Temporary Digression (of the Spotted Kind)

Random Things That Didn't Suck This Week

2009-10-31T13:39:00.003Z

Not unlike my list of random things that sucked, this here list of random things that didn't suck this week is—while sincere—meant to entertain. And if it entertains you, the reader, that's just great, but I have to say that my main priority here whilst I wait for my seasonal antidepressants to fully kick in is to entertain myself ... and to remind myself that rose-colored glasses aren't necessary to see good things all around, because those things are always there, if/when we look for them.

(Rose-colored glasses can, however, be a fun accessory and amusing addition to one's wardrobe repetoire.)

As the glasses crack may have served to illustrate, I am a member of the aforementioned "easily amused" (afore in this blog, that is; not in this entry). A future blog entry will further demonstrate the easy phenonmenon of my amusedness, wherein BabyCat will be featured IN VIDEO with a piece of spaghetti on her head (which probably sounds a bit random itself, but I think you'll understand when you see what strategic placement of spaghetti inspires her to do).

But because loading videos over my dinosaur of an Internet connection takes an over-abundance of precious time, let's just stick with my list for today.

(It's Random Things That Didn't Suck This Week, in case you've forgotten in the mini-digression I've just meandered through here.)

The Mute Button on My Corporate Telephone

Due to the crushing press of "urgent" e-mails that morning, I confess that I was paying only a modicum of attention to the telephone conference call. I was on the call more or less as an aural observer anyway, so I tried to put out a few electronic fires while more-or-less tuning in to the conversation in which a member of another company and a much-lauded contractor were discussing their experiences with a project that was a little like one that Corporate was currently undertaking.

Because I was hammering away at my keyboard—and not being currently required to participate in said discussion—I had my phone's mute button engaged as the other company's representative enumerated the plus-column factors in the ongoing (monstrous-huge) project. And then, in reference to the contractor, whose full given name was Richard, THIS was said:

"The biggest thing I've got is Dick."

I have never been so thankful for a mute button in my life.

I Don't Have to Make My Living as an Automotive Technician

I was driving Little Girl's daddy to a wedding reception celebrating the recent union of one of his former coworkers—"former" because this individual happily happened to move up in the food chain in the expanse of time between which invitations to the nupitals were issued and the event itself, and "reception" because the wedding took place rather a long distance from our home, and Clever (?) Dog is not yet certified to go that long betwixt peeings—when Little Girl's daddy took it upon himself to explain to me what "geared low" meant.

(What actually happened was that Little Girl's daddy made a passing comment about how the engines of a certain car manufacturer were "geared lower" than the engines of another manufacturer, and I stupidly asked what that meant.)

It wasn't Little Girl's daddy's fault. I have a notoriously thick skull when it comes to understanding automotive systems, and it doesn't make sense, as my extensive background in the physical sciences should make such things easier for me to comprehend than not. And yet my brain utterly fails to latch on to even the meaning behind the terms, much less the way they work together.

And so, after two bold—and unusually patient—forays into his explanation of "geared low", I shook my head and brought the conversation to an end with, "No, I just don't get it."

I am ever so glad that I do not have to make a living as an automotive technician ... because I simply could not do it.

The Sun Still Shines (However Occasionally)

Because not only does the fact that the Sun does shine—albeit in an increasingly less visible way, as we proceed relentlessly into the dark and dreary time of year that precedes the hallowed Winter Solstice—keep us all alive and at some semblance of normal body temperature, but it also is so lovely when the Sun finally breaks through the cloud layers and dull grayness that obscure it ... it's like an unexpected gift, for no reason at all, and inspires me to rhapsodize prolixly on (and on and on) about its glory.

And that makes me SO HAPPY!

Some People Out There Still Care Enough to Serve

Little Girl's school, on a ridiculously tight schedule, called for essays on local heroes recently: specifically, they called out veterans, fire fighters, police, and first responders. And it wasn't actually the school so much, since they were acting on behalf of the organizers of a benefit for these outstanding individuals, but because the essay was tied into a contest, Little Girl became aware of the benefit as well.

She worked up what I thought was a very nicely well-written entry, though because she included a story that she had been inspired to write as she considered the role of local heroes (particularly, fire fighters), it wasn't, strictly speaking, an "essay". But she assured me that she'd cleared the notion with her teacher, and because I hadn't seen the piece until it was fully rendered—at 9:00 PM on the day before it was due—I did not protest too much, or too loudly.

Whether it was form or content that mattered most, I cannot say, though that really doesn't matter. Little Girl did not win, but she was gracious and expressed interest in attending the benefit in any case—at a similarly late hour on the day of the event. I wish I could say I was gracious in return, though I was not particularly, but I did suck up my crankiness enough to concede that she and I could go, Little Girl's daddy being otherwise occupied with outdoor activities—yes, even in the dwindling available light—that evening.

As it turned out, sitting in a room packed with at least 100 veterans, fire fighters, police, and first responders—a couple of state troopers even showed up, despite the fact that this was billed as a "local" event—is an immensely humbling experience. I know these people are around—somewhere out there—on a daily basis, or I would know that, if I spared a moment to consider the generalized hero dispersal among the rest of us ordinary mortals.

But sitting next to a veteran and his wife, across from a man who had donated a chunk of money to the event that surpassed a half-paycheck for Little Girl's daddy and I, and just down the table from a pack of first responders, I was quite frankly awed at what these folks—whose vital roles I would never guess in passing them on the street—contribute to local communities on a daily basis. I mean, I'm pleased to donate blood when I can, but taking an hour out of my life every other month or so scarcely compares to military service, or being ready, willing, and able to drop whatever one is doing at whatever time a call for help comes in, or policing the town and outlying area on a daily basis.

Yes, despite my initial reticence to spend my evening at "some banquet thingie"—as I described it when I shouted to Little Girl's daddy, across our lawn, to let him know where Little Girl and I were off to for the evening—I am so very grateful now to Little Girl for her driving interest, which got her and me there to have dinner with some of the people who we would rely on—not even knowing their names or faces—in the event of an emergency. They were RIGHT THERE, as they are right there whenever they are needed, and taking an evening to hear them called out by name and applaud their efforts most certainly did NOT suck.

In fact, it was an honor and a privilege to be there, just once, for these local heroes, even if that is but the very least of the honor and privilege that they deserve.

And there you have it, my invisible dears. Things that not only didn't suck, but for which I was amused, appreciative, invigorated, and inspired in turn. Not exactly what the title may have implied, perhaps, but since these things were each sort of sneaky in how they presented themselves at the time, perhaps the title fits after all.

Of Bad Advice And Cat Puke

2009-10-20T11:17:00.000Z

I am stretching, doing my "meditation", and making a feeble job of it as my mind darts from my muscles to the past, then to the future, and then chases its own tail—a joyless effort, since it is not of the canine persuasion. It is early enough in the day and late enough in the year to be fully dark, spotted with only the brightest of stars ... the faintest ones are weary, as am I, of trying to shine loudly enough to be visible.

Memory arrives first, unbidden and unwelcome. It enters without knocking as I count impatiently, feeling the stretch, but only on the fringe of wakefulness. My recollection is transparent with age, and weak with disuse, but its feeling is still stronger than my will to focus, and it brushes past me, cold and brittle, and sits on the edge of the couch, recounting itself to me on the floor.

I lose my own count as I remember.

It's like you're not listening, the voice whispers back. That I can no longer remember the words exactly does not dull their cutting edge. You're not even trying to get better.

And then the leap: I don't want to watch you do this to yourself.

Armed with knowledge and a dollop of self-confidence now, I dismiss the memory entirely now, refusing to indulge its mis-pointed finger further. It wisps away as I pass back to a new stretch, and a new set of numbers to define it.

Funny, how many people have thought they had the answer. Most of them—like the thin-memory embodiment I've just briefly entertained—have no personal experience with depression; while this does not render their opinions null and void, it does not give them any credence, either.

FRISKitty makes noises under the table next. Her pre-dawn snack is about to return on her, onto the floor. I call gently, my stretching relegated to second-best once more, but at least this time, I feel it is for a worthy cause. FRISKitty hates to make a mess, you see. Soon the unpleasant noise of retching is replaced with the soft whispers of her apology—she is pawing at non-existent sand, trying to cover her small explusion.

I cannot help but notice that FRISKitty takes much longer to apologize than many people have done when they deign to "help" me with my recurrent mental illness. It's not judgmentally that I say this now ... it's just so damn funny! So many worthless "cheer-ups" and empty "just get over its"—how could I have ever taken it seriously, when it was only vomited up by virtue of having been consumed too quickly, or because too much fuzz was impeding its digestive progress?

The fact that I'm tying this all together with a bow—and possibly the fact that I was visited by the Ghost of Depression Past this dark morning—are, of course, both manifestations of the earliest stages of my seasonal visitor's return. I am much better at seeing the signs now, which makes it much easier for me to do what I need to do to mitigate the circumstances that would otherwise drive me into the deeper darkness, the one which does not relent until Spring.

FRISKitty feels fine now. I expect the givers of likely sincere but nevertheless nonsensical advice are feeling fine, too. With medication and without apology, so am I.

Isolation

2009-10-11T20:37:00.001Z

The situation was dire, and the request was immediate: pray. With each iteration as the e-mail spread, the call for prayer became more encompassing, as did the "To" list. By the time the message arrived in my Corporate Inbox, it was practically a prayer of its own, and reaching easily across teams and sectors alike.

The child was young, and the tumor inoperable. Prayer was—if not a strictly logical response—perhaps the most viable option. But after I thought about the child, and her family ... after I'd reflexively but fervently hoped for a positive outcome to this terrifying situation, I felt empty.

Having no belief in any sort of "higher power" exempted me from the sole activity that so many people seemed to feel would most benefit the stricken child and those who loved her.

And it made me wonder, if—as it seems from the swell of directives to prayer—those who do not have Corporate-comparable connections are at a disadvantage from those who do. Can prayer, simply by virtue of how many people are engaged in it, really affect the outcome of a situation? Is an isolated person less able to tap the power of prayer, and has prayer that accompanied someone who does not survive their own trial by disease been dismissed as inferior?

I know people who pray at the drop of the hat, and for things far less vital than deliverance from serious health concerns, such as favorable weather for enjoyable—but mundane—activities. That I cannot engage in it in either extreme, or anything in between, does not make it a less worthy activity, if it focuses and directs the petitioner's energies in some way that at least feels beneficial.

That I think I would not, even if I did believe, engage in any such specifically-directed prayer does not make me less empathetic or caring, either. I understand prayer in the objective sense as a means by which people reach out to that which they believe to be greater than themselves—to tap its strength, to grasp whatever sense they can in a senselessly cruel situation, or just to hold on to the notion that there is someone who might be able to do something about it, whether "it" be great or small.

What I cannot hope to understand is the interplay, if any, of prayer. Which are "answered" and which are "ignored" seems more random than chance itself would deem. And no "purpose under Heaven"—NONE—seems great enough to me when a child's whole existence hangs in the balance.

I cannot fathom suffering such as this as "necessary" to any sort of "higher power". With powers beyond human understanding, surely there is some other option—some non-suffering "way".

But while it is not about me (nor would I wish to make it so), this child for which prayers are so earnestly being sought now is but one of millions—MILLIONS—who needs ... no, who DESERVES ... consideration. Could the balance of our very lives really be so much about who we know? Or how—or IF—such people can pray, and to whom and for whom they do so?

Not being able to pray does not mean I can do nothing for a family in need—it does not mean that at all. That I spent a mere moment of surprised reaction to certain phrasing is utterly irrelevant, except, perhaps, in that it resulted in another lengthy blog post. I will certainly do what I am able to for those whose situations I am aware of, and absolutely wish for a positive outcome for them all. As would, I suspect, any reasonably human being, be they "believers" or not.

But that I cannot give them this thing they ask for above all other leaves me melancholic, despite myself. It is a small thing—a hopelessly minute wistfulness—and it cowers under the weight of knowledge that the family surrounding the stricken child must bear.

Absolutely Relative

2009-09-20T21:58:00.000Z

A great objection of certain conservative religious elements today to their more liberal religious counterparts—or, say, to us a-religious freaks—is the "basis" of our morals.

"It is not possible," the traditionalists contend, "for you to have unshifting morals, if they do not emanate from an unshifting source."

(Although I've heard it put more bluntly than that, like this: "You can't HAVE morals without God!")

The issue, as it has been presented in the readings I've done on the subject, is termed "moral relativism", which is to say, that some seem to have it in their minds that without a literal belief in a personal God, morals shift willy-nilly on the capricious flightiness of day-to-day human desires and general yearnings.

Right, like some day I will just wake up and smoothly rationalize my way down from "because I don't believe in God" to "it's okay to go road-rage postal on the highway".

Now. I make light of the notion—because it really does sound THAT silly to me—but those who are God-based in their morals and who see moral relativism as a serious threat absolutely do believe that there is nothing on which the rest of us can hinge our morals or ethics, and that they—ONLY THEY—are firm and steadfast, with morals that do not change because they have come down from God Himself.

The problem is that we all work within a framework in which our understanding of His will for us and His wishes for our behavior are based off of the understandings and words and translations of others. We have—not a single, blessed one of us—spoken directly to the Lord, and had Him respond directly to us. We may pray for "right" understanding, we may study what we believe to be His Word, but we are still working indirectly, with but poor human intellect that cannot possibly grasp the fullness of something so big as GOD.

We simply do not have a clue, much less an unshifting, universal moral code by which we can all live in perfect, resonating harmony, and this is true regardless of which version of the Bible we adhere to—or not.

It is easy to stand beside those who think as you do and say, simple, "We're right." But there is no basis for this stance other than wishful thinking. Further, it is dangerous to hold this claim, because it cushions us within our own self-righteousness, which—even I can see—as a barrier to any potential greater righteousness. Only from the position that we may be utterly wrong can we seek a true understanding of another point of view, and only from such honest searching can we come to connect with other people ... other children of God, if you like.

I contend that anyone who believes that his or her morals are "unshifting" is less committed to their beliefs than they are to a severe and abiding loathing of change. And while I sympathize—oh, how I sympathize ... I, who can scarcely stomach a relatively generous three-day notice to a change in my weekend plans (and a GOOD change, at that)—it is not realistic to think that there will never be a morally-appropriate need for change.

Consider the Constitution of the United States, a well-considered, -crafted, and -intentioned document if there ever was one. But its failure to consider African-Americans as fully human was not only an abysmal moral failure, but one that absolutely demanded correction.

