Tuesday, September 4, 2012
You Don't Have To Beleive What You Think
I’m not going to pretend that on some level I’m not deeply, deeply bitter about not feeling well. It would be inhuman to not really hate it.
But I walked into a bathroom at my acupuncturist’s office in Phoenicia a few years ago, and on a piece of paper, attached to the mirror there was a piece of paper which read, “You don’t have to believe what you think.” It blew me over like a sandstorm.
Just because I feel I was robbed, and know I was robbed, doesn’t mean I have to believe I was robbed.
Anyone who’s seen basic parenting is aware of this contrast: Say you’re on a plane that’s clearly having mechanical troubles and a child is sitting next to you. Any wise parent doesn’t shout, “We’re all gonna die!” at the child. That would very likely result in an out-of-control little girl of boy, screaming, flailing, making the situation much, much worse.
A wise adult talks to the child patiently, puts an optimistic face on the situation, maybe even lies to them a little. The result is a calm child who understands the situation, maybe even better than we do, on some level.
What I’m saying is each of us has an inner child who wants nothing but to pound and scream at the unfairness of it all. But you don’t have to buy into the drama. You don’t have to think this way every minute of the day. You don’t have to live your life as though you believe this is the only truth, that you’ve been robbed, it’s all unfair and everybody hates you. Even if that’s what you think. It’s only one facet of your thinking. You are also wiser than that, and there is a higher level of thinking and consciousness you can tap into, to sooth, negotiate with, and train the inner child who wails.
Of course every parent loses it once in a while – that’s only human. Every now and then I think it’s healthy to give vent to those thoughts and feelings. But I do my best to let them be just that – thoughts and feelings – and not let them overwhelm the forward motion and general sense of belonging to my life.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Luck
What is luck, anyway? Do you believe in it? Is it random? Is it karmic? Does it come to you or leave you because you've been bad, or deliciously good?
Last month, the water heater & dishwasher at the house and my long beloved car all went *kaboom!* at the same time, which made for very interesting logisitics, (for instance, how do we get a water heater to the house with no car, when Lowe's delivers wayyy out here to Fleischmanns only every other Wednesday, the plumber can come Monday and we need to get back to the city by Tuesday?)
That very same weekend, we awoke at 4am one morning to the tippidy-tap of - what else - our roof leaking. apparently our "brilliant" fix to our miniscule - but now obviously significant - chronic waterway, which involves a plastic crate, needs to be emptied periodically. Who knew?
We thought that was lousy luck, but figured it comes with the territory of an old car and older house. We replaced the water heater, fixed the car, bought a new dishwasher and emptied the crate. (Goodbye, 2-3k there! And just when we'd started paying down that one credit card!!)
I made an offer on a house, which was to represent some future financial solidity. What a great deal! It was inspected (to the tune of $525). It has mold. lots of it. Among other significant and potentially expensive problems. That deal is currently in limbo.
The next few days, the ones leading up to our flying out of the country for a week, are when my dental work from a week back went awry.
Then Colin's camera was stolen literally right out from under our toes while were were sleeping on the paradise island of St. Maarten/Martin. Insurance would cover only $250 of the 3K to replace it. (Useful note - if your homeowner's insurance folks ask you if you ever use a stolen item for business use, say "NO!" Positively No! As if the photography "business" has ever made any money, or as if he never uses that camera for personal use! bah!)
We thought that was bad, but then Colin broke out in a rash from head to toe. I call it "camer-ation anxiety." Of course then it was Sunday when most pharmacies on the island were closed. Everyone thinks it's heat rash or sun rash. So let me get this straight; a boy grows up in Florida, to experience heat rash randomly at age 41? Now I'm seriously beginning to question this "luck" thing.
Then we came home. Four packages I need to make candles, etc. had been returned to senders, because the note on the front door telling carriers to deliver down the street seems to have been removed. (could that have been from the tornado which ripped through Park Slope last month?) On its way back to the sender, one of the boxes was destroyed by UPS and happened to be my supplier's LAST bag of palm wax until they get a new shipment. I am weeks behind on production for the holidays.
We've been home for 3 days, and today Colin's computer got a virus and, not surprisingly, I'm getting sick. I satisfied myself with a lukewarm, dirty shower this morning... now there's no water in the building and the toilet is - not how it's supposed to be. Thank the powers I'm home alone.
I was yet determined to be productive. Imagine my "surprise" when I got something out of the shelves (you know, those cross-grid ones from Target?) beside the kitchen sink and they alllll started tumbling down, the the little round thing which holds them together falling away next to the sink.
Imagine how carefully I supported the entire structure - all the way up to the things balancing across the tippy top - on two fingers, (veeery carefully, as one phalange was perched precariously on top of a long, serrated knife) while slowly removing objects from the shelves with my other hand, until it was light enough to lift one of the shelf walls where I needed it to be, then carefully picked out the round thing from the depths, reinstated it and reinforced all the corners.
Could it be considered *good* luck that I managed these acrobatics without complete disaster?
I sense a possible change in direction of the wind. But suspect we could use some help. A friend who's a witch has suggested I make a good luck herb jar (of course all my appropriate herbs are down the street with the lady who's sewing the wheat berry pillows, and she's out of town for another week.) You put these herbs in a jar, shake them, say this incantation and leave them on a windowsill every day. I tried reciting the incantation - really, I did -
To God and Goddess I do pray
Guide me through another day
Let good fortune come my way
Good luck hither now I say!
- but I think it could use some reinforcement. Anyone? say it with me now...
Last month, the water heater & dishwasher at the house and my long beloved car all went *kaboom!* at the same time, which made for very interesting logisitics, (for instance, how do we get a water heater to the house with no car, when Lowe's delivers wayyy out here to Fleischmanns only every other Wednesday, the plumber can come Monday and we need to get back to the city by Tuesday?)
That very same weekend, we awoke at 4am one morning to the tippidy-tap of - what else - our roof leaking. apparently our "brilliant" fix to our miniscule - but now obviously significant - chronic waterway, which involves a plastic crate, needs to be emptied periodically. Who knew?
We thought that was lousy luck, but figured it comes with the territory of an old car and older house. We replaced the water heater, fixed the car, bought a new dishwasher and emptied the crate. (Goodbye, 2-3k there! And just when we'd started paying down that one credit card!!)
I made an offer on a house, which was to represent some future financial solidity. What a great deal! It was inspected (to the tune of $525). It has mold. lots of it. Among other significant and potentially expensive problems. That deal is currently in limbo.
The next few days, the ones leading up to our flying out of the country for a week, are when my dental work from a week back went awry.
Then Colin's camera was stolen literally right out from under our toes while were were sleeping on the paradise island of St. Maarten/Martin. Insurance would cover only $250 of the 3K to replace it. (Useful note - if your homeowner's insurance folks ask you if you ever use a stolen item for business use, say "NO!" Positively No! As if the photography "business" has ever made any money, or as if he never uses that camera for personal use! bah!)
We thought that was bad, but then Colin broke out in a rash from head to toe. I call it "camer-ation anxiety." Of course then it was Sunday when most pharmacies on the island were closed. Everyone thinks it's heat rash or sun rash. So let me get this straight; a boy grows up in Florida, to experience heat rash randomly at age 41? Now I'm seriously beginning to question this "luck" thing.
Then we came home. Four packages I need to make candles, etc. had been returned to senders, because the note on the front door telling carriers to deliver down the street seems to have been removed. (could that have been from the tornado which ripped through Park Slope last month?) On its way back to the sender, one of the boxes was destroyed by UPS and happened to be my supplier's LAST bag of palm wax until they get a new shipment. I am weeks behind on production for the holidays.
We've been home for 3 days, and today Colin's computer got a virus and, not surprisingly, I'm getting sick. I satisfied myself with a lukewarm, dirty shower this morning... now there's no water in the building and the toilet is - not how it's supposed to be. Thank the powers I'm home alone.
I was yet determined to be productive. Imagine my "surprise" when I got something out of the shelves (you know, those cross-grid ones from Target?) beside the kitchen sink and they alllll started tumbling down, the the little round thing which holds them together falling away next to the sink.
Imagine how carefully I supported the entire structure - all the way up to the things balancing across the tippy top - on two fingers, (veeery carefully, as one phalange was perched precariously on top of a long, serrated knife) while slowly removing objects from the shelves with my other hand, until it was light enough to lift one of the shelf walls where I needed it to be, then carefully picked out the round thing from the depths, reinstated it and reinforced all the corners.
Could it be considered *good* luck that I managed these acrobatics without complete disaster?
I sense a possible change in direction of the wind. But suspect we could use some help. A friend who's a witch has suggested I make a good luck herb jar (of course all my appropriate herbs are down the street with the lady who's sewing the wheat berry pillows, and she's out of town for another week.) You put these herbs in a jar, shake them, say this incantation and leave them on a windowsill every day. I tried reciting the incantation - really, I did -
To God and Goddess I do pray
Guide me through another day
Let good fortune come my way
Good luck hither now I say!
- but I think it could use some reinforcement. Anyone? say it with me now...
Monday, July 5, 2010
Got that Catskills Cravin'
I’ve been away so long I can’t remember which drawer is for socks and which is for underwear. I unpack in a fumbling daze, car weary and heat-stricken. And this, I think dejectedly, is only a break from unloading heavy crates of candle gear up four flights of stairs from the car, a duty which can’t be delayed much longer since it’s 100 degrees out, and god knows what inside the solar heated vehicle. Even palm wax has its limits!
I can’t believe last night I slept under two blankets, sans air conditioning. Only a screen door, which opens to the best stargazing rooftop balcony ever, remained a few inches open to freshen the room with poofs of 67 degree air all night and the sound of melodious bird calls in the pre-dawn chill. I’ve become so familiar with the flying critters of our neighborhood upstate I’ve started to name them – “Geiger” is what Colin dubbed the tireless woodpecker across the street, because his incessant pecking sounds like a radiation detector. “Shaggy” is what I call all 4 blue jays, because while I can’t tell them apart, all sound appallingly like Shaggy’s outbursts of “ZOINKS” on Scooby Doo.
67 degrees. Let me spell that for you: Sixty-seven. That’s fully twenty-one degrees cooler than it was in Brooklyn last night. I can’t believe we’ve chosen to come back. Ever. As we drove South I told Colin I felt like we were descending into the bowels of Hell. Traffic, humidity and heat all intensify as we approach Manhattan, where I drop him off for a rehearsal for the Classical theater of Harlem.
It’s not just the environment. Once home, I know I must take the sheets and towels used by two sets of subletters down the stairs and to the laundry in the sweltering heat, unearth the stash of sensitive papers we keep hidden so deeply it’s even hard even for us to find, and, worse, get to all the desk work I’ve been putting off, because every last page of it has to be dealt with here, as opposed to there for some reason or other, access to my files being prime.
Sorting through receipts and returning calls to doctor offices is a drag everybody hates no matter where you do them from. But a surprising truth has emerged in our many trips to our Catskills getaway – for some reason we both hate it less when we’re there. Why?
At first we thought it was just that we had each brought a limited amount of annoying stuff to deal with. Each time we finished a duty, there wasn’t an endless, unkillable pile of more paper staring us in the face, rising up to meet us like Zombies.
But as our visits to the Catskill Mountains turned from days to weeks, and more and busywork managed to chase us up the throughway and into the “vacation” house, we realized some other potent facts:
One: Using the dining room table as a desk, each of us gets roughly quadruple the usual size of horizontal surface for our deskly duties. Two, windows. We’re surrounded by three sun-filled windows, each with a distinctly different view – flowering side yard, towering trees, and sprawling deck, (in order left from right, from my side.) Three: The deck.
And beyond. Instead of catching some TV or noshing some chocolate for a break, I do yoga on the deck and ponder the sight of squirrels running along the railing. Colin takes a bike ride. We go on a hike. Wonder what the babbling Vly creek has to say today, and if it’s interesting enough, go swimming in it. Or visit the public pool a block away. In the winter we watch it snow.
I keep learning anew how far more deeply energizing it is to be in daily commune with nature, than not. I need less naps. My pain levels go down. I get less infections when we’re up there. It’s like my body says, yes, this is how you are supposed to live. Stop making those damnable drips down into hell!
I’ve asked other people with fibromyalgia why they choose to live in New York City. I was genuinely curious. Knowing the city is hard on all of us – the extremes of heat, poor air quality, subways with mounds of steps, noise, clutter, a bedbug epidemic…why would anyone with chronic illness choose to live in a big city?
I expected answers like, the culture! The live music! So many free activities along the riverfront! Theater, art, restaurants, education, jobs. Architecture, shopping. Beauty of a diverse population. Or even, (as might be expected of a population with some mobility impairments) easy access to public transportation, not to mention services like meals delivered and vans for the disabled.
Indeed, New York is known as one of the greatest cities in the world. And I happen to live in the neighborhood recently voted by New York Magazine as the #1 neighborhood in the city. What grandeur, what brilliance, what excitement can you not get in New York?
Instead, every single person I asked said, “Everyone I know and love is here.” Or something like it. My grandchildren are here, my girlfriend’s career is based here, all my friends are here.
Oh.
So what keeps me here?
This is a question I ponder at least a little every day. Sure I have good friends here, but New York isn’t the only place I have friends. And of course one can always make new connections. Colin is here, but we’ve thoroughly enjoyed the times in our relationship when it’s been long a distance one (except for the fact that for a normally socially bright guy he’s uncannily horrible at making phone conversation.)
What about career? Of course I moved here for that. But I haven’t had energy to do much more than make a living for several years now. I find whenever I do get involved with a show or musical enterprise I spend the next months in an avalanche of serial infections. And then there’s getting work - how I hate auditioning over and over again, like a wind-up doll.
Now, I’m not a New York hater, like some people I know, ahem my Dad. It’s said we hate what we fear, and we fear what we do not know. In my experience, most people in the middle of the country (referred to by an equally ignorant population of New Yorkers as “the fly-over” parts) have labored under a pile of myths and misconceptions about the Big Apple their whole lives, some of which perhaps were true at some period of history long-gone, but most of which are just a lot of hogwash. People are unfriendly, you can’t walk in Times Square without getting mugged, you can’t park a car in Manhattan, there’s a terrorist attack every week. Pish-posh.
I feel responsible to point out The City is truly an incredible place. Think of it: millions of people from different countries, races, creeds and colors, all living peacefully under the rule of democracy. It’s the epicenter of the proud tradition of the American melting pot. Music, finance, science, art and a million dreams come true, some not so true. Absolutely endless opportunities to learn, educate and improve yourself.
Wanna take a course on International Affairs? Attend a lecture on personal branding in social media? Want to jam with other musicians at an open mike, watch a movie outdoors with a thousand other people who like The Princess Bride as much as you do, or eat yourself around the world on one block of eateries? How about savoring what the latest fashionistas have to offer, taking a tour of the Holocaust Museum, or seeing real work of Picasso’s at the Met?
It’s all here. Not a thing missing. Except Geiger, and the trees, and the – nothing- I appreciate so much in my mountain haven.
So why not move my files there, as opposed to here? Then I could pay all my bills, answer all my correspondence, organize all my referrals within view of Nirvana! I’d open the windows wide, play my guitar on the deck, swim in mountain streams and make up songs between spates of work. Why not?
Come to think of it, why doesn’t everyone just pick up and move to their ideal climate? You’re in the Midwest but you hate the cold. You live in Alabama but love to ski. In today’s movable feast of flexible arrangements, why doesn’t almost everyone, at some point, just pick up and move to their Heaven?
Why don’t you?
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Living within the Envelope
Know how sometimes someone else says it so much better than you ever could? This woman speaks so effectively about her path to discovery about what makes her feel well. It amuses me how over-achievers sometimes shoot themselves in the foot...
Living Within My Envelope: A How-To Story
By JoWynn Johns
[Note: The following article was written in November, 1998 and published in the March/April 1999 CFIDS Chronicle, the magazine of the CFIDS Association of America. The author is a graduate of the CFIDS Self-Help course. Before becoming disabled with CFIDS in 1993, she had developed a management consulting business following 25 years as a corporate executive.]
In a study of the "envelope theory" reported in The CFIDS Chronicle, Fall 1997, the researchers found that individualized treatment programs can help PWCs [People with CFIDS] achieve their optimal level of activity and manage their illness more effectively. "Living inside the envelope" sounds easy, but it hasn't been for me. Seven years I've had CFIDS and only now am I finally, mostly, living inside my envelope. It's been an arduous process of discovery and letting go.
