Anesthesia

"Do you know what it means to relieve man of his pain and suffering?

Anesthesia is the most humane of all of man's accomplishments,

and what a merciful accomplishment it was."

-- Joseph Lewis, An Atheist Manifesto

Self portrait 2-28-14

"Do you know that the religionists opposed the use of anesthesia 

on the ground that God sent pain as a punishment for sin, 

and it was considered the greatest of sacrileges to use it --

just think of it, a sin to relieve man of his misery! 

What a monstrous perversion! 

This one instance alone should convince you 

of the difference in believing in God or not."

-- Joseph Lewis, An Atheist Manifesto

If you've ever needed anesthesia, then you know full well what a good thing it is.

After wheeling me into the operating room to stitch up my "cancer hole" yesterday, the plastic surgeon injected a needle full of anesthetic into my face that numbed the whole right side of my head. Even my teeth. Even my ear. Even my lips. Even my nose. 

I knew he was in there scrubbing and then sewing away, but I couldn't feel a thing. 

I had the procedure at 1 p.m. The anesthetic didn't wear off until about 6 p.m. And when it did, boy howdy I knew it.

Ding! Ding! Ding!

Which brings us to the One Good Thing History Nugget!

The first use of ether as an anesthetic in 1846 by W.T.G. Morton 

Anesthesia was discovered by American dentist William T.G. Morton, who, in 1846, first publicly demonstrated the use of inhaled ether as a surgical anesthetic by performing a painless tooth extraction after administering ether to the patient.

I, for one, am glad the use of anesthesia has progressed beyond an ether-soaked rag to the face.

I'm also glad that my gaping wound is now closed. I'm puffy and purple and look like I've been in a fist fight.

But I'll survive.

It's Not Melanoma

"Please don't be foolish like me. 

Get yourself checked. And USE sunscreen!!!"

-- Hugh Jackman 

Cupcake with stitches 2-27-14

There's a scene in the film Prelude To A Kiss where the Old Man says "Can I give you two a piece of advice? Floss."

It's a very sound piece of advice.  But he could just as easily have said "Use sunscreen."

This is all by the way of saying I had to have a chunk of my face removed yesterday because it contained skin cancer.

The remaining crater is as big around as a nickel and goes the entire depth of my skin -- all the way down to the fat layer. It's nice and prominent, too, just above my cheekbone directly under my right eye. I have to go to the hospital today for the plastic surgeon to stitch it shut.

That's one bad thing.

Another bad thing is that I can't swim for at least a couple of months, because of the stitches, and also because the scar is going to be right where my goggles hit, which could totally fuck up the healing process.

Sad face.

The good thing is, it's a highly treatable kind of skin cancer, not the potentially deadly kind. Everybody keeps telling me it's in a good place because after the stitches heal, it'll blend right in with my eye wrinkles. (Boy, they really know how to make a girl feel attractive.)

Plus, now I have something in common with Hugh Jackman. Except his skin cancer was on his nose.

Oh, and another thing they said was that there is a chance my eye will bruise and possibly swell shut. So there's that.

Of course I had lots of questions -- cancer-related questions. But on the car ride home, I asked my husband the really burning question: "What is a self-portrait photographer supposed to do when she gets a nickel-sized chunk taken out of her face?" We both agreed I'd have to get creative. Also, I might start wearing rehab shades. Or a big eye patch. Maybe a Phantom of the Opera mask. Stay tuned.

Sitting in the dermatologist's waiting room surrounded by wrinkly, sun-spotted old people with bandaged faces covering craters like mine was kind of sad. I felt like I was seeing into my future. And it sucked.

Skin cancer is not attractive. And it's easily preventable.

Can I give you a piece of advice?

Use sunscreen.

Having My Tummy Rubbed

"Our sorrows and wounds are healed
only when we touch them with compassion."

-- Buddha

Tummy rub 2-26-14

"Well, maybe I could help. Can I scratch your ears? I could rub your tummy."

-- Stuart Little

"So now that your ... soft underbelly is all exposed ..."

-- Carol Connelly, As Good As It Gets

I had a massage yesterday, which is always a good thing.

But this time was different.

I had a tummy ache, which is nothing new. But this one was bad. Real bad. For about a week it's felt like I've had a nest of trapped, angry pit vipers wrestling around in my abdomen.

I've had stress-related tummy aches since I was a little kid. My mom would just curtly send me to my room to lie down. 

But my massage therapist Leah listened to me very concernedly and then asked if, during my usual massage, it would be alright for her to massage my belly.

Typically a massage includes everything except the front side of the torso. Everything gets touched except the area from armpits to groin.

It's a vulnerable area, the belly. It is not an area where I particularly like being touched. By anyone. So when Leah got to that part of the massage, I tensed up. And even though she did a deft job of keeping everything else covered up with blankets and towels, I couldn't help feeling exposed.