Certainly I am not about to compare religious texts directly to the Constitution, but the fact remains that if we do not consider the words that we cling to—really consider them, and continue to reflect upon them, actively seeking the thoughts and opinions of others and challenging our perceptions by viewing them from a larger point of view than how we saw them yesterday, or a year ago, or a decade ago—we do lose the meaning behind the words. If we do not actively engage our minds, we do not learn.

And there is always ... ALWAYS ... more to learn.

On one point, I will directly compare holy texts—and their "unchanging" words (presuming, of course, one is reading First Edition holy texts in their respective, originating languages—and all other literature, and that is that while we may all be able to agree at the words that are printed upon the page, we cannot and will not reach a single, variation-free understanding of those words. This is simply because we interpret everything we read, everything we hear, and everything we experience. It is an inherent component of our individual humanity, and, as such, comes to us from God—if you believe in God.

But in His image or not, we comprehend only as much as we know, and if we stop looking about, we know no more today than we did yesterday. Not being omniscient ourselves, we have a heavy obligation to strive for more and more knowledge—to seek to understand without ceasing. To not assume that we KNOW, as God surely must, regardless of what we think we know.

For while God, being God, must of course be absolute, so too must all moral understanding outside His own be simply—and absolutely—relative.

The Bad Hair Day (Part Four of Four)

2009-09-14T00:30:00.008Z

The Exotic Neurotic, waiting for me in the waiting-room-between-worlds—not the front waiting room, but the one that divided the mammogram rooms and the biopsy rooms—was all poise and reassurance when the technician dropped me off, on her way to pick up the gauze pads and exit literature that would be all I would receive for my trial by needle. I wish I could say I snarkily envisioned a t-shirt, something to the effect of: "My Boob Went to StereotacticNeedleBiopsyLand, and All I Got Was This Lousy Packet of Blood-Sponges", but actually, all I did was ooze into the chair next to The Exotic Neurotic and whisper, "It was really pretty awful."

The Exotic Neurotic, bless her careful-planning heart, extracted a chunk of dark chocolate from her purse and pressed it into my hand.

"Would you get my purse out of the locker?" I asked, downing the chocolate immediately (for medicinal purposes, of course).

Thus, I was armed with a handful of ibuprofen AND my Holy Grail of Imitrex, which I ingested in one fell swoop with the bottled water that the technician also procured. Or maybe it was the non-midget nurse ... things were appreciably fuzzy by now, as adrenaline began to wear off and the two-day impending wait for results reasserted itself.

I would like to state that, following my folly of failing to treat my migraine and my rather extreme reaction to the biopsy procedure itself—which, really, while it was nowhere near as easy as I had presumed, was still, thankfully, a far cry from having a full-on, scalpel-wielding, knock-you-out type of biopsy surgery—but, again, I lacked the requisite not-like-me identity to take the mature/high road. The substantial pain of the surgery that I did have, however, was more than enough to preoccupy me until Dr. Geek himself phoned to give me the news.

I know I held my breath as he painstakingly worked through the preliminaries, confirming my name, birthdate, and knowledge of the air-speed velocity of an unladen European swallow. Fortunately, he managed to complete the necessary verifications before I became light-headed, and therefore, I was able to understand him when he said, "It's Good News."

(I didn't retain all of it at the time, but the official report I received in the mail specified, "Pathology: Sclerosing adenosis; negative for atypical proliferative breast disease." If you follow the link, you'll note that it's not all butterflies and pixie dust, as research suggests that women with sclerosing adenosis "may have 1.5 times to twice as high a risk of developing breast cancer". So having that marker in there to identify the potential problem area is a plus, as it will make it that much easier to keep an eye on the area of concern. Still, a current diagnosis of "negative for atypical proliferative breast disease" is better than a poke in the eye at this point ... I'll take it!)

I was so excited to hear the Good News that I didn't even bother asking Dr. ~~Geek~~ Bearer of Glad Breast Tidings (I upgraded his blogname) about the bruising, though I did confess to "substantial discomfort" on pretty much any motion whatsoever. Dr. Bearer of Glad Breast Tidings seemed surprised that I would characterize my discomfort as "substantial", but hey, call me crazy—anything that wakes me up from sleep wins that award in my book (anything that keeps me from sleeping outright is held to the highest standard of pain comparison: unmedicated labor and delivery). He cautioned me to contact him again if the situation did not improve within a few days.

Anyway, about the bruising: I'd been warned when I left Breast Care Central that I could expect "significant" bruising—another "s" word; how droll—and therefore, I'd been prepared to see some majorly nasty discoloration when I removed the pressure bandage. Which I did, only about 12 hours after I was told that I could do so.

Imagine my surprise to see nothing—NOTHING AT ALL—other than the tiny, iron-shaped divot that I'd also been cautioned to expect. It was really so fascinating that I hurried to show Little Girl's daddy, who seemed equally unimpressed, although he was not too eager to examine the mark more closely, having heard the whole gory tale of its origin and having not enjoyed a moment of it.

But if I thought the lack of bruising was interesting, I can only describe the massive, overnight development of all shades of bruise-blossom coloration that erupted while I fitfully slept as appalling.

"Holy shit!" I exclaimed, glad I'd locked the bathroom door—I hadn't yet informed Little Girl of the biopsy, determining that I would wait to tell her until after I had received the results of the test and would hate to have her walk in on such a "significant" sight.

As shocking as the sight was, going from zero to sixty in the wee, dark hours, it did provide some vindication for the notable soreness, and the fright I'd taken during the procedure itself. While certainly mild in comparison to other surgeries, this biopsy had very clearly been traumatic to my flesh, which it had disturbed, displaced, and discolored. In a way, it was good to see bruising.

In another way, it was not really good at all.

The bruising, impressive as it was in its initial flare-up, faded almost entirely within a week, and the mark of the tiny iron evolved from unremarkable, to raised and dark-scabbed, to sunken and almost embarrassed in its dull redness in the same time. Within a month, the iron morphed into a poor excuse for an oval, and is roughly centered on a fingernail-sized, triangular area around it—this triangle, with its blind eye, is slightly raised and feels somewhat harder than it used to be to the touch, but perhaps this, too, will ease eventually.

The important thing is, of course, that my breast's "bad hair day" did turn out to be, as hoped, a minor imperfection and not the start of something malignant—which is hard enough to say, much less contemplate—at least, not yet, and I will also have three extra mammograms of the architectural distortion over the next 18 months just in case.

Compared to the ending that this four-part tale might have had, I can only say that I don't mind in the slightest to be exposing my breast's bad hair day to additional mammogram technicians, or indeed, even to the Internets.

(You're welcome for that visual—rich dark humor with a side of low-fat ridiculousness.)

Architecturally distorted or not, I'm glad to have my imperfect old boobs. They—and I—are absolutely worth taking care of (and celebrating!) and so are you and yours*.

*Men, too, please take note: an uncle of mine is a breast cancer survivor. It is NOT a gender-specific disease. Hug a boob (or two) that you love today! With owner permission, of course.

The Bad Hair Day (Part Three of Four)

2009-09-14T00:30:00.007Z

While I can agree, as I was told in the planning stages of my biopsy, that a stereotactic needle biopsy is a fairly quick procedure, I can also attest to the fact that it is "fairly" uncomfortable—yes, despite the awesomely-numbing local anesthetic. Looking back, I am sure that my pounding migraine—for it seemed to spike in its attack the moment I laid down on the table—contributed significantly to my discomfort, but it also wasn't long before my left arm, which I'd been instructed to rest at an angle, up near my face, was shooting flares of its own numbness. Likewise, my ribs—bordering the unpadded hole—were clamoring for relief, and my neck, too, was protesting loudly.

Between the voices of discomfort in my head and the occasional whirring of the machinery responsible for boring a hole into my now-oblivious breast tissue, I did hear intermittent conversations between Dr. Geek and the technician—who, again, I will praise for her strategic hand-holding, as well as for her regular inquiries as to whether I was "doing okay". But what I could hear of the exchanges between the technician and the good doctor were NOT comforting—not comforting at all.

"Well, that's interesting!" I heard at one point, from Dr. Geek himself.

(This turned out to be a comment regarding the machinery itself—in particular, a noise that the machinery was making. I would have appreciated knowing that, being all focused on the ACTUAL TISSUE OF MY BREAST and all. However, in retrospect, knowing that the boob drill is making an unusual noise as it burrows into my very flesh ... not all that comforting, either.)

"Do you want to leave a second marker?" was another charming snippet that I noted.

(This remark came from the technician, following what I thought—and so hoped!—was one of the final steps of the procedure. It was amazingly difficult to hear over the pounding migraine monster nestled directly behind my eyeballs.)

So although the procedure itself was mercifully brief—that is, the plunging of the needle to suck out a sample of the architecturally distorted area of my otherwise lovely, 30-something boob (what? no one is born with 'em, you know! you gotta grow these things yourself! unless you're Denise Richards)—the surrounding activities such as the numbing, the review of the occasional X-rays that assured that the attack was on target, the warming up of machinery, and—for all I know, facing a blank wall away from the rest of the characters in this disturbing play—the sacrificing of chickens takes time ... a lot of time.

Still, I lay there, not moving except to breathe, and not breathing very well, given my awkward placement, bundle of nerves, and coherent-thought-distorting migraine. And while Dr. Geek was out of the room, reviewing the tissue he'd expertly extracted from my sensation-free bosom, I suddenly realized that I was periously close to tossing my cookies.

"I feel sick," I announced weakly, embarrassed to have to ask for assistance when I should have known damn well to take myself an Imitrex before getting into this situation. The reaction to my tiny voice in the odd stillness of the room was instantaneous.

"You feel sick?" someone repeated, but they did not bother to wait for verification.

The relative quiet of the room was suddenly charged with the welcome sounds of action. While I was quickly admonished to remain still (not that I'd been doing anything else, other than starting to feel like I was going to hurl and/or pass out), my half-formed request for cool air was swiftly met with a strategically placed fan. I suggested, too, that the robe that was partially covering my back be moved, and lo, this, too, was done. Then, what to my wondering eyes should appear—between the edge of the table and the implacable blankness that I'd been eyeball-to-wall with for however ridiculously long this process had thus far taken, but a miniature woman, only just barely able to meet my gaze over the table.

Ohmygoodness! I thought, distracted from imminent puking by the sight before me. She's a midget!

The midget reached up with her hand and patted my arm—the one that the technician couldn't reach from the "business" side of the table—and my migraine-induced nausea reasserted itself.

"Could I have a cold cloth for my forehead?" I said, weakly explaining the migraine.

"Of course!"

Quickly, the midget nurse granted my wish, and despite the aching pins-and-needles of my arm, I was glad to have placed it where I could hold the cloth, and move its comforting coolth around my aching forehead. The cloth was exceptionally damp, having just been soaked in the sink in the far corner of the room—I'd heard the rush of water when the midget had moved out of my sight—but I noticed it only as a simple fact, as one might note rain after a long drought.

The midget remained comfortingly near, offering encouraging words and placating phrases. When I offered a pathetic, "I'm sorry," hers was the denial I heard most clearly, though I recognized the technician's voice on the other side of the room, too. I was assured that I was doing very well, despite my nausea, and asked whether I was feeling better.

"Yes," I said, and it wasn't even a polite lie, even though I knew that a truly better feeling was only going to occur when I was allowed OFF of this medical torture-table and into my purse, where my Imitrex awaited patiently, snug in its secure, individual packaging.

Eventually, Dr. Geek returned, and was apprised of the turn of events—aka, the turn of my stomach.

"We've got what we need," he said, making an admission that would have pained my unbeloved dental tormentor, The Bipolar Butcher, and instantly re-awarding him heroic status in my book. "I'll just finish up here."

The midget nurse patted my arm to get my attention, and I sloshed the still-cool cloth out of my eyes—which I had enough presence of mind to realize must resemble a raccoon's by now, by virtue of un-waterproof mascara—and met hers. She then explained to me that after the doctor had completed his efforts, she would be applying pressure to my much-abused breast for a full ten minutes before I would be allowed to sit up. This was quite alright with me, as I was in complete favor of anything that would further the END of the ordeal. The midget then disappeared, never once giving a hint of discomfort at my damp and black-eyed appearance.

As far as pressure goes, I can tell you most definitively that that of a midget nurse is vastly preferable to that of a machine drilling tunnels into one's delicate flesh. Time warps notwithstanding—because ten minutes would have passed much more quickly during sex with Steve McQueen (for a doubly time-bending example)—it wasn't too awful long before I was permitted to turn over onto my back. However, I was in no doubt whatsoever, despite the lack of a clock in my limited range of visibility, that ten minutes had completely elapsed before my injury was pressure-bandaged into submission and I was allowed to sit up.

Three things happened at this point—well, actually, before this point, if you MUST be technical about it, as I must. First, when I was in the process of gingerly rolling over, my maneuverings were such that I got a view STRAIGHT DOWN into the hole in which the procedure had taken place. And in this hole, I was wretchedly disturbed to see rather a significant quantity of blood—and, not to put to fine a point on it, but imagine seeing this sight with nausea, worry, and a marauding migraine. Blood, okay, to be expected, but the SPATTER? That was really quite too much, and I admit to groaning and likely turning whiter than I even am normally.

I was glad to be eased onto my back at that point—not that the midget nurse's unabating pressure on my breast would have permitted me to go anywhere BUT onto my back.

Second, while the midget offered me a chance to see the point of entry of the architectural-distortion-seeking drill on my breast before she put the pressure bandage on it, I absolutely and completely denied interest in seeing the wound. If you do not understand why, I suggest you re-read the two paragraphs immediately preceding this one.

"Okay," she said, apparently not unaccustomed to such a reaction, "but you should know what it looks like: it's a little iron shape." (To further elaborate on my continued sick-feeling, I was not even intrigued by this comment, which would later prove to be an incredibly accurate description.)

Third, at some point between rolling over and sitting up, I was quite surprised to discover that my midget nurse—who now held the record for the longest non-fun-contact with my breast—wasn't a midget at all. True to my pre-surgery speculation with The ListMaker, the hole-y bed upon which I'd lain HAD been raised from its initial, normal-bed level to somewhere rather surprisingly high, and Dr. Geek and his minions had then proceeded to operate on me not unlike automotive technicians on the underbelly of a car.

