Blogosaurus Vex

Today I had a lesson in giving advice, and why it is almost never advisable.  (Ha!)  In conversation with a dear friend, I found myself  beaking off with all manner of advice and opinions and interpretations, which were entirely unsolicited, and rather unwelcome.  I do know better than this – lesson one at therapy school is never give advice.  (Except things like “You should have a doctor look at that,” or “No, you should not abuse others” and so on.)  But I fell into it and of course the conversation ended tensely.

I’m not a total jerk – I did call up later to apologize for being so insensitive.  And have resolved anew to hold my tongue unless a request is received to do otherwise.  Because here is something else I have learned: when people come to you to talk about problems, they almost never want your advice.  Not really.  They want to vent.  They want to feel heard, supported, and cared for.  They almost always know what they’re going to do already, and even if they do outright ask for advice (a rare event indeed!), they generally do so only as a way to confirm their pre-existing decision, either by accepting your congruent advice or devising ways of shooting contradictory advice down.

Asking for advice is, in most instances, a form of social stroke exchange entirely divorced from the literal meaning of advice seeking.  And anyway, if the other person really doesn’t know what to do, and really wants your advice, you should run like fuck away from that trap.  One, you don’t want to be responsible for a course of action when you have imperfect knowledge of the situation which, trust me, you do.  And two, it’s creepy for someone else to totally abdicate responsibility for themselves to you and you just shouldn’t go there.  (Disclosure: I occasionally force Husband to offer advice when I’m stumped, though of course he hates this and I ignore his advice anyway.)

Hey, did you notice how I totally gave advice up there?  Oh, I kill me.  I just can’t escape being a know it all.  Oh well… if ever there was a place to be obnoxious, it’s on a blog.

Posted in Personal, Ranting | 5 Comments »

I’m spearheading the initiative to bring “whom” back into popular parlance.  From now on, I will strive to use whom whenever appropriate.  Remember: who is the subject, whom is the object.

Who’s with me?

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Don’t you hate it when those people who direct traffic around road construction do that thing where they simultaneously hold up their “SLOW” sign and wave at you frantically to hurry up? What the fuck!

If there’s one thing I took away from my college orientation, it’s to never send mixed signals by playing coy; if you say slow, mean it. Doing otherwise perpetuates date rape. And I’ll say it right here, the last thing I want to do is date rape a traffic control woman. They’re all so… haggard.

Posted in Ranting | 1 Comment »

My insomnia is back.

I just need to look at that for a second, and wallow in the misery.  It’s back.

A few minor bouts aside, my insomnia has been largely under control for several years now.  I will never be a great sleeper, but I could count on feeling rested when I got up in the morning.  And I came to a point where I actually enjoyed the many wakings a night I always go through – it makes the night feel longer, and therefore more luxurious.  I could always fall back asleep, so waking just represented a time to go to the bathroom and enjoy the fact that there are still X hours until morning.

Last night I think I slept about three hours, maybe four.  I couldn’t fall asleep for hours, and when I finally did, I snapped awake after an hour or so and then, finding myself fatigued but alert, tossed and turned for an hour or so more until another short nap could be achieved.   Repeat.  I think I got a couple hours solid in the early morning.  And insomnisleep is not like normal sleep.  There is no period of drifting off.  I go from awake into a deep sleep quite suddenly it seems, and similarly, the waking is fast too.  The whole process feels disjointed and uncomfortable.

I remember this feeling so well.  Fighting to keep from getting too frustrated in the night (anger being the kiss of death for sleeping), running through mental algorithms of ways to get back to sleep.  Progressive relaxation.  Distraction.  New positions.  Cool the bed down, change the pillow.  Move to the couch.  Move back.  Consider elaborate permutations of the consequences of getting up to read.  Decide to kill self from utter frustration; remind self that getting all worked up helps nothing.  Get all worked up anyway.