Phase I: Keeping on with my life
When it comes to CFIDS, I am definitely a s-l-o-w learner. From early 1991 I was having increasing symptoms. Despite feeling awful, I continued my busy life. Convinced that exercise must be good for what ailed me, I was still working out five days a week. By mid-1992, though, it was getting harder and harder to carry on. I took more vacation time hoping that would help but without result. Neither daily meditation nor shiatsu massage helped, though the latter felt wonderful.
Phase II: All-out effort to get well
In January 1993, I finally collapsed, unable to stay upright. But did I stop "working"? Oh no; I simply transferred all my drive, determination, and ambition from earning a living to getting well. I tried everything that made sense to me, but made myself sicker in the process. For example, as soon as I had recovered a bit from that first crash, I resumed daily exercise, though I gave up running. I tried "power walking" an hour every day for several weeks until I collapsed again.
Thus began a pattern of exacerbation, forced rest, remission, return to activity, exacerbation, and so on. Between 1993 and 1997, I tried yoga, intensive meditation and visualization exercises, but experienced worse symptoms. I tried homeopathy with no result. I tried eating my main meal at noon and going to bed by 9:00 p.m. with no improvement in sleeping. I tried elimination diets; no change. I tried a macrobiotic diet, and had a bad exacerbation. Anti-depressants brought new and worse symptoms. Sleeping medications and melatonin magnified my sleep disorder.
The only thing that relieved my symptoms was bed-rest, but I couldn't believe I was sick enough to have to stay in bed. Over and over, as soon as I recovered somewhat, I tried to live a normal life. Little by little, though, I was being forced to reduce my activity further. I stopped house-cleaning. Then I stopped cooking. I stopped taking walks and I stopped shopping.
I became convinced that none of the strategies or treatments to which some people with CFIDS attributed their recovery would work for me. Gradually, I was shifting my focus from seeking to learn from others to paying more attention to myself and my own experience. And I stopped striving to recover. Instead, I began to pay more attention to myself and to listen to my body.
Phase III: Learning from my own body and experience
In February 1996 I broke two bones in my foot and was in a cast from my toes to my knee for seven weeks. The combination of heavy cast and lack of the strength immobilized me. Months later, when I was trying to make sense of my records, I realized that I had felt better during and for a few weeks after my immobilization than at any other time for over five years. That's when I decided I was going to find out, by carefully watching myself and keeping systematic records, what I had to do to feel better. Until then I had been recording my symptoms and noting when I felt worse. But in the fall of 1996 I decided to change the emphasis, vowing to identify the conditions associated with feeling better.
I began by developing my own definition of a "good" day. A good day for me is one in which I have minimal fatigue, muscle aching, or IBS--my most frequent symptoms; have no other symptoms from my repertoire of twenty-some; do not over-eat, which I'm driven to do by the drained emptiness of fatigue attacks; take a walk; and do artwork.
I also decided to focus on "good nights" as well, since sleep disorder is perhaps my most difficult problem. Lying awake for hours every night is harder to cope with than most other symptoms, it has persisted over time and it exacerbates other symptoms. Over time I discovered that if I stayed in bed, eyes closed and resting, long enough, I could usually get about seven hours of fragmented sleep. And when I got seven hours of sleep, I felt better the following day. I concluded that a good night was one in which I slept at least seven hours total; had refreshing sleep; and could lie awake resting peacefully, not agitated and frustrated. (A meditation practice and an eye pillow help tremendously. Even so, it took months to train myself to lie still while awaiting sleep.)
Good days and good nights are interdependent. After a good night, I'm more likely to have a good day. On days when I stay within my envelope, I'm more likely to have a restful rather than agitated night. Since I dread bad nights even more than bad days, this was a further incentive to discover my limits.
So then I asked, what do I have to do to have good days and good nights? After studying my journal and notes, I concluded that I must spend at least twelve hours a day in bed, resting, meditating, and sleeping; get at least seven hours of sleep; stay at home; restrict my daily activity to personal hygiene, climbing two flights of stairs in our three-story house, and walking about a mile; care for houseplants only when able to; work at the PC no more than an hour at a time; have no visits or long phone conversations; and do artwork.
This is my envelope. Staying inside it, I have the least fatigue and other symptoms and I feel as good as possible. That doesn't mean I don't exceed these limits. I do, and I pay for it.
Phase IV: Developing a feedback system
Having established criteria for good days and nights and having clarified what I need to do to achieve them, I then worked out my record-keeping system. I use a monthly planning calendar with two-inch square blocks for each day on which to indicate the good days and nights. I also note my activities and symptoms each day. Color coding with hi-liters enables me to see readily how I'm doing during the month. I find this kind of visible feedback motivating. I want to do what I have to do to show more violet (good) days and nights.
To see trends over the year, I graph my monthly percentages of good days and nights. On a calendar for the year, I put colored dots to show the days on which I experienced stress--visits, phone conversations, unusual activity, or other exertion. The correlation between clusters of dots on the calendar and the ups and downs of the percentages of good days on the graphs is very apparent. I also chart my sleep pattern daily. I needed to make this information visible to prove to myself the effects of mental and emotional exertion, as well as physical activity.
I also wanted concrete evidence of the effects of staying inside my envelope. Because limiting my life in this way is so very hard for me to do, I had to show myself that it was worth it.
Phase V: Accepting my envelope
Analysis of several years' notes showed me that mental and emotional exertion provoked symptoms as much as physical activity. In fact, I may suffer more symptoms following an hour's conversation than after walking in silence for an hour. It's not that I had never noticed the effects of being around people. It's that this is not a fact I wanted to admit.
For several years, while cutting back on physical activities, I could not accept and acknowledge my intolerance for interacting with people or the physical pain I have after mental exertion. I was not prepared to give up visits, especially with grandchildren, and phone conversations with family and friends. I didn't want to limit my work at the PC. Doing so for the past year, though, has shown me what a difference solitude, silence, and inactivity make in my well-being. Fortunately, my loved ones are supportive. Fortunately, too, and to my surprise, I have found how contented I can be in seclusion.
This is not a prescription for anyone else. It is simply what I have learned about what I need to do to feel better.
Results
So how am I doing? In 1996, a retrospective analysis showed I had 36% good days. In 1997, I aimed for over 50% good days and achieved that. My experience in 1998 has not been as good due to the stress associated with my Social Security Disability Insurance claim (which was finally granted almost three years after my initial application) and a major relocation from our home to a retirement community--a great change in living situation. Nevertheless, I have had three months this year of better than 70% good days, so I know what's possible.
My records for the past three years assure me that I am finally doing what I have to do to accommodate CFIDS. More importantly, during this period, I have had eight separate months with over 60% good days and I can account for the bad months. I know what I did or what happened that exacerbated my symptoms.
I've also learned that it is possible, by staying inside my envelope consistently for weeks at a time, not only to have no crashes, but to have exceptionally good days when I feel almost well. I've achieved more stability; I'm less victimized by the turmoil of the exacerbation-remission roller coaster.
Summary and Conclusions
In summary, I have established my own criteria for assessing my days (and nights, because nights are so problematic for me) so that I could identify good ones. I clarified what I have to do to have good days and nights. In other words, I described my envelope. I developed a record-keeping system (calendars, graphs, and charts) that help motivate me to stay inside my envelope. As a result, I am feeling much better and I am living with CFIDS much better.
As I review my story, I ask "Why could I not see for so long and accept what I had to do?" I think it's because it was so hard to make feeling good my top priority. Believing I should just soldier on no matter how I suffered, I was not able to insist on what I needed to make me feel better. I was not willing to make the changes, to give up so much that was dear to me and central to my self-image. I wanted and was determined to continue my normal life when CFIDS was insistently demanding that I live differently.
To feel good, I have to be so unlike myself: self-indulgent, irresponsible, lazy. It seems clear to me now that living "normally" is not good for me, but I also know that I can live well with CFIDS in body, mind and spirit.
Living Within My Envelope: A How-To Story
By JoWynn Johns
[Note: The following article was written in November, 1998 and published in the March/April 1999 CFIDS Chronicle, the magazine of the CFIDS Association of America. The author is a graduate of the CFIDS Self-Help course. Before becoming disabled with CFIDS in 1993, she had developed a management consulting business following 25 years as a corporate executive.]
In a study of the "envelope theory" reported in The CFIDS Chronicle, Fall 1997, the researchers found that individualized treatment programs can help PWCs [People with CFIDS] achieve their optimal level of activity and manage their illness more effectively. "Living inside the envelope" sounds easy, but it hasn't been for me. Seven years I've had CFIDS and only now am I finally, mostly, living inside my envelope. It's been an arduous process of discovery and letting go.
Phase I: Keeping on with my life
When it comes to CFIDS, I am definitely a s-l-o-w learner. From early 1991 I was having increasing symptoms. Despite feeling awful, I continued my busy life. Convinced that exercise must be good for what ailed me, I was still working out five days a week. By mid-1992, though, it was getting harder and harder to carry on. I took more vacation time hoping that would help but without result. Neither daily meditation nor shiatsu massage helped, though the latter felt wonderful.
Phase II: All-out effort to get well
In January 1993, I finally collapsed, unable to stay upright. But did I stop "working"? Oh no; I simply transferred all my drive, determination, and ambition from earning a living to getting well. I tried everything that made sense to me, but made myself sicker in the process. For example, as soon as I had recovered a bit from that first crash, I resumed daily exercise, though I gave up running. I tried "power walking" an hour every day for several weeks until I collapsed again.
Thus began a pattern of exacerbation, forced rest, remission, return to activity, exacerbation, and so on. Between 1993 and 1997, I tried yoga, intensive meditation and visualization exercises, but experienced worse symptoms. I tried homeopathy with no result. I tried eating my main meal at noon and going to bed by 9:00 p.m. with no improvement in sleeping. I tried elimination diets; no change. I tried a macrobiotic diet, and had a bad exacerbation. Anti-depressants brought new and worse symptoms. Sleeping medications and melatonin magnified my sleep disorder.
The only thing that relieved my symptoms was bed-rest, but I couldn't believe I was sick enough to have to stay in bed. Over and over, as soon as I recovered somewhat, I tried to live a normal life. Little by little, though, I was being forced to reduce my activity further. I stopped house-cleaning. Then I stopped cooking. I stopped taking walks and I stopped shopping.
I became convinced that none of the strategies or treatments to which some people with CFIDS attributed their recovery would work for me. Gradually, I was shifting my focus from seeking to learn from others to paying more attention to myself and my own experience. And I stopped striving to recover. Instead, I began to pay more attention to myself and to listen to my body.
Phase III: Learning from my own body and experience
In February 1996 I broke two bones in my foot and was in a cast from my toes to my knee for seven weeks. The combination of heavy cast and lack of the strength immobilized me. Months later, when I was trying to make sense of my records, I realized that I had felt better during and for a few weeks after my immobilization than at any other time for over five years. That's when I decided I was going to find out, by carefully watching myself and keeping systematic records, what I had to do to feel better. Until then I had been recording my symptoms and noting when I felt worse. But in the fall of 1996 I decided to change the emphasis, vowing to identify the conditions associated with feeling better.
I began by developing my own definition of a "good" day. A good day for me is one in which I have minimal fatigue, muscle aching, or IBS--my most frequent symptoms; have no other symptoms from my repertoire of twenty-some; do not over-eat, which I'm driven to do by the drained emptiness of fatigue attacks; take a walk; and do artwork.
I also decided to focus on "good nights" as well, since sleep disorder is perhaps my most difficult problem. Lying awake for hours every night is harder to cope with than most other symptoms, it has persisted over time and it exacerbates other symptoms. Over time I discovered that if I stayed in bed, eyes closed and resting, long enough, I could usually get about seven hours of fragmented sleep. And when I got seven hours of sleep, I felt better the following day. I concluded that a good night was one in which I slept at least seven hours total; had refreshing sleep; and could lie awake resting peacefully, not agitated and frustrated. (A meditation practice and an eye pillow help tremendously. Even so, it took months to train myself to lie still while awaiting sleep.)
Good days and good nights are interdependent. After a good night, I'm more likely to have a good day. On days when I stay within my envelope, I'm more likely to have a restful rather than agitated night. Since I dread bad nights even more than bad days, this was a further incentive to discover my limits.
So then I asked, what do I have to do to have good days and good nights? After studying my journal and notes, I concluded that I must spend at least twelve hours a day in bed, resting, meditating, and sleeping; get at least seven hours of sleep; stay at home; restrict my daily activity to personal hygiene, climbing two flights of stairs in our three-story house, and walking about a mile; care for houseplants only when able to; work at the PC no more than an hour at a time; have no visits or long phone conversations; and do artwork.
This is my envelope. Staying inside it, I have the least fatigue and other symptoms and I feel as good as possible. That doesn't mean I don't exceed these limits. I do, and I pay for it.
Phase IV: Developing a feedback system
Having established criteria for good days and nights and having clarified what I need to do to achieve them, I then worked out my record-keeping system. I use a monthly planning calendar with two-inch square blocks for each day on which to indicate the good days and nights. I also note my activities and symptoms each day. Color coding with hi-liters enables me to see readily how I'm doing during the month. I find this kind of visible feedback motivating. I want to do what I have to do to show more violet (good) days and nights.
To see trends over the year, I graph my monthly percentages of good days and nights. On a calendar for the year, I put colored dots to show the days on which I experienced stress--visits, phone conversations, unusual activity, or other exertion. The correlation between clusters of dots on the calendar and the ups and downs of the percentages of good days on the graphs is very apparent. I also chart my sleep pattern daily. I needed to make this information visible to prove to myself the effects of mental and emotional exertion, as well as physical activity.
I also wanted concrete evidence of the effects of staying inside my envelope. Because limiting my life in this way is so very hard for me to do, I had to show myself that it was worth it.
Phase V: Accepting my envelope
Analysis of several years' notes showed me that mental and emotional exertion provoked symptoms as much as physical activity. In fact, I may suffer more symptoms following an hour's conversation than after walking in silence for an hour. It's not that I had never noticed the effects of being around people. It's that this is not a fact I wanted to admit.
For several years, while cutting back on physical activities, I could not accept and acknowledge my intolerance for interacting with people or the physical pain I have after mental exertion. I was not prepared to give up visits, especially with grandchildren, and phone conversations with family and friends. I didn't want to limit my work at the PC. Doing so for the past year, though, has shown me what a difference solitude, silence, and inactivity make in my well-being. Fortunately, my loved ones are supportive. Fortunately, too, and to my surprise, I have found how contented I can be in seclusion.
This is not a prescription for anyone else. It is simply what I have learned about what I need to do to feel better.
Results
So how am I doing? In 1996, a retrospective analysis showed I had 36% good days. In 1997, I aimed for over 50% good days and achieved that. My experience in 1998 has not been as good due to the stress associated with my Social Security Disability Insurance claim (which was finally granted almost three years after my initial application) and a major relocation from our home to a retirement community--a great change in living situation. Nevertheless, I have had three months this year of better than 70% good days, so I know what's possible.
My records for the past three years assure me that I am finally doing what I have to do to accommodate CFIDS. More importantly, during this period, I have had eight separate months with over 60% good days and I can account for the bad months. I know what I did or what happened that exacerbated my symptoms.
I've also learned that it is possible, by staying inside my envelope consistently for weeks at a time, not only to have no crashes, but to have exceptionally good days when I feel almost well. I've achieved more stability; I'm less victimized by the turmoil of the exacerbation-remission roller coaster.
Summary and Conclusions
In summary, I have established my own criteria for assessing my days (and nights, because nights are so problematic for me) so that I could identify good ones. I clarified what I have to do to have good days and nights. In other words, I described my envelope. I developed a record-keeping system (calendars, graphs, and charts) that help motivate me to stay inside my envelope. As a result, I am feeling much better and I am living with CFIDS much better.
As I review my story, I ask "Why could I not see for so long and accept what I had to do?" I think it's because it was so hard to make feeling good my top priority. Believing I should just soldier on no matter how I suffered, I was not able to insist on what I needed to make me feel better. I was not willing to make the changes, to give up so much that was dear to me and central to my self-image. I wanted and was determined to continue my normal life when CFIDS was insistently demanding that I live differently.
To feel good, I have to be so unlike myself: self-indulgent, irresponsible, lazy. It seems clear to me now that living "normally" is not good for me, but I also know that I can live well with CFIDS in body, mind and spirit.
Monday, September 14, 2009
Ultram and Me
My cell phone rings. I roll over and peer, one-eyed, at my alarm clock. 3:45 am. The phone rings again, playing some dopey tune I programmed specially for someone, but I can’t remember who. I lift it with the one hand not entangled in my velvety sheets.
“Ice Dad,” says the screen, all innocent. As if Ice Dad has any business calling me from Portugal at 3:45 am. Someone must have died, I think. I answer it.