But then she drizzled on warm healing oil and began gently pressing my tummy in clockwise circles. She whispered soothing things in soft tones. I melted. I was completely unprepared for how powerful it would be.

I couldn't speak.

I'm never super chatty during a massage anyway, but this particular touch in this particular place on my body stole away my defenses, my words. A hush fell over the room. It felt sacred somehow.

The whole thing lasted about five minutes, but in those five minutes Leah charmed the snakes. The vipers quieted down and stopped fighting.

I felt such deep gratitude. My eyes released little tears that ran down into my ears. I took full breaths for the first time in days, it seemed.

The rest of my massage proceeded as usual, and it was all good. But those five minutes were the soft, gooey center.

Leah sent me home with a little bottle of the healing oil so I could massage it into my belly myself. Later in the evening, when the snakes started stirring again, I rubbed it in the way she told me to. It wasn't even close to feeling the same. But it helped a little.

There are all kinds of touch. The good, the bad, the incidental.

This was definitely the good kind.

Thank you, Leah. You did a good thing.

The Therapy Side Of Art

"Art can permeate the very deepest part of us, where no words exist."

-- Eileen Miller, 

The Girl Who Spoke With Pictures: 

Autism Through Art

Abstract 2-25-14

"I am a lonely painter

I live in a box of paints

I'm frightened by the devil

But I'm drawn to those ones that ain't."

-- Joni Mitchell, "A Case of You"

Sunflower 2-25-14

"... in art therapy, your inner world  of images, feelings, thought, and ideas

are always of primary importance to the experience."

-- Cathy Maldiochi, The Art Therapy Sourcebook

I know full well that whenever I launch a new 365 days project, there will be good days and there will be bad days. It's simply part of the bargain. Part of the journey.

A project like this one couldn't exist without the bad days. If it did, it would be a fucking lie.

My very first year-long project was spawned by bad days. It was a year of self portraits that I didn't show to anybody except the therapist who suggested I use my photography as art therapy.

That was over 3 years ago, and I am still using my art as therapy when things get rough and tough. 

Like this week.

I'm in a little bad patch. A bit of a skid.

I'm struggling with some stuff I thought I had conquered, but now is back, and I'm discouraged.

It's been a difficult 3-steps-back kind of week. I've noticed that look in my eyes again. It's a look I only get when the darkness creeps in -- my brow crawls down into a knot between my eyes and my jaw clenches, freezing my mouth into a perpetual grimace. I look like I'm bracing for impact.

I'm scared of how I feel.

But as in the past 3 years, when it feels like the ship is sinking, there is a tiny life boat that floats me away from the downward spiral.

Art.

Even when I don't feel like it, I know that immersing myself if something, anything creatively engaging will help me stay afloat until the rescue helicopter comes to airlift me out.

Yesterday it was finger painting. Yep. Good old fashioned kindergarten-style finger painting. 

First I turned on K.D. Lang's Hymns of the 49th Parallel (the only music that can reach me at times like this). Then I put on my art apron, rolled up my sleeves and schmutzed paint around on paper for a couple of hours.

It helped.

It didn't fix my bad shit, or make my bad shit go away. But the feel of cold paint on my hands and the sound of healing music in my ears did something to my mind that helped me forget the twisting in my guts until I was able to catch my breath. 

I made two paintings. They may not be any good. Art critics might tear them to shreds. Real artists might think they're crap. A passer-by might think their 4-year-old nephew could do better. But I didn't make them for critics or artists or passers-by or anyone's damn nephew.

I did them to lift the pressure of the paws of the beast that's been sitting on my chest and panting its hot sour breath in my face. Kind of like throwing a stick for it to chase. He'll be back.

It doesn't matter if my finger paintings are any good.

Making them was good for me.

Shooting! Explosions! Crashes! Snacks!

"Don't you go to the movies?"

"Mostly just to eat popcorn in the dark."

-- Charles Bukowski, 

Betting on the Muse: Poems and Stories

Lego movie popcorn 2-24-14

"Theatrical is fantastic.

I don't think anything will ever replace the big dark room,

the screen and the popcorn."

-- Mel Gibson 

Going to the movies is like pizza.

Even when it's not that great, it's still pretty good.

We caught a late afternoon matinee yesterday. No, not The Lego Movie, although I have it on pretty good authority that it's darn entertaining. But I really hate going to movies where there are lots of children.

We opted for RoboCop. 

It was a popcorn movie, which by my definition means it's loud enough that you can crunch popcorn with abandon and rattle candy wrappers all you want without pissing off everyone else in the theater.

So yeah, it was loud. There was shooting. Explosions. Car crashes. A motorcycle chase sequence. The usual suspects.

The special effect of the RoboCop guy as just a torso and a head was weirdly fascinating and worth the price of a ticket all by itself.

Besides, it killed a couple of hours on a slow Sunday, and there were snacks.

Was it great? Meh.