Unlike an automotive lift, however, the surgical bed had been raised imperceptibly and soundlessly—or, at least, slowly enough to go unnoticed by a migraine-ridden worrywart, and quietly enough to be unheard by the same underneath the grating noises of drilling machinery and the tantalizing tidbits of eavesdrop-acquired conversation. And not hearing, seeing, OR feeling the lift, I'd quite frankly forgotten all about even its possibility, right up until I saw that the midget nurse, well, wasn't!

I was so surprised to see that she was not really of Little-Person proportions, I'm surprised I didn't flat-out say so.

Although my migraine was still viciously throttling my fragile synapses, my breast—now snugly pressurized by a bandage that was nearly as large as the breast itself—remained comfortably numb. I relinquished my hair-deflating and makeup-eroding cold compress, which was by now lukewarm, anyway, and was assisted back into my robe.

It was at this point, by virtue of my ability to sit unassisted and without undue wavering, that I was permitted—under the close and watchful guard of the non-midget nurse and the tree-like technician—to stand, and then, finally, leave the biopsy area.

The Bad Hair Day (Part Two of Four)

2009-09-14T00:28:00.003Z

I don't think I'm the only one who has a personal prohibition against considering myself ordinary. I mean, in my (rare) moments of clarity, I totally see it, but I—like most other people I know—carry over from childhood a certain amount of misplaced faith in the notion that even if I am not, in fact, the center of the universe, well, I really SHOULD be.

This is the sort of ludicrous idea that allows people to hope that they will win the (monetary) lottery, and—ironically enough—it is also the same ridiculousness that sways us into the cold, clammy grasp of The Dark Side when it comes to medical test results ... here, too, we are brought back to that universal-centrist world wherein All The Shit That Happens (be it Good Shit or Bad Shit) Happens To US.

But, really, even if we've stacked the odds against ourselves through poor self-care or other risk factors, basic chances are still firmly planted in the fertile soil of reality. That our imaginations are so very prolific is impressive, of course, but nevertheless, such conceit is not capable of reversing the laws of nature, even temporarily, on its own. The test, "just to make sure", is still being ordered as a precaution, not as a foregone conclusion, and it would be perfectly reasonable to expect the results of said test to be in our favor—far more logical to conclude this, in fact, than that we are in any way, shape, or form capable surpassing millions just like us to win millions of dollars.

I fall into the typical pattern of averageness when I say very bluntly that I absolutely—beyond even the tiniest little foreshadowing of doubt—expected my test to return malignant results. In short, the week between my biopsy-scheduling and the biopsy itself was a very long week indeed.

However, time has a predictable way of rolling along regardless of what we anticipate or dread out along its hazy horizon, and so it did during this particular week as well, and soon there I was—The Exotic Neurotic supportively with me again—back in Breast Care Central (at least there's a local branch) and also pretty well terrified. Because I was rambling along about nothing at all, and despite the fact that I do that here in BlogWorld, I rarely do so in the "real" world.

Unless I'm freaking the hell out.

Anyway, after a lengthy waiting period, I was whisked away to a mammogram room, and was told by the bulky technician therein that I would be sitting down for these images. Which was fine and good, and modestly preferable to standing, though a strict and high standard of posture was enforced by the upward pull of the device.

We played one traditional—except for the sitting-down part—round of mammography, and then things got decidedly more awkward. Because after the second, very-carefully situated scan, the technician got her shot and then left me in the vise-like grip of the mammogram machine.

Having been preoccupied with making an effort at humor and keeping myself from appearing as the totally nervous wreck that I really was, I had managed to miss the importance of this little episode. And although I had confidence that time had not ACTUALLY stopped, and the technician WOULD return in relatively short order, I was simultaneously assaulted by panic, caught without a clue as to which button would release the machine's death grip on such a delicate part of my anatomy AND not knowing just when the damn door would reopen to herald the return of the technician.

Oh no she di'nt. OH YES SHE DID. She left me alone with my favorite breast in a clamp!

The perfectly logical explanation for this time-warped duration of unpleasantness was this: in order to figure out where to drill into the tissue to obtain the sample from the area of concern, the mammogram is employed, the technician must obtain a hard-copy of the image, and then the technician must utilize the numbered markings along the edges of the cut-out in the upper portion of the mammogram's clamp to mark the site at which to plumb for tissue samples. Which she did, upon her eventual return, with a black marker to make the "X" that marked the spot.

(High-tech, I tell you.)

From this inauspicious beginning, I was again escorted into the waiting area, where I pulled aside my robe to show The Exotic Neurotic my "X", appearing around about one o'clock on my breast. She seemed not especially impressed with the technique that had resulted in its demarkation, and distracted me with my copy of Monica Seles's latest book, Getting a Grip: On My Body, My Mind, My Self, which I had purchased on a whim and then loaned to her. We were thus fairly pleasantly—though only on the surface—engaged until I was called in for the actual biopsy procedure.

The table, which had been previously described to me, appeared even less glamorous than it had sounded. But before I was dispatched to it, there were questions and forms for me to address.

Even given the seriousness of the situation, I found it difficult to pay attention. First of all, there was a glaring grammatical error in the very first paragraph of the very first form I was handed, and I disliked the way that the mapped drive on which the form was stored was printed at the bottom of the form as well. Still, to bring up the subject of why "you" was wrong in this context seemed like nitpicking, and not to mention, indicative of an attention-deficit-disordered mind. So I signed the form and nodded, and only asked one irreverent question when I was confronted with the shiny new information that a "marker" was going to be embedded in my breast at the site of the biopsy for future mammogrammic reference.

"Is that going to set off airport security?" I inquired, with all the serious aplomb of a dark-humored person who is stuck in an intensely uncomfortable situation.

Dr. Geek, who had returned for Q&A following my obedient—and bad-grammar-overlooking—sign-off of the requisite forms, seemed to take me quite seriously and produced a sample marker, which was embedded in a big chunk of clear plastic, for my edification. The marker itself was TINY. In fact, it was barely visible to my soon-to-be-bifocal-assisted gaze.

I murmured in what I hoped would be construed as a properly appreciative fashion, and returned the stylistic equivalent of a biopsy-headstone, which was really rather disgusting, in my opinion. Even if it WAS remarkably tiny.

(The short answer to my question, by the way, was "No." But I didn't get the short answer. I got to hold a paperweight!)

Eventually, it was time to proceed with the actual procedure. While the doctor scrubbed up and put on his costume—hey, if there's a mask involved, it fully qualifies as a costume in my mind—the technician helped me arrange myself on the scary table which had been the chief focus of my distractability throughout the paperwork—and paperweight—portion of the afternoon undelight. It was a barely-cushioned surface, with a gaping hole in the middle, around which the downward-inclining edging sank most ominously.

As I crawled up onto the table, I could see directly into the hole, because—far from being a light-sucking night-terror-esque void—it was filled with high-tech tools, and light. Yes, as The ListMaker and I had theorized, it looked like I was about to be hoisted up on the surgical equivalent of an autobody-shop's lift, and instead of having a utility light hooked to some portion of my soft underbelly, I would instead be illuminated by various fixtures embedded in the vicinity of the vertically-oriented mammogram device below the hole.

I tried very hard to objectify the experience, taking careful—but scientific, not emotional—note of my surroundings. Because, taken from a higher point of view (did you see what I did there? yes? a reference to the presumed lift of the gruesome surgical table? right, whatever, moving on ...), the surgical implements, processes, and methodologies involved here WERE very interesting. Imagine! The ability to zero in, without the need for a big-ass scapel or general anesthesia, on a tiny target, that, if it were to prove malignant, would surely be in the earliest stages of its attack, and would therefore be highly treatable. Really, it's marvelous to think about the screenings and options that are available today!

That everything was—in addition to being remotely fantastic—also personally terrifying was a bit of an impedance to relaxation, but once I was positioned by the technician on the table, with my poor, now-quite-suspicious breast (lightly) clamped yet again and sweating under the glare of the ~~interrogation~~ surgical lighting, I was pretty much freaked clean out of my mind.

I did have another distraction, you see ... I had a migraine brewing. Given the delays that had occurred in the process, I was now brutally conscious of the error of my ways, but since caffeine HAD been the sole representative on the "forbidden" list that morning, I had blamed the earlier twinges of pain on a simple lack of coffee. However, as I lay in awkwardly-placed wait on the table for the procedure to begin, I now fully realized the stupidity of my malformed reasoning. This was, in fact, a migraine, and it was NOT HAPPY about the stress, the lights, or, indeed, the lying-upon of the stomach.

I tried to breathe slowly and evenly, and moved not a muscle otherwise. It was not difficult to remember the imperative of remaining still, as the technician found it necessary to bray out at random intervals, "HOLD AS STILL AS YOU CAN!" Despite the fact that I WAS.

With my head turned at a neck-spasming angle, I could not see the doctor, the technician, or the assistant who were now assuming their assigned positions in this heinous little dance. Lying like a limbo pole that had been damaged by tornadic forces and repaired with duct tape and baling wire, I felt like a mere accessory to the performance, rather than the star attraction. Someone—the technician, I think—would occasionally take hold of my hand, and murmur reassurances regarding my holding-still non-activity—and would then remonstrate, "AND HOLD STILL!"—and then there would be more noise, or more medical chatter. And sometimes, of necessity, Dr. Geek would speak directly to me.

"Okay, I'm going to give you the local [anesthesia] now. There will be a little sting, but that should be all you feel. And I want to know if you feel anything else! On the count ..."

"Not a problem," I assured him, wryly but sincerely.

"What's that?"

"NOT A PROBLEM. I'LL LET YOU KNOW."

"Oh yes, good. On the count of three, then. Onnnnnnnnnnnnnne," he began, drawling out the number to an almost painfully slow pace, "twothree."

"SNEAKY!" I exclaimed, not without a little admiration for the devious technique. The technician and assistant laughed, and Dr. Geek launched into an impressive array of pseudo-shocked disclaimers that I would assign him such an accolade.

Unlike my experiences at the dentist, the numbing agent wielded by Dr. Geek was completely and thoroughly effective. As far as I was concerned, his erratically-paced count was entirely forgiven, and, when he was satisfied that all was in readiness, he moved forward with the next phase of the procedure.

The Bad Hair Day (Part One of Four)

2009-09-14T00:16:00.002Z

Turning 40—which I did last November—affords the modern woman many exciting new experiences. I expect it entails a certain number of male-centric wonders as well, but not being of the XY persuasion myself, I don't plan to cover these in the gory detail with which I am about to discuss my first mammogram, and its decidedly unpleasant ancillary companions ... consider yourself warned.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Which is a little funny, considering I'm talking about BOOBS. And now I'm digressing. Ah, good, everything's pretty much back to normal (the sensitive amongst you can consider this foreshadowing, because I'd hate for anyone to endure the not-knowing in the same, lame-ass style in which I did, which was with little sleep and less maturity).

Anyway, so I scheduled my first mammogram and found it not at all that which it was hyped up to be. Sure, there was discomfort, but really, it was far more tolerable than childbirth, and that first horrific week of nursing, and hey, for that matter, it was more pleasant—although hardly something I would care to repeat, if not repeating it were an even vaguely logical option—than the Corporate interview process, so there you go. Not-so-bad mission accomplished, and I flushed out the afternoon's action with my annual exam AND the traditional checking of my defunct thyroid gland via a TSH blood test. As I cheerfully put it in a text message to The ListMaker, "have had vajayjay violated, breasts origami-manipulated, and vein punctured. you'd think at least they could throw in a kiss! or call me sweetheart."

(She wittily responded, "Not even dinner? You're easy!")

But a few days later, my breasts and I—particularly my right boob, as things turned out—were recalled for additional tests, which I scheduled at first opportunity ... one week after the first mammogram. The Exotic Neurotic kindly accompanied me, and plied me with celebrity tidbits and trash-talk—my preferred mindless indulgence at stressful times—which was very soothing. But eventually I had to face the machines again, and because it entailed X-rays, I had to go it alone.

Apparently, there was something different—potentially, but not absolutely sinister—about my right breast. This abnormality, I was told by the third person other than Little Girl's daddy to manhandle my breasts in, well, YEARS—the second person being the first mammogram technician that I had seen—could possibly resolve if it were studied at different angles and alignments. And thus my poor, shy mammary was mashed and squished and turned sideways in attempts to straighten out its multidunious, overlying layers.

It was a valiant effort, but it failed.

The next step brought yet another breast-fondler to the fore, and this was Dr. Geek himself. He was armed with that oh-so-special ultrasound goo and, of course, the associated ultrasound device, and he proceeded to ultrasound my boob within an inch of its delicate life. As he moved the sensor back and forth—and baaaaaaaaaack and forrrrrrrrrth across my breast—I craned my neck and watched the screen, but to my untrained—and strained—eyes, it was only so much fuzzy, blobular nothingness. I could not see The Exotic Neurotic's expression from where she was seated—ultrasounding being an audience-participation-permissible contact sport, unlike mammogramming—but I presume she couldn't make much of it, either. I decided not to ask for a copy of the video, and instead tried to think positive thoughts ... or negative ones, if they were to be in terms of my eventual results.

Dr. Geek was actually just the sort of doctor I would have chosen, if I had picked my mammography expert on any basis other than "Who's got an opening first? I'LL TAKE HIM!" Dry-humored and answering-questions-oriented, he was an information-seeker's dream doctor, and when he established that The Exotic Neurotic—for she asked more questions than I did, and good questions at that—and I were both of the scientific-minded persuasion, he got into a lot more technical detail. Which is not to say or even suggest that I absorbed each and every medical term or turn of phrase, because I did not ... but I got enough to really believe that 1) this guy knew what he was talking about, 2) this guy was a good choice to perform my biopsy.

Now. What's a six-letter word guaranteed to induce fear, loathing, and ~~general~~ specific anxiety? Right. B-I-O-P-S-Y. Gold star for you—you, my invisible friend, have actually been READING and not skimming. Probably. But how did I go from mammogram to X-ray to ultrasound to biopsy without first passing monitoring and, say, MRI?

I'm glad you asked, because I was going to tell you anyway.

As Dr. Geek explained—after he'd seen whatever it was (or wasn't) that he could see in the grainy, hazy mess of Ultrasound Vision—I had an "architectural distortion" in my breast. The good doctor compared this technicality to, basically, a bad hair day. That's right. My BREAST—which is not at all hirsute, thankyouverymuch (not that there's anything wrong with that!)—was having a "bad hair day".