“Hello?” I hear nothing. “Hello? Dad?” Background noise. Won’t Dad be pleased to hear his pocket called me, to the tune of $1.75 a minute, with that fancy European inclusive plan of his. I hang up, setting the phone back on the nightstand in easy reach, in case he really wanted to talk to me.
I roll over on my back, looking at the levered city shadows on the ceiling, listening to the sounds of pre-pre-dawn on Sackett St. Someone rummages through the recycle bins for deposit-worthy items. They roll away trailing a squeaky cart. A truck rolls loudly by. A giggle erupts from the last patron at the sports bar around the corner. Someone must have hung out in front even well after it closed. After a week of sleeping in the woods in a tent, all these things sound peculiar to my ear.
I’ll probably have to use the bathroom, now, I think. I do my usual woken-in-the-middle-of-the-night scan of my body to see what it says. I’m dizzy and I itch all over, says my body.
But I. Feel. Wonnnnderful!
What?
Oh, the Ultram. After giving up the one drug which ever made a dent in my pain due to its annoying side effects, (namely nausea, constipation and – shall me just say high -ness), I gave it another try last night. A week of sleeping on the ground, followed by 10 hours in the car and going back to work today just about ground me into dust. I needed a drug. Something good.
What, you don’t have to pee? I say to my still half-slumbering corporal self. Oh, maybe that, says my body. Maybe in a minute… I’m not desperate. But, um, hey Niki wake up! Did I mention I don’t hurt anywhere? I. Feel. Wonnnn-
Yeah, yeah, I get it. Don’t get used to it.
But it is Heaven. I imagine all the vastness of the universe twinkling inside me, in the new space opened up in my body between the sinews, within the joints, inside each cell, at the ends of bones. I took that pill 8 hours ago and I still feel this way. That may be a good thing or a bad thing..
Hey, Hey Niki look at this! My body rolls over to a seldom used position for sleeping because it puts too much pressure on my left hip. Wow, I think, very good, that’s impressive. And check this out! Another position. I feel like I could stay here for hours.
I scratch at another itch on my left forearm. I gave this drug up as a daily thing for everything but the itching. I’d always been so high I’d basically forgotten about the itching. Maybe I’m actually allergic to it. Maybe I feel so good I don’t care.
My body is busy luxuriating in yet another position, not because it had to but because it wanted to try out another one.
You know you’re high, right?
Hell, Yeah! I. Feel. Wooonnnnn-
Go back to sleep.
And I do, and it’s dreamless.
“Ice Dad,” says the screen, all innocent. As if Ice Dad has any business calling me from Portugal at 3:45 am. Someone must have died, I think. I answer it.
“Hello?” I hear nothing. “Hello? Dad?” Background noise. Won’t Dad be pleased to hear his pocket called me, to the tune of $1.75 a minute, with that fancy European inclusive plan of his. I hang up, setting the phone back on the nightstand in easy reach, in case he really wanted to talk to me.
I roll over on my back, looking at the levered city shadows on the ceiling, listening to the sounds of pre-pre-dawn on Sackett St. Someone rummages through the recycle bins for deposit-worthy items. They roll away trailing a squeaky cart. A truck rolls loudly by. A giggle erupts from the last patron at the sports bar around the corner. Someone must have hung out in front even well after it closed. After a week of sleeping in the woods in a tent, all these things sound peculiar to my ear.
I’ll probably have to use the bathroom, now, I think. I do my usual woken-in-the-middle-of-the-night scan of my body to see what it says. I’m dizzy and I itch all over, says my body.
But I. Feel. Wonnnnderful!
What?
Oh, the Ultram. After giving up the one drug which ever made a dent in my pain due to its annoying side effects, (namely nausea, constipation and – shall me just say high -ness), I gave it another try last night. A week of sleeping on the ground, followed by 10 hours in the car and going back to work today just about ground me into dust. I needed a drug. Something good.
What, you don’t have to pee? I say to my still half-slumbering corporal self. Oh, maybe that, says my body. Maybe in a minute… I’m not desperate. But, um, hey Niki wake up! Did I mention I don’t hurt anywhere? I. Feel. Wonnnn-
Yeah, yeah, I get it. Don’t get used to it.
But it is Heaven. I imagine all the vastness of the universe twinkling inside me, in the new space opened up in my body between the sinews, within the joints, inside each cell, at the ends of bones. I took that pill 8 hours ago and I still feel this way. That may be a good thing or a bad thing..
Hey, Hey Niki look at this! My body rolls over to a seldom used position for sleeping because it puts too much pressure on my left hip. Wow, I think, very good, that’s impressive. And check this out! Another position. I feel like I could stay here for hours.
I scratch at another itch on my left forearm. I gave this drug up as a daily thing for everything but the itching. I’d always been so high I’d basically forgotten about the itching. Maybe I’m actually allergic to it. Maybe I feel so good I don’t care.
My body is busy luxuriating in yet another position, not because it had to but because it wanted to try out another one.
You know you’re high, right?
Hell, Yeah! I. Feel. Wooonnnnn-
Go back to sleep.
And I do, and it’s dreamless.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Believe it or not, Colin won tickets to the Mountain Jam festival this weekend!
Let me share my little bit of joy...
My partner, Colin turned 40 this month. He's been really bummed about it, being not where he wants to be in his career, and seeing growth in the belly and not so much on the top of the head, etc.
Colin loves a singer named Micheal Franti. This guy is a real activist with singing - he went to Iraq and all over the Middle East with his guitar, just singing peace and love, you know.
We saw Micheal was playing at the Jazz festival in New Orleans, a city that's very special to Colin. (he grew up in Pensacola, three hours away, and kicked back many a good cocktail there.) We bought plane tickets and made hotel reservations, hoping for a nice balm to colin's small mid-life, uh, downward correction.
Then the economy totally tanked. Colin has worked a total of maybe 7 days in 2009. His work went bye-bye with Citibank. With my illness, we have about 3/4 of one job between us.
We cancelled New Orleans, ate $150 each per ticket (which cost only $220 in the first place), and sat at home and made rice noodles instead of paying for a hotel.
Knowing Micheal travels, we checked out his touring schedule and saw that he's playing -not once, but twice!- at the Mountain jam Festival in Hunter Mountain, NY this weekend. We figured a trip to someplace drivable would be cheaper. And we could camp. We made a reservation for the campsite - and paid for it.
Still, as the festival approached we looked askance at the $89 one-day tickets. Should we cancel yet another musical adventure? Where is mortgage and rent going to come from June 1?
Then Colin twisted his ankle - badly - in his first "sports photography-related" injury (he was taking pics of an old-fashioned baseball game and tripped. Go figure.) Did we really want to drive up there, camp and have him hobble all over, to the cost of over 100 bucks each?
Then one day last week we were listening to the radio in the car - we always listen as far as we can on the way upstate, because we don't get much radio at our house - WDST out of woodstock would be giving away tickets all weekend!
So we made our calling plan. Saturday we couldn't be near a radio or wi-fi. But Sunday we called several times, only to get busy signals. We mastered the repetitive dialing technique on our cell phones - which also barely work up there - to dial at least once every 10 seconds - that's one call every 5 seconds between the two of us. We just had to get through.
On Monday we realized because we were listening to the radio on line, there was a delay, but we didn't know how long. So when we felt they were about to offer tickets, we started calling.
I got ring tone instead of a dial tone! Excitement! Then I heard the contest announced - the 8th caller would get free tix! Finally some guy came on the line and said, "you're number 2, keep trying!" Was it the DJ? I jumped up and down like a maniac. "Call! call!" I demanded of Colin, who of course already was.
We both continued pressing "end" and "send" on our phones as fast as we could. We dialed and dialed. It was like junior high, all over again. Except i think neither of us really had the guts to talk to a DJ in Jr. High. We both got busy signals. I began to suspect the whole contest was a sham.
Then i heard Colin saying, in matter-of-fact tones, "why, no, I haven't won anything from WDST in the past 30 days."
Did he win? did he? Then I see him hustling, as fast as his limpy leg will carry him, out the front door and onto the very edge of the deck. He's lost his Stage Manager Voice, as I call it. "Wait! Sorry, hold on, I'm up in Fleischmanns, I have bad reception!"
Oh, noooo! Was he caller #8, only to be doomed by the fact that the Verizon tower is behind the hill and in Spring the leaves are sooo beautiful, but their blooming hinders the already wimpy signal?
But the call stayed true. And Colin did a victory hop on the deck, screaming, "I've been trying to do this for at least 20 years! I won! I won! I won!"
And thus, my friends, your energy, spun with fate and a little determination on our part, has brought our household...not a good landlord, not the perfect job, not a miracle cure to my illness...but maybe the thing in the world which would actually cheer us most. FREE tickets to the Hunter Mountain Jam at Hunter Mountain this weekend.
And good things come in threes. Then we came home, and there was a new tree planted in front of our building in Brooklyn. A Japanese something-or-other. (Colin had called 311 and requested one months ago through the "Million trees NYC" Program, like, ages ago...) Really? A tree? In front of our slum building?
And ...we brought a bike home from upstate, (a donation from my dad, who happens to be about Colin's size,) and locked it up with a good, sturdy lock and hope to get it tuned up at Bespoke Bicycles in Ft. green within the week.
Thank you all for reading in. Sunday I'll be in my tie-dye stringy dress with a happy Colin and yodeling Micheal Franti. Should keep me from getting too caught up in being poor and old.
Bless!
Niki
Let me share my little bit of joy...
My partner, Colin turned 40 this month. He's been really bummed about it, being not where he wants to be in his career, and seeing growth in the belly and not so much on the top of the head, etc.
Colin loves a singer named Micheal Franti. This guy is a real activist with singing - he went to Iraq and all over the Middle East with his guitar, just singing peace and love, you know.
We saw Micheal was playing at the Jazz festival in New Orleans, a city that's very special to Colin. (he grew up in Pensacola, three hours away, and kicked back many a good cocktail there.) We bought plane tickets and made hotel reservations, hoping for a nice balm to colin's small mid-life, uh, downward correction.
Then the economy totally tanked. Colin has worked a total of maybe 7 days in 2009. His work went bye-bye with Citibank. With my illness, we have about 3/4 of one job between us.
We cancelled New Orleans, ate $150 each per ticket (which cost only $220 in the first place), and sat at home and made rice noodles instead of paying for a hotel.
Knowing Micheal travels, we checked out his touring schedule and saw that he's playing -not once, but twice!- at the Mountain jam Festival in Hunter Mountain, NY this weekend. We figured a trip to someplace drivable would be cheaper. And we could camp. We made a reservation for the campsite - and paid for it.
Still, as the festival approached we looked askance at the $89 one-day tickets. Should we cancel yet another musical adventure? Where is mortgage and rent going to come from June 1?
Then Colin twisted his ankle - badly - in his first "sports photography-related" injury (he was taking pics of an old-fashioned baseball game and tripped. Go figure.) Did we really want to drive up there, camp and have him hobble all over, to the cost of over 100 bucks each?
Then one day last week we were listening to the radio in the car - we always listen as far as we can on the way upstate, because we don't get much radio at our house - WDST out of woodstock would be giving away tickets all weekend!
So we made our calling plan. Saturday we couldn't be near a radio or wi-fi. But Sunday we called several times, only to get busy signals. We mastered the repetitive dialing technique on our cell phones - which also barely work up there - to dial at least once every 10 seconds - that's one call every 5 seconds between the two of us. We just had to get through.
On Monday we realized because we were listening to the radio on line, there was a delay, but we didn't know how long. So when we felt they were about to offer tickets, we started calling.
I got ring tone instead of a dial tone! Excitement! Then I heard the contest announced - the 8th caller would get free tix! Finally some guy came on the line and said, "you're number 2, keep trying!" Was it the DJ? I jumped up and down like a maniac. "Call! call!" I demanded of Colin, who of course already was.
We both continued pressing "end" and "send" on our phones as fast as we could. We dialed and dialed. It was like junior high, all over again. Except i think neither of us really had the guts to talk to a DJ in Jr. High. We both got busy signals. I began to suspect the whole contest was a sham.
Then i heard Colin saying, in matter-of-fact tones, "why, no, I haven't won anything from WDST in the past 30 days."
Did he win? did he? Then I see him hustling, as fast as his limpy leg will carry him, out the front door and onto the very edge of the deck. He's lost his Stage Manager Voice, as I call it. "Wait! Sorry, hold on, I'm up in Fleischmanns, I have bad reception!"
Oh, noooo! Was he caller #8, only to be doomed by the fact that the Verizon tower is behind the hill and in Spring the leaves are sooo beautiful, but their blooming hinders the already wimpy signal?
But the call stayed true. And Colin did a victory hop on the deck, screaming, "I've been trying to do this for at least 20 years! I won! I won! I won!"
And thus, my friends, your energy, spun with fate and a little determination on our part, has brought our household...not a good landlord, not the perfect job, not a miracle cure to my illness...but maybe the thing in the world which would actually cheer us most. FREE tickets to the Hunter Mountain Jam at Hunter Mountain this weekend.
And good things come in threes. Then we came home, and there was a new tree planted in front of our building in Brooklyn. A Japanese something-or-other. (Colin had called 311 and requested one months ago through the "Million trees NYC" Program, like, ages ago...) Really? A tree? In front of our slum building?
And ...we brought a bike home from upstate, (a donation from my dad, who happens to be about Colin's size,) and locked it up with a good, sturdy lock and hope to get it tuned up at Bespoke Bicycles in Ft. green within the week.
Thank you all for reading in. Sunday I'll be in my tie-dye stringy dress with a happy Colin and yodeling Micheal Franti. Should keep me from getting too caught up in being poor and old.
Bless!
Niki
Monday, October 6, 2008
Aspen or Bust
I'm still tinkering with it, but here's what I've been doing instead of updating my blog - a little picture diary of our trip to Colorado. A bit o' mountain scenery to roll us into fall:
http://web.me.com/nikifun
Peace,
Niki
http://web.me.com/nikifun
Peace,
Niki
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
The Boogey Man
I've been traveling a lot lately, and inevitably one of the first questions people ask when first meeting me, or friends ask when they haven’t seen me in a while is, “so are you performing in anything?”
I’m always a little embarrassed. Well, not really. Not right now. I’m on a break, I say, And everyone nods as though they understand. Truly, most artists do. But while how I explain it for mass consumption is one thing, how I explain it to myself is another. Is “taking a break” tantamount to failure? If I’m not actively pursuing work in my craft, why am I even in New york?
First of all, lots of actors take "breaks" throughout their careers. Sanity breaks, financial health breaks, breather from the “biz” burnout breaks, physical health breaks. I'm currently on all four kinds.
But also, I'm looking at it this way: I have come to NY and opened a door. If that door had remained shut, I always , always would have wondered what was behind it. It was like the door the kids at church told me the Boogey Man lived behind in the basement. But I opened it, I walked around inside the New York theater scene, and now it should never close. It's like going to college - no one can ever take an education away from you.
I can return whenever and if ever I choose. Maybe I won't. Or maybe I do some things here and there. Or maybe I even want a full time career in 20 years. Whatever it is, I now have fleshed out my resume with NY and regional credits, and I've gotten my equity card, so auditioning in the future should not be the huge hassle it was when I first made my move, and in general, I just know my way around the room.
For many actors, during a “break,” maybe that room becomes the one in the house you never use. Maybe it becomes the rec room ("I perform just for fun and exercise"), or the storage room ("ah, I remember it well..."), the guest room ("I sing just for friends' weddings"). In many cases it becomes the kids' room ("my children fill up that need for creativity I once had for the arts..."). In any case, at least it's not a vacuous cavern in your house you were afraid to enter because, well, the Bogey Man lived in there.
I did, I thought the Boogy Man lived in New York. And I was right, the boogy man DOES live in New York! New York is big, smelly, dirty, loud, smelly, dusty and intensely competitive, just like they told me. But also warm, and colorful, smart, discerning, freakish and creative and pulsing and human. Oh, so human. I can't think of a more human place to live. And that's what the Boogey Man is; fear of our own humanity.
So let’s talk about you.
I’m always a little embarrassed. Well, not really. Not right now. I’m on a break, I say, And everyone nods as though they understand. Truly, most artists do. But while how I explain it for mass consumption is one thing, how I explain it to myself is another. Is “taking a break” tantamount to failure? If I’m not actively pursuing work in my craft, why am I even in New york?
First of all, lots of actors take "breaks" throughout their careers. Sanity breaks, financial health breaks, breather from the “biz” burnout breaks, physical health breaks. I'm currently on all four kinds.