I woke up yawning.  My eyes are swollen.  My body aches.  I feel like shit.  And I feel a sense of doom, to get a little maudlin – there is no such thing as one bad night on its own.  They travel in packs.  I’ll do everything right today – exercise, eat well, take no naps, and choose a bed time that coincides with sleepiness, but I already know I’m not going to sleep tonight either.

What kind of fucked up disorder is not being able to sleep?  It kills me to know I’m the traitor – there is no tumour or lesion.  This is coming from my head, or at least it is now – I get so freaked out when the sleep goes that I pretty much guarantee myself a hard time of it from the first night on.

Posted in Health | 3 Comments »

Today I bought an ironing board.  And I was finally forced to admit that I’m glad we have a convertible: if the top didn’t go down, there’s no way I would have been able to fit the ironing board in the car.  Of course, if our car wasn’t a convertible, it would probably be big enough to just take the ironing board without bothering about the roof at all.  But nevermind that.  At last I can iron while standing, rather than doing it kneeling on the floor with the garment to be ironed spread out over a folded towel.  For the record, it is impossible to iron sleeves properly in this fashion.

And I cleaned the living room today, which is sort of disappointing because, despite over an hour of dusting and tidying, it looks like nothing got done here at all.  I much prefer cleaning the bathroom, where you can always appreciate the difference between the before and after states.  Dusting?  Not so much.  In fact, when Puck came over tonight he commented on how messy the apartment is (which is true – I’m in the middle of laundry and the dining table is awash with papers), not on how dust free it also is.  Alas!  Cleaning can be so thankless sometimes.

I met my mom for lunch, pinned some pants for hemming, finished writing up an assignment for school, prepared meals, cleaned the kitchen, and watched a movie.  Speaking of thankless jobs, I also washed all the garbage cans in the house.  I usually wash the one in the kitchen once a week or so, but haven’t done the bathroom bins in months.  I don’t know why, but I really get itchy if I don’t clean the kitchen garbage can regularly.  I know it’s just where I put the garbage, but somehow I can’t stand to know it’s smudgy and smelly.  I clean it by washing it with dish soap, then let it stand full of hot water and a healthy splash of bleach for half an hour or so.  Then it air dries, and finally goes back under the sink with a fresh grocery bag.  So much trouble for a trash can!  But it makes me happy, so what the hell.

Posted in Domesticity | 1 Comment »

Last night I went to the poker game.  I never play, but usually someone brings chips, and as long as I don’t buy them I really can’t be help morally responsible for weakening and eating them, can I?  After all, I did my part.  There were chips, but more dangerously, there were Clodhoppers.  I actually have always thought these were popcorn, so imagine my delight (and dismay!) when I discovered they were little graham cookies, covered in whatever that stuff they’re covered in is.  Scrumptious!  Then Husband and I ordered a pizza, and then I snacked on pretzels… it was a disaster.

Nonetheless, it was quite pleasant to see the poker gang.  Esan and I have made a plan to go watch the football game this evening, which I am quite looking forward to.  And we have tentative dinner plans with another of our friends, who we don’t see much but came out to the game last night.   In general, it was a good night.  The only down side came when, as we leaft Esan’s, we discovered that Joe and Mel’s car had been side swiped by some woman in a stolen car.  Luckily the police were right there still, with the woman in cuffs and everything.  The car wasn’t too badly damaged, and luckily there is now an official police record of the damage, which I imagine will ensure they don’t have to pay for repairs themselves.

And this morning I got to sleep in after a weekend of early rising for classes.  Now I’m going to watch Law and Order and clean my damn bathrooms, which are unholy.

Posted in Personal | 1 Comment »

In keeping with the general chaos of my life these days, today was unexpectedly a very nice day which I enjoyed immensely.

It doesn’t make for good blog fodder, does it?

