.
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