But also, I'm looking at it this way: I have come to NY and opened a door. If that door had remained shut, I always , always would have wondered what was behind it. It was like the door the kids at church told me the Boogey Man lived behind in the basement. But I opened it, I walked around inside the New York theater scene, and now it should never close. It's like going to college - no one can ever take an education away from you.
I can return whenever and if ever I choose. Maybe I won't. Or maybe I do some things here and there. Or maybe I even want a full time career in 20 years. Whatever it is, I now have fleshed out my resume with NY and regional credits, and I've gotten my equity card, so auditioning in the future should not be the huge hassle it was when I first made my move, and in general, I just know my way around the room.
For many actors, during a “break,” maybe that room becomes the one in the house you never use. Maybe it becomes the rec room ("I perform just for fun and exercise"), or the storage room ("ah, I remember it well..."), the guest room ("I sing just for friends' weddings"). In many cases it becomes the kids' room ("my children fill up that need for creativity I once had for the arts..."). In any case, at least it's not a vacuous cavern in your house you were afraid to enter because, well, the Bogey Man lived in there.
I did, I thought the Boogy Man lived in New York. And I was right, the boogy man DOES live in New York! New York is big, smelly, dirty, loud, smelly, dusty and intensely competitive, just like they told me. But also warm, and colorful, smart, discerning, freakish and creative and pulsing and human. Oh, so human. I can't think of a more human place to live. And that's what the Boogey Man is; fear of our own humanity.
So let’s talk about you.
Friday, August 8, 2008
Play that funky music white boy..
Colin's recent article about a Green event has been picked up with some funny tag lines... http://www.independentpoliticalreport.com/2008/08/white-boy-goes-hip-hop-with-rosa/
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Are conservatives more likely to forward false emails?
I'm going to start keeping a tally of all the things I get forwarded to me which are based on, or contain, absolutely false information.
For instance, the essay below was not written by Jay Leno. It's going around the internet as penned by him, (or by David Letterman, depending on which version you get) in order to make us like it better, having been written by a well liked and well known comedian.
It doesn't need the "teaser" line ("Jay Leno wrote this; it's the Jay Leno we don't often see....") - which is pure hogwash - because it's a good essay, and it makes a good point. But the premise is false. Untruth. Wrong. Misleading. Factually inaccurate. Lies.
Nowadays, pretty much anybody in the U.S. can go to snopes.com or any number of internet sources to double check on stories they get on the internet. But what I'm really interested in is the sociological question - why a certain swath of the population is willing to forward on emails without checking them for facts?
I only get these from my Dad, his girlfriend, my mom, my aunt, and a couple of friends. What do all these people in my life have in common? All conservative.
I'd be loathe to make the connection, (I like to think of myself as a political "independent,") except that several of my friends have pointed out the same pattern in their own families.
Maybe it's a generational thing. Older people are more likely to be conservative. And perhaps older people are, by nature, less - jaded - than those of us who have grown up learning about politics from the controversy of Vietnam and lies and intrigues of Nixon. They believe things. While we believe in - nothing.
Are people who are politically or religiously conservative, by nature, naive? Do they believe anything they see in writing?
I can't believe that of my dad, the ever-present cynic, always rattling around in my own head. Are they lazy? Don't see that quality in anyone on my "conservative" list. Unintelligent? Undiscerning? Conniving? Nada, nada, nada. They're all smart, informed, driven, well intentioned people.
So why don't they check out their information?
I'm puzzled. I get forwards from my more liberal friends and relatives all the time, and while they can certainly be biased, they never make fear-mongering, false blanket statements like this: (in gigantic lettering) "Windfall Tax on Retirement Income! Hold on to your pocketbooks!! Nancy Pelosi wants a Windfall Tax on Retirement Income. This woman is a nut case! You aren't going to believe this!"
(Incidentally my more liberal friends also seem more familiar with the use of the "bcc:" button, which prevents every single person you send the email to from receiving a full list of everyone-you've-sent-it-to's email address. We who use the bcc: tend to get annoyed with those who don't because all it takes is for one person 100 "forwards" later to get your address, and suddenly your inbox is inundated with SPAM for months.)
Spreading gossip and lies is something we all grew up aiming to avoid, and if that's all that was wrong here I guess I could put a lid on it. What worries me is the larger implications of how people make decisions. People act and speak - and vote- based on the false information they get - by word of mouth, on TV, in magazines, and yes, by email.
There's a human tendency to believe something even more when we see it in writing than when we hear about it some other way. "It is written" is written on the backs of our brains for all eternity as something tantamount to fact.
I spend a good deal of my political focus teetering on a wire between two of the best current-events informed people I know - my conservative father and my liberal boyfriend. One day I started looking at their sources - websites, magazines newspapers - and was shocked to see that not only were their sources biased, they were often getting fed, by their sources, absolutely conflicting FACTUAL information. Numbers, quotes, details of incidents which shape the history of the future. Factually different.
I assigned them both a week of looking at one another's sources. Neither of them took me up on it.
We keep getting these emails. And sending them. And watching the TV news, and listening to the radio talk shows and reading the magazines which say things we agree with.
What's going on? ???
Enjoy this essay - mostly by author Craig R. Smith - below.
As most of you know I am not a President Bush fan, nor have I ever been, but this is not about Bush, it is about us, as Americans, and it seems to hit the mark.
The other day I was reading Newsweek magazine and came across some Poll data I found rather hard to believe. It must be true given the source, right?
The Newsweek poll alleges that 67 percent of Americans are unhappy with the direction the country is headed and 69 percent of the country is unhappy with the performance of the President.
In essence 2/3 of the citizenry just ain't happy and want a change. So being the knuckle dragger I am, I started thinking, 'What are we so unhappy about?''
A.. Is it that we have electricity and running water 24 hours a day, 7 Days a week?
B.. Is our unhappiness the result of having air conditioning in the summer and heating in the winter?
C.. Could it be that 95.4 percent of these unhappy folks have a job?
D. Maybe it is the ability to walk into a grocery store at any time and see more food in moments than Darfurhas seen in the last year?
E.. Maybe it is the ability to drive our cars and trucks from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean without having to present identification papers as we move through each state?
F.. Or possibly the hundreds of clean and safe motels we would find along the way that can provide temporary shelter?
G.. I guess having thousands of restaurants with varying cuisine from around the world is just not good enough either.
H. Or could it be that when we wreck our car, emergency workers show up and provide services to help all and even send a helicopter to take you to the hospital.
I.. Perhaps you are one of the 70 percent of Americans who own a home.
J.. You may be upset with knowing that in the unfortunate case of a fire, a group of trained firefighters will appear in moments and use top notch equipment to extinguish the flames, thus saving you, your family, and your belongings.
K.. Or if, while at home watching one of your many flat screen TVs, a burglar or prowler intrudes, an officer equipped with a gun and a bullet-proof vest will come to defend you and your family against attack or loss.
L.. This all in the backdrop of a neighborhood free of bombs or militias raping and pillaging the residents. Neighborhoods where 90% of teenagers own cell phones and computers.
M.. How about the complete religious, social and political freedoms we enjoy that are the envy of everyone in the world?
Maybe that is what has 67% of you folks unhappy.
< /b>
Fact is, we are the largest group of ungrateful, spoiled brats the world has ever seen. No wonder the world loves the U.S. , yet has a great disdain for its citizens. They see us for what we are. The most blessed people in the world who do nothing but complain about what we don't have, and what we hate about the country instead of thanking the good Lord we live here.
I know, I know What about the president who took us into war and has no plan to get us out? The president who has a measly 31 percent approval rating? Is this the same president who guided the nation in the dark days after 9/11? The president that cut taxes to bring an economy out of recession?
Could this be the same guy who has been called every name in the book for succeeding in keeping all the spoiled ungrateful brats safe from terrorist attacks? The commander in chief of an all-volunteer army that is out there defendi ng you and me?
Did you hear how bad the President is on the news or talk show? Did this news affect you so much, make you so unhappy you couldn't take a look around for yourself and see all the good things and be glad? Think about it......are you upset at the President because he actually caused you personal pain OR is it because the 'Media' told you he was failing to kiss your sorry ungrateful behind every day.
Make no mistake about it.
The troops in Iraq and Afghanistan have volunteered to serve, and in many cases may have died for your freedom. There is currently no draft in this country. They didn't have to go. They are able to refuse to go and end up with either a ''general'' discharge, an 'other than honorable'' discharge or, worst case scenario, a ''dishonorable'' discharge after a few=2 0days in the brig.
So why then the flat-out discontentment in the minds of 69 percent of Americans?
Say what you want but I blame it on the media. If it bleeds it leads and they specialize in bad news. Everybody will watch a car crash with blood and guts. How many will watch kids selling lemonade at the corner? The media knows this and media outlets are for-profit corporations. They offer what sells, and when criticized, try to defend their actions by 'justifying' them in one way or another. Just ask why they tried to allow a murderer like O.J. Simpson to write a book about how he didn't kill his wife, but if he did he would have done it this way......Insane!
Turn off the TV, burn Newsweek, and use the New York Times for the bottom of your bird cage. Then start being grateful for all we have as country. There is exponentially more good than bad. We are among the most blessed people on Earth and should thank God several times a day, or at least be thankful and appreciative.' 'With hurricanes, tornados, fires out of control, mud slides, flooding, severe thunderstorms tearing up the country from one end to another, and with the threat of bird flu and terrorist attacks, 'Are we sure this is a good time to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance?'
Jay Leno
Please keep this in circulation. There are so many people who need to read this and grasp the truth of it.
=
Attached Message
From: Susan Waters To: Colleen ; Dale White Subject: Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2008 18:30:09 -0500
Jay Leno wrote this; it's the Jay Leno we don't often see....
As most of you know I am not a President Bush fan, nor have I ever been, but this is not about Bush, it is about us, as Americans, and it seems to hit the mark.
The other day I was reading Newsweek magazine and came across some Poll data I found rather hard to believe. It must be true given the source, right?
The Newsweek poll alleges that 67 percent of Americans are unhappy with the direction the country is headed and 69 percent of the country is unhappy with the performance of the President.
In essence 2/3 of the citizenry just ain't happy and want a change. So being the knuckle dragger I am, I started thinking, 'What are we so unhappy about?''
A.. Is it that we have electricity and running water 24 hours a day, 7 Days a week?
B.. Is our unhappiness the result of having air conditioning in the summer and heating in the winter?
C.. Could it be that 95.4 percent of these unhappy folks have a job?
D. Maybe it is the ability to walk into a grocery store at any time and see more food in moments than Darfurhas seen in the last year?
E.. Maybe it is the ability to drive our cars and trucks from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean without having to present identification papers as we move through each state?
F.. Or possibly the hundreds of clean and safe motels we would find along the way that can provide temporary shelter?
G.. I guess having thousands of restaurants with varying cuisine from around the world is just not good enough either.
H. Or could it be that when we wreck our car, emergency workers show up and provide services to help all and even send a helicopter to take you to the hospital.
I.. Perhaps you are one of the 70 percent of Americans who own a home.
J.. You may be upset with knowing that in the unfortunate case of a fire, a group of trained firefighters will appear in moments and use top notch equipment to extinguish the flames, thus saving you, your family, and your belongings.
K.. Or if, while at home watching one of your many flat screen TVs, a burglar or prowler intrudes, an officer equipped with a gun and a bullet-proof vest will come to defend you and your family against attack or loss.
L.. This all in the backdrop of a neighborhood free of bombs or militias raping and pillaging the residents. Neighborhoods where 90% of teenagers own cell phones and computers.
M.. How about the complete religious, social and political freedoms we enjoy that are the envy of everyone in the world?
Maybe that is what has 67% of you folks unhappy.
Fact is, we are the largest group of ungrateful, spoiled brats the world has ever seen. No wonder the world loves the U.S. , yet has a great disdain for its citizens. They see us for what we are. The most blessed people in the world who do nothing but complain about what we don't have, and what we hate about the country instead of thanking the good Lord we live here.
I know, I know What about the president who took us into war and has no plan to get us out? The president who has a measly 31 percent approval rating? Is this the same president who guided the nation in the dark days after 9/11? The president that cut taxes to bring an economy out of recession?
Could this be the same guy who has been called every name in the book for succeeding in keeping all the spoiled ungrateful brats safe from terrorist attacks? The commander in chief of an all-volunteer army that is out there defending you and me?
Did you hear how bad the President is on the news or talk show? Did this news affect you so much, make you so unhappy you couldn't take a look around for yourself and see all the good things and be glad? Think about it......are you upset at the President because he actually caused you personal pain OR is it because the 'Media' told you he was failing to kiss your sorry ungrateful behind every day.
Make no mistake about it.
The troops in Iraq and Afghanistan have volunteered to serve, and in many cases may have died for your freedom. There is currently no draft in this country. They didn't have to go. They are able to refuse to go and end up with either a ''general'' discharge, an 'other than honorable'' discharge or, worst case scenario, a ''dishonorable'' discharge after a few days in the brig.
So why then the flat-out discontentment in the minds of 69 percent of Americans?
Say what you want but I blame it on the media. If it bleeds it leads and they specialize in bad news. Everybody will watch a car crash with blood and guts. How many will watch kids selling lemonade at the corner? The media knows this and media outlets are for-profit corporations. They offer what sells, and when criticized, try to defend their actions by 'justifying' them in one way or another. Just ask why they tried to allow a murderer like O.J. Simpson to write a book about how he didn't kill his wife, but if he did he would have done it this way......Insane!
Turn off the20TV, burn Newsweek, and use the New York Times for the bottom of your bird cage. Then start being grateful for all we have as country. There is exponentially more good than bad. We are among the most blessed people on Earth and should thank God several times a day, or at least be thankful and appreciative.' 'With hurricanes, tornados, fires out of control, mud slides, flooding, severe thunderstorms tearing up the country from one end to another, and with the threat of bird flu and terrorist attacks, 'Are we sure this is a good time to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance?'
Jay Leno
Please keep this in circulation. There are so many people who need to read this and grasp the truth of it.
The Famous, the Infamous, the Lame - in your browser.Get the TMZ Toolbar Now!
For instance, the essay below was not written by Jay Leno. It's going around the internet as penned by him, (or by David Letterman, depending on which version you get) in order to make us like it better, having been written by a well liked and well known comedian.
It doesn't need the "teaser" line ("Jay Leno wrote this; it's the Jay Leno we don't often see....") - which is pure hogwash - because it's a good essay, and it makes a good point. But the premise is false. Untruth. Wrong. Misleading. Factually inaccurate. Lies.
Nowadays, pretty much anybody in the U.S. can go to snopes.com or any number of internet sources to double check on stories they get on the internet. But what I'm really interested in is the sociological question - why a certain swath of the population is willing to forward on emails without checking them for facts?
I only get these from my Dad, his girlfriend, my mom, my aunt, and a couple of friends. What do all these people in my life have in common? All conservative.
I'd be loathe to make the connection, (I like to think of myself as a political "independent,") except that several of my friends have pointed out the same pattern in their own families.
Maybe it's a generational thing. Older people are more likely to be conservative. And perhaps older people are, by nature, less - jaded - than those of us who have grown up learning about politics from the controversy of Vietnam and lies and intrigues of Nixon. They believe things. While we believe in - nothing.
Are people who are politically or religiously conservative, by nature, naive? Do they believe anything they see in writing?
I can't believe that of my dad, the ever-present cynic, always rattling around in my own head. Are they lazy? Don't see that quality in anyone on my "conservative" list. Unintelligent? Undiscerning? Conniving? Nada, nada, nada. They're all smart, informed, driven, well intentioned people.
So why don't they check out their information?
I'm puzzled. I get forwards from my more liberal friends and relatives all the time, and while they can certainly be biased, they never make fear-mongering, false blanket statements like this: (in gigantic lettering) "Windfall Tax on Retirement Income! Hold on to your pocketbooks!! Nancy Pelosi wants a Windfall Tax on Retirement Income. This woman is a nut case! You aren't going to believe this!"
(Incidentally my more liberal friends also seem more familiar with the use of the "bcc:" button, which prevents every single person you send the email to from receiving a full list of everyone-you've-sent-it-to's email address. We who use the bcc: tend to get annoyed with those who don't because all it takes is for one person 100 "forwards" later to get your address, and suddenly your inbox is inundated with SPAM for months.)
Spreading gossip and lies is something we all grew up aiming to avoid, and if that's all that was wrong here I guess I could put a lid on it. What worries me is the larger implications of how people make decisions. People act and speak - and vote- based on the false information they get - by word of mouth, on TV, in magazines, and yes, by email.