Was it good?

Good enough.

Baking Cookies

"Think what a better world it would be if we all, the whole world,

had cookies and milk about three o'clock every afternoon

and then lay down on our blankets for a nap."

-- Barbara Jordan

Homemade cookie 2-23-14

"Baking cookies is comforting, and cookies are the sweetest little bit of comfort food.

They are very bite-sized and personal."

-- Sandra Lee

Here is my foolproof, step by step guide for adding a little goodness to your day, or to the day of someone you love. It's as easy as 1,2,3:

Step 1: Make A Mess

Step 2: Bake Some Little Dough Blobs

Step 3: Eat The Cookies

"I think cookies are sort of the unsung sweet, you know?"

-- Bobby Flay

Of course, if it is an emergency, you can skip steps 2 and 3 and just eat all of the dough. But then you might feel not-so-good, and that's not a good thing. It's definitely a risk you take when baking cookies. So I highly recommend following all of the steps.

There.

Now don't you feel just a little better?

Getting Lost Inside Myself

"Part of the urge to explore is the desire to become lost."

-- Tracy Johnston, 

Shooting the Boh: A Woman's Voyage Down the Wildest River in Borneo

Self portrait 2-22-14

"I have nowhere to go and no place I'm supposed to be.

Am I lost or completely free?"

-- Doug Cooper, Outside In

"Far from troubling him, this state of being lost 

became a source of happiness, of exhilaration.

He breathed it into his very bones. "

-- Paul Auster, The Invention of Solitude

Where am I?

Have you seen me?

Maybe I'm hiding.

Or maybe I'm lost.

Either way, I'm gone. Vanished. Hiding in my work. Lost in the worlds of my imagination. 

I've been other kinds of lost -- the frightening, terrifying, panic-inducing kind. 

But this is a lost of a different hue.

This is the good kind of lost -- the exhilarating, wondrous, happy-inducing kind.

I like it here.

I know I can't stay forever and that I'll have to navigate my way back eventually.

But I hope I don't find me just yet.

At Least I Didn't Break A Hip

"When you're on the ice, you have very little time,

you see very little, and everything happens really quick."

-- Steve Yzerman

Falling pipe cleaner figure 2-21-14

"The only way to amuse some people is to slip and fall on an icy pavement."

-- E. W. Howe

"Whenever I see an old lady slip and fall on a wet sidewalk,

my first instinct is to laugh. 

But then I think, what if I was an ant, and she fell on me.

Then it wouldn't seem quite so funny."

-- Jack Handy, "Deep Thoughts, With Jack Handy"

I wish I had a cool story to explain how I slipped and fell on the ice -- that I got tripped in the Winter Olympics speed skating finals, or didn't land my 450 in the half pipe or fully rotate my quadruple salchow. Hell, I'd settle for tripping over my curling broom for Chrissakes.

But I don't have a cool story.

I was simply walking across the parking lot at the pool, and my foot slid on some ice, and I fell ass-over-teakettle and hit the ground. I dropped like a rock. Hard.

It happened so fast. I was up, and then I was down, although I did have a momentary slow-motion awareness that "this can't end well" before I hit the wet, icy pavement.

It hurt. 

The good thing is, nothing's broken.

I have a significant bruise on my hip, my wrist is extremely stiff and I have minor contusions on my arm and elbow.

I'll live.

But the judges are gonna have some major deductions.

Dinner With Friends

"Strange to see how a good dinner and feasting reconciles everybody."

-- Samuel Pepys

Zombie finger puppets eating a brain 2-20-14

"I'd rather dig a ditch than go to a dinner party with people I don't know."

-- Marian Keyes

Last night we had a delicious dinner at one of our favorite restaurants with two of our favorite people -- our good friends Bob and Julie. 

Being with Bob and Julie is easy and familiar, like slipping into a pair of soft, comfortable jeans. They're real, and unpretentious, and lovely. They are the type of people who would, and have, do anything for us. They say yes without asking questions first. They're just there. And it's a good thing, because I've needed them to be.

I've grown wary of so-called friends who've burned me with their agendas and ulterior motives. But Bob and Julie only have one agenda -- to love us. They're as constant as the North star. They've been there to celebrate our victories, and they've been there to mourn our losses, and for pretty much everything in between. 

Mostly, we just really enjoy each other's company. It's refreshing. Nourishing.

And while the meal was delicious (I had the rainbow trout), spending an evening with two genuinely kind and lovely people was even more satisfying -- and when it comes to good things, two is always better than one.

The Smell Of Supper Cooking

"I said, names aren't important," he repeated.

There was a silence between them for some seconds,

then the Ranger said: "Do you know what is important?"

Will shook his head.

"Supper is important!"

