I Would Like to Thank The Academy, Magical Fairies, and Friends who Help with Dead Birds

The final week for my Masters class arrived. I made it through! And there are a few people I wish to thank. First, I would like to thank the University for making sure that the semester was only 15 weeks.  One more week and I would have flown to Costa Rica to set up a stall selling bags. (I can’t make bags or anything but I seem to have accumulated enough. And if I run out, I figure I can always bedazzle the one million grocery bags that live under our sink. Who wouldn’t want a bedazzled grocery bag? I wouldn’t sell them for much; just enough so I could live in a tent on the beach and shower in a real shower… like at the hotel down the beach or something… I realize this seems overly thought out. This is because there were many moments that I thought this may be my only option. And even though I should have used the time I wasted on this to improve my essay, it is important to have a well thought out back-up plan.)

         Next, I would like to thank my professor for trying to teach me even though I never had any idea what she was saying. Third, I would like to thank a different professor for introducing me to the magical study room. I must be very cryptic here, because the room is not just for me; so if a fellow student reads this and takes it for themselves, the magic will be sucked out of it - never to return. So don’t expect very much description of the room. I realize description is important (because I learned this in my undergraduate courses) but not when a loss of magic will ensue. One day, a meeting with my professor about my essay (this is in addition to the meeting that inspired this post) did not go well. Basically, she read the short portion that I thought was my best work and said, “This is really good, you should just rewrite it all…” So, I was wondering if I should head home or hunker down in the library. I wondered this out loud (as I have been extremely prone to do over the last six weeks). A different professor said, “Here, how about you work in this room.” Then she produced a magical key and I entered the Magical Fairy Study Room. I logged on to the provided computer and began working. It was good but then the magic started. First, it had a window so  I could look out over other graduate students; I couldn’t really hear but they started doing some sort of acrobatics. Like my own private show! Then (and this is the most magical part) professors came and checked on my progress. If I said it was not going well, they offered suggestions like, “Subjects should always go at the front of your sentence” and “Yes, that is how you spell anti-Semitism” and “No, that paragraph does not make you sound like an anti-Semite." If they didn’t offer advice on my essay, they just stood there telling me how amazing I was and if I kept going (and didn’t move to Costa Rica) I would make it. It was a magical room; it even had a dictionary of literary terms so I could look up words my actual professor had said in our meeting like: “naratee” and “ecumenical” which really I should have known because she said this is the system of beliefs I seem to hold… Not naratee, which is just a character, but ecumenical. (Although by the time I looked it up, it was too late to tell her I do not subscribe to many ecumenical beliefs. But on second thought, it was probably for the best because it was 100% likely that I would have started raving about religion, standing to my feet in her small office, raging against the establishment and all the ways it pisses me off. Being that she is not ecumenical, this would have been a waste of BOTH of our time…) Also, (back to the magical room) the above mentioned postgraduate acrobats (one in particular, who I don’t have permission to mention here, but you know who you are) would suddenly show up and valiantly fight against the computer dragon (computer dragons are real in magical rooms) that kept messing with my format and Bibliography. So thanks to them as well. Anyway, it was magic and I am pretty sure it sprinkled magic dust on my essay too.

          Next, I would like to thank associated friends who I ignored, or did not ignore but stayed only long enough for them to caffeinate me while I complained about how this essay was trying to kill me. Or those I did not ignore, but showed up a half an hour late for most interactions - barely apologizing because I hadn’t even managed to shower; so getting there a half-hour late seemed like I had achieved something amazing. Also sometimes it wasn’t even my fault. One time, I was only running five minutes late, when I raced out to my car only to see a bit of bird fluff on the ground. I recoiled, afraid the cat had become a homicidal maniac and then realized the rest of the bird was sticking out of the grill of my car. I was tempted to leave it. However, it was a very cold day and I planned on using the heater on full blast and not knowing (or even caring to know) how cars work, I assumed I would be breathing in dead bird for 40 minutes of my drive. So I summoned my inner warrior goddess and found a stick. Thinking I could just scoop it out, I stuck the stick in behind the pile of feathers (and one yellow leg dangling in a very sad, dead way) and pulled. It squished a little, I almost threw up, and it did not budge. I tried again. Squish, gag, nothing. Then I realized its wing was caught so I tried to push that down. Poke, gag, poke, gag. Pull, squish, gag - nothing. I was now a half an hour late. I called Al at work, who was “busy”. (I do not believe he was busy but because I had so frantically asked for him, he could hear it and probably said to say he was “busy”.) So, as punishment, I made his colleague tell me if I could drive with a dead bird in my grill. (Which come to think of it, is punishing her not him... dang it.) Once she could understand the words I was squealing and sort of crying, (not really… it was a sort of moan that was helping me keep the vomit down…) she said it was fine. She also seemed to know enough things about cars that I could trust her. She said things like “radiator” which I know is in a car, I just have no idea what it does and possibly something about “intake” but I can’t be sure.  So off I drove. I tried not to use the heater (because Al's colleague had thought I was worried about the car, not the breathing in of bird fluff so she didn't say if it was bad to turn on the heater) but my hands were starting to go numb so I turned it on low. All I could think of was the little bits of dead bird fluff filling my lungs. So I tried to breathe with my head turned sideways and cough every few breaths or so. I arrived to meet my two friends thirty five minutes late now and told them my story. They promised to rescue me before I went to hot Yoga and after picking up some gloves from the science department at the university. Unfortunately, because I was late, we had to head straight to the car with no gloves and my friend who has already found her inner warrior got down on her knees and began her fight with the bird. All the while I was gagging.  And apologizing because my gagging was impeding her ability to picture herself on a lovely island somewhere or whatever she was doing to avoid throwing up too. Eventually the bird was freed. The evidence is below. So, thank you friends who rescue you from dead birds! I am sure I have forgotten someone. You know who you are. Thanks again! (As I read this back, for editing purposes which I rock at now (sort of), I am aware that my level of excitement, poor syntax, and Academy-Award-style of thanks may indicate that I have finished my master’s degree. This is untrue; it was just one class. But it felt like completing a Masters… this does not bode well since I haven’t even started my thesis…)