Dr. Geek's point in evoking the "bad hair" day metaphor was that this sort of abnormality is a subtle one, and could well be nothing more than something an expert—himself, in the case of my breast, or The Exotic Neurotic, in the case of the hair (on my head)—would notice. Further, an architectural distortion could result from something as benign as dinging myself in the boob with a car door (not that I would ever be so clumsy as THAT ... oh yes, I would, and easily); past surgery, which I had never had, could also account for an architectural distortion.

Odd to find oneself rooting in favor of gracelessly knocking oneself upside of the boob!

So. Because, in addition to the aforementioned benign nothingness, an architectural distortion could also be the first sign of an invasive lobular cancer making inroads into my otherwise (basically) normal hooters—what? I'm getting bored of using "breast" and "boob" over and over, so I'm busting into slang and other metaphors—the doctor expressed a need to proceed with caution. In other words, considering my age and other factors, this here architectural distortion was probably nothing, but because of what it COULD be (if it wasn't nothing), further testing was warranted.

My options, as enumerated by Dr. Geek, were 1) 6-, 12-, and 24-month follow-up mammograms (which he would strongly suggest anyway, even if I chose door #2 or door #3), 2) an MRI (which might diagnosis the problem, or lack thereof, OR which might necessitate #3 anyway), or 3) a stereotactic needle biopsy.

"What would you recommend?" The Exotic Neurotic asked him bluntly.

"An MRI or a biopsy," Dr. Geek said without hesitation. "Both are equally good options."

At which point, in my head, the following argument instantly raged (profanity added for emphasis, although I pretty much swear at myself—in a loving way—all the time):

"An MRI? Are you kidding me? I AM CLAUSTROPHOBIC."

"They make drugs for that."

"I DON'T FUCKING CARE! I AM AWESOMELY CLAUSTROPHOBIC! BOW BEFORE ME! But, umm, I don't want to make my decision based on fear."

"Good luck with that, dumbass. This is some scary shit. I don't think a non-fear-based decision is a remote possibility here. Deal with it."

"Well, YOU heard him! I could end up going Hulk-crazy in an MRI and STILL need to get poked IN THE BOOB by a needle!"

"Dude. They're my little melons, too. No need to get snippy—I'm not all thrilled by any of this. How about we just pass on the whole thing?"

"NOW WHO'S THE DUMBASS?"

"Okay, okay."

*sychronized, metaphoric sigh*

"What's the gold-standard here?"

"I would say the biopsy. And not just because I'm less scared of it than the MRI. Probably."

"I think you're right. I'll ask before they decide we've lapsed into a coma. They're staring at us, you know."

And so, because I really didn't want to freak out either my potential surgeon or my escort through this undelightful experience, I briefly ran through my musings—minus the profanity—and inquired of The Exotic Neurotic as to what SHE would do.

"Biopsy."

Which made me feel instantly better, because The Exotic Neurotic has already endured the harrowing Narrow Tube of Insanely Loud Clicking, and thus knows personally that it is survivable—something that I was, however unreasonably, still doubting in the back of my demented little mind. My decision was made.

And, after my unsuspecting bosom was divested of its ultrasound-required coating and I was restored to outward-appearing normal, I scheduled my biopsy.

There was a bit of a problem in the scheduling; it seemed that the following week was rather unusually full, and therefore, it took the sweet receptionist rather a long time to locate a spot for me, in the week AFTER the following week. While she searched and clicked and did whatever it takes to schedule appointments these days, I grasped onto my gloom and tried to make a joke of it.

"Surgery," I pouted to The Exotic Neurotic. "And it's my favorite boob, too."

The Exotic Neurotic, who, after knowing me for the entirety of her life, is not unfamiliar with my random lapses of TMI, turned sharply. She didn't appear to know what to make of my statement.

"What? It's perkier than the other one! Don't you have a favorite?"

Still clearly taken aback, The Exotic Neurotic nevertheless answered with her trademark honesty. And more than a hint of her own dry humor.

"Well, yes. As a matter of fact, I do."

At this point, the receptionist snickered, which was just the shot in the arm I needed to actually make the appointment that would insert a needle deep within my (favorite) breast, and probe it for cancer.

Despite my best efforts, all I did after that was went home and cried.

Random Things that Sucked This Week

2009-09-07T14:13:00.004Z

I'm not as short of material as this post will make it seem. I still have a stack of articles, notes, and printouts THAT HIGH on either side of me, and as anyone who's been around here more than a few seconds—and perhaps those folks, too—can attest, I can go on for freaking EVER about nothing in particular at all.

(It's part of what is loosely referred to as my "charm".)

But in the interests of not being a total crashing bore, I thought I'd try for what passes for light material in these here parts and ramble off a random (short) list of (minor) things that sucked in the past week (or so—this entry has actually been on hold for rather longer than that, due to travel, work, and other intervening annoyances).

Anyway, because big sucky things are really quite crappy indeed—and that would bring me right back to my typically depressing fare—you can rest assured that the things discussed herein are, indeed, just sucky enough to be modestly entertaining. Also, you can be reassured by the fact that it's not near late enough in the lighted season to get really gloomy here.

Yet.

So without further digressional ado—because it's neither particularly funny at the moment, nor is it QUITE enough to merit a bullet point o' sucktasticalness—let's get on to wyo's list of Random Things That Sucked ~~This~~ In A Fairly Recent Week:

I refused to let a total asshole squeeze ahead of me in the place in my morning driving route where total assholes ALWAYS squeeze ahead of me. And it's not just me—the flow of traffic is such that approximately 85% of it has to turn right at this particular juncture, which compels the OH-SO-IMPORTANT (in their own minds) amongst us to drive like bats outta Hell and then FORCE their way into spots two sizes too small for their behemoth-mobiles, because their vehicles ARE that big, SO THEY CAN.

So I refused this particular total asshole the pleasure of cutting me off at my Saturn-encased knees, and she flipped me off for my troubles. And blew around me like an F5 tornado on a trailer-park rampage at her first opportunity. It was all fun and games after that, traffic being typically congested, and I laughed at her efforts to get out of my sight for a long time. Right up until she turned into the Corporate parking lot ahead of me.

That sucked.

I was put on hold during the set-up phase of a doom-filled conference call. While listening to the hideous strains of pea-soup elevator music, I recognized the poor, abused tune as a classic from my high-school years.

That sucked.

I encountered a gray hair in a, umm, "southern" location. Enough said.

(That REALLY sucked.)

As I exited one of Corporate's bathroom stalls, I realized it had been a reasonably long time since the last time Corporate's bathrooms had traumatized me. This mini-piphany—as The Exotic Neurotic has dubbed such light-bulb moments—inspired me to be exceptionally pleased with the completely non-awkward Corporate bathroom visit I had just experienced, and so I was doing a little preening in the bathroom mirror, primping my flat-tastic locks and batting my artificially-lengthened eyelashes at myself, and then I glanced down at my freshly-painted toenails.

From my pretty, mauve-tipped toes, I looked back up at the stalls. And then I repeated that down/up head-jerkiness and toe/stall focal-length alternation in rapid succession. Rapid sucesssion and, I should add, sheer horror. Because I had not noticed, until that very moment, that OPI's punnishly-dubbed "Silenty Mauvie" is an EXACT MATCH for the shade of paint on Corporate's bathroom stalls.

That sucked.

Lest you be all surprised and say, "Oh my! That's the sum total entirety of things that sucked for you this week? How dare you bitch about that, you idiot moron?" which would force me to reply, "Hey, that's dually redundant, you geeky dork, and did you miss the part where I clearly alluded to the fact that I was trying for humor and not statistical accuracy?", let me just say that, while not every sucky thing that happened—or, necessarily, restricted only to one week's worth, this list does include each and every sucky thing that I happened to write down onto the small, square piece of paper on which I decided to list such things.

The end.

Flying

2009-08-31T11:16:00.001Z

It takes a lot to get me on an airplane these days. First and foremost, it takes my manager asking—telling, really—me that I have to take a trip for some greater Corporate purpose.

At this point—while the deal is, in essence, done (for I have creditors and must work to pay them)—there is still a lot to be accomplished before I can facet he cold reality that requires me to "slip the surly bonds of Earth" (or whatever) and get into the con-trail emitting contraptions that leave straight-line curves across the amorphous, sky-painted bowl that flimsily covers the sturdy ground below.

I commence with frequent and vocal denial, general and specific whining, and eventually progress to grim and bitter resignation. It is then, and only then, that I can finally, wholly embrace the comforting irony of gloomy preparation.

While the details may vary—as trip-particular destinations and ancillary activities are wont to do—my authentic, Wyoming, I'll-die-with-my-boots-on boots are a given. So, too, are my self-medicating, pre-flight pleasantries ... the non-smoking version of a final cigarette, if you will (and even if you won't).

In truth, my newly-christened medicinal tradition—it is a little-known but established fact that performing any given act twice does constitute "tradition", as long as you are firmly resolved to continue it at appropriate junctures, and also plaster your intentions to that effect across your low-traffic blog (high-traffic blogs will do, in a pinch)—of downing a muscle relaxant with a Wyoming Peach chaser in the airport parking lot an hour or so before boarding time is real, true, honest-to-goodness good medicine.

With my innate tendency to manifest my stress in physical forms, flying—which I have grown to abhor with increasing anxiety over the years—has become an activity not unlike endurance running in its rapid and repeated ability to inflict achingly sore muscles upon me. As an added bonus, I am now also routinely smote by migraines when traveling by air.

My youthful penchant for window seats—the better to watch the world drop away and rush-return, my dears—has been trampled by the bullish appeal of the aisle ... the better to get the heck out of Air Dodge, don'tyaknow. No longer flushed with excitement, I am wizened with taunt muscles caught in the clammy grip of flight—"fight" having deserted me to take the damn train.

To wear my lovely shit-kickers, drink a light, fruity drink, and "relax" inasmuch as modern medicine can cheaply permit me has seemed, of late, to be "as good as it gets" for me when it comes to flying what I had come to regard as entirely unfriendly skies.

But on my way back from my most recent Corporate destination, as I stared twitchily at the shaded window beside me—window seats are far more prevalent in the smaller planes than aisle ones and late Corporate travelers are rarely provided with this thing called "choice" in the matter—and wondered whether my self-dosed dose was wearing off prematurely, I found myself lifting the sliding division between the seen and the unseen ...

... and my carefully regulated breathing stopped as I caught and held—and was, in turn, caught and held.

The thin line of the horizon divided a sky on fire from the muted earth with reds and purples along its dimming border. The brightest part of the sunset—which I had thought to be hidden by the cloud cover that the captain had described when we had taken off—was gone, to be sure, but the afterburn was deep with remembered warmth. Purple-gray clouds, poofed and shredded like cotton balls caught in a kitten's claws, stood between the plane and the horizon, and they seemed—miraculously, to me—to be my sentries rather than those of ambivalent Fate.

Below, the lights of cities, towns, and homes resolved in increasing detail as we descended, and I craned my neck for a view of my "final destination", its small collection of runways leaking guiding lines of colored lights into the atmosphere. The clouds alternately obscured and revealed, and I remembered describing them to Little Girl as "just fog", rather than the pillows she confided to imagining in her littler girl years.

"Just" fog? These gentle behemoths, suspended as if by magic between the heavens and the Earth? How could I have said that, fear of flying or no?

And then I looked up, from the steady points of light below, past the clouds and residual light from an unseen Sun, to the crowded sky above, with so many stars so like—and unlike—the one with which we are so familiar so as to use its given name more often than not. Heavens above, not only full of stars but full of familiar friends, constellations learned on camping trips, satellites like Manx versions of meteors, and all of them constant—as constant as anything in this forever-changing Universe.

My fingers itched to press against the glass, reaching out to what cannot be touched but which touches everything, and for just a moment, it seemed like I could forget what I had learned and simply wonder again ... no anxious lurching of stomach, no tense cramping of neck, no clutching the feeble armrests as if they were solid and comforting ... it was only the smallest of expanses of time, but it was vivid and memorable enough to linger with me, until I was compelled to write it down.

I watched out the window until the plane landed, and wasn't precisely surprised to find myself in tears—the transient, luxurious tears that come from a mix of feelings stronger than any drink, or any medication. I don't think my experience was strong enough to alleviate my need for ritual the next time I fly, but it was definitely strong enough to add to my arsenal of pre-flight preparation ... a rediscovered sense of wonder in flying.

All The Words In The World?

2009-08-16T14:38:00.005Z

Dictionaries appealed to me for as long as I've self-identified as a writer—longer, if you count the expanse during which I wishy-washily considered myself to be a wanna-be writer—but they've recently escalated to collectible fascination. Specifically, I am drawn to old dictionaries ... and the older, the better.

Which is kind of funny, considering the electronic dictionaries that are now available are SO much more comprehensive than any current dictionary, and certainly vastly moreso than archaic dictionaries.

Anyway, my collection is still small, consisting of only four dictionaries, but I feel quite confident that I'll be needing more shelf space as time progresses, and as circumstances permit. Not only because dictionaries tend to be rather bulky books, but also because my latest acquisition takes up almost as much space as my first three ... combined.

Yes, my latest chock-full-o'-words trophy is rather thick!

And it has a respectable heft to it.

It is also nicely aged.

And I love it! From the curve of its bulging spine to the swirling, tapestry-like illustrations that wrap its thick sides.

Mind you, I can't quite put my finger on just what it is that I so adore about this massive tome. Though its cover is hefty and seems sturdy enough, its pages are filmy and easily damaged. Its condition is quite good, but hardly stellar, with fading etchings, torn and bent pages, and scruffy corners all indicating its lengthy term of service.

And where I once imagined such an unabridged beauty to contain, truly, "all the words in the world", I now know that such an accolade is impossible to bestow, particularly upon a well-aged dictionary, be it bridgeless or not.

Nevertheless, I find old dictionaries to be holders of an inherent charm, even if they are not and cannot encompass every word that exists. Or even, every word that I have ever used.

That's right. For all the words it does include—and that is a number far greater than most of us will ever manage to amass in our daily usage, even if we try diligently and live long and verbosely—this here 5-inch thick, 14.5-pound monstrosity of a dictionary is minus one succinct "fuck".