-- John Flanagan, The Ruins of Gorlan

Polymer clay face with his supper 2-19-14

"People think that if a man has undergone any hardship, he should have a reward;

but for my part, if I have done the hardest possible days work, 

and then come to sit down in a corner and eat my supper comfortably -- 

why, then I don't think I deserve any reward for my hard day's work --

for am I not now at peace? Is my supper not good? 

My peace and my supper are my reward, dear Hawthorne."

-- Herman Melville, "Letter to Nathaniel Hawthorne"

A Backup Plan

"The most successful people are those who are good at plan B."

-- James Yorke

Sheldon's Marsh 2-18-14

"Look, if you had one shot, or one opportunity.

To seize everything you ever wanted in one moment.

Would you capture it or just let it slip?"

-- Eminem

Coat? Check.
Boots? Check.
Hat? Check.
Mittens? Check.
Camera? Fuck.

When Leo and I go for walks in the woods, we always bring our cameras, just in case we see anything photo-worthy.

But this time my camera battery was spent and I hadn't charged it yet.

My 35 mm camera is broken.

I was screwed.

Or was I?

I grabbed my 1985 point-and-shoot and my $1.99 thrift store Polaroid and off we went. At one point I was wearing both of my cameras, Leo's camera, and Leo's deer call all at once. Leo said that with all that shit hanging around my neck I looked like Louis from The Trumpet of the Swan. Gotta love a good literary insult from a wise-ass kid.

The film is still in the point-and-shoot, so I'll have to wait and see if any of the four frames I shot on it are any good.

I shot two pictures with the Polaroid. The thing about Polaroids is, you only get eight shots per pack of film, and each shot costs roughly $4 apiece, so you've got to choose wisely. It's not like a digital camera where you can fire off hundreds of shots for free. You have to conserve film -- make damn sure before you press the button.

One of the Polaroids was terribly underexposed, but this one came out pretty good, I think. I like how the setting sun is peeking through the trees, and I like the sort of misty quality of it. It's a moment that reminds me of a whole lot of other moments that made up an afternoon adventure with someone special.

When I got home, it was actually kind of nice not having to sort through frame after frame after frame.

Nevertheless, for about half the price of a pack of Polaroid film, I went ahead and ordered two extra batteries and another charger for my digital camera so this doesn't happen again. I like Polaroids, but I'm not made of money.

When you only have one shot, that's your one shot.

So you take it.

But it's always a good thing to have a backup plan.

Hanging Out

"In Inversions we put our heart above our heads. 

Can you imagine how our lives -- 

how the world would change -- 

if we put our heart above our heads more often!"

-- Miriam Austin

Wood mannequin 2-17-14

"Inverting gives the heart a break."

-- Larry Payne, co-author of Yoga for Dummies

"Gravity hurts."

-- Viktor Alexandrov

As a kid, I enjoyed hanging by my legs with my knees hooked over the monkey bars or a tree branch -- wherever I could.

I did it because it just felt good.

Somewhere along the line I stopped doing it. I guess when you get old enough it's considered silly to hang upside down. Or dangerous. Or something.

It shouldn't, because it still feels good, and it's good for you.

Yoga teachers throughout the ages have touted the benefits of inversion poses -- shoulder stands, headstands, the "plow" pose. These upside down positions clear the mind, oxygenate and improve blood flow to the brain, align the body and spine, relieve stress, aid sleep, improve circulation and digestion, build immunity, strength and balance, calm the nervous system, improve overall well-being and temporarily undo what gravity does.

As much as I enjoy yoga, I can only hold a headstand for a few seconds and "plow" makes me claustrophobic. So I opt to get my inversion benefits by hanging from my legs, like when I was a kid. Except now I skip the monkey bars and branches and hang from my hi-tech inversion table. It's a teeter-totter style mechanism that holds me by the ankles so I can dangle upside down for as long as I like without the risk of falling on my head.

I love the initial buzz I get from the rush of blood draining in reverse from my feet to my head. I love the alleviation of pressure I feel, the stretching of my joints, the uncoiling of my guts, the opening of my spine, my lungs, my senses.

I always feel a little taller when I'm done, too.

I invert pretty much daily, sometimes twice, usually for 10 or 15 minutes or until I'm well-hung. (Sorry, I couldn't resist.)

I feel like I could do it for hours. I wish I could sleep there, inverted, dangling from my feet like a bat.

The official name for it is "inversion therapy".

I just call it hanging out.



 

Having Me All To Myself

"There are people who like to be alone 

without feeling lonely at all."

-- Toby Beta, Master of Stupidity

Self portrait 2-16-14

"I wondered why it was that places are so much lovelier when one is alone."

-- Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca

Self portrait (2) 2-16-14

"There is no doubt that solitude is a challenge 

and to maintain balance within it a precarious business.

But I must not forget that, for me, being with people 

or even with one beloved person

for any length of time without solitude 

is even worse.

I lose my center. 

I feel dispersed, scattered, in pieces."

-- May Sarton, Journal of Solitude

I'm one of those people who requires large doses of solitude.