Glasses Vortex from Hell and Friends who Rescue You

So my glasses are broken. At some point they were stepped on; or sat on; or slammed in a door (probably all of the above)anyway they are askew. They have been misshapen for a while but now I am getting a callous on my nose where the metal rubs against it. The callous is good because before there was a callous, it was just hurting - now it is scar tissue, which feels no pain! Also one side is completely broken but because they are stylish-two-over-the-ear-thingys, I can still wear them and since glasses cost so much, I have been making them work. However, there was a coupon for an eye exam. Liz found it because Liz takes care of me even though she shouldn’t, because she has enough things and people to take care of. She knows how long I wear glasses that scratch my nose until I lose feeling and she buys my daughter clothes because I hate shopping. She also makes sure I eat yummy food and helps me with crazy harebrained ideas like “Let’s cater!!!” (This is not a comprehensive list - You know how cool you are Liz!) So off I went. What Liz doesn’t know (because last time I got glasses I was in the States) was that getting me to the eye appointment is the easy part. After that, I end up in the glasses vortex from hell.  (For those of you who do know me, glasses shopping is worse than me going shoe shopping… For those of you who have been shoe shopping with me - I'm sorry.  For those of you who have not been shoe shopping with me, it is like being trapped - on an airplane - where they are playing a skipping record over the intercom for four hours… I do realize how bad I am in a shoe store but I can’t seem to get any better… perhaps because I don’t practice because I HATE SHOPPING but I love shoes. It is a catastrophic combo really...) So Liz is at home, taking care of her family when her phone starts going beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep and instead of disowning me, we had a text conversation that went like:

 

 

Thanks Liz you have just won the Nobel Peace Prize for patience and friendship. In the end, I left and went to the movies. I snuck in a salad. I asked the lady at the ticket counter if it would be ok.. she said, "no"... I told her I would keep it in my bag... I didn't. I ate it and it was delicious and the movie was great but I still don't have any glasses that aren't trying to fall off my face...

Literary Rhetoric and The Guy with the Flags

Everyone needs an airport ground crew and air plane staff in their lives. (“Air plane staff” is not right… What do you call the group of people who work on a plane? Don’t answer that because I know there is an answer but I have been reading entire books on Irony and books like “The Act of Reading” which actually deconstructs what we do when we read… a whole book! Like, you know when you sit down to read and you string the words together… A whole book is written about that. So my brain can literally take in no new information. Even if you told me as a favor, I am so angry at the book about reading and the B+’s I am still getting despite all the reading, I would be rude about it. Just the other day I was rude to one of my best friends. It is indiscriminate though; I also decided it was fine to insult all redheads as well. I guess for a moment I thought it was okay because I live with two redheads. But this is like producing misogynistic music and saying it’s okay because you know a woman. It still doesn’t make sense though, because normally I try not to insult anybody… I blame the reading book. Any text that puts so much effort into making your mind feel like scrambled eggs should be banned, or at least sit unread on your shelf, making you look smart. Anyway, I severely digress.)