There's a human tendency to believe something even more when we see it in writing than when we hear about it some other way. "It is written" is written on the backs of our brains for all eternity as something tantamount to fact.
I spend a good deal of my political focus teetering on a wire between two of the best current-events informed people I know - my conservative father and my liberal boyfriend. One day I started looking at their sources - websites, magazines newspapers - and was shocked to see that not only were their sources biased, they were often getting fed, by their sources, absolutely conflicting FACTUAL information. Numbers, quotes, details of incidents which shape the history of the future. Factually different.
I assigned them both a week of looking at one another's sources. Neither of them took me up on it.
We keep getting these emails. And sending them. And watching the TV news, and listening to the radio talk shows and reading the magazines which say things we agree with.
What's going on? ???
Enjoy this essay - mostly by author Craig R. Smith - below.
As most of you know I am not a President Bush fan, nor have I ever been, but this is not about Bush, it is about us, as Americans, and it seems to hit the mark.
The other day I was reading Newsweek magazine and came across some Poll data I found rather hard to believe. It must be true given the source, right?
The Newsweek poll alleges that 67 percent of Americans are unhappy with the direction the country is headed and 69 percent of the country is unhappy with the performance of the President.
In essence 2/3 of the citizenry just ain't happy and want a change. So being the knuckle dragger I am, I started thinking, 'What are we so unhappy about?''
A.. Is it that we have electricity and running water 24 hours a day, 7 Days a week?
B.. Is our unhappiness the result of having air conditioning in the summer and heating in the winter?
C.. Could it be that 95.4 percent of these unhappy folks have a job?
D. Maybe it is the ability to walk into a grocery store at any time and see more food in moments than Darfurhas seen in the last year?
E.. Maybe it is the ability to drive our cars and trucks from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean without having to present identification papers as we move through each state?
F.. Or possibly the hundreds of clean and safe motels we would find along the way that can provide temporary shelter?
G.. I guess having thousands of restaurants with varying cuisine from around the world is just not good enough either.
H. Or could it be that when we wreck our car, emergency workers show up and provide services to help all and even send a helicopter to take you to the hospital.
I.. Perhaps you are one of the 70 percent of Americans who own a home.
J.. You may be upset with knowing that in the unfortunate case of a fire, a group of trained firefighters will appear in moments and use top notch equipment to extinguish the flames, thus saving you, your family, and your belongings.
K.. Or if, while at home watching one of your many flat screen TVs, a burglar or prowler intrudes, an officer equipped with a gun and a bullet-proof vest will come to defend you and your family against attack or loss.
L.. This all in the backdrop of a neighborhood free of bombs or militias raping and pillaging the residents. Neighborhoods where 90% of teenagers own cell phones and computers.
M.. How about the complete religious, social and political freedoms we enjoy that are the envy of everyone in the world?
Maybe that is what has 67% of you folks unhappy.
< /b>
Fact is, we are the largest group of ungrateful, spoiled brats the world has ever seen. No wonder the world loves the U.S. , yet has a great disdain for its citizens. They see us for what we are. The most blessed people in the world who do nothing but complain about what we don't have, and what we hate about the country instead of thanking the good Lord we live here.
I know, I know What about the president who took us into war and has no plan to get us out? The president who has a measly 31 percent approval rating? Is this the same president who guided the nation in the dark days after 9/11? The president that cut taxes to bring an economy out of recession?
Could this be the same guy who has been called every name in the book for succeeding in keeping all the spoiled ungrateful brats safe from terrorist attacks? The commander in chief of an all-volunteer army that is out there defendi ng you and me?
Did you hear how bad the President is on the news or talk show? Did this news affect you so much, make you so unhappy you couldn't take a look around for yourself and see all the good things and be glad? Think about it......are you upset at the President because he actually caused you personal pain OR is it because the 'Media' told you he was failing to kiss your sorry ungrateful behind every day.
Make no mistake about it.
The troops in Iraq and Afghanistan have volunteered to serve, and in many cases may have died for your freedom. There is currently no draft in this country. They didn't have to go. They are able to refuse to go and end up with either a ''general'' discharge, an 'other than honorable'' discharge or, worst case scenario, a ''dishonorable'' discharge after a few=2 0days in the brig.
So why then the flat-out discontentment in the minds of 69 percent of Americans?
Say what you want but I blame it on the media. If it bleeds it leads and they specialize in bad news. Everybody will watch a car crash with blood and guts. How many will watch kids selling lemonade at the corner? The media knows this and media outlets are for-profit corporations. They offer what sells, and when criticized, try to defend their actions by 'justifying' them in one way or another. Just ask why they tried to allow a murderer like O.J. Simpson to write a book about how he didn't kill his wife, but if he did he would have done it this way......Insane!
Turn off the TV, burn Newsweek, and use the New York Times for the bottom of your bird cage. Then start being grateful for all we have as country. There is exponentially more good than bad. We are among the most blessed people on Earth and should thank God several times a day, or at least be thankful and appreciative.' 'With hurricanes, tornados, fires out of control, mud slides, flooding, severe thunderstorms tearing up the country from one end to another, and with the threat of bird flu and terrorist attacks, 'Are we sure this is a good time to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance?'
Jay Leno
Please keep this in circulation. There are so many people who need to read this and grasp the truth of it.
=
Attached Message
From: Susan Waters
Jay Leno wrote this; it's the Jay Leno we don't often see....
As most of you know I am not a President Bush fan, nor have I ever been, but this is not about Bush, it is about us, as Americans, and it seems to hit the mark.
The other day I was reading Newsweek magazine and came across some Poll data I found rather hard to believe. It must be true given the source, right?
The Newsweek poll alleges that 67 percent of Americans are unhappy with the direction the country is headed and 69 percent of the country is unhappy with the performance of the President.
In essence 2/3 of the citizenry just ain't happy and want a change. So being the knuckle dragger I am, I started thinking, 'What are we so unhappy about?''
A.. Is it that we have electricity and running water 24 hours a day, 7 Days a week?
B.. Is our unhappiness the result of having air conditioning in the summer and heating in the winter?
C.. Could it be that 95.4 percent of these unhappy folks have a job?
D. Maybe it is the ability to walk into a grocery store at any time and see more food in moments than Darfurhas seen in the last year?
E.. Maybe it is the ability to drive our cars and trucks from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean without having to present identification papers as we move through each state?
F.. Or possibly the hundreds of clean and safe motels we would find along the way that can provide temporary shelter?
G.. I guess having thousands of restaurants with varying cuisine from around the world is just not good enough either.
H. Or could it be that when we wreck our car, emergency workers show up and provide services to help all and even send a helicopter to take you to the hospital.
I.. Perhaps you are one of the 70 percent of Americans who own a home.
J.. You may be upset with knowing that in the unfortunate case of a fire, a group of trained firefighters will appear in moments and use top notch equipment to extinguish the flames, thus saving you, your family, and your belongings.
K.. Or if, while at home watching one of your many flat screen TVs, a burglar or prowler intrudes, an officer equipped with a gun and a bullet-proof vest will come to defend you and your family against attack or loss.
L.. This all in the backdrop of a neighborhood free of bombs or militias raping and pillaging the residents. Neighborhoods where 90% of teenagers own cell phones and computers.
M.. How about the complete religious, social and political freedoms we enjoy that are the envy of everyone in the world?
Maybe that is what has 67% of you folks unhappy.
Fact is, we are the largest group of ungrateful, spoiled brats the world has ever seen. No wonder the world loves the U.S. , yet has a great disdain for its citizens. They see us for what we are. The most blessed people in the world who do nothing but complain about what we don't have, and what we hate about the country instead of thanking the good Lord we live here.
I know, I know What about the president who took us into war and has no plan to get us out? The president who has a measly 31 percent approval rating? Is this the same president who guided the nation in the dark days after 9/11? The president that cut taxes to bring an economy out of recession?
Could this be the same guy who has been called every name in the book for succeeding in keeping all the spoiled ungrateful brats safe from terrorist attacks? The commander in chief of an all-volunteer army that is out there defending you and me?
Did you hear how bad the President is on the news or talk show? Did this news affect you so much, make you so unhappy you couldn't take a look around for yourself and see all the good things and be glad? Think about it......are you upset at the President because he actually caused you personal pain OR is it because the 'Media' told you he was failing to kiss your sorry ungrateful behind every day.
Make no mistake about it.
The troops in Iraq and Afghanistan have volunteered to serve, and in many cases may have died for your freedom. There is currently no draft in this country. They didn't have to go. They are able to refuse to go and end up with either a ''general'' discharge, an 'other than honorable'' discharge or, worst case scenario, a ''dishonorable'' discharge after a few days in the brig.
So why then the flat-out discontentment in the minds of 69 percent of Americans?
Say what you want but I blame it on the media. If it bleeds it leads and they specialize in bad news. Everybody will watch a car crash with blood and guts. How many will watch kids selling lemonade at the corner? The media knows this and media outlets are for-profit corporations. They offer what sells, and when criticized, try to defend their actions by 'justifying' them in one way or another. Just ask why they tried to allow a murderer like O.J. Simpson to write a book about how he didn't kill his wife, but if he did he would have done it this way......Insane!
Turn off the20TV, burn Newsweek, and use the New York Times for the bottom of your bird cage. Then start being grateful for all we have as country. There is exponentially more good than bad. We are among the most blessed people on Earth and should thank God several times a day, or at least be thankful and appreciative.' 'With hurricanes, tornados, fires out of control, mud slides, flooding, severe thunderstorms tearing up the country from one end to another, and with the threat of bird flu and terrorist attacks, 'Are we sure this is a good time to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance?'
Jay Leno
Please keep this in circulation. There are so many people who need to read this and grasp the truth of it.
The Famous, the Infamous, the Lame - in your browser.
Saturday, July 12, 2008
dating with Fibro/CFIDS
There was a post this week on a fibro/CFIDS meetup discussion board I frequent about how does one date with a chronic illness? The discussion itself if private, but I can tell you some of it - at least what I said.
The question was: How supportive have people been? When do you tell them? What do you tell them...at first, and when you're tired and in too much pain to go out yet again? Maybe others have had better luck explaining this to people, so any advice would help!
And I chimed in: When I was dating, in retrospect, my illness was a much bigger deal to me than it was to the person sitting across the table. I felt like I was wearing something on my forehead, announcing to the world that i was damaged goods (or should be.)
Around that time I heard a friend of mine, a handsome, charming man who is in more then perfect health, jokingly refer to himself as "damaged goods" with his fiance. "Yeah, she knows all about it," he laughed, "I'm not gonna lie to anyone, I've been married, I've been divorced, I've been used and abused; I'm damaged goods."
And it was so clear to me that EVERYONE comes to dating with their own boat load of insecurities. And how we deal with them is something we have to do within the context of our own personalities. Sense of humor can be an indispensible part of that.
I've been dating Colin for 6 years now, and I can't remember when I brought up being sick. I think that's because i didn't lay it all on him in one big heap. I mentioned I'd had heart surgery in the past year, (and kept that all pretty upbeat) and it was necessary pretty early to mention that I have a bladder disease, and the rest just sort of unfolded au natural.
Months later, when I asked him what exactly he does feel about my illness, he said - and still says - "it's part of you, and I love you," and honest to god he says that as if I asked him if he wants butter or jam on his english muffin.
Know that for many good people, giving you that extra support you need feeds, in turn, their need to be loved and needed and wanted, as well, so it's not all on you that you're some sort of taker. My partner says he fell for me because I'm so easy to talk to. Who knew I had that to offer?
I think it's important to be steady and clear that this is part of who you are, and that you're just as entitled as everybody else to have the relationship you want.
Incidentally, I think being sick made me finally stop dating those self-centered shitheads I liked to think I could "tame" or stop being shitheads because wasn't I so - cool? Embarrassing, but true, I was a sucker for a guy who loved himself a bit to death, and I had something to prove. I finally started dating again with this new theme: Ask not what you can do for your boyfriend, but what your boyfriend can do for you.
As for meeting someone, I heard an interview on Oprah (yes, I know, Oprah) with a woman who wrote a book which claims if you do what she says you will meet a partner within 12 months. A little blown up, I'm sure, but she suggests starting conversations with people in situations you normally would not. Not to be obnoxious about it, but, you know, standing in line (or on line, I know!)at the post office, waiting for a bus, whatever. Put out that one sentence and see if you get a positive response.
She says you'd be surprised, and I think she's right. She contends that it's not that you haven't crossed paths with the right person, it's just that you have SPOKEN to them.
As for the rest..m meeting peopel and creating energy for dates...
I would suggest a couple things...feel free to chime in, anyone.
Know what you love to do , what energizes you, and pick one or two things which can get you face to face with other people. I joined a songwriters circle and even though I didn't meet anybody there, (well, there was not mutual interest on my part) it turned out to be an invaluable source of creative and emotional support!
Remain open minded. If a friend wants to set you up, try it. (That was the route to my current relationship.)
Look at whether there is any wiggle room in your professional life - can any of it move over to make some hours for social time?
I think it's really tricky when you're like me - generally people drain me and I need alone time to regenerate. But sometimes I also find when I just suck it up and go out anyway i feel better, I'm proud of myself that I went out and did something productive toward my goal of meeting more people, and I end up having some intersting discussions and laughing despite myself!
But the balance is to do it when you can plan some recovery time - Friday night when you don't have to work the next morning, or Sunday afternoon.
I did do internet dating for a while and had some mixed results. A lot of my friends have tried it, and most have had some pretty darned good results, though the going can be rough on those first few dates. There's a "figuring it out" period where you have to discern how to match your profile with whatever attracts the good ones, how to screen for toads, etc.
Though there's not always a wait. One of my neighbors met her "one" on the first date! (not because I helped her with her profile, I'm sure! ;-). So, you never know.
The question was: How supportive have people been? When do you tell them? What do you tell them...at first, and when you're tired and in too much pain to go out yet again? Maybe others have had better luck explaining this to people, so any advice would help!
And I chimed in: When I was dating, in retrospect, my illness was a much bigger deal to me than it was to the person sitting across the table. I felt like I was wearing something on my forehead, announcing to the world that i was damaged goods (or should be.)
Around that time I heard a friend of mine, a handsome, charming man who is in more then perfect health, jokingly refer to himself as "damaged goods" with his fiance. "Yeah, she knows all about it," he laughed, "I'm not gonna lie to anyone, I've been married, I've been divorced, I've been used and abused; I'm damaged goods."
And it was so clear to me that EVERYONE comes to dating with their own boat load of insecurities. And how we deal with them is something we have to do within the context of our own personalities. Sense of humor can be an indispensible part of that.
I've been dating Colin for 6 years now, and I can't remember when I brought up being sick. I think that's because i didn't lay it all on him in one big heap. I mentioned I'd had heart surgery in the past year, (and kept that all pretty upbeat) and it was necessary pretty early to mention that I have a bladder disease, and the rest just sort of unfolded au natural.
Months later, when I asked him what exactly he does feel about my illness, he said - and still says - "it's part of you, and I love you," and honest to god he says that as if I asked him if he wants butter or jam on his english muffin.
Know that for many good people, giving you that extra support you need feeds, in turn, their need to be loved and needed and wanted, as well, so it's not all on you that you're some sort of taker. My partner says he fell for me because I'm so easy to talk to. Who knew I had that to offer?
I think it's important to be steady and clear that this is part of who you are, and that you're just as entitled as everybody else to have the relationship you want.
Incidentally, I think being sick made me finally stop dating those self-centered shitheads I liked to think I could "tame" or stop being shitheads because wasn't I so - cool? Embarrassing, but true, I was a sucker for a guy who loved himself a bit to death, and I had something to prove. I finally started dating again with this new theme: Ask not what you can do for your boyfriend, but what your boyfriend can do for you.
As for meeting someone, I heard an interview on Oprah (yes, I know, Oprah) with a woman who wrote a book which claims if you do what she says you will meet a partner within 12 months. A little blown up, I'm sure, but she suggests starting conversations with people in situations you normally would not. Not to be obnoxious about it, but, you know, standing in line (or on line, I know!)at the post office, waiting for a bus, whatever. Put out that one sentence and see if you get a positive response.
She says you'd be surprised, and I think she's right. She contends that it's not that you haven't crossed paths with the right person, it's just that you have SPOKEN to them.
As for the rest..m meeting peopel and creating energy for dates...
I would suggest a couple things...feel free to chime in, anyone.
Know what you love to do , what energizes you, and pick one or two things which can get you face to face with other people. I joined a songwriters circle and even though I didn't meet anybody there, (well, there was not mutual interest on my part) it turned out to be an invaluable source of creative and emotional support!
Remain open minded. If a friend wants to set you up, try it. (That was the route to my current relationship.)