I crave it.

I'm quite content in my own company, thankyouverymuch.

In fact, I have to force myself to seek the company of others. 

The people who live in my house are not in the house much of the time, which leaves me alone much of the time. If people didn't actually live in my house, I'd probably be alone almost all of the time.

And that's perfectly OK with me.

I'm just not relationship-y. Cultivating friendships is work. I don't actively seek companionship or personal attachments. Making a phone call, writing an e-mail, meeting for lunch, or even just a cup of coffee feels like a "have to," not a "want to." 

It's not them, it's me.

Sometimes I criticize myself for this seeming deficiency in my own personality. Why does "together" look so easy for other people? How do they do it? Why can't I? Am I that fucked up?

I wonder if I'm just extremely selfish. I wonder if my "I like solitude" line is just a cover for "I'm really just a self-absorbed bitch."

And then I have a day like yesterday. Nobody else was home. It was just me. All day.

• I exercised with my music turned up loud.
• I took a long shower.
• I combed my hair a bunch of different ways -- slicked, spiked, smooth, tousled -- and then seriously contemplated buzzing it all off. 
• I washed my sheets and re-made my bed.
• I baked a blueberry cobbler. 
• While the cobbler baked, I ate lunch in pure silence.
• I cleaned out a cupboard.
• I watched some recorded episodes of my favorite TV shows that I'd stockpiled for just such a day.
• I painted a painting and then threw it away. 
• I took pictures of myself, with myself. 
• I cooked supper.

And I wasn't bored. I wasn't lonely. I just ... was.

It was a good day.

Around 7:30, when everyone finally rolled back home, I wondered where the day had flown.

A Lucky Find

"I like the sound a typewriter makes."

-- Paul Auster

Typewriter keys 2-15-14

"There on the landing sits the typewriter. It is clogged with dust, the ribbon dried and flimsy ... He realises he can replicate in his head the exact sound it used to make. The clac-clac-a-clac of the metal letters hitting the paper, the ribbon raising itself each time to make the impression. The machine-gun fire of it ... The ding every time the carriage reached its limit. The whirr as the page was snatched out, then the rolling ratcheting as a new one was wound in."

-- Maggie O'Farrell, 

The Hand That First Held Mine

Whenever I go to buy art supplies, I usually walk a couple of doors down and take a spin through the thrift store. It's like a treasure hunt, and I've made some pretty good finds there. I'm a particular sucker for Barbies, action figures, good leather belts and old cameras. But yesterday, still empty-handed after my swing through housewares, I made a really good find. 

Well, Leo made it.

He spied a lovely, compact little electric Smith-Corona "Coronet Electric 12" typewriter on a shelf strewn with cast-off lamps and electric juicers and a bunch of light-up Exit signs (still in their boxes). The sticker on the typewriter said $1.79. 

Leo: (excitedly) Let's get it.

Me:  (cynically) Let's see if it even works, first.

It was adorably retro, from the '70s, dove gray and baby blue. It was a little dirty, but it had a ribbon in it. There was an outlet right behind it, so we plugged it in and switched it on. Leo rolled a wrinkled receipt into the carriage and waddaya know? It worked. And pretty darn well. The ribbon still had plenty of ink and the keys all worked. Leo announced "We're takin' it," unplugged it, tucked it under his arm and we headed for the checkout.

With tax it came to a grand total of $1.92. 

I love typewriters. I miss them. I miss the sound of them. And even though this one plugs in, it's older. It isn't fancy or sophisticated. It sounds and works very much like a manual machine.

Several years ago an elderly friend gave me her husband's old manual Smith-Corona, a vintage one from 1939, which he used in graduate school. It was still in its case, pristine and perfect. I was beyond thrilled to get it, even though I had to scour the Internet to find ribbons that fit it. 

I type letters on it, mostly, when e-mail isn't personal or private enough. If you receive a typed letter from me, it probably means that I like you a great deal.

Leo was still pretty little when I got it. His bedroom is right next to my workroom, and there were nights when I was typing noisily away while he was down the hall in his bed. 

Me: Am I keeping you awake, Buddy? I can quit if it's bugging you.

Leo: No. Don't stop. I like it.

Sound is a powerful emotional trigger. A specific sound can evoke memories that transport you instantly to another time and place. There are sounds that annoy and irritate, sounds that frighten. And there are sounds that soothe and comfort, sounds that elicit pleasure. 

For me, like for Leo, the sound of a typewriter is a good thing. 

Until she retired, my mom was a professional secretary, trained at the renowned Katharine Gibbs College in Boston. She could type like a fiend, and perfectly. My dad typed on a giant, heavy, Royal manual, a leftover from the high school typing classroom when they switched over to IBM Selectrics. He was a big guy and he banged and smashed the keys, shaking the whole dinner table which he used as a desk, cursing when he goofed, glopping on blobs of Liquid Paper to cover his mistakes. 