          Back to the airline people: everybody needs them but there would have to be lots of them because they have to be specific to each person’s needs, on a case by case basis. For instance, I would specifically need people who fly me where I want to go and people to bring me tiny food whenever I want it. You may be thinking, I just want to be rich… and you would be right but my needs are very specific. I need to see my family whenever I want to. But also my metabolism runs roughly at the pace of an alarm clock: slowly ticking over one minute at a time… reliable enough to keep my heart beating but if I eat anything bigger than tiny prepackaged plastic food it freaks out and gains twenty pounds. It’s afraid I will soon be participating in a famine. However, what I really need is people driving my stuff around in tiny little cars with miniature little trailers behind them. You know the one’s with the cool spinny wheels so they can get in and out of tight spots. (It would be cool if they could also get you out of a metaphorical tight spot as well… I find myself in these way too often and it would be nice if they could drive you out of these too. But it would be hard to drive someone out of a metaphor... maybe in the future when we finally have flying cars.) Because I live forty minutes from the town where I spend the majority of my time, I have to take all of the things I may or may not need with me. Which is fine, until late one night in the library, I meet a lovely tiny lady in the elevator. We have a friendly impromptu conversation about how I am failing at life. (I am doing this everywhere so the conversation is not unique but the stranger partaking in it is… normally people just cut me off after the third time I beg them to understand how horrible it is that I am getting B’s in my Master’s class.) She is lovely but when she exits she says “oh, it’s raining…” and tries to make her small body smaller against the wind and rain. I offer her a ride but then must clear a space for her by moving the sixteen books (including the stupid book about reading) off the front seat, the cooler with bottled water (in case tap water is attempting to kill me… this is real - don’t judge me) the yoga mat, see this post. The pre-yoga clothes, the soaking wet post-yoga towel, the computer, the computer cord… Meanwhile, she says, “I could just sit in the back…” not realizing the back is covered in seven winter coats (yes, there are only three people in my family but I get cold! Not like “oh I’m a bit chilly…” it’s more like: “Oh my body uses energy to produce cold instead of heat …” Like a fridge; so they need one each and I may need to borrow their back up coat at any moment.)

This is why I want that guy in his tiny spinny car. He could follow me around and help me carry things.

          If I can’t have the guy in the tiny car, I at least need one of those guys with the flags that help the pilots park the plane. (Again I am sure they have a title but I have done too much research in the last two weeks and I am tired of finding meanings and spelling of words I should know - but don’t - IT MAKES ME FEEL STUPID!) Anyway, I want one of those guys because, over the last few weeks, Alan and I have had way too many “brilliant ideas” that needed to be waved off with a big X or even two flags shooing us to the left or right.

          First, Alan decided we should buy a house. These may seem like normal words to all of you reading it. They may even seem like they are in the right order. But ever since we owned a downtown apartment and went bankrupt and subsequently fled the country, (if a law enforcement agent reads this, we didn’t really flee the country, treat this as metaphor you literalist bastard - sorry that anger may be misdirected from the book about reading…), we are completely scared of houses. Now when we look at houses online we say, OOHH and AHHH appropriately and then we are mad at each other for at least two weeks, fighting over things like. “You are trying to torture me by telling me the electric blanket is on and then making me get into a cold bed.” (Remember, I feel like I live in a fridge most of the time.) Or this may just be me… but Alan is worse. He just sits in his room in the dark listening to rap music for two weeks and I accuse him of torturing me from the hallway. This is what happens to our psyche when we think about owing the bank money.

          But this time we didn’t get depressed right away. Which was strange. So he went to an actual bank to try and figure out what all the money things actually meant. (Not the bank we would use but another bank because I convinced him to go get all of our stupid questions out of the way before we went and saw the people we were going to actually ask for a loan. He said this was unnecessary and that we could just ask the loan people. But I told him they would laugh at us and then not give us a loan. I won this argument… with him rolling his eyes and sighing.) So, while I spent endless hours on the phone and doing math calculation that I am not good at, Alan went and asked questions which he is not good at. He asked things like, “can we have more money so we can make the house look like we want it to look?” As I clearly predicted she laughed at him and said, “No. Why don’t you just buy a house that looks the way you want it to look?” Then we went and saw the house again and realized it might fall down soon. Since we can’t even fix the safety chain on our door (please don’t see this as an invitation to rob us, think of it as metaphor) we thought we would be unqualified to fix a house that had fallen down. In this case, I needed the guy with the flags to make a big X. Perhaps he could live close by, in a little apartment. Then, when Al comes home and says we should buy this cute little house, flag guy could run in, blow a whistle and make an X with the flags. He wouldn’t even have to explain why he came bursting into our house; we would just know that he was there for our own good.

          Next, I decided I needed a job. Because of all the above mentioned reasons, I want money. Now you would think the people in my life would have said, “Hey, you just started walking again maybe you should hold off on the job thing for a while…” and by “people” I mean Alan. You should definitely blame him. He encouraged me to get the job and even talked to the manager for me. (Secretly, you should not blame him because I played the “I miss my family card” and I should be very careful when I use it because I get whatever I want when I play that card). I sold myself in the interview because I am (or was) a rock star nurse. And of course they hired me. So what do you think happened? Yep, four hours into my shift, I could not walk and the nurse orientating me kept saying “Are you tired?” as she stopped and waited for me while I took tiny tiny steps to disguise the limp. I laughed, “HAHA! Yes I am tired. Aren’t I pathetic?” Still hoping that the pain I was in was a fluke and I could keep the job. Also I did not want to tell her what was actually wrong. (Because I hate telling people what is wrong with me.) When I arrived home, Alan had to lift me out of the car. He said, “You have to quit this job.” I burst into tears and accused him of trying to kill me again. In this case, I needed the guy with the flags waving me to the right where I wait and see if I get a tutoring job next semester. A job where I sit and talk to people and secretly get the undergraduates to help me with the words in my Master’s classes that I don’t understand.  Please for the love of all of the monkeys will someone explain paleoprofitering!