Not that there's anything wrong with that. :)

Bittersweet

2009-08-10T10:50:00.001Z

The sleeping boy had the lightest of blond hair. It was a perfect match for the shade Little Girl had at that age. Limp in his father's arms, the boy's left arm dangled like a pendulum—his fingers, plump with youth, tapped en masse against his father's right elbow as the man conveyed the oblivious child along. The proportion of this child's arm to the adult one that cradled him captured my attention and held it in the softest grip imaginable, but it was still the clasp of a vice—make no mistake.

I have no experience with psychic ability. I don't really believe such a thing exists. I think the times I've dreamt of a blond, blue-eyed boy like the one that caught my eye at the county fair have been just that—dreams, fueled by nothing more or less unusual than desires of which I am fully aware, even if I do not pay them more than the occasional mind. I don't think these dreams or the waking thoughts that mimic them are "visitations" or portents of what will be—or of what should have been.

But that doesn't mean that I haven't entertained such wistful, wishful notions. And it certainly doesn't mean that the power of my visions—such as I might call them by virtue of their power over me, had I some greater-than-linear understanding of time, and some larger-than-individual knowledge of events—are any less potent, simply because I believe that my dreams of a boy child of my own are "only" that ... dreams.

What it does mean, I suppose, is that my recently-undertaken pursuit of a more permanent form of birth control is more poignant than it otherwise might be. These dreams did not vanish quietly into either night or day simply because I turned my attention down from them, convinced that their time for realization is fully passed. For all I am sure—and I am very, very sure—that the child I have is the only child I will have, the longing for another will not be silenced, particularly in the sweet, sleeping face and trusting, innocent form of a child very much like the one I might have had.

It is said that confronting our dreams is a means by which we may know whether the hopes they convey are what we truly wish for. I think that's crap, and it should go without saying that dreams—visions, "should have beens", or whatever it is that you call the heart-felt desires that rise up in one form or another and tantalize you with how very real they want to be—are, indeed, what we not only wish for, but LONG for. It does not follow, though, that all dreams can be realized, no matter how much they are welcomed, hoped for, or nurtured.

What does follow is the lingering sweetness and bittersweet juxtaposition of a blond boy—young enough to fall deeply asleep in the noise and excitement of a fair, and small enough to be carried away ... carried away by someone else.

The Uselessness of Tools without Trade

2009-08-07T11:19:00.003Z

If you are a largely unknown (read, "unpopular") blogger like myself, Google Analytics has a nasty-ass razor's edge to it. While it's nice to be able to see where your black-diamond-rare hits come from—by source (such as a Google search or a referring link) and by geography (at least insofar as general hubs go)—it can be utterly ego-decapitating to check the statistics that show how long your "readers" spend perusing your blog.

My average for last month was around about 40 whole seconds.

Mind you, because I started this blog on the advice of a then-friend* who insisted that "this sort of thing" was "perfect" for me (read, "in lieu of actual, accredited therapy, you self-defeating Froot Loop"), I wasn't exactly** expecting to generate a large and devoted following. I really did set out to use this blog simply as a forum for venting frustrations, expounding on exaggerations, and just generally playing with words ... finding my writing voice was a truly shocking bonus.

But another thing I found was that there ARE invisible Internet people out there who WILL follow a blog like mine. I don't want to name names—not because of the Santa-Claus-comparative length of the list, nor because I am afraid of forgetting any of the few, the proud (?), the "Temporary Digression" readers—but rather, because I don't want to imply any obligations. Blogs, like other written efforts—and musical ones, too—appeal at a personal level, and sometimes only in part ... I appreciate that anything, no matter how small, I have written has appealed to anyone enough to spark a single return trip—even a 40-second journey—and I really do feel that these visits are a gift that I have received.

Except, you know, where my "reader" pelt me with Spam or chastise me for wasting their time. Seriously? YOU read it, dude ... if you didn't bother with the disclaimer*** first, then I can hardly be blamed for your lack of mental self-preservation.

(And yes, I'm done with the asterisked footnotes now. Five starred digressions—not to be confused with five-starred digressions—is quite enough, and yes, there ARE five ... two of the footnotes have footnotes of their own. Because I'm THAT disorganized, thankyouverymuch.)

Anyway, because this introduction has been excessively ramble-y (even for me), let me indicate a little direction here as I try to get back to the issue of "interest", such as it is in today's attention-deficit-disordered world. With the very world at our fingertips, who could blame us if we embark on a constantly-escalating search for the best and the brightest—i.e., the funniest and the most creative? No wonder so few bloggers rise to the creamy top of the Internets ... there is so much to choose from out there, and the plethora of options gives us no need to stick with what, in the past, appealed to us (even if that "past" was yesterday).

And I really don't think that's a bad thing. Loyalty is a fine notion—and don't think for a moment that I'm not desiring of it; it's a pretty basic human urge, to feel that there are things and people upon which you can count—but it's far better suited for the "real world" (such as it is) wherein people can see each other's faces as they interact, and no, I don't mean through the prism of a webcam's lens. Much as I adore the ability to ship words—carefully crafted or spewed, as the day's events have inspired—out into the electronic ether, I'm not under any delusions that this is the same thing as holding a conversation with another human being without a binary-coded pipeline in between us.

As cutely evocative as nested parentheses are, there is no real substitute for actual, physical (((HUGS))).

Then, too, if you've signed on to "social networking" sites such as MySpace or Facebook and have served any duration of time on there, you already know it to represent both the best and the worst that the Internets have to offer. You can reconnect with dear old friends that you've inadvertently lost touch with, you can forge new friendships, and you can reinforce flagging bonds, true. But you can also relate to others in the ficklest and most simplistic of ways, and "hide" news from "friends" that annoys or bores you. And you can unfriend or be unfriended at the touch of a button (or two)—as silly as it sounds, it really is appropriate, given the nature of such sites is, essentially, glorified bulletin boards.

The point here is that on the Internet, as in life, people make and break connections as is necessary for them. This is the way it is, and also the way it has to be—you can't form a union of any sort, even one as tenuous as blog-readership may be (but not necessarily MUST be), without the involvement of TWO parties. The dissolution of such things, however, is and has to be solely up to either ONE of the two parties. The decision to shut down an online tale, as it were, is not a mutual one, but is an opportunity of which either the reader or the writer can avail themselves, at any time.

(Not that I am gonna serve myself the proverbial "nice big cup of STFU"—not at all!—although I have been known to sip a thimbleful or so on occasion.)

So just as either one of two friends can end a relationship, or either one of two spouses can end a marriage, a reader can drop a feed or a writer can shut down a blog ... fair enough, really, and I'm not sure why anyone would think that online existence could possibly vary from the fundamental rules of relationships! Certainly, any "real" relationship can be shallow or deep, and so can any virtual one, but at their basic, elemental cores, they are all still relationships, and they require some level of interaction if they are to exist at all.

But getting back to the statistics that I started with, the numbers conceal at least as much as they reveal—averages are like that—and they certainly don't tell me anything about hook-ups and break-ups. It's not unlike numbers on the scale, which—while they do certainly provide information—tell only one dry fact, without providing anything at all, really, about the true story behind that isolated fact. And facts without background are too easily turned around, or sideways, or twisted outright ... we NEED stories to give us context. Left to provide our own context, most of us will generate outrageous nonsense of one sort or another—self-aggrandizing if we are feeling confident, or self-depreciating if we are not.

Occam's razor notwithstanding—because the simplest explanation is, of course, that readers of short duration did not find what they were looking for and therefore left—there is little else than trending to be derived from numbers of the sort that I have mentioned here. The numbers themselves are capricious, but if I choose to work on the story behind the trending, the possibility for stability and/or positive trending—as that is variously defined by the numbers under discussion—increases substantially.

All of which is to say, change is rarely made by simple observation, and how foolish is it to think otherwise? Investing in tools of the trade—whatever the trade may be—is pointless without an even greater investment in time to actually learn the trade.

The only question is, into which "trade/s" shall I portion my greatest effort ... and into which will YOU portion YOUR greatest effort?

*Just for the record, this former friend and I did not bust up because of the fact that I'm a depressed, verbose whiner—I accept that accolade, even if the truth does hurt (because it's still the fucking truth)—but rather because of irreconcilable differences****.

**Okay, I suppose deep down, I hoped my writing would be so utterly brilliant that an adoring following would surge like salmon swimming upstream to spawn and I would rise above my general tendency towards craptacular, downward-spiraling, obsessive-compulsive babbling*****.

***How can "because blogging is cheaper than therapy" be taken as anything other than a warning?

****I used to believe there was no such thing as "irreconcilable differences", as long as both parties cared enough to deal with the differences in question, but as per usual, reality has been a great educator and once again, the truth hurts (but, yes, it's still the fucking truth).

*****Hey, at least I'm having fun with it! (Ironically enough.)

Addendum (because I said I was done with asterisks, but I wasn't, because that's how I'm thinking today ... in asterisks): Eagle-eyed and/or bored-silly readers will note that I've recently added Ligit to my blog. Yes, another statistical tool. But! In this case, I am not just staring blankly at the numbers, but enjoying the appearance of the search terms used by people to peruse my blog. See, if people use the cute little Ligit engine (that could!) on the sidebar there enough, words that are searched more often will appear larger, adding an interesting visual word salad to my blog (though probably not as interesting as Ellen's word salad over at Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia, which, really, makes perfect sense, given that I don't personally know any international toe porn stars).

Can't We All Just Get Along?

2009-07-31T10:47:00.000Z

A deceptively small issue that rears its head with increasing ferocity is that of public prayer. This problem commonly presents itself in school uniform—or lack thereof, since private schools can generally do what they like in terms of prayer—but it also shows up in suit and tie, or however our elected officials prefer to dress these days.

Organizations like "Freedom From Religion"—well-meaning and witty though they may be—like to ~~step~~ butt in where the local populace sit quietly, and it is not hard to argue that just because no one is complaining doesn't mean that the situation is all right and good. But the outcry from those who support prayer to open meetings of elected gentry across our land is growing, and it is vehement in its outrage.

How dare they even think of removing prayer, the statements stridently demand, after so many years of asking GOD for help? That there is never any question of which deity is being petitioned does not seem to phase them, so caught up in their own righteous wrath are they. This nation was founded under GOD! they continue, ignoring or unaware of the Deist leanings of many of the "Founding Fathers" that they then cite.

(Incidentally, if you wish to perplex a rabid fundamentalist of the Christian persuasion, try to get them going on Deism ... a philosophy they tend to know even less about than Atheism—and their standard lack of knowledge in that arena is stunning enough.)

But my favorite "pro"-public-prayer rant has to be the one wherein the indefatigible argument, Each person has an inborn sense of GOD!, is dropped down as if it were the supernatural equivalent of the atomic bomb, with the absolute power to silence every other point with the honorific of non sequitur ... when that is, actually, that is a title that might rightfully be returned to sender.

(Really. And what what we have to back up our statements, hmm? A holy book is absolutely valid as support, but only to those who have as much faith in it as the one who cites it.)

At any rate, I (uncharacteristically) believe that there is SOME means by which everyone from Agnostic to Zionist—and any believer or non-believer who might happen to fall outside of that range—might satisfy their need to publically request the support of the deity/ies of their choice (or not). We are not, after all, "the land of the repressed" when we squash the voices of even the smallest-minded of our people—whoever we may each personally consider that group to be—not in name, anyway.

So. It seems to me that of ALL places, our governing bodies are actually the single-most appropriate to work out a compromise in this arena, presenting as a positive example rather than a problematic case study. After all, elected officials are elected not only to serve those who voted for them but also those who did not—they are elected to support both those who believe as they do and also those who hold other faith traditions.

Why not use this public forum to promote a broader understanding of other viewpoints, rather than espouse one's own? Why not continue to open meetings with a brief prayer/moment of silence, but rather than invoking only the deity/ies of the loudest members of the committee at hand, invite community volunteers to petition theirs, and ask for contributions from all faiths—and none? Why not truly share, creating the potential for the opening of hearts to other ideas, and other understandings of the world we all live in, and do it together?

Not only would this involve many more members of faith (and faithless) traditions, but it would also present the opportunity to remove the walls built by the vague and unreal identities in comments sections and editorials who spout steam from all orifices as they attack "those people" who oppose them. "Those people", they seem not to realize, are their neighbors, relatives, teachers, students, coworkers, and perhaps even their friends! Perhaps—just perhaps—seeing faces put to beliefs we ourselves do not happen to hold will increase all of our humanity and capacity for understanding ... perhaps it will even bring us closer to realizing that "those people" are also US, seen from another vantage point.

If a "traditional" opening prayer at a governmental meeting is NOT, as the prayer-supporters in my area contend, an infringement against our Constitutional Amendments—if it does not, in fact, consitute "endorsement" by the governmental official that utters it—then it stands to reason that ANY prayer or similar address must be similarly acceptable. If it is not an attempt at conversion but only an appeal for divine assistance, the fact that not everyone present agrees with its premise must surely follow as irrelevant, and if it DOES pose a problem for an individual concerned with the potential wrath of the deity/ies with which that individual stands, well then, surely this person will do the rest of us the favor of praying for mercy upon the rest of us in our "lack" of understanding ... all while we seek to attain greater understanding, appreciation, and LOVE for our fellow human beings.

If you pray, please pray for understanding and compassion for those who are not like you in faith, for surely we are like you in many other ways. And if you do not pray, know that those of us who do not are no less immune to the vagaries of the "US vs. THEM" mentality that invariably results in the trampling of rights—and because ALL of us are diminished when the rights of ANY of us are impeded*, it serves all people best to make certain that the needs of all people are served.

*Hat-tip to Eric of Unpublished Not Dead for his continued emphasis of this very important point, and for saying it so very well. I'm applying it in a different situation than he did, but like all good principles, this one carries over beautifully.

A Letter of Apology (?) to One of My Characters

2009-07-30T11:09:00.000Z

Dear Mirriam,

It's not you—it's me. Well, it's sort of you, too, but let me start with my part in this.

I'm sorry I've left you hanging so many times; most notably, I think you'll agree that the time I left you mouldering in Mrs. Drew's apartment for a few weeks—okay, so it was more like a few MONTHS—was inexcusable. Nevertheless, please excuse me! I knew what was coming next, you see, and it was so hard to face that, well, for a time I quite simply refused to face it. I needed that time to accept the break-in, and while I'm not surprised that you took the initiative that you did, I was a little surprised at how difficult it was for me to write about what happened to ... well, we both know what happened, but considering as how I will probably post this to my blog rather than send it to you—because you live in my story and I don't know the zip code there—I would rather not include too many spoilers.