Since we brought it home, our new typewriter has been plugged in on the kitchen island. Leo can't leave it alone. He typed a letter to his brother and keeps messing around with it, typing nonsense just to type. 

He types exactly like my dad, noisily and with just his index fingers. He has the cursing down pretty well, too.

Computers and keyboards and "touch pads" are silencing the typewriter's voice, and there will, sadly, come a day when children won't even know what a typewriter was, much less how one sounded.

Not on my watch.

For whoever dumped off my new typewriter, it had most likely become a useless and obsolete relic that was just taking up space. I looked it up online and they're selling for about $95. For me it's worth even more.

I'm glad someone at least cared enough to bring it to the thrift store -- which is kind of the retail equivalent of the dog pound -- so that Leo and I could adopt it, rescue it.

Whoever you are, you did a good thing.

Loving Myself

"Self-love, my liege, 

is not so vile a sin, 

as self neglecting."

-- William Shakespeare, Henry V

Coffee for one, 2-14-14

 "Whatever you are doing, love yourself for doing it.

Whatever you are feeling, love yourself for feeling it."

-- Thaddeus Golas

"You yourself, 

as much as anybody in the entire universe, 

deserve your love and affection."

-- Buddha

On Valentine's Day a year ago I was a hot mess. I definitely wasn't feeling the love. At all.

It was more like I was feeling the loathe.

And nothing greases the wheels of good old self-loathing like a day that revolves around romance and happiness and giddiness and L-O-V-E. When you're in that loathing state of mind, somehow rubbing salt in the wound feels good. It's fucked, I know, but when you're in the midst of it you can't help it. You just grind it in there, the coarser the better.

We all know that today's the day when we're supposed to tell our loved ones that we love them. So don't fuck it up.

But let me just put in a "One Good Thing" plug for someone who who is really hoping to get a Valentine from you today. 

You.

When it comes to love, I'm not the super affectionate, romantic, gushy, demonstrative type. Ask my family. They'll back me up a hundred percent on this one.  I can do it. But it doesn't come naturally or easily for me. I have to try. I have to work at it. I have to focus, hard.

But as much as I have to work at giving other people my love and affection, giving it to myself is an even taller order.

I'm getting better. But it takes practice.

I don't know what you loving you looks like. As for me loving me, the short list looks something like this:

Take my pills.

Protect my sleep.

Exercise.

Talk to my counselor.

Be honest with myself.

Do my art.

Drink decaf.

Feel my feelings.

Don't beat myself up.

Read.

Cook.

Get massages.

Look for the good.

In my experience, there's no lonelier feeling than self-abandonment. While I was hating myself, even though other people were loving me, their love couldn't register. I couldn't feel their love, or receive their love, because I was hiding behind a pretty thick, self-made force field that made me immune to their love, so it just kind of ricocheted off, bounced back and whacked them smack in the heart, which hurt them. I didn't mean to hurt them, or want to hurt them. I just couldn't help it.

But today I can.

It has taken a long time, and it has been excruciatingly hard and sometimes it just plain fucking sucked. Sometimes I still can't believe I made it and in a million years I never thought I'd say this but here goes ...

Gulp.

I love me.

XOXOXO

A Glimpse Of Spring

"Thaw with her gentle persuasion is more powerful than Thor with his hammer.

The one melts, the other breaks into pieces."

-- Henry David Thoreau

Melting icicle 2-13-14

"Ice contains no future, just the past, sealed away."

-- Haruki Murakami, Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

I ain't stoopid.

I know there's more Winter to come.

I've lived in Ohio and Michigan my entire life, so I know that Winter always has a second act. And most likely, a third.

I know better than to get my hopes up when there's a brief intermission -- a momentary thaw. 

But that doesn't mean I don't still enjoy it when the big round thermometer nailed to our fence, basking in afternoon the sunshine, reads a balmy 40 degrees. Or when the icicles that fringe the eaves of our house in severe, jagged spikes get all round-tipped and melty. 

A tiny glimpse of Spring, no matter how fleeting, is like a little peek at the coming attractions.

But I'm a jaded Midwesterner, so I don't get too excited.

I've learned not to let my guard down. Not just yet. Not this early. 

Now's the time where I brace myself for Winter's sucker punch.

Because I know damn well that intermission goes quick. Winter is simply off freshening her makeup, spritzing her throat and taking a piss. The lobby lights are already flickering. The place will soon grow dark again and that bitch will climb back on stage.

What a diva.

Out-Swimming My Demons

"Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming.

Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming.

What do we do? We swim, swim."

-- Dory, Finding Nemo

Swimsuit 2-12-14

"Don't stop 'til you get enough."

-- Michael Jackson, "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough"

My demons have been breathing down my neck a little too hot and a little too heavy lately.

I don't know what you do when your demons get clingy, but I like to take the little bastards for a swim.