Posted in Personal | 1 Comment »

Recently, in class, a discussion got started about using animals for research, and the pros and cons of the whole animal testing industry.  One fellow, who I freely admit I am not particularly fond of, started going on and on about how animal research is just the most terrible thing in the world, it’s inexcusable, no finding or medicine could ever be worth the suffering of the creatures involved, and so on.  What made this so fascinating to me is that he had to squeeze his arguments out between enormous bites of the grilled chicken sandwich he was eating.

I tried to think of something devastatingly clever to say, something that would totally rock his world and make him realize how shocking hypocritical is it to attack animal testing on the grounds of suffering while eating a dead chicken (which surely suffered on its way to his sandwich).  Nothing good came – alas! – so I somewhat inelegantly asked, “But what about that chicken you’re eating?  Didn’t it suffer?”

He replied, “That’s different.  I’m a carnivore.”  And went right back to insisting that it’s just plain wrong to make animals suffer for science.  I thought about this for a minute, trying to see if it made sense, and decided it does not.  If it’s okay to make a bird suffer to keep you alive via ingestion, why not via cancer medicine?  The only difference I can see is that one is necessary (animal testing doesn’t have any good replacements in science) and one is totally superfluous (this isn’t exactly a hunter gatherer society, people!  Safeway stocks legumes!).  And we won’t even go into the fallacy of the carnivore argument.  I’ve talked about this many times before and you all know where I stand on it.

Anyway, it got me thinking because, as a general rule, I support animal research.  I do think it should be done as ethically as possible, with as little suffering as can be achieved, and as infrequently as we can.  But, if tormenting and killing some rats will lead to a cure for AIDS, then I back it totally.  Testing for stupid shit like makeup?  No.  But for medicine?  Or even sociological research that we can use for society’s  betterment?  Yes.

Of course it’s incredibly difficult to tell when it’s worth it.  Some of the most important discoveries in the history of science happened by accident.  Basic research is crucial.  And sometimes you can’t tell if your work is going to bear fruit until you’ve been at it for years.  So… does that mean it’s okay to use animals without a clear plan, just to see what happens, in case something interesting does?  Hard to defend but hard to attack, if you think big picture.  I tend to think that suffering comes in two major categories: that which we intentionally inflict, and that which occurs through inaction.  Choosing to not test on animals eliminates the first, but can inflict the second (through maintained rates of terminal diseases, say, or ignorance of a social principle that leads to deaths – I’m thinking obedience and Nazism as a classic example).  It’s too complicated to say that we must avoid harm by not testing on animals.  The very act of choosing not to inadvertently causes harm in other ways.

And I do value human life over animal life in just about every case.  Ideally, we should live without that conflict when possible – we have a responsibility to do as little harm as we can, and to not cause undue suffering purely for pleasure.  But at the end of the day, a person counts for way more than an animal (see Douglas Hofstadter’s discussion of Hunekers in this book).

I don’t have this fully thought out yet, but I just thought it was an interesting incident.

Posted in Personal, Vegetarianism | 3 Comments »

I went to the doctor’s today, for a checkup and to do the yearly maintenance.  I have a new doctor, who is a woman, and I must say it’s very nice having a female to do the… maintenance.  Because while I’m sure all those male GP’s are totally used to doing it and think nothing of it, I’m not used to having it done and do think something of it.  In addition to the comfort of not having weird intragender privacy anxiety, my new doctor did a very good (by which I mean comfortable) job and, as any woman will tell you, that’s worth its weight in gold.

Enough about that.  Let’s move on to my embarrassing prescription.  I get terrible cold sores.  Truly, truly horrific ones.  My cold sores generally begin as a swelling on the lower lip that is so enormous that I can’t close my mouth and I drool all over myself.  Seriously.  My lip looks like someone inserted a golf ball into it.  You can see the lump from space.  Sailors use it to navigate by night.  By day two or three, the swelling is much reduced but I still look like my husband beats me and of course by this time there’s the actual sore part, which is huge and gross and leprous looking.  And, as if this isn’t enough, I get them in waves.  If I don’t take medication, one cold sore fades into the next and I can actually get four to six months of constant cold sores.  Imagine half a year of golf balls and leprosy, and you’ll see why I take daily medication to keep the virus at bay.