Anyway. I understand that these delays on my part are very frustrating for you. Although obviously neither one of us wish for that-thing-that-happened to happen, you would surely prefer just getting on with it to sitting in Mrs. Drew's apartment, staring at her book collection—even if many of the titles were intriguing, for both of us—whereas I took the well-traveled (for me), procrastinatorial route, as if that would change what was about to happen.

And this is one of the disgustingly abundant places in which my writing insecurity rears its ugly head: my avoidance of the ugliness, I worry, CAN change the story that was meant to be. If I'm not willing to take the story as it comes, I can unwittingly change it ... this has already happened, actually, and it bothers me deeply because I know I need to rewrite the affected sections. Yet, I've lost enough momentum as it is, and doing the corrections now might further derail the truth of the tale, which leaves me so muddled that I almost invariably put off getting back to writing.

Yes, even more than I've already done!

What I'm getting at—or trying to—is that, for me, there's a delicate balance between having the story tell itself through me—and this is the method that I believe is the best for the story, which is to say, the best for YOU as one of its characters—and having me tell the story. I'm reluctant to relate the things that are painful—moreover, I'm afraid that I'm not up to task, particularly when it comes to revealing you as the multi-faceted person that you are: not a heroine in the sense that you are "good", which is too easy and not at all REAL, but the true, mistake-making but well-intentioned person you honestly are.

Which brings me back to why you've been standing in Faith's apartment now, struggling with whether or not to reveal the lesser of your most closely-guarded secrets to Faith. You've started to understand that she's hiding—smothering, really—her own demon, but you're still torn, because you've judged yourself so harshly for your mistakes that you utterly fail to realize that there are worse mistakes out there, and that they affect their makers far more cruelly than yours have affected you.

You don't even know what being broken IS!

Faith knew, once, but she's buried it so deeply that she is not fully aware of what has brought her to be the warm, apparently-open person that she is now. You, on the other hand, with what you think is so terrible in your past, have retracted and closed yourself off, presenting as a brittle shell of a person, but you're still intact ... this is your strength, and it's what makes me feel like shaking you instead of apologizing to you, because where Faith hides even from herself—rendering apologies to her pointless, hence my decision to write to you instead—you aren't hiding so much as you're pouting.

You're so much better than that! You never seriously thought of going against your beliefs and you would support—without hesitation—someone else's opposing beliefs, consistent with their personal philosophy; yet, you berate yourself—not for being who you are—but for your humanity.

Yet, where Faith took her own trials and converted their agony into kindness, you buried yourself in your pain. You have an inkling, I think, of how important it is going to be for you to open yourself up, but you were so badly hurt that you think your only option is to go on reminding yourself of your pain, and shut yourself off, so that you won't be hurt again ... as ridiculous and fanciful as that sounds, you are practicing this foolish philosophy daily.

But I can't tell you this; I really can't. It's your story, and while I don't know all of your actions, I do know I'm ahead of you in understanding why you've been acting as you have. I also understand that you're just not ready to hear it, just as you understand that Faith certainly is nowhere near ready to hear your ahead-of-the-game insights. I see now, though, how although none of us actually HAVE each other's characters—not in entirety—we do have facets of each other's characters ... that's how we relate to one another. So if we hesitate—if I hesitate, really—it is only because I relate very strongly, and care very deeply.

Knowing this now, I think the best thing I can do is hesitate less, and share through you more. Even when—or especially when—it hurts.

The Greatest Thing*

2009-07-25T21:47:00.002Z

I don't hold a personal belief in a "higher power" deity of any sort, so for me, the traditional concept of "sin" is a purely abstract one. In other words, I don't see any action or activity as a transgression against "God's laws" because I don't understand God or His laws to exist.

However, like many words, "sin" is not restricted to a singular meaning, and while I was not-meditating the other day—"not-meditating" is my new description of my typical state of being, in which my mind is going each and every direction at the same time, and therefore making ridiculously minute progress in any of them—I was considering this definition:

1 b : an action that is or is felt to be highly reprehensible

(Definition courtesy of Webster's N9inth New Collegiate Dictionary, © 1983 by Merriam-Webster Inc.)

Anyway, there I was, not-meditating on the fact that I was not meditating (again), and wondering why it was that I find it relatively easy to put off and/or avoid things which are (supposed) to be good for me. And nevermind why that is, really, because it's really only peripherally relevant, but this is where it occurred to me that not taking care of oneself is—if not THE greatest sin, by definition 1b, at least—a top contender for that title.

I'm sure we've all heard how important it is to care for yourself, and perform tricks like eating healthily, exercising regularly, and getting some requisite amount of quality sleep. The argument is generally presented this way, particularly to women: "If you don't take time for yourself, you can't take good care of others."

Now, I don't know about you, but while I can intellectually accept this qualifier—and OF COURSE I want to take good care of my family—I still find, at the gut level, that this reads more as chastisement than encouragement. Granted, I've got the sort of pissy-bitter-cynical nature that takes me there anyway, but does it not still seem that, if you are to take care of yourself in order to make you a better caretaker of others, that you are in very close relation to a pig being fattened for slaughter?

Why is it, really, that we are not told to take care of ourselves simply for our OWN selves? Why is it only—or more—acceptable to take care of ourselves so that we can be better partners, employees, and friends? Why shouldn't we be advised, in no uncertain terms and as we would be likely to advise our dearest friends that we should care for ourselves because we are wonderful, deserving, and valuable?

Whether or not you believe in any sort or multiplicity of "powers that be", one or more existence/s beyond this one, or none of the above, it seems clear enough that we are here NOW, and this existence—whatever you personally define it to be—IS, at least for now. It would seem only reasonable, then, to conclude that whatever we are, can or will be, HERE AND NOW, is what we make of it. And the way we can make the most of it is, first, to treat ourselves well.

It is beyond this basic premise, I think, that moral codes such as religion should kick in. The debate over what constitutes moral behavior and how we are in relation to others is a lengthy one and tends towards the vitriolic—frankly, I'm not in the mood today (check back tomorrow, if you like). In this time and this place, we should all start by holding ourselves as dear—not for what we have to offer our families, friends, or deity/ies ... but just for OURSELVES.

If this sounds selfish, I propose that you consider that it is not possible to be either selfish OR selfless without the self. Selfishness and selflessness are inter-related that way, as both are based on the self.

So take care of yourself, and do it now. Yes, it can benefit others as well as you, but don't do it for anyone BUT you, or you haven't realized its value in the first place ... because you haven't realized YOUR value.

*Originally titled, "The Greatest Sin".

Withering

2009-07-19T14:17:00.002Z

In case there's anyone out there who hates it when I go on and on about MUSIC, I want to let you know that I'm about to go on and on about music. You don't have to like it, but by golly, if you read this here entry, you were just asking to be pissed off.

(If that's the case, you're welcome!)

So! As you should already know, Dream Theater recently dropped a precious little nugget of progressive metal/rock—don't ask me for clarification on sub-subgenre specifics: I know what I like, and the rest, I'm just guessing at!—called Black Clouds and Silver Linings. I commented on the initial offering from that album, "A Rite of Passage", eluding to how a listener can get something from a song that isn't really there, and explaining that I don't think there's anything wrong with that, as long as the music is moving you in a positive way.

(True to form, what I got out of the track is nothing really like what the song is actually about.)

Anyway, imagine my surprise when, after duly absorbing another lovely tune, "Wither", without the benefit of having a Wikipedia-articulated clue about the subject on which it was really written, I traipsed off to that aforementioned good-place-to-start-researching (as long as you take it with a grain—or twelve-thousand—of salt) and learned that it actually WAS about what I thought it was about.

And that was? Writer's block.

The nice thing about this song—whether or not its intended purpose is to describe the crippling state commonly referred to as "writer's block"—is that it evokes a lot of the emotions I find associated with being unable or unwilling to write ... frustration and sorrow, naturally, but also, an unexpectedly sweet background melody carrying the words and silences along.

I know what you're thinking: "'Sweet?' Writer's block? What are you smoking, honey, and have you got enough to share?!"

But think about it—the reason that writer's block IS so heinous is that you want and NEED to write. You are able to get writer's block in the first place because you are a writer—there is something inside, possibly fundamentally within you and likely something you've developed and nurtured over time, that compels you to share stories, observations, thoughts, and ideas. It can nag at you, pull at you, YANK THE VERY HEART OF YOU, but however you think of it, it's part of you, and you find yourself less than yourself without it—you feel broken, bereft, and other crushing, painful things that don't begin with a "b".

(Although I do love me a good alliteration.)

That's the melodic firmament upon which writer's block is able to drop its dank, murky fog. That's the sweetness behind the agony of finding yourself with a blank notebook or seeing nothing reflected in the shiny glow of your computer screen. Over that inherent tenderness of being a writer—something that, I think, most writers are even hesitant to define themselves AS, no matter how patently obvious it is to others that they are, indeed, writers—torrential downpours of quicksand smother and crush. Over that delicate, budding knowledge of writing as a component of our very selves, writer's block is a corossive, stifling atmosphere, and when you're looking through that haze, even the very familiar can seem completely alien.

It's this duality that I think John Petrucci captures just brilliantly—and with such a small set of words that I would be ass-over-teakettle smitten with and in headlong pursuit of, if only I didn't love using far too many words, myself—in "Wither". I also like how he seems to be saying that surrendering to the story is the key to resolving writer's block, unless he's actually saying that's how he got it ... either way makes sense! There may or may not be a cure for writer's block, but it remains something that writers struggle with—and, I agree with Kael (aka, Eric) of Unpublished Not Dead that writers also do a lot of writing on the subject (mea culpa!)—and there's a lot of value in just knowing that you are not alone in the battle.

But what I got from "Wither" was more than that—what I got from "Wither" is that even as we stare down, minds blank and pages mirroring that, we are still writers. Perhaps when we struggle is when we are MOST writers, facing the emptiness head-on (or not even looking at it sideways), because what we still want to do more than anything is give ourselves away.

Pieces of ourselves, anyway ... our precious stories, our hard-written words.

Wither
Music & Lyrics by John Petrucci

Let it out let it out
Fill the empty space
So insecure
Find the words
And let it out

Staring down staring down
Nothing comes to mind
Find the place
Turn the water into wine

But I feel I'm getting nowhere
And I'll never see the end

So I wither
And render myself helpless
I give in
And everything is clear
I break down
And let the story guide me

Turn it on turn it on
Let the feelings flow
Close your eyes
See the ones you used to know

Open up open up
Don't struggle to relate
Lure it out
Help the memory escape

Still this barrenness consumes me
And I feel like giving up

So I wither
And render myself helpless
I give in
And everything is clear
I break down
And let the story guide me
I wither
And give myself away

Like reflections on the page
The world's what you create

I drown in hesitation
My words come crashing down
And all my best creations
Burn into the ground
The thought of starting over
Leaves me paralyzed

Tear it out again
Another one that got away

I wither
And render myself helpless
I give in
And everything is clear

I wither
And render myself helpless
I give in
And everything is clear
I break down
And let the story guide me
I wither
And give myself away

Like reflections on the page
The world's what you create

On Not Settling for "Average"

2009-07-17T01:07:00.002Z

By the end of July, Little Girl's daddy and I will have been married for 18 years (yes, I married young—probably too young, but that is another free-ranging blather). We've had our differences and difficulties—most of these, if not of our own making, are certainly of our own enhancement—but we are still together, and that shows both strength and stubbornness (incidentally, these traits are also part and parcel of the differences and difficulties ... but again, that is a discussion for yet another long-winded ramble).

Anyway, 18 summers ago, before Old Lady Cat and Little Gray entered our lives, far before Good Dog and even Bad Dog came to be join us, and certainly way before dear Little Girl graced us with her wonder, there was only me and the man who would become Little Girl's daddy. And when we determined to marry, we, like many other couples, planned our event, made our arrangements, and celebrated our union in style.

Unlike many other couples, we did it on a budget.

Now, economic times being what they are currently, I'm given to understand that many of today's pre-wedding pairs are also "budgeting". As you may surmise by my strategic use of quotation marks, however, I don't quite see these modern "cut back" events to be any comparison with the wedding that Little Girl's daddy and I had around about two decades ago.

I'm certainly not about to lay claim to frugality—Little Girl's daddy and I have made more than our fair share of stupid budgeting (non-budgeting, really) mistakes, and we're damn fortunate not to have a bankruptcy in our files along with our marriage certificate. However, if CBS News is to be believed, the recession has caused a 30 percent drop in the cost of the average wedding (from 2007's peak) ... and that has brought that "average" cost down all the way to $19,000.

That's right, folks: $19,000. NINETEEN. THOUSAND. DOLLARS.

That's more than any car I've ever owned (in the interests of complete disclosure, we've only ever gotten used vehicles).
That's more than my first home (a mobile home, yes, and used, BUT STILL).
Hell, that's even more than my SECOND home (yes, yes, another used mobile home, but BIGGER than the first one, with a deck AND a shed, and steps that didn't need to be reinforced like the first ones).

But nevermind my agitated, out-of-date comparisons—okay, maybe just one more: more than the cost of my FOUR-YEAR DEGREE, people!—the fact remains that however you slice it, $19,000 is a lot of money for just a day. ONE day. Isn't what really matters how many of the days following that ONE, that your blessed togetherness survives? Okay, nevermind THAT, either, let's get to the amount of money that Little Girl's daddy and I spent on our wedding, shall we? Ready?

$60. That's right, my dears, $60 for a courthouse ceremony, with just us, The Judge, and two of his office assistants. If you care to add in the cost of my ring (a plain—plain beautiful!—gold band), we'll be up to a whopping $120. Add in the cost of Little Girl's daddy's fly-fishing vest (he didn't want a ring, and I figured he'd wear the vest more often than a ring if I was even stupid enough to insist on the ring, so I bought him the fly-fishing vest, and YES, he STILL WEARS it, although not every day, naturally), and we reach a grand total of $180. We may have tipped The Judge—I no longer recall—but even with a buffer for safety's sake, we got married for under $250.

Now THAT, my imaginary friends, is a BUDGET. At those rates, 76 couples could get married for the cost of an "average" wedding, and even if you double the costs (as perhaps we should, given that I have no idea what a plain gold band runs these days—or a fly-fishing vest, for that matter), 38 pairs of previously un-unified human beings could maritally hook up.