          Also you should all know I did catering again… the day before a five thousand word essay was due… where IS that guy with the flags? Although, to be fair, I was not at home when I agreed to cater so that would mean I need the guy with the flags to follow me everywhere. It could be weird but I think incredibly helpful. Because, he could stop me from saying yes to catering the day before a huge essay is due but he could also stand just in my peripheral view and wave me off if I start insulting people or asking questions I should not. Like when I asked my professor if I should include some quotes from Wolfgang Iser’s book “The Act of Reading”.

Are we Bluffing or Paleoprofitiering?

You know how, when you are a kid, all job possibilities are open to you? You fight with your friends over who is shopping and who is the shop keeper? And then later, you finally work in retail and before long the ding on the cash register makes you want to poke your eyes out? And then you get older and you rule out things like cowboy because riding on a horse all day seems glamorous but is really about lots of poop, mud and infrequent showering. Or astronaut, not because you are not smart enough (although, secretly, you have your doubts) but because the void of space seems claustrophobic from the isolation it brings. Plus astronauts in the movies are always floating away screaming into the abyss or having their face sucked out of their helmet. So you start narrowing your career opportunities to jobs where your feet stay on the ground and pressurized-oxygenated helmets are not required. Some would call this old age, I prefer maturity.

I seem to have gone through some sort of regression (I prefer this term to mid-life crisis) lately, thinking the whole world is still full of opportunities for me and I embarked on getting my Masters in English. Having received two Bachelor’s degrees, I thought it was about time to prove my brains and move up the intellectual food chain. At first, things seemed to be going well. I got an A- on my first assignment. Then I got the dreaded B (for me this is panic time) and of course I went running (yes, literally running) down the hall, waving the essay in my hand at the teacher. “What did I DO?” I asked. She had stated beside the grade that I had failed to include an annotated bibliography. This confused me because she wrote this on the page that I had titled “Bibliography”. She graciously stopped mid step (during a break in class) to explain annotated meant actually annotated. I needed a summary of my sources under each source. Whoops. It turns out most of my English degree was earned by taking Creative Writing and Screen And Media classes so I assumed ‘annotated’ was a metaphor. Or a fancy way of saying list…

Next, I had to do a presentation on Primo Levi’s If This Is A Man. Harrowing reading but plenty of things to ponder and discuss. My copy of the book looks like a kindergarten craft project, with all the little pink Post-Its flagging out the side. I had my outline and had started putting together my Power Point, but then I thought I’d better make an appointment to see the teacher, to make sure that “presentation” wasn’t just a fancy way of saying lecture…

I entered her office and laid out for her the main points in my presentation. Silence filled the room. She rubbed over her eyes the weary hand of a person who spends her days trying to pass on knowledge to deadpan faces and then proceeded to tell me gently and with excellent teaching skills where I had gone utterly wrong. This would have been great, seeing as I still had time (about an hour between soccer and laundry and dinner and “Mom look at this mine craft thing!”) to work on it before class but the professor began to speak another language. Well I am pretty sure it was English it was just all the words in the dictionary I had never heard of. There were entire sentences where I didn’t recognize a single word she was saying (I am pretty sure she didn’t even use a, an, or the). At first I just sat there staring but kept my face shaped in an “I’m listening and pondering” look (you know: crinkled forehead, leaning forward in my chair, chin on hand, finger tapping lips.) Then I thought, this is probably really important. So I began frantically scribbling these foreign words, spelling them based on how they sounded. Then our time was up. She wished me good luck and sent me on my way. The problem became evident when the only word I could find on Google was pedagogical; which I had managed a close enough spelling that Google worked it out for me. Unfortunately, none of the other words were recognized so I had to do my presentation without considering these important points; points such as Paranthenanialism,  prescriptionalinasetion, or irony which I knew how to spell but I had trouble defining because I really do think Alanis Morrisette’s song is ironic. So whenever I go to define it in my head, I think of a guy taking his first flight and the plane crashing and I am confused. (You may think I reference this song a lot and you would be right. It bothers me more than a little… although I will admit it is on my mind way too much.) In the end I showed a clip from The Office. You may be thinking, not really WWII related and I would agree but I needed to be reminded that it’s okay to laugh. I then launched into my actual presentation, sweat pouring from my armpits (Which I considered when picking my shirt in the morning but thought, Hey that is what “anti-perspirant” is for. Apparently the deodorant was scared of my presentation too and ran away. So my thin, light blue shirt looked like I had dipped my armpits in grey paint.) When I was finished one of the other students asked me “What was your point exactly?” To which I replied “Ummm I didn’t really have one…” thinking, maybe I should not be getting my Masters. But then, after a moment, I said “But I think that is what Primo Levi wanted. He wanted us to consider his book not just make a point about it.” Which at the time seemed a little weak, like, I was bluffing. But then I thought, that’s what has been bugging me all along: everyone seems to be bluffing all of the time or maybe not bluffing but getting all caught up in words like paleoprofitiering. And I don’t really care to second guess what the author is saying every other sentence. I want to get into the story. To taste the metaphors. To have the lessons that can only be learned through a story burrow into my heart making me better. Not to dissect every sentence saying, “this is what the author really meant.” I think the author may have meant what he spent hours and hours trying to get exactly right on the page. He analyzed and rewrote every sentence over and over till it said exactly what he wanted it to say. Or maybe he just slapped something amazing down and then said, “Gee I hope some English Master’s class figures out what I am trying to say here because I have no idea!”  Perhaps I should go back to science where the words all make sense. Words like, ventral striatum and locus coeruleus which, come to think of it, I still can’t pronounce. Alright, forget it. Will everyone please just Share or Repost or whatever it is kids do these days so I can have a real job writing? Because it looks like I will never make it as a scholar and my window for remembering Latin is slamming shut.