Look at whether there is any wiggle room in your professional life - can any of it move over to make some hours for social time?
I think it's really tricky when you're like me - generally people drain me and I need alone time to regenerate. But sometimes I also find when I just suck it up and go out anyway i feel better, I'm proud of myself that I went out and did something productive toward my goal of meeting more people, and I end up having some intersting discussions and laughing despite myself!
But the balance is to do it when you can plan some recovery time - Friday night when you don't have to work the next morning, or Sunday afternoon.
I did do internet dating for a while and had some mixed results. A lot of my friends have tried it, and most have had some pretty darned good results, though the going can be rough on those first few dates. There's a "figuring it out" period where you have to discern how to match your profile with whatever attracts the good ones, how to screen for toads, etc.
Though there's not always a wait. One of my neighbors met her "one" on the first date! (not because I helped her with her profile, I'm sure! ;-). So, you never know.
Monday, July 7, 2008
Rent strike proving effective!
Well, it's all done by halves, isn't it? Or it can be.
The buzzer has been half fixed - that is, we can buzz people up, but we can't talk to them or listen to them, and it's so quiet downstairs that the uninitiated sometimes they don't know they're being "buzzed" in. So they stand there, agog, waiting. But thanks to cell phone technology my knees have been spared the extra trips to fetch my clients - much appreciated!
We have hot water (just in time for 100+ degree summer days!), but we think it was achieved by the one remaining less-than-qualified fix-it guy now-with-missing-finger cranking up the heat on the water heater. Colin was scalded by water over 138 degrees warm yesterday while doing dishes. Apparently this is a cheaper solution than fixing the boiler as needed.
There are lids on the garbage cans! Alas, not enough cans, and the folks living here haven't entirely caught up with the idea yet, either. not to mention youc an't tell the recycle ones from the others. So trash is piling up on TOP of them. Sigh.
The one thing done whole - we got a WHOLE new knob on our apartment door! And it hasn't fallen off since! We still look at it, feel its brassy-steeliness in our sweaty hands and say, "Wow."
..aaaand one step back. As compensation, mark that last one "half" again. We haven't gotten mail in a week. Rumor has it the mail carrier doesn't have a key to the building any more.
But we (caved) gave the landlord half our rent due. As a gesture of "good will."
That's a gesture, not a sincere feeling, note.
The buzzer has been half fixed - that is, we can buzz people up, but we can't talk to them or listen to them, and it's so quiet downstairs that the uninitiated sometimes they don't know they're being "buzzed" in. So they stand there, agog, waiting. But thanks to cell phone technology my knees have been spared the extra trips to fetch my clients - much appreciated!
We have hot water (just in time for 100+ degree summer days!), but we think it was achieved by the one remaining less-than-qualified fix-it guy now-with-missing-finger cranking up the heat on the water heater. Colin was scalded by water over 138 degrees warm yesterday while doing dishes. Apparently this is a cheaper solution than fixing the boiler as needed.
There are lids on the garbage cans! Alas, not enough cans, and the folks living here haven't entirely caught up with the idea yet, either. not to mention youc an't tell the recycle ones from the others. So trash is piling up on TOP of them. Sigh.
The one thing done whole - we got a WHOLE new knob on our apartment door! And it hasn't fallen off since! We still look at it, feel its brassy-steeliness in our sweaty hands and say, "Wow."
..aaaand one step back. As compensation, mark that last one "half" again. We haven't gotten mail in a week. Rumor has it the mail carrier doesn't have a key to the building any more.
But we (caved) gave the landlord half our rent due. As a gesture of "good will."
That's a gesture, not a sincere feeling, note.
Know anyone with fibro who feels well?
Well, guys, I'm writing a book. I've never done this before, but every day someone does something for the first time and at least some of them go well.
For it to have a subject, (or something to say, at least,) I need people who have been diagnosed with fibromyalgia, who now feel well and are willing to share their stories.
I'm looking for variety - people who've tried various things, of differing ages, who've ultimately had varying contributing pathologies, differing racial background...basically anyone who's willing to talk with me. They can choose to remain anonymous if they wish.
I'll be doing preliminary interviews over the phone - maybe 30 minutes - and may call again or even visit some in person, where possible.
That's the basic idea.
Anyway please comment (include an email address) if you're one of those people or can guide me to one!
Thanks!
For it to have a subject, (or something to say, at least,) I need people who have been diagnosed with fibromyalgia, who now feel well and are willing to share their stories.
I'm looking for variety - people who've tried various things, of differing ages, who've ultimately had varying contributing pathologies, differing racial background...basically anyone who's willing to talk with me. They can choose to remain anonymous if they wish.
I'll be doing preliminary interviews over the phone - maybe 30 minutes - and may call again or even visit some in person, where possible.
That's the basic idea.
Anyway please comment (include an email address) if you're one of those people or can guide me to one!
Thanks!
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Elephant On My foot
“It doesn’t look pretty , but it doesn’t have any sugar, any alcohol, any chocolate, or any gluten in it, so fuckin’ Eat it!”
Such was the little Pep Talk I was giving myself while cooking an innocent omelette this morning. I used to like omelettes. But today is the first day of what may be a very long lifetime of omelettes - living without sugar, wheat, gluten, oats, alcohol, dairy, and a whole bunch of other things I really liked. Amazing how much the sexy omelette loses its appeal when you think you may see nothing but for breakfast for the rest of your life.
I tossed Colin’s plate to him in bed. “It’s not pretty…” I started.
Noted: Maybe I shouldn’t have started a major change in diet simultaneously with PMSing. I’ve always thought dieting is like monogamy. It’s like, now you can see that chocolate cake and the sweet, juicy mango and the candy corn on the other side of the kitchen, but you can’t have any. Some days it’s easier than others.
“…so fuckin’ eat it!” Colin is a smart lad. He shows no outward sign of having any problem with the omelette. In fact,the sausage on the side is a bonus as far as he is concerned.
A few hours later, I visit a friend who’s recently done a juice cleanse. She has some left over. It doesn’t have any sugar, alcohol, wheat, etc… in it, so I figure what the hell. By three o-clock my stomach is doing flip flops.
Despite the fact I feel I’ve over-stayed anybody’s welcome in her office, I email my Nutripath. For the last 45 minutes of our 2 and a half hour appointment this week, there was another patient waiting. It just takes that long to get through my health history.
That, and she has personal questions, like what was my role in my family? Does anyone have a 10 second answer for that? Maybe they should be my guru. Then she starts asking about goals, and personal and professional success, and fear of failure and fear of success. I found myself babbling, at something of a loss.
And it wasn’t until after I left the office that I thought, well, of course. Asking me, or anybody else with chronic pain about visions for their future is like asking somebody who has an elephant standing on their foot what they want for breakfast.
I don’t care what I have for breakfast. Right now I just want this elephant to stop standing my foot.
Thus I might have answered. But I have a writer’s mind; I think of these things when it is time to write, not when it is time to speak, and so my Nutripath still thinks I have a fear of success. Or failure. Or something.
We’re hitting it hard. I’m a little sore because I’ve hit it hard before – the anti- yeast diet, the gluten free diet, the separate-your-carbs-from-your-proteins diet… But I’ve never done it like this. I’ve never put in stuff while I’m taking stuff out. As advised by a professional. This time, at the same time I cut out the wheat, gluten, yeast, etc….I’m adding in a really good probiotic, colloidal silver, some herbal tea from the amazon, and possibly some antioxidants, if I tolerate them.
I have equal belief that is will harm me as that it may help, because, well , that’s been my experience. But as long as there’s one iota of chance that it could relieve me of the dizzying array of wild and crazy illnesses which migrate like gypsies through my body on no particularly organized rotation, I’m willing to give it a try.
I thought one of the hardest parts to staying on this regime would be Colin. Raised only three hours from New Orleans, Colin likes sugar. And dairy, and fat, and everything tasty and nice. He likes his ice cream before bed routine, his cookies after meals routine, and wheat crackers and cheese in between.
But Colin has been demonstrating his skills as an empath. When he needs a snack that’s vorboten to me, he’s been kindly shoveling it into his mouth in the kitchen while I’m in the living room. And to my surprise, he’s actually been eating – and liking- the food I prepare for myself. He had to keep himself form eating all the nutty rice crackers so there would be some left for me. He has no issues with switching to goat cheese, and the shepherd’s pie was a big hit.
I’m left with the daunting task of continual food activity. I spend most of my day preparing what I eat, shopping for what I eat, thinking about what I’m going to eat, writing down what I eat, cleaning up what i've prepared to eat and eating what I eat. In some respects a detail oriented closeted anal retentive individual, I do not enjoy being anal retentive about food. The Dali Lama said we should eat and love with abandon, and that’s always been my motto, too.
But I want the elephant to stop standing on my foot. I’ve tried hitting it, coaxing it, and ignoring it. I’ve called in specialists and trainers of all shapes and sizes. I’ve X-rayed, MRI’ed, yoga-ed, P.T.- ed, scoped and shocked it. So far nothing has worked.
I don’t have any more time to write. Gotta drink my Spirutein.
P.S. Playing the role of an OB-gyne in a reading tonight. Always wanted to be able to examine myself to save the trips.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Super Delegates for Hillary!
The folks who create these videos call them selves Brooklyn Vs. Bush and I met them at a green party event a couple months ago.
They talked me into showing up for one of their weekly filming parties, asking only that I try not to wear green.
I learned gradually throughout the evening: The videos are filmed in an extra bedroom on a third floor apartment on Court Street. Actors (or whoever shows up) are filmed in front of a green screen (thus, the "green" rule) on a carpet about 3 feet deep and 5 feet wide. You get a script, and while you look at it maybe some costume pieces and a stiff drink. And, at some point, dinner.
The folks who showed up made me feel squeaky brand new and naive. Salty actors from the days in New York when here were tons of strip joints on 42nd Street, they chain smoked and puzzled over their lines while downing a whiskey on ice. They prefer to do tis kind of work, they say, to working for Disney, which has pretty much taken over Broadway.
I was part of one video which hasn't been edited yet. You'll be the first to know. Unless I'm royally embarrassed!
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Social Reasons
Spring has replaced fall as my favorite season since moving to New York. My neighborhood is resplendent with blooming dogwoods, pink and white, tulip bulbs in a rainbow of colors and the more subtle hues of wine-colored leaves against red brick homes and iron railings.
Really, it’s the only time this place looks good. By the time summer arrives I’m too hot to appreciate anything. No, this is the best time. Hundreds of people in Prospect Park, sauntering through the farmers' market, buying newly dead fish, organic meats, green herbs and fresh loaves of bread and stuffing them in the now-popular canvas “green bag.” A group of younglings plays Ultimate frisbee on the green, mothers follow toddlers around on the grass, birds set up a discordant chorus in the trees, squirrels beg and lovers sit on the bench and neck.
I love this time of year especially because the days are long, but one isn’t longing for the sun to go down to dispel the heat. I love that when I leave for an 8pm show, it’s still light out. I did that last night. My friend Brenda (who, oddly, I discovered was in my high school home room in Wisconsin and we have absolutely no memory of one another) choreographed and performed in a dance piece on 14th street.
It’s been a long time since I’ve seen real live dancers on stage. It may have been Brenda’s last show, in fact. It was fun to watch how her style has matured. While many of the works expressed clear stories of individual love, rage or outrage, Brenda’s was a fluid ensemble piece, expressing nuances of the music and the dancer’s bodies.
And I think, that’s just it, isn’t it? Almost everyone I know in town is entertaining some sort of major career crisis, thinking of getting out of the arts, wondering if the sacrifice is worth it, asking themselves, “why do I do this?” And coming up with a variety of answers.
In my second year at DePaul, my teacher had all her students in her office for a little chat. She asked each of us to answer this very question: “Why do I sing?” I’d actually been giving that some hard thought already. When it came my turn I hesitated. “I think…I think I do it for social reasons,” I said.
I could tell my answer displeased her. Something crossed over her face which was dark and uninterpretable. I think she wanted – or expected- something more insightful from me. Perhaps the difficulty lies in the choice of words. I might have elaborated.
Last night in one of the dance pieces, (which I think was about the Salem witch trials, but I'm not entirely sure) there was a chair. A metal folding chair, which always sends chills up my spine when I see on stage. Too many accidents waiting to happen.
Well, I needn’t have worried. First of all, the smart dancers always used the edge of the chair, keeping it from folding on itself. But also – and this is the Thing – there were always a dancer or two placed cleverly at the back edge of the chair, doing their choreography while subtly holding on to it.
This is what I mean by “social reasons.” It’s the little things you do, when performing, to take care of one another. The clear knowledge that we fly or sink together, all one interdependent unit which can easily break down without the cooperation of even one member. Or one body part of one member.
I remember one show I did where a guy in the cast was experiencing a major medical mental meltdown. He wasn’t sure he could go on stage. I promised him I would stay behind the set in a certain place when I could, and when his blocking allowed him to, he would come back and hold his hand out, just enough so I could grasp it. He clung to my hands like a drowning man. He got through the night.
There’s the way theater people move around one another in cramped quarters backstage. There’s an internal dance behind every production, moving bodies out of the way of moving sets and curtains and rigging and one another exiting and entering, an automatic turning aside of bodies, a light step for quiet, words whispered, or said without saying. Polite. Professional. Caring.
And quite frankly, it annoys me that other people don’t move with the same swiftness and dexterity on the sidewalk in the city, in the home or in the restaurant or in the store.
I was once in an opera where I was in a dozen consecutive scenes, each with a different, late 19th century costume. They were gorgeous. But the costumer felt the stage in that theater was too close to the audience to allow for anything unauthentic in the dresses, like oh, zippers or Velcro instead of fifty teensy buttons up the back.
The first dress rehearsal was a complete disaster. The costumer’s assistant had no idea what she was doing. The domino effect was of epic proportions – there was absolutely no room in the music for more than 30 seconds of changing time. I didn’t come on stage, the lights came up, my musical cue came up, no one sang, so no one sang after that, the conductor kept waving her arms in desperation, trying to coordinate the people left on stage, her job made more impossible by 20th Century scoring. Everyone just had to stop.
What it came down to? The entire show had absolute reliance on the costumer’s assistant.
Performing creates an intense sense of belonging, one which helps me understand completely why when people serve together in the military, all they want to do is sit around and share war stories. Because it recalls that sense of being an important part of a unit.
Of course your life isn’t technically on the line when you’re performing – usually, though of course there are exceptions – but try convincing your brain of that! We are all hard-wired to respond intensely to being observed, to peer pressure, to a tribal mentality of cooperation and trust. Try purposely screwing up in front of an audience of 600 – I can’t physically make myself do it. Could you?
And that’s what I think I miss about performing, as I haven’t been doing much of it at all lately. It’s “social reasons.” I’ve discovered into my thirties that I’m not really very interested in performing alone – I’m an ensemble player, be that in a band, a choir, an opera or a musical. And of course the question which follows is: Can one find that in another line of work which demands less sacrifice?
Sure, it’s possible. I think what’s important is recognizing what it is about what you do which enriches you and feeds your will to live. I like to be a functioning part of a unit, with something to contribute which is unique. My situation is, of course, complicated by the need for regular breaks and ten hours of sleep, a heart condition and such, but surely a choice is there if I should decide to grab it.
I went to Fibromyalgia support meeting last week (perhaps a mistake, as, in just being around all of them my pain levels spiked…) and I told them I was a massage therapist. There was a puzzled pause. “Wait – which do you have, fibro or CFIDs? “ one asked. I told them for what it was worth, I’d been diagnosed with both. There was a collective gasp. “And you do this kind of work????”
Although I argue with the characterization of people with these diseases being incapable of physical labor, and allow for differences in individuals, I’d still do well to perform a reality check and think that both my performing and massage days may be numbered. I am considered extraordinarily functional for someone in my place physically, and I thank many a wonderful hands-on therapist for that, but that work does not come free, and the budget for it would come much more easily on a better salary.
My friends and acquaintances are leaving show business in droves….leaving non-profits for capitalist ventures, leaving directing to have babies, leaving electrician work to go back to school, leaving stage managing to make it in real estate, to explore another life. Leaving for L.A. where there’s the possibility of residuals in film and television. Leaving for careers which are not as hard on their bodies. I see many making successful and rewarding transitions into worlds more stable and less competitive than the performing arts.
Who will take their place?
Well, more 22 year olds come every year.