Here is the problem: the pill I take for cold sores is also the pill folks take who have genital herpes because, of course, cold sores are a form of herpes.  And let me say it here, for all the world to know: I do not have genital herpes!  But every pharmacist at the local grocery stores thinks I do, because I’m a regular Valtrex customer.  Sometimes I go in to fill my prescription and they ask me, “Are you having an outbreak right now?”  And I stand there thinking, there’s no wide load guide truck in front of me, obviously I’m not having an outbreak right now – and then I realize they’re not talking about my face.  And I say, “No no… it’s for cold sores.  And I don’t have one right now.” And they look at me like I’m a fifteen year old who claims to want birth control for her menstrual cramps.

And of course, who cares if they think I have genital herpes, or bubonic plague, or an alien implant?  It’s none of their business (except the part where they fetch me the pills).  And even if I did, that isn’t a value judgment on me.  I can have any virus I like, thank you very much, and it has nothing to do with anything else about me.  At least, that’s how it is in perfect world.  In reality world, there’s a major social stigma about sexual viruses and I really don’t want to be associated with one.  Except that I am.  Humbug!

Posted in Health | 2 Comments »

Yesterday began as had several weeks worth of days before it: blankly.  I got up late, and then did nothing for a few hours.  Husband asked if I was going to do laundry, which is a pretty safe bet because a) I like doing laundry, b) the hampers were overflowing and obviously needed to be taken care of and c) he had no clean work pants and, it being Sunday, they needed to get cleaned.  I’m the laundry person in this house so asking about the laundry status should be fine – but I got all surly and grouchy about it.  And because he’s no fool, Husband set to tidying up the dining table (awash with our papers), I suspect largely to appease me.  Because I was being a grouchy beast.

It’s so unpleasant discovering what a jerk you are.

Anyway, I had a good turn-around yesterday.  I decided to cook, which I love, and after a trip to the grocery store was all set for messing up the kitchen.  We enjoyed vegetarian pho for lunch (fake “beef” broth that is a bit chemically tasting but close enough for us), and when Husband left for poker I prepared an absolutely massive pot of minestrone soup from scratch.

This is probably my favourite way to spend an afternoon in all the world: Be home alone.  Put the TV on to some crime drama or a movie for company.  Be in the kitchen making something delicious and simmery.  Move laundry around, using folding time as a break from cooking to watch the TV.  Have a novel around for reading when there’s nothing going on (including when the TV is slow – reading does, after all, trump the idiot box).  Drink diet pop.  It helps if it’s raining.

And that’s just what I did yesterday.  Somehow, the routine seemed to help me get a bit back to my normal operating space.  I felt good, just puttering around and doing things I enjoy – simple things, easy things with high reward.  Hot food coming, and well folded, fresh clothes all ready to put away, and a purely pleasurable novel.   I haven’t felt so at peace in weeks.

And, today, things that have been preying on my mind started resolving of their own accord.  That presentation I have no idea how to do?  I got an idea and fired it off to the professor for approval.  Suddenly the things that have been looming large over my life are looking a lot more manageable.  My stress level is way down, just like that.

It’s incredible how your perception can affect you – same problems, different days, totally different interpretations.  Three days ago I was paralyzed with stress and a sort of flat unhappiness, doing nothing but sleeping and staring at the TV.  I realize now that this low mood has been creeping on for probably a month now, and I was like the proverbial frog in the hot water, not noticing until I’d reached the point of sleeping all day and being unable to function as a student.  But today I feel calm and content, capable and interested.  I have no idea what changed, though of course we mustn’t discount the restorative power of soup.

Posted in Health, Personal | No Comments »