(P.S. I say, “Whatever it is kids do these days” because a fellow student informed me the other day that “Facebook is for old people…” I laughed and agreed and then cried in my car… Apparently maturity is not quite the right word.)

Namaste

As some of you know, I have started practicing Hot Yoga! (I ended that sentence with an exclamation point because I love Hot Yoga!) I say practicing because that is what it is supposed to be – a practice of mind-body connection. I learn something cool almost every time I go. What I find though, is, it hasn’t quite made it into my everyday life. It is supposed to.  For instance, you should be able to be mindful throughout your day, as in stay in the moment. While I find this is a very helpful reminder when singing to my daughter as she is going to sleep, (holding on to those precious moments before she is too cool for a song) I find I am less inclined to stay mindful while on hold with a giant-not-to-be-named-evil corporation. I am not sure how to practice mindfulness when they want to keep you talking to the robot as long as possible (pressing option 1 then 4 then 6 then 9 then 403, then it says, “Would you like to return to the main menu?” and you consider crying). Or once you actually get to talk to someone they ask in the most patronizing tone if you would mind if they put you on hold. What am I supposed to say? No! I don’t want to be put on hold, because I am calling internationally and I pushed zero to talk to a person. But of course I say yes. (For some reason, saying it through gritted teeth doesn't have the passive aggressive effect I was going for…) Then they proceed to play, not just an instrumental country song, but more of a country-style ditty you get on keyboards. You know the ones where you can push the button for “samba” or “reggae” and it plays you four bars of a sort-of recognizable tune. It was that… on repeat.

At first I try breathing (this is how all mindfulness starts). Unfortunately it starts coming out like a growl every time the song repeats. As an emergency backup option, I grab my smart phone and start playing Candy Crush. I sense mindfulness clucking its tongue at me but Candy Crush is making it possible for me not to smash the phone on the table. In my mindful state, I see the evil corporation coming back on the line saying “Hello? Hello? Hello?” And each time I bash the phone down on the table in response. So I continue to pop little packages of candy to avoid having to buy a new phone. Thinking, perhaps this is when I am supposed to be applying the “let it go” philosophy of yoga. But the yoga masters couldn’t have meant to do that without the protection of Candy Crush.

 I am also reading a book about becoming your true self. I find it is best to flood your life with "good advice that you just can't take". (Isn’t that right Ms. Morrisette? Or is it ironic?) None of this “small steps” stuff. I say, try to do it all at once; cure yourself from anxiety, insecurity and insanity all in one go! DO hot yoga and read all the “you’re doing life wrong” books at once. That way you can be a perfect person right away. Or if it fails, you haven’t wasted a lot of time… One thing the book mentions, is being more humble and honest about one’s self. I figure this is good. Then the guy gets back on the line to tell me I have to repeat the process of filling in the forms and send them all again. Even though I sent the letter they needed, they don’t want that letter, they want a different form filled in. I thought it was best to allow him to be his true self and ask him to look honestly at himself. Simply stating, “If you can’t submit a letter instead of filling out part four, it should not say on the application that you can submit a letter instead of filling out part four of the application.” To which he said, “You can but it is better for us if you just fill out part four.” To which I said, (really wanting him to gain the freedom of becoming honest with one’s self,) “Why does it say that you can submit the letter? Namaste.” (I did not actually say “Namaste – I acknowledge the divine spark in you”. But I thought if I had been practicing yoga, I would have said it. I just forgot he had a divine spark for a minute…) He said he didn’t know and he would pass it on. I then wondered why it had been okay for the last three years to submit a letter and suddenly it is not. To which he said, “Sorry for the inconvenience. Is there anything else I can help you with?” To which I said, “No thank you.” He then informed me that there was an optional survey at the end of the call. I then completely forgot he had ever had a divine spark within him and decided to paint him black with 2’s and 3’s. (I also seemed to have forgotten I was calling internationally and this was actually costing me money.) Only realizing later, while describing to Al the intense rage I was feeling, that perhaps practicing mindfulness had been a failure.