Really, it’s the only time this place looks good. By the time summer arrives I’m too hot to appreciate anything. No, this is the best time. Hundreds of people in Prospect Park, sauntering through the farmers' market, buying newly dead fish, organic meats, green herbs and fresh loaves of bread and stuffing them in the now-popular canvas “green bag.” A group of younglings plays Ultimate frisbee on the green, mothers follow toddlers around on the grass, birds set up a discordant chorus in the trees, squirrels beg and lovers sit on the bench and neck.
I love this time of year especially because the days are long, but one isn’t longing for the sun to go down to dispel the heat. I love that when I leave for an 8pm show, it’s still light out. I did that last night. My friend Brenda (who, oddly, I discovered was in my high school home room in Wisconsin and we have absolutely no memory of one another) choreographed and performed in a dance piece on 14th street.
It’s been a long time since I’ve seen real live dancers on stage. It may have been Brenda’s last show, in fact. It was fun to watch how her style has matured. While many of the works expressed clear stories of individual love, rage or outrage, Brenda’s was a fluid ensemble piece, expressing nuances of the music and the dancer’s bodies.
And I think, that’s just it, isn’t it? Almost everyone I know in town is entertaining some sort of major career crisis, thinking of getting out of the arts, wondering if the sacrifice is worth it, asking themselves, “why do I do this?” And coming up with a variety of answers.
In my second year at DePaul, my teacher had all her students in her office for a little chat. She asked each of us to answer this very question: “Why do I sing?” I’d actually been giving that some hard thought already. When it came my turn I hesitated. “I think…I think I do it for social reasons,” I said.
I could tell my answer displeased her. Something crossed over her face which was dark and uninterpretable. I think she wanted – or expected- something more insightful from me. Perhaps the difficulty lies in the choice of words. I might have elaborated.
Last night in one of the dance pieces, (which I think was about the Salem witch trials, but I'm not entirely sure) there was a chair. A metal folding chair, which always sends chills up my spine when I see on stage. Too many accidents waiting to happen.
Well, I needn’t have worried. First of all, the smart dancers always used the edge of the chair, keeping it from folding on itself. But also – and this is the Thing – there were always a dancer or two placed cleverly at the back edge of the chair, doing their choreography while subtly holding on to it.
This is what I mean by “social reasons.” It’s the little things you do, when performing, to take care of one another. The clear knowledge that we fly or sink together, all one interdependent unit which can easily break down without the cooperation of even one member. Or one body part of one member.
I remember one show I did where a guy in the cast was experiencing a major medical mental meltdown. He wasn’t sure he could go on stage. I promised him I would stay behind the set in a certain place when I could, and when his blocking allowed him to, he would come back and hold his hand out, just enough so I could grasp it. He clung to my hands like a drowning man. He got through the night.
There’s the way theater people move around one another in cramped quarters backstage. There’s an internal dance behind every production, moving bodies out of the way of moving sets and curtains and rigging and one another exiting and entering, an automatic turning aside of bodies, a light step for quiet, words whispered, or said without saying. Polite. Professional. Caring.
And quite frankly, it annoys me that other people don’t move with the same swiftness and dexterity on the sidewalk in the city, in the home or in the restaurant or in the store.
I was once in an opera where I was in a dozen consecutive scenes, each with a different, late 19th century costume. They were gorgeous. But the costumer felt the stage in that theater was too close to the audience to allow for anything unauthentic in the dresses, like oh, zippers or Velcro instead of fifty teensy buttons up the back.
The first dress rehearsal was a complete disaster. The costumer’s assistant had no idea what she was doing. The domino effect was of epic proportions – there was absolutely no room in the music for more than 30 seconds of changing time. I didn’t come on stage, the lights came up, my musical cue came up, no one sang, so no one sang after that, the conductor kept waving her arms in desperation, trying to coordinate the people left on stage, her job made more impossible by 20th Century scoring. Everyone just had to stop.
What it came down to? The entire show had absolute reliance on the costumer’s assistant.
Performing creates an intense sense of belonging, one which helps me understand completely why when people serve together in the military, all they want to do is sit around and share war stories. Because it recalls that sense of being an important part of a unit.
Of course your life isn’t technically on the line when you’re performing – usually, though of course there are exceptions – but try convincing your brain of that! We are all hard-wired to respond intensely to being observed, to peer pressure, to a tribal mentality of cooperation and trust. Try purposely screwing up in front of an audience of 600 – I can’t physically make myself do it. Could you?
And that’s what I think I miss about performing, as I haven’t been doing much of it at all lately. It’s “social reasons.” I’ve discovered into my thirties that I’m not really very interested in performing alone – I’m an ensemble player, be that in a band, a choir, an opera or a musical. And of course the question which follows is: Can one find that in another line of work which demands less sacrifice?
Sure, it’s possible. I think what’s important is recognizing what it is about what you do which enriches you and feeds your will to live. I like to be a functioning part of a unit, with something to contribute which is unique. My situation is, of course, complicated by the need for regular breaks and ten hours of sleep, a heart condition and such, but surely a choice is there if I should decide to grab it.
I went to Fibromyalgia support meeting last week (perhaps a mistake, as, in just being around all of them my pain levels spiked…) and I told them I was a massage therapist. There was a puzzled pause. “Wait – which do you have, fibro or CFIDs? “ one asked. I told them for what it was worth, I’d been diagnosed with both. There was a collective gasp. “And you do this kind of work????”
Although I argue with the characterization of people with these diseases being incapable of physical labor, and allow for differences in individuals, I’d still do well to perform a reality check and think that both my performing and massage days may be numbered. I am considered extraordinarily functional for someone in my place physically, and I thank many a wonderful hands-on therapist for that, but that work does not come free, and the budget for it would come much more easily on a better salary.
My friends and acquaintances are leaving show business in droves….leaving non-profits for capitalist ventures, leaving directing to have babies, leaving electrician work to go back to school, leaving stage managing to make it in real estate, to explore another life. Leaving for L.A. where there’s the possibility of residuals in film and television. Leaving for careers which are not as hard on their bodies. I see many making successful and rewarding transitions into worlds more stable and less competitive than the performing arts.
Who will take their place?
Well, more 22 year olds come every year.
Monday, April 7, 2008
2002
It's been exactly six years since I left my first sublet in NYC, figuring I was going back to Chicago for good. Or until I had the next better idea.
I had just had my first date with Colin. Though i didn't know it, I was soon to embark on my first real regional theater gig. I was driving the same car I have now. I was taking five prescription medications a day.
Some of you traveled with me via the old "email" method of blogging (I didn't really know that's what it was and still kinda prefer it that way, but alas we must all evolve...) and I thank you from the bottom of my gut for being someones to laugh with me at the ridiculousness of it all.
Yesterday I got word that my new MacBook Pro, which I got for Christmas from my Dad, needs to go bye-bye, to the rehab spa for computers. "I'm actually surprised it boots up at all," said the mac genius who was helping me. "I'd advise you to back everything up as soon as you can, and get it back in for repairs." He wrote down a number for me and sent me on my way.
I picture my computer forgetting everything at the spa - maybe it's in Arizona, under a hot, dry sun - and among those things are all those tasty memories of my first days in NYC. I backed everything up as best I can today. And came across those old Word Perfect files which barely even function on my new operating system.
I decided it's time to start the process I've been meaning to get to - slowly bringing all those stories to a new birth in the land of Blog.
I don't know if those signed up with Feedblitz will necessarily get a new feed every time I make a new entry dated way back to 2002. If so, I hope it's not too annoying. They'll probably come in small clumps.
If you want to look for them, they'll be appearing here. Look for them by date on the right hand side of the blogger page. Starting with "2002."
Please let me know if you know something I don't to make the whole process funner and easier.
And thanks for reading.
Niki
I had just had my first date with Colin. Though i didn't know it, I was soon to embark on my first real regional theater gig. I was driving the same car I have now. I was taking five prescription medications a day.
Some of you traveled with me via the old "email" method of blogging (I didn't really know that's what it was and still kinda prefer it that way, but alas we must all evolve...) and I thank you from the bottom of my gut for being someones to laugh with me at the ridiculousness of it all.
Yesterday I got word that my new MacBook Pro, which I got for Christmas from my Dad, needs to go bye-bye, to the rehab spa for computers. "I'm actually surprised it boots up at all," said the mac genius who was helping me. "I'd advise you to back everything up as soon as you can, and get it back in for repairs." He wrote down a number for me and sent me on my way.
I picture my computer forgetting everything at the spa - maybe it's in Arizona, under a hot, dry sun - and among those things are all those tasty memories of my first days in NYC. I backed everything up as best I can today. And came across those old Word Perfect files which barely even function on my new operating system.
I decided it's time to start the process I've been meaning to get to - slowly bringing all those stories to a new birth in the land of Blog.
I don't know if those signed up with Feedblitz will necessarily get a new feed every time I make a new entry dated way back to 2002. If so, I hope it's not too annoying. They'll probably come in small clumps.
If you want to look for them, they'll be appearing here. Look for them by date on the right hand side of the blogger page. Starting with "2002."
Please let me know if you know something I don't to make the whole process funner and easier.
And thanks for reading.
Niki
Monday, March 3, 2008
The sitch on Sackett today
Well, a little update on the housing sitch...
To sum up, I pretty much lost my sense of humor about the boiler when I got the the front door today, hands full of laundry, and could not get out.
I don't know what the rest of you talked about with your parents when you were young, but I grew up with dinnertime stories about people who'd burned up in fires, people who'd passed out and died from carbon Monoxide poison, some who maybe never knew, some maimed and killed for no good reason. My good old dad described the bodies in detail, dead and alive, blisters over 90% of their bodies, searing on the insides of lungs, the children, the parents desperate to save them and the idiotic actions responsible for their deaths.
With a father who's a fire investigator, such talk is to be expected. And it sewed the seeds of my extreme malcontent today.
The boiler did its thing two more times over the next 24 hours last week, so the Tuesday was pretty much a re-run of Monday, with oily smoke and opening of windows and shivering in the resultant cold, sadly without the handsome fire fighters but happily without the pets in immediate danger, because by then Kristina had the sense to take the precautionary step of taking her dog to work with her and Jessica was home with hers.
Then there was the front door.. Oh, we've been telling the Management company about it for years - the knob falls off, sometimes you can't get in, sometimes it's like the Hotel California and you can't get out....and it's not like a house, where there might be other safe ways to exit the front of the building. It's the door or nothin', baby, unless you can get to the fire escape in the back.
Last week, certainly because it was 25 degrees out, we were locked out. The story goes that while the dubiously skilled fix-it guy was waiting outside in the cold for the (potentially actually skilled) boiler guy, he understandably got bored and tried to fix the door. And made it worse.
So for several days, we lived with it taped open, and watched the news for stories of killers in masks who come into unlocked buildings and half hoped the next person in would accidentally mess up the tape, which would increase the sense of security if we were on the inside, but eliminate our ability to get in if we were on the outside of the building.
Of course someone did eventually mess up the tape system, and I called my landlord from the stoop one day last week, shivering in the cold and unable to make the lock work.
"Buzz 1R," his response. "She's home and been letting people in." Yeah. That's a good permanent solution. Of course the lady in 1R, though extraordinarily nice, doesn't speak a lick of English. Jessica, Kristina and I set up a little phone tree and called each other to make sure someone was here who can let the others in before leaving to go anywhere.
Meanwhile, I programmed the numbers of two 24 hour locksmiths in my phone, just in case.
Why didn't I call?
THAT is exactly the question. At the heart of this very question, I believe, is the brilliant psychology that our landlord, Orazzio, has played upon us all. Whether he has strategized it, or come by it by accident or out of desperation, I don't know, but somehow all of us have clearly been played. Somehow no one in this building, to my knowledge, is currently seeking legal action against Peto Management.
How is that possible? After years of monthly letters stating the exact problems and no permanent fixes, how is it we are all still participants in this group notion that somehow, someday in the future, the water damage will be fixed, the buzzer will work, the doorknobs will stop falling off, the mailboxes will work, the stoop will be repaired, the windows will go up and down like they're supposed to (and we'll be able to see through them), we'll have safe heat, access to the back yard for the cable guy, and enough hot water for showers?
Have we all drunk the Cool Aid?
I think the landlord's secret is in giving us just enough action to keep our ears off the phones and feet out of the courtroom. He has an amazing intuition as to my tipping point. My feet will be on the pavement when he'll finally authorize a fix - at least a temporary one.
Or, like two weeks ago, he sent the dubiously skilled fix-it guy to my door after I'd called, in order to explain why things were not getting fixed. (Never mind this guy spent an hour talking to me when he could have been fixing something.) There aren't enough employees to manage the eight buildings he owns (because they haven't been paid and then they quit, even the illegal immigrants). People have fallen behind paying rent and there aren't enough funds. Orazzio owes the places where they get supplies and therefore they can't get new anything. On and on and on.
Soon it becomes a counseling session in which I deliver career advice to the guy who's telling me he can't pay his rent (to Orazzio) because he's not getting paid regularly (by Orazzio) and who dreams, positively dreams of becoming a sanitation worker for the City of New York. There's a wait list, he says, but he knows some guys who know some guys who're soon gonna retire early, so he maybe has an "in."
And I'm thinking, doesn't it sound like Peto Management needs to sell a building? Maybe I'm nuts. I know being a landlord is tough. Managing a rent-stabilized building has to be tougher.
But look, he could have saved himself that expensive ticket from the city by putting lids on the garbage cans years ago! What a concept! He could have saved himself that expensive repair to our bathroom if we could have reached him when it started to drip. (As usual, his answering machine was full, apparently with other people calling with complaints and employees and supply houses looking for money, so nobody came for days and by that time the ceiling had caved in.)
Yet somehow he manages to engage our sense of pity, our sense of well, that's good enough, our sense of hope. Through the voices of his pitiful employees, who appear sometimes and invoke our sense of sympathy that they are not the cause of the problem, only victims of it, as we are, we get stuck in a downward spiral of no-I-don't-have-time-to-deal-with-this and -well-it's -really-not-that-bad and people-in-third-world-countries-have-it-worse-so-what-am-I-
complaining-about mentality.
We take a little action, like calling the city, and someone comes out and inspects, or not, and then nothing happens (are they getting paid off?) So we're quiet.
But I think the law is on our side. Today I called the Department of Buildings and actually talked to real person - an inspector who says he's coming out tomorrow to look at the boiler.
Good luck getting in, I tell him, with the buzzers not working and- isn't it ironic- he needs to call the landlord to get access to the thing.
To sum up, I pretty much lost my sense of humor about the boiler when I got the the front door today, hands full of laundry, and could not get out.
I don't know what the rest of you talked about with your parents when you were young, but I grew up with dinnertime stories about people who'd burned up in fires, people who'd passed out and died from carbon Monoxide poison, some who maybe never knew, some maimed and killed for no good reason. My good old dad described the bodies in detail, dead and alive, blisters over 90% of their bodies, searing on the insides of lungs, the children, the parents desperate to save them and the idiotic actions responsible for their deaths.
With a father who's a fire investigator, such talk is to be expected. And it sewed the seeds of my extreme malcontent today.
The boiler did its thing two more times over the next 24 hours last week, so the Tuesday was pretty much a re-run of Monday, with oily smoke and opening of windows and shivering in the resultant cold, sadly without the handsome fire fighters but happily without the pets in immediate danger, because by then Kristina had the sense to take the precautionary step of taking her dog to work with her and Jessica was home with hers.
Then there was the front door.. Oh, we've been telling the Management company about it for years - the knob falls off, sometimes you can't get in, sometimes it's like the Hotel California and you can't get out....and it's not like a house, where there might be other safe ways to exit the front of the building. It's the door or nothin', baby, unless you can get to the fire escape in the back.
Last week, certainly because it was 25 degrees out, we were locked out. The story goes that while the dubiously skilled fix-it guy was waiting outside in the cold for the (potentially actually skilled) boiler guy, he understandably got bored and tried to fix the door. And made it worse.
So for several days, we lived with it taped open, and watched the news for stories of killers in masks who come into unlocked buildings and half hoped the next person in would accidentally mess up the tape, which would increase the sense of security if we were on the inside, but eliminate our ability to get in if we were on the outside of the building.
Of course someone did eventually mess up the tape system, and I called my landlord from the stoop one day last week, shivering in the cold and unable to make the lock work.
"Buzz 1R," his response. "She's home and been letting people in." Yeah. That's a good permanent solution. Of course the lady in 1R, though extraordinarily nice, doesn't speak a lick of English. Jessica, Kristina and I set up a little phone tree and called each other to make sure someone was here who can let the others in before leaving to go anywhere.
Meanwhile, I programmed the numbers of two 24 hour locksmiths in my phone, just in case.
Why didn't I call?