But believe it or not, my point here is not to toot my own horn, euphemistically or otherwise—my point is that if you are going to be "average", you're going to miss a lot of options. If you look look to what is generally regarded are "standard requirements" to enter into a marriage, you are not only letting someone else determine what is important to you, but you're neglecting to consider what IS important to you. This is no way to start the next phase of your life!

Also, this is not a phenomenon that is restricted to marriage. Too often, we accept what is the societal "norm" and follow it without thinking—like it or not, there is a generally accepted practice for everything from what we eat for breakfast to how we prepare for our ultimate demises, and while I suppose one could surmise that the beauty of an "average" is that it DOES fit so many situations, the fact remains that not even "one size fits most"—let's not even talk about the dubious "one size fits all"—is rarely flattering or, really, worthy of any special event.

And yet, to "think outside the box" has to be chanted as a (nauseating) mantra because, well, it's difficult to do this. It takes time, it takes creativity, and it takes concentrated effort. Bu if you're truly motivated—be it by budget or anything else important to YOU—there is very little that you "have" to have to make any day, activity, or event come to be. For example, to get married, you need yourself, a loving partner, a judge, two witnesses, and, depending on the state in which you wish to marry, certain blood test results.

What you do NOT need is $19,000.

Visualize Consistency

2009-07-11T12:34:00.000Z

One fine more-than-halfway-through-our-vacation day, Little Girl went off with her grandma to play Jarts between the sagebrush—lawn darts having evolved from the pointy-tipped implements of doom that they were back in my misspent youth to the point where they had become suitable for members of my family—and I grimly set out to attempt to meditate.

I had purchased four guided meditations for 99 cents each—a neatly disposable sum, one which I should not have to feel extensive guilt for, should the meditations turn out to be less than useful (or, perchance, not used at all due to my stubborn procrastinatorial nature)—and had duly carted them along on our personal holiday, but I still resisted actually listening to them.

It's just not as much fun as heavy metal, you know?

Anyway, as the Jart game progressed into strategic alteration of the existing—and thoroughly complicated, it seemed—rules, and I sat stewing over the hard lump of writer's block coal that had somehow wound up in my sock that morning, it seemed as good a time as any to bite the meditation bullet.

I set aside my writing implements, plugged my headphones into my ears, selected the shortest meditation in my well-traveled options (about 12 minutes), sighed, and pushed "Play".

The speaker in this particular selection was a male, and had a lovely bit of accent—Australian, I believe—which was, if not precisely soothing, at least not unpleasant. I listened, popped my eyes back open when the Aussie's lilting instructions revealed I was not yet supposed to close them, and thereafter tried to follow the instructions I was being given—and only those instructions.

Things went along fairly well for a bit. I was, I was told, walking in a richly-colored autum forest. Visualizing this scene presented only a modest problem, for the "bright colors" bit wasn't mentioned just at first, so when it did come into play, I had to drag my mind's eye self right out of the forest of Wyoming pines I had been walking in and instead drop my imaginary ass into a deciduous forest of undetermined location instead.

Awk-ward!

Once the canopy above was composed of the proper species of woody forest denizens for the guided imagery du jour, I was surprised to realize, at some indeterminant point, that I really was relaxing, somewhat, into the scene. Of course, upon reaching such conclusion, I was pulling back from involvement to make my observation, so when I realized THAT, I struggled to reimmerse myself into the exercise.

That, however, is when it all went to hell.

Oh, the scene-setting continued with luscious peacefulness—that wasn't the issue. What happened was that my mellow Australian guide who, despite his uncomfortable, pausing, phrasings (reminiscent of the original James T. Kirk), really was doing a lovely job of crafting a relaxing "walk in the forest", took me from my stroll amongst AUTUMN foliage right out into a clearing "full of flowers".

Wildflowers, as you may or may not be aware, tend to bloom in profuse abundance in SPRING, not fall.

Arrested from my virtual stroll so profoundly that my eyes—now closed, as directed—popped open with the shock of toast being sprung from the cells of its heated creation. A field of flowers? In fall? WTF? My oblivious Aussie guide continued ... haltingly ... along, and I shut my eyes and struggled to find myself in the seasonally-inconsistent scene, in which I was now supposed to be taking off my shoes and socks to cool my heels in the stream.

Shoes and socks? I thought I was barefoot? But why would I be walking through a FOREST barefooted? That wasn't in the instructions ... OH MY GOSH, I'M AS BAD AS HE IS!

Needless to say—at least for those familiar with the wandering, failed reasoning that is typical of my lost, flailing mind—I was not well-involved in the scene after that. I would wonder if there were fish in the stream, and if so, what kind, and then try to get back into it. And why, I thought at some point as my guide droned on about the stream, were wildflowers even mentioned? How could I see them, lying back on the rock, and how was this supposed to be comfortable?

Screw this. MY rock has moss all over it. Although, it wouldn't have moss if it were in full sun, so that means there must be a tree nearby, and there can't be trees, because I'M NOT IN THE AUTUMN FOREST ANYMORE ... I'M IN SPRING FLOWERS NOW.

I do believe it was the longest 12 minutes I've ever spent in either forest or flowers, and when it finally ended—with a smoothly-delivered reminder to to return to the calming forest daily, if not more often—I was only too glad to exit completely.

Because I'd been mostly out of the "relaxing" scene for the bulk of the allotted visiting time anyway.

My other three meditations are from different sources, so I can only hope they will be set in different scenes. I will miss the lilting accent of my slow-speaking, seasonally-challenged meditation guide, but should I be so fortunate as to find myself in a logically compatible setup during my next meditation challenge, I'm sure it will only be to the benefit of my racing mind.

Clearly, I cannot stop for inconsistency.

Take These Verbs and Use 'Em

2009-07-05T22:34:00.001Z

One thing I can say about the assignments we're now receiving in my women's writing group is that they're certainly not rote—they're more like Forest Gump's proverbial box of chocolates, except that the writing assignments are more likely to generate indigestion.

Not that I'm trying to compare writing to an ailment of the digestive tract; not exactly, anyway! But the comparative ease of writing, stacked up against downing assorted chocolates—even those heinous, fruit-flavored creme ones—is rather dramatically different. In fact, I tend more to agree with Red Smith, who, while he did refer to writing as "easy", then went on to clarify that it was equivalent to opening a vein.

I've always taken this to mean that writing is like slitting one's wrists, although I suppose that might be seen as a wee bit extremist.

But back to the latest assignment—although, technically speaking, it's not THE latest. As I sit here, on my bunk bed in my parents' Internet-unavailable Wyoming cabin, I have no access to the most recent writing assignment, which would have been issued two days ago. In my happy isolation, I am still working on the LAST most recent writing assignment, in which I was told to write, with as many words as the years I had thus far lived, a succinct summary of my life.

Which sounds tricky enough, but fully HALF of those words were to be verbs, and all of those words were to be extraordinary.

By way of comparison, take a look at the most commonly used words, and you are going to be very bored indeed; these words are not only common, but they are also tiresome to the rounded nubbin of dismal. We lack variety, we lack complexity, and in both of these, we also lack specificity. With so many splendid and detailed words available, we as writers should be appalled, and we probably would be, but who has the time?

As I discovered, when I tried to think of words I don't use, it's hard enough to be creative without an enhanced vernacular as the agenda du jour, but when you pair the two, whatever mental constipation you're currently combating will congeal into a worst-case-scenario that all the artistic fiber in the world can't shift.

In other words, it's hard to write without using the words you typically use.

After I thought about it some more, I considered the possibility that I might, per usual, be reading too much into the exercise. This revelation, combined with the fact that none of my fellow writing group writers are going to see the results of my mentally-blocked efforts—unless they join you, the typically-silent dozen or so daily readers that stalk my blog like corn (that would be ACTUAL corn stalks, not children of the corn, who, if I remember the spooktacular tale correctly from reading it in my misspent teenage years, did a thoroughly admirable job of stalking ... not that it's relevant here in the slightest)—finally led to freeing me to at least complete the exercise, with one small twist.

I decided not to try to summarize my life in 40 atypical words (at least half of them unusual verbs), but instead, my writing life.

Here it is:

adduce

vie

grapple

concede

embellish

laud

amalgamate

equalize

accrue

contravene

persist

scrutinize

aver

percolate

transpose

extrude

enliven

circumvent

denote

abstain

sanctify

elucidate

contemplate

venerate

bamboozle

cogitate

agglutinate

eschew

congregate

adumbrate

simulate

emend

scrawl

gibber

recollect

delineate

endeavor

blather, immerse, recur

Please note: They're ALL verbs! And if you stretch your imagination and stand on your head, they're even all relevant. ;)

When Music Speaks

2009-07-02T01:01:00.000Z

One of my most cherished Wyoming vacation traditions—two years in practice now—is the acquisition of new music for the journey. While I tried to be mature and considerate in my selections this year, purchasing several guided meditations that I have yet to listen to even in part, what I really wanted—and what I got in spades—was new metal.

Surprise, surprise.

It so happens that I've been so distracted by my assorted and sundry stress-induced health ailments—thanks, Corporate, you heartless bitch—that I had no idea whatsoever that Dream Theater was putting out a new album, timing its release to absolute perfection by selecting the very day that I am doomed to return to my desk job from the sanctified alpine vistas of Wyoming.

You know when I discovered that, I had to have me that first release off of the new album for my travels!

I have a fairly long fixation on Dream Theater, though I've not yet managed to see them in concert. I believe the album of theirs which I first purchased was the mainstream offering, Images and Words; this, for those of you imaginary souls who may be tragically uninitiated to the delicious world of alternative metal and yet are still trudging along through this scary forest of obsessive/compulsive metal veneration, is the album that spawned the "Pull Me Under" single.

From that modest beginning, I rapidly collected more Dream Theater albums, though I was at a loss to explain the appeal until I noticed, at a Rush concert, a significant number of attendees sporting Dream Theater shirts. Upon returning home and exercising my right to Google, I read a number of analyses that smartly compared Rush and Dream Theater, with their tendency to switch key and alternate beat, explaining that the two bands shared a tenacious appeal to the attention-deficit-disordered.

Basically, the suggestion was that there is so much contained with Rush and Dream Theater songs, that people who might otherwise be bored with music, cannot become so—making them supermagnetically attracted to the two bands. Between the two, of course, Dream Theater has a heavier edge, but the similarities are nevertheless many.

Anyway, while I am not at all the sort of person who holds court on musical discussion boards—being that I tend to slouch down in the corner with the rest of the slovenly and "musically illiterate", despite the fact that I am very vocal in my personal musical preferences ... I simply cannot defend them in terms utilized by the musical elite—I am nevertheless a fairly rabid Dream Theater fan. To me, their lyrics provoke thought, their melodies incite chills, and their stylings demand repeated play—all of which I am deliriously pleased to provide.

There will be argument and debate, of course—there always is, even amongst the most devoted of fans—regarding the quality and innovativeness of Dream Theater's newest production. However, regardless of whether the experts or the laymen or the random listener concur on the merits (or lack thereof) of this latest effort from Dream Theater, I've already made my assessment of the first fledged track. I have all I need to know in what I've read into the lyrics and what I've extracted from the surging trills and crescendoing plunges, and I like it. I like it rather a lot, particularly when the refrain speaks to me so abundantly and appropriately:

Turn the key
walk through the gate
The great ascent
to reach a higher state
A rite of passage

The final stage
a sacred home
Unlock the door
and lay the cornerstone
A rite of passage

There's some sort of of cliché about how you find what you're looking for ... I believe it's made out to be a bad thing, and certainly it can be. But in regards to something as personal as music, if you find what you're looking for, then you've done a damn fine job as a seeker. And part of the beauty of music is that there is so much more to it than its simple literal and tonal speech—music also has in it what you bring to it.

So bring a lot, my invisible friends ... and bring it often.

I Remember Now

2009-06-29T11:05:00.001Z

We are back in Wyoming, for a too-limited time, but back, nevertheless. The air is as fresh and eminently breathable as I recall, and the spaces are as vast and freeing. Through the restricted miracle of a laptop computer—recharged by batteries powered by solar cells—I am able to blog, though due to the remoteness of our location, I will not be able to post my rantings until we've returned to the Internet-connected world at large, about a week from the time I write this.

On the last portion of our travels, which brought us to the sanctity of our home away from home (and away from pretty much everything else), we were conveyed by a neighboring rancher's Range Rover. This generosity saved us a lengthy hike, which we made a few days later just for fun (and it is all the more fun when you are not weighted down with the gear required for a week in isolation).

During the unexpectedly quick, final part of our journey, I overheard the rancher's wife telling the story of some native Wyoming son, away during the Vietnam War, and how his parents sent him a package to ease his homesickness. The scent of sagebrush, crushed under the wheels of the Range Rover, reminded her of this, as it was sagebrush that the soldier received.

And I inhaled to the point of inebriation the scent as I listened to the tale. I remembered collecting snips of sagebrush myself, when we moved from Wyoming to that other place, and I remembered my parents bringing it back to me in subsequent years, when they traveled to Wyoming but I could not.

I expect it's not something most people would find soothing, but I knew how it must have made that soldier feel. It was an odd reassurance, to be so connected to so small a thing as the smell of a tenacious, wiry plant, but it is there as sure as air in my lungs and blood in my veins—though not born to it, I am still a Wyomingite myself ... an adopted child of my chosen homeland. Inextricably, it is there to come back to; inexplicably, it is never far away—even when it is.

I remember now.

Mind v. Matter

2009-06-26T01:06:00.001Z

It recently occurred to me that I have never considered my "self" to be my physical self. I don't mean that I don't consider my physical being to be all of me—because of course it is not, although I am undecided as to whether the mental/emotional/whateveral rest of me qualifies as what some term a "soul", or whether it is a more benign, amorphous mess generated by various biological processes and held together with the tenuous connections forged by personal memory—but rather, I mean that I do not consider my physical self part of ME at all.

On the surface, this is a totally irrational position to take; clearly, the physical framework within which we all operate as human beings is a large part of who we are and what we become. We may exist as "spiritual"—for lack of a better word—beings, but even if some of us may claim to have experienced multiple trips to this terrestrial existence, I do not know of anyone who has claimed to be able to recall existence entirely outside of the physical realm.

If, indeed, there is such a thing at all.