Next I think I will start perfecting the “no judgment” aspect of yoga. I thought I had been doing pretty good at this and was learning to stop judging (and hating) my body. (Because, let’s be honest, it has been a little stupid; immune system going rogue and other nonsense.) So I was trying to be nice to my body and “accept the body I have today” which my yoga teacher keeps reminding me. I have been wandering around for weeks… ok months… ok it may have been a year… with my vision getting more and more blurry. It has gotten really bad over the last month or so. I kept saying. ‘Oh my eyes are just tired…’ Then I decided to find my lost glasses… Yes I have not been wearing my prescription glasses, getting blurry vision and telling myself not to judge it. So it is true I should not judge or despise my eyes for being less than optimal. Turns out you have to balance this with a little common sense. And while my glasses are broken, I can see again… like a Christmas miracle. You would not believe the amount of writing you can do in a day when you can see the letters on the keyboard.

Namaste everyone!

 

My Version of Sister Stories  - The right one (maybe, but I have the blog...) Volume One - Part 16

So I have been threatening since I started this blog (please see sidebar to the right) that my sisters, who encouraged me to start a blog, would one day find themselves mentioned in said blog. So times up girls! All of your lovely wishes for my birthday reminded me of all the stories I had yet to tell… insert music indicating doom: dum dum DUMMMMM.

For those of you who don’t know, I have two older sisters. I will not say their age or mine because who needs to know these things. What you should know is that the gap is wide enough that I was too young to remember much of the mean years. (Although there are a few stories…) Instead most of my memories are of my cool teenage sisters who could drive, taking me with them.

I begin this series of tales with our first trip alone together. It is just us, no parents or anything. We fly to Hawaii. Our Grandpa lived there who we love and miss. Now, one of the many things I love about Michelle is that when she travels, she plans fun side excursions to places she has seen on TV or the movies. For instance, on this trip, we need to have a few days in Maui to visit the Seven Sacred Pools which Meg Ryan mentioned in I.Q. Also we have to visit the waterfall used in the opening scene of Fantasy Island. You know, “Da Plane! Da Plane!” We fly from the Big Island to Maui on one of those little planes that make you feel like you might die. But on this particular plane, you know you won’t die because they are playing a Hawaiian song on loop and the stewardess sings to it as she dances up and down the aisle. I am pretty sure that you will never crash if the stewardess is dancing and singing.

We arrive in Maui and rent our convertible. That’s right, a convertible because Michelle planned the trip and if you are going to rent a car in Hawaii it doesn’t make any sense to have a normal car. And we drive straight to the waterfall.  I am sixteen and expecting my future boyfriend to be around any corner or the one I just came around or the one just up ahead. Any boyfriend would do… JUST ANY BOY… I digress. So I was wearing a knee-length flower dress with buttons in the shape of roses, white fold-down socks and the generic version of Keds. Because dresses and tennis shoes are awesome. And one should really look their best when shopping for their boyfriend in Hawaii . Anyway, Michelle, as always, is impeccably dressed in cute shorts, a fancy top and some gold-embellished strappy sandals.

We park at the trail head. Marleen eyes the steep start of the climb and decides someone should stay up the top and take a picture… One of the things I love about Marleen, is her ability to endlessly encourage you and she is always up for an adventure. Hand her a plane ticket to anywhere in the world, you don’t even have to tell her the destination, she will have a small perfectly packed bag and go. However, this is balanced with her ability to say “you all are nuts” and “I’m out”. But she does it with such tact. For instance, in this case. she looks at the trail head and says with actual sincere encouragement, ‘I am sure you guys can totally do it… you might just want to wear… like different clothes and shoes… I mean Mel is wearing… like …’ she eyes me up and down trying to decide what exactly I am wearing… ‘Her party dress.’ Michelle and I decided that it can’t be that steep all the way. It's not that we are reckless; we just assume things can’t be as bad as they seem. We are wrong it only gets steeper… vertical would be the best way to describe it. Also for some reason the ground is the consistency of peanut butter (which could be why it seems so steep). I become slightly worried about my boyfriend-meeting dress and suggest to Michelle that we come back another day perhaps more, hikerly dressed… Now one thing is for certain. In our little circle of sisters Michelle is in charge. We do as she says and if she says, “We are going to have fun” then you snap to attention and do as she says. This may seem unfair but it is not because she would throw herself in traffic for either of us and can be counted on in the scariest as well as the best moments of life. Also. I am quite confident that if I ever need anyone murdered because they are very bad (I would only murder very bad people) she would  help set that up for me or (because she is a law abiding citizen and apparently in this hypothetical I am not) she would bail me out or visit me every day in prison. Also, if I was in prison, she would make sure no one was mean to me in there. So because of this, and the fact that, if she says we are going to have fun, we probably will… And because she says so… I follow her on.