At first they think it's a fun adventure. They're like a dog on a car ride that hasn't heard the word "vet" yet. They're all jumping and excited, like "Yay, swimming! We love swimming!"

An hour and a half later, when I'm still swimming hard and they can no longer keep up, when they're exhausted and limp at the bottom of the pool, they're more like, "Fuck swimming. We HATE swimming."

That's when I know it's safe to get back out of the water.

When the weather is warm I like to take them for long bike rides. Forty miles of hard pedaling in the hot summer sun shuts up a chatty demon like nobody's business. When I can, and even though it hurts, I like to run 'em into the ground. Sometimes I take them to the gym to lift weights -- rep after rep after rep after rep until they finally pipe down.

I guess it goes back to when I first heard the phrase "exorcise my demons." I guess I misunderstood. I thought it was "exercise my demons." And so I do. Regularly. And hard.

I've been an endurance athlete for a lotta years. And long, hard exercise has always been one of my favorite coping mechanisms when shit gets difficult. It's a good pressure valve for me. It's good therapy. It clears my head. And I've always gotten off on wasting my competition.

So it's what I do. I keep swimming -- churning away -- until I can no longer see anything over my shoulder. Until I win.

Sometimes it takes an hour.

Sometimes an hour and a half.

Sometimes ... well, I go for as long as it takes. My shoulder aches. My hair is ruined by chlorine. My skin is itchy. The goggle marks around my eyes are permanent. Even after a shower I still smell like pool.

But I can breathe again. I can think again. I can deal again.

Plus, I have abs like Dara Torres and a resting heart rate of about 40 beats per minute.

Take that, you little bastards.

Getting Back Up Again. And Again. And Again.

"Life has a way of taking its toll on the person you thought you were."

-- A.S.A. Harrison, The Silent Wife

Joe and the weight of the world 2-11-14

 "You wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down."

-- Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon

I have to do something very difficult today.

I have to go someplace that was once an important, vibrant part of my life, and which is now a painful memory. 

I have see people I haven't seen in a long time, who were once some of my closest friends, who are now bitter reminders of profound loss, and shame, and abandonment -- people I have worked hard to forget.

It's like returning to the scene of a crash.

I don't want to do it.

But it's one of those things. Not a good thing. Not a bad thing. But in this case, the right thing. It's a thing I could avoid, but because it matters to someone else that I show up, I will, no matter how difficult.

I've tried hard to forget this painful time in my life, to bury the memories and the feelings. For a long time it felt like I was endlessly trying to bury an angry alive thing that kept clawing and scrambling up and out of its grave while I feverishly flung dirt at it and whacked it in the head with a shovel.

It's better now. I'm getting there. It still lingers in the margins. There are occasional shadows, ghosts. I still have dreams about it now and then. But it is no longer the incredible weight and terrible burden that it once was. Mostly, I barely think about it anymore. Unless something reminds me. And that's the primary trouble with today. I have to return to a haunted, crowded place crammed full of reminders.

It feels like someone has handed me a stinking load of the old shit, saying "Remember this? Try it out again. Carry it around some more. Feel its weight. Remember its heft? Put your back into it now!"

You might be asking where the good is in this not-so-good thing.

Well, the good thing is that fortunately I developed some muscle from carrying the shit around the first time. I am much stronger now. I have much better balance.  

And even though I don't want to hoist it again, I know it won't crush me this time. I won't crumble under it. It can't knock me down anymore.

Plus I have a strategy -- get there late, sit in the back, and leave as soon as possible.

I have someone to run interference -- my husband is all over it.

I have a getaway car -- so as soon as it's over, I can get the fuck out of there.

And so I'll go. 

And when it's all over, I'll move on, again. I'll walk out the door, again, relish the sound of it clicking shut, again, scrape the shit off my boots, again, jump into the getaway car and ride off into the sunset, again.

I've done it before, so I should be getting pretty damn good at it by now.

Seahorses In Love

" ... I cannot tell you how thankful I am for our little infinity."

-- John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

Seahorse pair, Greater Cleveland Aquarium, 2-10-14

"How joyful to be together, alone

as when we first were joined

in our little house by the river

long ago ..."

-- Wendell Berry, Entries

Ding! Ding! Ding!

With Valentine's Day just up the road, things are getting a li'l bit romancy here at One Good Thing.

So this is your reminder to get/do something nice for your wife, husband, boyfriend, girlfriend, partner, crush, obsession, lover, dominatrix, dog, cat, fish ... whoever rings your bell.

We braved the snowy roads and drove to the Greater Cleveland Aquarium yesterday. It took us an extra 45 minutes to get there because of the crummy weather. We got stuck in a traffic jam because of an accident. The Cleveland roads were shitty as usual, riddled with giant potholes that wreaked havoc on our suspension, and spines. But it was totally worth the trip.

Leo wanted to see the sharks.