THAT is exactly the question. At the heart of this very question, I believe, is the brilliant psychology that our landlord, Orazzio, has played upon us all. Whether he has strategized it, or come by it by accident or out of desperation, I don't know, but somehow all of us have clearly been played. Somehow no one in this building, to my knowledge, is currently seeking legal action against Peto Management.
How is that possible? After years of monthly letters stating the exact problems and no permanent fixes, how is it we are all still participants in this group notion that somehow, someday in the future, the water damage will be fixed, the buzzer will work, the doorknobs will stop falling off, the mailboxes will work, the stoop will be repaired, the windows will go up and down like they're supposed to (and we'll be able to see through them), we'll have safe heat, access to the back yard for the cable guy, and enough hot water for showers?
Have we all drunk the Cool Aid?
I think the landlord's secret is in giving us just enough action to keep our ears off the phones and feet out of the courtroom. He has an amazing intuition as to my tipping point. My feet will be on the pavement when he'll finally authorize a fix - at least a temporary one.
Or, like two weeks ago, he sent the dubiously skilled fix-it guy to my door after I'd called, in order to explain why things were not getting fixed. (Never mind this guy spent an hour talking to me when he could have been fixing something.) There aren't enough employees to manage the eight buildings he owns (because they haven't been paid and then they quit, even the illegal immigrants). People have fallen behind paying rent and there aren't enough funds. Orazzio owes the places where they get supplies and therefore they can't get new anything. On and on and on.
Soon it becomes a counseling session in which I deliver career advice to the guy who's telling me he can't pay his rent (to Orazzio) because he's not getting paid regularly (by Orazzio) and who dreams, positively dreams of becoming a sanitation worker for the City of New York. There's a wait list, he says, but he knows some guys who know some guys who're soon gonna retire early, so he maybe has an "in."
And I'm thinking, doesn't it sound like Peto Management needs to sell a building? Maybe I'm nuts. I know being a landlord is tough. Managing a rent-stabilized building has to be tougher.
But look, he could have saved himself that expensive ticket from the city by putting lids on the garbage cans years ago! What a concept! He could have saved himself that expensive repair to our bathroom if we could have reached him when it started to drip. (As usual, his answering machine was full, apparently with other people calling with complaints and employees and supply houses looking for money, so nobody came for days and by that time the ceiling had caved in.)
Yet somehow he manages to engage our sense of pity, our sense of well, that's good enough, our sense of hope. Through the voices of his pitiful employees, who appear sometimes and invoke our sense of sympathy that they are not the cause of the problem, only victims of it, as we are, we get stuck in a downward spiral of no-I-don't-have-time-to-deal-with-this and -well-it's -really-not-that-bad and people-in-third-world-countries-have-it-worse-so-what-am-I-
complaining-about mentality.
We take a little action, like calling the city, and someone comes out and inspects, or not, and then nothing happens (are they getting paid off?) So we're quiet.
But I think the law is on our side. Today I called the Department of Buildings and actually talked to real person - an inspector who says he's coming out tomorrow to look at the boiler.
Good luck getting in, I tell him, with the buzzers not working and- isn't it ironic- he needs to call the landlord to get access to the thing.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
More adventures in rent-stabilized living
Sirens are always blaring in Brooklyn. I've learned, to my amazement, to sleep through them, or at least not remember them when I wake. Sometimes they're even accompanied with the low hum of large truck engines in the street which shake the floor and mirror and the windows. And I ignore them, because it's just another neighbor who had a heat attack.
This morning was no different. Until I heard Colin, next to me: "Do you smell smoke?"
Why yes, I did. I noticed the acrid smell of burning oil greeting my one unstuffed nostril in the late morning air. And - coincidentally? Three fire trucks parked outside the building, lights flashing. And the sound of large boots coming up the stairs.
Clothes first, then bathroom. I pulled a shirt over my head while on the toilet, and listening to the boots get closer - surely fire fighters coming to evacuate me and all the neighbors - made a mental list of the things I should insist on grabbing before being cast onto the cold, wet street for hours.
Coat, cell phone, a bottle of water. Wallet. Last, shoes. The trucks were a good sign, I theorized, that little would be destroyed in a blaze. Fire is something we often consider as a distinct possibility in our building. There are a lot of people living in close proximity, in an old building, not to mention adjoining buildings, and any one of us could make a mistake. That's why we have insurance.
We skip the whole feel the door thing and open it to several voices echoing in the hallway. Three firefighters, donning thick jackets with glow-in-the dark yellow stripes and wielding axes, are gathering information as best they can from our disabled neighbor across the hall. There is a loud beeping noise coming from downstairs.
One man steps forward, carrying in his right hand a small object that looks like a weapon from Start Trek. As he comes through our doorway, it's making alarming squacking noises. A CO2 detector.
Now, lest you should judge us, I want to say right here that we do keep a CO2 detector like any good citizens. But last week it started babbling at us that the batteries were dead. And I'm on this new kick to replace all batteries in the house with rechargeable ones, right? And do you think they carry them at the hardware store down the street? Nope. So it went "on the list" And the CO2 detector, unused for several years, has sat open, waiting for batteries, on the kitchen table, since exactly last Tuesday.
And here the writer began to smell smoke again. At first she was sure it was just sensory recall from writing the story of this morning, but...no...open the hallway door. CHUCK full of smoke again.
So if I should die and my laptop be recovered, let this be a lesson to all - when there's smoke, leave the building.
Where was I? Star trek device, squacking, beeping...strapping, dripping men with big boots tromping into the bedroom. Not such a bad thing, that part.
"Set phasers to stun!" he said as he crossed the threshold. No, he didn't.
"It's registering at 90 parts per million," states the strapping, dripping man authoritatively. He never takes his eyes off the machine. "We turned off the boiler. You should be OK if you air out." He brings the Star Trek device into the kitchen. "Open the windows," he commands. We do it.
Now our windows aren't all graceful to get at. I wasn't sure what happened until later when Colin, who witnessed from behind, described it, but I remember turning on the big white fan, leaning over the bed toward a window and disturbing the big green ball which lives rather precariously, perched between the bed and the wall. The big green ball, in turn, disturbed the big white fan, which went face down on the floor and stated making a sound like, "Thump! Thump! Thump! Thump!"
Thinking one of the blades was broken, I turned it off, quick-like. Then I started thinking about Jessica's dogs, upstairs. And then about Kristina's dog, downstairs. I don't wait or the blades to stop moving.
"What was in the fan?" I ask Colin, who has gone to investigate.
"You don't wanna know," he says.
We have recently begun a campaign of Shock and Awe in an attempt to control the mouse population recently on the rise, quite possibly because there are several walls open in several apartments due to leaks which are as yet still leaking into walls which are as yet cracked and broken open.
I asked Colin to bring home traps one night last week, and I meant snap traps. He brought glue traps.
"This is all they had at the grocery store," he explained, and started placing them about the kitchen in corners.
"I don't like glue traps," I said. "I thought you would got to the hardware store."
"I'll deal with them," he said.
"Okay..." I said.
And so when, a few hours later, I heard this teensy, horrid little SCREAMING coming from the corner in the kitchen, I naturally turned straight on my heel and called in the resident Man. The screaming intensified as The Man did whatever he did to that mouse and I shuddered, and then cried in the next room.
These creatures have relatively developed nervous systems. There's a reason why a mouse -why any creature - screams like that. He knows he's in trouble, he knows he's trapped. I've seen studies on what happens to animals when they're rendered helpless - cortisol levels, heart rates, dilated pupils, and so on; Dude. They KNOW.
And there's reason why mice are used as surrogate humans in experiments. They are similar to us.
"No more glue traps." I said to Colin in a measured voice as we left the apartment that night.
And so it is we've since gone at them with snap traps, and poison, and yes there's still a -torture- trap sitting on the counter which hasn't caught anyone, yet, thank god.
But we never expected that THE FAN was also a weapon in our arsenal.
"I can't figure out how to get it out," calls The Man as I search for shoes and grab my phone and the spare keys to Jessica's apartment. "Here, you can wear my slippers..." he offers. I hear him THUNKing at the fan as I make my way into the smoky hallway, up one flight of stairs to my neighbor's.
There are more fire fighters in the hallway up there. "You have access to the basement now," they laugh, responding to Colin's earlier comment that last week we couldn't let the cable guy into the back yard because Orazzio (the landlord) keeps a stiff padlock on the basement door - the basement being the only way to the back yard.
So far I've accounted for two doors and a window which have fallen under one of those wicked looking axes. They say they're relieved I have keys, because they could hear the little dogs barking, but maybe were also looking forward to busting down something else, I can't really tell behind the masks.
I can already hear the newly broken door to the roof upstairs, swinging in the rain against the building. THUUUUNk. THUUUNk. Thunk - beeeep - someone's CO2 detector is still going off. BAm - BAM- BAm go the dripping hot men's boots on the hollow wooden stairs. Voices ring in the hallway. Acrid, oily smoke. Jessica's chijuajuas must be freaking out.
But they merely seem happy to see me, as I run around opening windows with one hand and calling Kristina, owner of the dog downstairs, with the other. These tiny dogs seem puzzled, but they're all right. Stuart is far more frail than the last time I saw him, but I know it is because he has conjestive heart failure and nothing to do with the current crisis. His ribs shift too easily and his heart is beating fast and a little irregularly when I pick him up for a closer inspection, but I hold him and talk in what I hope are soothing tones between cell phone calls, and ultimately he seems like his old self.
I don't have a key to Kristina's apartment, so she grabs a car and speeds home from work. Her dog, although younger, is considerably less delicate than the chijuajuas, so we're not too worried about him, but it seems advisable to get him some Carbon with two Oxygens instead of one, somehow. Hank, all spring and cluelessness, jumps eagerly at my face as Kristina hands me a set of spare keys. In case of next time.
Which we didn't expect tonight.
Post-script: The boiler man arrived, (landlord called me to let him in - why? because none of the buzzers are working...) he broke the lock to the basement, (second time today) says the boiler is badly maintained and we should call the department of Buildings. Whatever that is.
Then he told me where the emergency shut-off switch is.
"See ya," he says. "Good luck!"
This morning was no different. Until I heard Colin, next to me: "Do you smell smoke?"
Why yes, I did. I noticed the acrid smell of burning oil greeting my one unstuffed nostril in the late morning air. And - coincidentally? Three fire trucks parked outside the building, lights flashing. And the sound of large boots coming up the stairs.
Clothes first, then bathroom. I pulled a shirt over my head while on the toilet, and listening to the boots get closer - surely fire fighters coming to evacuate me and all the neighbors - made a mental list of the things I should insist on grabbing before being cast onto the cold, wet street for hours.
Coat, cell phone, a bottle of water. Wallet. Last, shoes. The trucks were a good sign, I theorized, that little would be destroyed in a blaze. Fire is something we often consider as a distinct possibility in our building. There are a lot of people living in close proximity, in an old building, not to mention adjoining buildings, and any one of us could make a mistake. That's why we have insurance.
We skip the whole feel the door thing and open it to several voices echoing in the hallway. Three firefighters, donning thick jackets with glow-in-the dark yellow stripes and wielding axes, are gathering information as best they can from our disabled neighbor across the hall. There is a loud beeping noise coming from downstairs.
One man steps forward, carrying in his right hand a small object that looks like a weapon from Start Trek. As he comes through our doorway, it's making alarming squacking noises. A CO2 detector.
Now, lest you should judge us, I want to say right here that we do keep a CO2 detector like any good citizens. But last week it started babbling at us that the batteries were dead. And I'm on this new kick to replace all batteries in the house with rechargeable ones, right? And do you think they carry them at the hardware store down the street? Nope. So it went "on the list" And the CO2 detector, unused for several years, has sat open, waiting for batteries, on the kitchen table, since exactly last Tuesday.
And here the writer began to smell smoke again. At first she was sure it was just sensory recall from writing the story of this morning, but...no...open the hallway door. CHUCK full of smoke again.
So if I should die and my laptop be recovered, let this be a lesson to all - when there's smoke, leave the building.
Where was I? Star trek device, squacking, beeping...strapping, dripping men with big boots tromping into the bedroom. Not such a bad thing, that part.
"Set phasers to stun!" he said as he crossed the threshold. No, he didn't.
"It's registering at 90 parts per million," states the strapping, dripping man authoritatively. He never takes his eyes off the machine. "We turned off the boiler. You should be OK if you air out." He brings the Star Trek device into the kitchen. "Open the windows," he commands. We do it.
Now our windows aren't all graceful to get at. I wasn't sure what happened until later when Colin, who witnessed from behind, described it, but I remember turning on the big white fan, leaning over the bed toward a window and disturbing the big green ball which lives rather precariously, perched between the bed and the wall. The big green ball, in turn, disturbed the big white fan, which went face down on the floor and stated making a sound like, "Thump! Thump! Thump! Thump!"
Thinking one of the blades was broken, I turned it off, quick-like. Then I started thinking about Jessica's dogs, upstairs. And then about Kristina's dog, downstairs. I don't wait or the blades to stop moving.
"What was in the fan?" I ask Colin, who has gone to investigate.
"You don't wanna know," he says.
We have recently begun a campaign of Shock and Awe in an attempt to control the mouse population recently on the rise, quite possibly because there are several walls open in several apartments due to leaks which are as yet still leaking into walls which are as yet cracked and broken open.
I asked Colin to bring home traps one night last week, and I meant snap traps. He brought glue traps.
"This is all they had at the grocery store," he explained, and started placing them about the kitchen in corners.
"I don't like glue traps," I said. "I thought you would got to the hardware store."
"I'll deal with them," he said.
"Okay..." I said.
And so when, a few hours later, I heard this teensy, horrid little SCREAMING coming from the corner in the kitchen, I naturally turned straight on my heel and called in the resident Man. The screaming intensified as The Man did whatever he did to that mouse and I shuddered, and then cried in the next room.
These creatures have relatively developed nervous systems. There's a reason why a mouse -why any creature - screams like that. He knows he's in trouble, he knows he's trapped. I've seen studies on what happens to animals when they're rendered helpless - cortisol levels, heart rates, dilated pupils, and so on; Dude. They KNOW.
And there's reason why mice are used as surrogate humans in experiments. They are similar to us.
"No more glue traps." I said to Colin in a measured voice as we left the apartment that night.
And so it is we've since gone at them with snap traps, and poison, and yes there's still a -torture- trap sitting on the counter which hasn't caught anyone, yet, thank god.
But we never expected that THE FAN was also a weapon in our arsenal.
"I can't figure out how to get it out," calls The Man as I search for shoes and grab my phone and the spare keys to Jessica's apartment. "Here, you can wear my slippers..." he offers. I hear him THUNKing at the fan as I make my way into the smoky hallway, up one flight of stairs to my neighbor's.
There are more fire fighters in the hallway up there. "You have access to the basement now," they laugh, responding to Colin's earlier comment that last week we couldn't let the cable guy into the back yard because Orazzio (the landlord) keeps a stiff padlock on the basement door - the basement being the only way to the back yard.
So far I've accounted for two doors and a window which have fallen under one of those wicked looking axes. They say they're relieved I have keys, because they could hear the little dogs barking, but maybe were also looking forward to busting down something else, I can't really tell behind the masks.
I can already hear the newly broken door to the roof upstairs, swinging in the rain against the building. THUUUUNk. THUUUNk. Thunk - beeeep - someone's CO2 detector is still going off. BAm - BAM- BAm go the dripping hot men's boots on the hollow wooden stairs. Voices ring in the hallway. Acrid, oily smoke. Jessica's chijuajuas must be freaking out.
But they merely seem happy to see me, as I run around opening windows with one hand and calling Kristina, owner of the dog downstairs, with the other. These tiny dogs seem puzzled, but they're all right. Stuart is far more frail than the last time I saw him, but I know it is because he has conjestive heart failure and nothing to do with the current crisis. His ribs shift too easily and his heart is beating fast and a little irregularly when I pick him up for a closer inspection, but I hold him and talk in what I hope are soothing tones between cell phone calls, and ultimately he seems like his old self.
I don't have a key to Kristina's apartment, so she grabs a car and speeds home from work. Her dog, although younger, is considerably less delicate than the chijuajuas, so we're not too worried about him, but it seems advisable to get him some Carbon with two Oxygens instead of one, somehow. Hank, all spring and cluelessness, jumps eagerly at my face as Kristina hands me a set of spare keys. In case of next time.
Which we didn't expect tonight.
Post-script: The boiler man arrived, (landlord called me to let him in - why? because none of the buzzers are working...) he broke the lock to the basement, (second time today) says the boiler is badly maintained and we should call the department of Buildings. Whatever that is.
Then he told me where the emergency shut-off switch is.
"See ya," he says. "Good luck!"
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