We come to a point where it is so vertical you have to navigate using a climbing rope. It is a steep drop over one side. I am wondering why they didn’t just use one long rope instead of several short ones when it becomes clear. She and I find ourselves on the same rope. Everything slows right down for a few seconds - I see her slip on the cute little sandals in front of me and then I feel a jerk on the rope. Instead of dropping it, I hold on tighter and suddenly find I am dangling off the side of the cliff. I can’t quite place where I am. I seem to now be hanging in some sort of foliage with no ground under my feet and I can’t understand how I got there.  I am perfectly calm, just confused.

Michelle starts screaming, ‘Melody! Are you dead?!’

I look up to see her panic stricken face above me.

‘No I’m fine!’

‘I couldn’t see you! I thought you were dead!’ She says as she hoists me back up. Michelle then decides we should come back ready for a hike. I follow obediently and she takes the sandals off deciding barefoot is safest. We climb a ways when I hear.

‘Shoe… shoe. Save the shoe!’ The slippery sandal is careening down the peanut butter slope, but I make the dive and retrieve it. Sandal saved. When we get to the top, my dress is covered in mud. Marleen laughs at us and takes a picture of the dress. I never did get the stain out; this I use as exhibit A for why I never had a boyfriend. There are exhibits B through Z as well but there will be time enough for that humiliation later.

Epilogue - We returned the next day with proper foot gear and dressed in swimming suits… you know because we were going to swim in the waterfall. I am followed the entire way down the hike by a swarm of mosquitoes.

I keep saying, ‘I think I am being attacked…’

Michelle keeps saying, ‘There are no bugs! Stop being dramatic!” (It may come as a surprise to you that I have a slight tendency toward the dramatic but this should not sway you. I was not being dramatic here. In this case, it was the normal amount of drama being falsely blamed for previous excessive dramaticness.) We reach the bottom and Michelle is determined to get to the waterfall. I watch as she navigates the edge of the lake which looks like a vertical rock wall into the water. This is confirmed when, in order to continue, she must do her best impression of spider man and shimmy her way across. She does this while yelling, ‘Mel come on! It will be great!’ I am sure that I will not make it on the strength of my finger tips but I have come this far so I yell back that I will swim. (If you need a visual for how I "swim" see this post… ) I scoot into the water and flail forward a bit until I see something moving in the clear water. It is a Black Water Scorpion the size of a small dog and the most deadly kind. (This may or may not be the scientific name. Also, there may or may not be any such thing actually in the world but I am sure that is what it was.) I flail and sputter my way back to the edge. Michelle is waving me over. I try to explain about the Black Water Scorpion but she has made it to the water fall and can’t hear me. We pose for Marleen taking the photo above us. On our return to the hotel, Michelle states she has a few mosquito bites. I have a total of 40 on my legs alone… Marleen just shakes her head.

New Year's Retribution

I do not do New Year’s resolutions.  It feels bossy. And I don’t like to be bossed. You may think how do you hold down a job? That is a very good question and I have held down many jobs quite successfully. My need to make others happy carries me for a while until I feel bossed by stupid people making stupid decisions or they make me read 'Who Moved my Cheese?' and then I quit… It is the same with New Year’s resolutions. I say this year I will _____. And about a week in, I start saying to myself: “Who are you to tell me what to do? You don’t know what is best for me. How can you possibly know that eating healthier will add even one month to my life!?” And then chocolate is eaten with a sneer on my face that says to my healthier self - don’t mess with me; you are an idiot. So I don’t do them anymore. It’s not as if I don’t make positive changes in my life; I just start in December or March and don’t write it down or anything. I just change it.

Anyway despite my strict no Resolution policy, this January I found myself on a cucumber and celery juice fast followed by eating nothing but vegetable broth and rice and taking up hot yoga. Now these may sound much like resolutions. In fact, many people in the world probably set these very resolutions for themselves. However mine was a desperate attempt to control something that is out of my control. My meds are not working and my pain is like the boss who was always mean but suddenly became deranged and started screaming at everyone about things they can’t change and stapling everyone’s work to their foreheads. Also the whine in my voice reached such epic proportions that I worried the neighbors would call the cops. Although, I sound pretty much like a three year old and people rarely call the cops for a three year old whining... that someone (Al) put the lid on the water bottle so tight that you are sure you are in prison where they taunt you with water that can't be opened. And Al is the warden. 