While I accept that my feeling that my body is not part of "me"—though I do accept that it's my property for the duration of my lifespan—is a ridiculous one, I still can't escape the notion. If, for example, someone compliments my appearance, I do not take it as a credit to me. This is above and beyond whether I feel the compliment is valid—I really do not feel that my face or my body are components of my whole "self" ... my physical person to me, is more or less an illusion—a fable of a thing that, while not precisely a prison, is still so sadly restricting that it tips the blessing/burden scales quite distinctly down on the side of being a trial.

In this way, I think, I identify with some of the early Gnostic ideas that the physical realm is a necessarily evil one. It's not that I'm so closely sympathsizing that I could make the transition to conversion—not by any stretch of the Gumby personna of imagination—but I do relate in the basic notion that the physical and the "spiritual" are essentially disconnected entities, and the spiritual one is the "good" and real of the two. I do not find the idea that the material realm is a confinement, of sorts, to be extreme, or uncomfortable.

Because of this underlying (if irrational) conviction, I am finding myself at increasingly distressing odds with my shrink, who seems to be of opposing sentiments, and is increasingly encouraging me to become more in touch with my physical body—yes, yes, let's get the adolescent snickering out of the way on that phrasing right now—and to connect with it via meditation. I've been putting this off for so long now that it's fairly routine, but I do think the reason for my evasion has less to do with my general tendency towards procrastination and a lot more to do with my feeling that the material world is scraping the sub-basement of idealism ... in short, my physical body is not something of which I wish to have an increased and in depth awareness.

Sure, there are physical pleasures to be had, and it's tatamount to insanity to wish to be removed from what happiness the material realm holds. But there's also a full-black rainbow of physical discomforts out there, and the idea of increasing my sensitivity to and acknowledgment of the gamut of ickiness that runs from mildly irritating menstrual cramps to near-completely debilitating migraines—even if I could possibly catch such attacks in earlier stages—quite simply revolts me. And that doesn't even touch on the truly horrific opportunities for material hell that reside in "this world": illnesses that kill instead of merely discomfort, and worse, ones that make death seem like a blessing.

Anyway, having established what's holding me back and loosely chained it to an historical theology that I find fascinating—albeit abstractly so—where do I go from this walled-off dead-end street? That's hard to say. I haven't gone anywhere yet, though I am getting damn sick of staring at the bricks in front of me. I've packed a number of guided meditations with me on a variety of portable devices—my mp3 player, this sweet little Dell Mini, and even my cellphone—and yet I still continue to avoid even attempting to try to meditate my way into a new relationship with the physical "me" I've so long denied.

Gnosticism, for all of its independent flavors—mostly lost to history—is centered on knowledge. It occurred to me, though, when I made the connection between the disdain I've felt for my physical self for at least a quarter of a century and these long-lost spiritual philosophies, that to avoid knowledge is to desecrate that "spiritual" self which I do identify with and hold as truly "me". And that means that even if it is hideously uncomfortable—or merely just awkward and weird—I need to advance my ideas and make new connections.

And maybe I do need to start seeing myself in the duality of the non-physical and the physical ... even if the non-physical is clearly the superior part. Especially considering that, given that I do not consider my physical self "me", I seem to have forgotten or neglected to realize at all that all of the trials and tribulations that the material world presents cannot—if I do not permit them—touch the part of myself that I consider my true "self". Perhaps what improvement of the tenuous connection between the immaterial and the material can actually strengthen both components.

It's an interesting idea, I guess. But only time will tell if this particular odd notion will prove stronger than my ability to put off meditating entirely!

Every Last Word

2009-06-22T13:33:00.001Z

A momentous thing has occurred, dear Internet! Well, perhaps not so much "momentous" as "ludicrous", or perhaps "irrational", but regardless of the exact classification of said THING, it was a precious moment in my Internet life—very precious indeed!

(Not quite as precious as when I managed to elicit a rare and treasured comment from The ListMaker, mind you, but it was still special. But on with the story, lest you never discover what "it" was, or lose all interest in even trying.)

I've long made occasional, random mention of my unorthodox "Bike-n-Blog" apparatus—a shockingly heavy Toshiba "Satellite Pro" laptop with an external, 3.5" floppy disk drive, running Windows 95 atop a Professional Engineer custom-crafted desk, under which sits an archaic 10-speed bike that no longer shifts quite right but runs nicely in one high gear, fitted into a very nice Blackburn TrakStand—at which I do pretty much all of my blog writing. Of late, I have also made rising-frequency something of the increasingly uncooperative "R" key of said Toshiba laptop.

Now, while what I've said with respect to this setup might certainly be taken for "whining"—in particular, regarding the near-constant backspacing necessitated by the rrrrrrrecalcitrant "R" key—I really do like my non-standard blogging situation. I like that I'm getting a fairly respectable workout while I write, I like that I'm doing it on hand-me-down (aka, recycled) and hand-built (aka, creative) materials, and even though I'm enough of a geek to long for the latest and greatest in high-tech gadgetry, I like that I'm not beholden to it, or hampered by lack of it.

(In short, I like the illusion of adaptability, which is what my "Bike-n-Blog" workspace provides me as a bonus to the ability to maintain some semblance of fitness while I tickle the alpha-numeric keyboard to my wee heart's content.)

But I'll also freely admit that the "R" key conniptions were making writing unusually trying, and as any writer can tell you, writing is generally difficult enough that additional "challenges" are really most unwelcome. I certainly could have endeavored to crack open the Toshiba—unencumbered by an operating manual—and attempted to repair its stickiness, and I did try the less-invasive procedure of evicting years of dust-bunny accumulation and a few chunkier particulates from the immediate vicinity of the "R" key with strategic blasts of canned air, but that changed the key's stubborn-teenager behavior not a whit.

I'm fairly decent with computers in that I am not afraid to experiment with them, trying new menu options and even the occasional registry tinkering with only a modicum or so of cringing. However, when it comes to gutting the beasts and working with their fragile, electro-delicate innards, I really would rather never go there. Ever. Like, in a bazillion years or so! Particularly when, as I realized one day when looking for an old entry on my new-ish, Internet-ready desktop computer, there was no where in the world—save the Internet itself—that the entirety of my blog was stored EXCEPT for that ancient, "R"-irritable Toshiba laptop, snuggled cozily over my bicycle, right next to my lonely weight bench.

(You can see why I refrained from attacking the underbelly of the "R" key now, can't you?)

Yes, somehow, in the transfer of files from one desktop computer to another, I managed to NOT carryover the years of text files that have translated into so much Internet light pollution, and while I understand that at least half the world goes merrily along with less than half of its files backed up, I've been the victim of two hard-drive failures and numerous minor incidents that leave me almost rabid with back-up fever. And although I do suffer from back-up constipation—you know, no regularity to speak of—it's extremely rare that I have NO BACK-UP AT ALL, and because I had been operating under the delusion that my desktop computer contained all of the same files as the trusty old Toshiba—"R" key notwithstanding—it was quite a shock to discover that I was actually 399 files short of a full blog back-up.

The process of transferring data from the Bike-n-Blog computer to my desktop is harrowing enough, involving as it does the archaic 3.5" floppy disk so rightfully mocked by Jeff at Side Salad in this here entertaining blog entry. But to transfer from there to my adorable, purse-sized Dell Mini—mine thanks to my marvelous Writing Sponsors—requires the additional step of a USB jump drive (something the old Toshiba remains quite gleefully ignorant of). And while that step went perfectly fine, I can't say that the process of extracting my near-400 missing files via 3.5" floppy did the same.

Hell, it seems, hath no fury like a 3.5" external floppy disk scorned, or even one which has been called gently upon to accept files for transfer via totally functional—not at all corrupt or even looked at sideways!—and the process resulted in multiple blue screens of death, which frightened me and probably caused me to turn a little blue myself. While I can certainly extract my files from their current Internet residence, copy-pasting them—even three times each—was preferable not only from the laziness aspect, but likewise from that exotic viewpoint of "efficiency".

(As you might imagine, it was with a copious quantity of relief—if not an alliterative allusion to the same—that I matched file totals on the crutch-supported Toshiba and the baby-fresh Mini at the end of the day and found that, YES! All files had, eventually, survived and made a successful ship-to-ship transfer.)

And, miracle of minor technological miracles, here I am, blogging with a FULL and even accessible backup again! And an "R" key that does not self-activate, leaving a trail of "R"-slime across "R"-unfriendly words! AND I can use a standard USB jump drive to hop and skip my latest—if not greatest—bloggy messes right from my Bike-n-Blog computer directly onto the Internets!

It's nothing to the world at large, I imagine, which will go merrily on regardless of my convenience or efficiency. But to me, today is momentous indeed, and if it is true that the largest triumphs are really the smallest, then this is a really big one, baby.

Either way, I'm going to enjoy every last word of it.

Why I'm Not Quitting My Day Job*

2009-06-20T11:01:00.001Z

I don't think I've written about it yet, but for the past seven months, I have been an unwilling member of the migraine-afflicted. The doctor who diagnosed me—on the ass end of a three-day bitch of a headache, so brutal that it kept me from sleeping for the hugely better part of that time frame—surmised that I'd had migraines longer than that, claiming that most people do, but they think they have a sinus infection, or allergies, or whatever other ailment that doesn't necessarily RETURN on them with the general unwelcome-visitorness of a migraine.

Anyway, while I do enjoy spending time along the lovely shores of Denial, there are times when I have to suck it up and seek medical assistance, regardless. That migraine-diagnosing three-day crack whore of a headache in November was one such case, and so was this week, wherein I finally overcame my fear and loathing of the warnings in the label of the generic Imitrex my doctor prescribed ... because I had not one, not two, not three, but four—FOUR!—migraines in the expanse of a single week.

Fuck you, Migraine Fairy, and that's all I've got to say about THAT.

On the subject of pharmaceuticals, however, I have rather a lot more to say. Now, while I can certainly see why some people live in a perpetual state of "natural cure seeking", I prefer, if I'm going to be ingesting non-food items ANYWAY, to have something that has at least a bit of scientific research to back it up. That being said (with apologies to The Righter, as always, for that stupid, Big Brother-esque phrase), I don't purport to enjoy adding pills and sprays and whatever other format the medication du jour comes in to my health regime ... no, not in the slightest! But when the alternative is lying flat on my back for up to 72 hours at a time, with no books, no music, NO INTERNETS, and not even a wee little bit of entertainment of any sort (unless you count refreshing my flax-seed cold pack as "entertainment"—I do not), well.

Pass the damn pills, thankyouverymuch!

So after the fourth magic anti-migraine pill of the week—and I'll give them this, the makers of Dr. Reddy's abundantly over-packaged Sumatriptan Succinate Tables, they make a MOST effective migraine stopping potion!—I phoned My Lovely Lady Doctor (her nurse, actually), and after a lengthy discussion of my symptoms, treatments, and mitigating circumstances (hello, Age and Hormone Fairies! please help yourself to a nice big cup of arsenic! BITCHES!), the nurse consulted with My Lovely Lady Doctor and they came up with this brilliant plan: MORE. MEDICATION.

Mind you, it makes sense, and there IS, per my request, research to back it up. But. Given that part of my query involved hesitancy to take "too much" (whatever that might be) of Dr. Reddy's individually-wrapped silver migraine bullets, why anyone expected me to be delighted at the notion of adding ANOTHER set of machine-pressed pills to my arsenal is beyond me. Yeah, yeah, I'll be delighted when I've physically heard the door hitting the Migraine Fairy's ass and knocking her to the ground in a crumpled heap, sure. But meantime, it just means another trip to Drugs.com's Drug Interaction Checker to check interactions between the growing list of my meds—and also my supplements, because that's important to check, too—and oh my gosh, I am LAZY, people! And this is going to put a cramp in my weekend America's Next Top Model viewing!

*Ahem!*

So. Once The Exotic Neurotic defused my neuroses with a few neat links, including this one to Mayo Clinic's "Migraine guide", I was on board with the steroid prescription, albeit still somewhat unwillingly.

"You'd better freaking work," I told the box of medications, drawing at least one odd stare from passers-by as I exited the pharmacy.

Fortunately—for me, if not anyone who reads this blather—I then started seeing the warped side of the situation.

As I drove home, you see, I was happily recollecting the fact that the pharmacist—not as cute as the one I used to have, but still rather adorable, and quite likely fresh out of pharmacy school (and therefore young enough to be my biological offspring, BUT HE WASN'T)—was fetchingly close to knowing my name. This is quite appealing, because it implies that I'm adorable, too (or, yeah, the pharmacist might be good with the names of HIS BEST CUSTOMERS—shut up, KILLJOY!).

ANYway, I was thinking that if I was a pharmacist, I'd be more likely to memorize people's pharmacy code numbers than their names, being as I am: 1) THAT big of a geek, and 2) better with numbers than names (see #1). Then it occurred to me that, rather than numbers, it would be SO much fun to see if people could be classified by loosely-beaded combination-names of their various pharmaceuticals, which would take me from my standard name to something like: Norflutilevomethyltriptan.

Which, while it doesn't precisely trip off the tongue, is still a damn site better than it would be, if I were still on the anti-depressants and muscle relaxants in addition: Norflutibuprolevocyclomethyltriptan

This nonsense led me to the next logical—"logical", in my twisted little screw of a side-bar universe—step, which would be to make up stories about my imaginary clientele (the ones I would have if I was a pharmacist, that is). For example, in the case of Norflutibuprolevocyclomethyltriptan, I could certainly be glad if she'd lost the terrible muscle tension she used to suffer (that would be the "cyclo" part of the name), and hey! Isn't it marvelous that she's no longer depressed (that's the "bupro")—at least for the season?

Think about it! If I worked at a large enough pharmacy, I'd soon have the background for a veritable pharmacological soap opera: "As The Pillbox Turns", perhaps, or maybe "General Pharmacy", or ... ooh! I've got it! "The Sick and The Healthy"! Except, let's face it, what fun are the healthy?

It all went on inside the thankfully-confined confines of my mind for much longer than I'd like to admit, even here, in the fairly anonymous security of my blog anonymity. But! The end result of it all was that I did get over myself enough to take the medication, and it even seems to be working—with nary a side-effect to be seen, and part of the credit for that has to go directly to My Cute Pharmacist, who kindly pointed out that if I didn't want to be staring at the insomniacal ceiling, I'd take my doses of the "meythl" bit of my revised pharmacological moniker "as early in the day as possible". Also, you'll be relieved to know—as funny as I found it all to be when I was thinking of it—that writing it all out has convinced me of one overwhelming fact: it's very important that I do not quit my day job.

*At least, not in order to become a pharmacist!