Somehow, even though I have lived with this disease for over 15 years I suddenly felt it was unfair. And so to the internet we turned. Looking up every story of anyone who had ever cured themselves of an auto-immune disease. We ruled out people who cured themselves of diseases that cure themselves.  Then we put together the crazy people's and the doctor’s research, boiled the vegetable broth and bought a rice cooker. I felt great for the fast days but everything after that was a crap shoot, lots of pain one day less the next. Plus I had the strange sensation that I was out of pain but still could not manage to sit up and get off the couch. It turns out I was consuming roughly 50 calories /day and still trying to work out at the gym so my body just tried to shut down and go to sleep.

I added hot yoga to the mix because lots of stories included hot yoga as the cure. I went to my first class and within minutes I was sure I had made a mistake. I thought, I think they are actually making this room hot… Like, from the floor… Secretly I thought the 'hot' in Hot Yoga was a metaphor. The guy in front of me was already dripping with sweat but I thought I would be ok because I have worked out before and managed to keep my sweat to myself. However, ten minutes in, I am sweating - now not just sweating. I am sweating from my shins! I didn’t even think I could sweat from my shins. I mean I knew anatomically it was possible to sweat from your shins I just assumed mine never would because they never had. I start to panic because I can't figure out why the room is on a boat and slowly rocking from side to side so I literally run out the door, the instructor calling after me “MELODY! WAIT MELODY!” I do not wait but not one to quit, went back in and finished. However, that night after driving home thinking, I never want to go back there again, I slept all the way until 3am!!! This never happens. I have since become that person who carries a yoga mat everywhere and declines invitations because "I have to go to hot yoga..." I drop Namaste into conversations at regular intervals and think it is perfectly normal to lie on my friends living room floor in Savasana (dead man's pose) for as long as I want. (Since my rapid fleeing, the instructor has started saying, “If this is your first class make sure you stay in the room for the full 90 minutes. If you feel dizzy, just sit or lay down. But don’t leave.” I am pretty sure she looks right at me every time but I make myself seem busy, adjusting my pants or something.)

As far as the food goes, I got so frustrated being in pain, then not, then in pain, then not. AND not eating anything. I had everything I wasn’t eating all in one day from coffee to pizza with a Vietnamese rice noodle bowl (yes at the same time) topped off by chocolate ice cream and donut holes. It was fantastic. We are still researching and are trying everything at the moment because it feels like I am doing something.

And that really is the point. When things in your body go wrong the first stop is the medical profession; we see them as the answer. Until they start saying things like “I don’t know.” And “That doesn’t matter.” That is the first stage, the stage where you start to think, hey I don’t think they know all of the stuff I want them to know. But you talk yourself through that stage. This is especially true for patients who are also healthcare professionals like myself, because we think, Hey I really love my patients, want only good things for them and REALLY want them to get better. So you believe that other healthcare professionals share this sentiment. And they do, for the most part… although now that I actually sit down and think about it 10 minutes of my 15 minute appointment is usually spent discussing whatever is bothering the doctor. For instance, out of the last three doctors I have seen, one has gotten cut off by another driver on the way to work (which is really annoying and dangerous and road issues… people should be in jail… people shouldn’t be allowed to drive… more discussion… etc…) The next doctor was just really tired and really wanted a cup of tea. I offered to wait while he went to make one but he declined discussing instead the sacrifices one must make in life. Maybe it’s because I ask them how they are. Maybe I should stop asking but I always thought it must be annoying hearing everyone’s problems. And what if you had a really bad day or something? It would be nice to be asked how you are. But then, really, they should put extra time in for the consultation. Or really, if you are a doctor of people with a debilitating illness, it would be good to remember that you don’t have it and wanting a cup of tea is dumb especially when the person sitting in your office would find it impossible to even lift a kettle of water. Anyway, I digress. I still don’t think of my doctors as malicious just tired and here is the big aha moment. They are working for the drug companies. They don’t know it of course they think they are working for us but really the drug companies say this will help your patients and they think yay! And even better the drugs work… sort of … most of the time… yay! But then the drug companies are only researching solutions that will make them money not cure us because if they cured us they would not make any money.
 So that is how it starts, you think someone is in control of your health and that you can trust them and then you realize you can’t and no one is in control and then you freak out and start drinking cucumber juice. And really none of it may work but at least you feel like you are doing something besides waiting for the drugs or the disease to kill you. That’s what it really is about; feeling like you have an ounce of control. That you can tell your body, “Hey! You do what I say now. And if I say it is only cucumber juice today then you better deal with it.” It feels good instead of your body saying, "No you can’t get up. No you can’t use the bathroom because it is too far away and the toilet is too low and no you can’t use your hands.” It begins to think it is the boss and we all know how well I do with bosses… Cucumber juice gives the power back to you even if only for a moment. And as for Hot yoga that is really where I get to stick it to my body. I get to say, “You will stay in this hot room for an hour and a half and you will like it and yes you will bend (sort of) and no complaining! If you do this you will leave feeling strong and relaxed.” So if your New Year’s resolution does this for you, more power to ya! Otherwise just start in March and don’t tell anyone…