I wanted to see the seahorses.

Of all the underwater life, seahorses captivate me most. And romance was definitely in the air (or in the water of the seahorse tank anyway), because they were wrapped up in couples like teenagers at a high school dance.

Everyone knows that male seahorses birth the babies.

But did you know that seahorses mate in monogamous pairs, for life?

And did you know that once they meet that special someone, they wrap their tails around each other so that the tide doesn't pull them apart? It's the seahorse equivalent of trading wedding rings. And once they're all wrapped up in each other -- literally -- they venture from their meeting spot to float across the ocean bottom with their tails entwined.

Mostly it's romantic and lovely. But it's also a little bit comical. Because linked seahorses don't always travel in beautiful unison, gliding like synchronized ice dancers. Often, the dance is super awkward and clunky.

As I watched this pair, every once in a while the bigger one (I don't know if it was the boy or the girl) decided to move to another piece of sea grass. And when it moved, it sort of dragged the little one behind like a tin can tied to the back bumper of a wedding limo. The little one got flipped around and turned upside down as the big one yanked it wherever it went. There's probably a ball-and-chain joke to be made here, I know.

Anyway, it kind of took the mystique out of things, which, in a way, felt realer.

Lifelong togetherness isn't all romance. It's a tug and a pull. Like a 3-legged race. Sometimes you're in sync, and sometimes you just aren't, and things can get awkward and weird and, yes, ridiculous.

That doesn't mean you shouldn't still get/do something nice for each other on Valentine's Day. It doesn't have to be expensive or extravagant. Just make it one good thing that lets him/her know you remembered, and that you do remember, even if it's been a while since things felt mystical or romantic.

Just don't fucking forget.

This guy fucking forgot.

Not seahorses, Greater Cleveland Aquarium 2-10-14

Feeling Necessary

"I just want one person I can rescue
and I want one person who needs me.
Who can't live without me."

-- Chuck Palahniuk, Choke

Lego man rescuing a Lego bear 2-9-14

"He found something that he wanted,

had always wanted and always would want --

not to be admired, as he had feared;

not to be loved, as he had made himself believe;

but to be necessary to people, to be indispensable ..."

-- F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise

Lego man rescuing a Lego bear (2) 2-9-14

"The way he's watching me makes me feel needed

like no one's ever been able to make me feel.

In a way, he makes me feel necessary.

Like my existence alone is necessary for his survival."

-- Colleen Hoover, Hopeless

I married an extremely smart, capable, self-sufficient, ambitious, efficient man who can do pretty much anything I can do, usually better, usually ahead of time, usually before I can even think about getting around to doing whatever it is, and usually before I'm even out of bed in the morning.

In addition to earning all the money and supporting our household, he handles our finances. He gets the kids to school. He gets the groceries. He runs the sweeper. He does the laundry. He folds the laundry. Not because I can't. But because he gets there first. If it was left up to me, I'd get there eventually. I'd get there sometime before we ran out of food and clean clothes. But he always gets there way sooner than I do. So he just does stuff. He sees something that needs to be done, and he does it. I see a thing that needs to be done and a thought flickers across my mind that a thing needs to be done, and then I walk past the thing, and get lost in a daydream, or an idea, or a project, and when I walk past the thing again, he's already done it. With hospital corners. Without anyone seeing him do it.

He's like a super-hero.

Don't get the wrong idea. He isn't a control freak. He's just a high-achiever. A perfectionist. A valedictorian who also graduated at the top of his medical school class who runs his own business. He's an Eagle Scout for Chrissakes. He saves lives. For real.

And I'm not complaining. I want to make that crystal clear. I sincerely appreciate all that he does, I need him to do everything he does, and he does a shit ton.

It's great. He's great. 

But honestly, sometimes being out-greated by someone so great can make me feel a little bit not-so-great --not so necessary, anyway. 

And that is not his fault.

He's so sweet, he has even tried being not so awesome, just to make me feel better. 

He's tried "letting" me do things, given back some of the duties that he's assumed over our 20-some years together. He's only trying to help. He's only trying to love me. But for me, it feels like pity. It feels patronizing. It's that feeling you get when you know someone let you win the game, when you know damn well they could have beaten you without even trying. 

He's tried to hold himself back, but I can sense him chafing under it. He's like a dog that sees a squirrel and wants to chase the squirrel because it's in his nature to chase the squirrel, but he's trying really hard not to chase the squirrel because he thinks it will make me happier if he doesn't chase it, so he tries to stifle the urge so that I can chase the squirrel even though every sinew of his body is twitching with squirrel-chasing impulse that he's pretending not to have. But I'm all like "Squirrel? What squirrel?" And even if I did chase the squirrel, I'd be a day late and a dollar short, and I'd get distracted by a sunbeam or a snowflake anyway and nobody would get any fucking squirrel.

I think he thinks I don't notice him trying so hard to rein it in, but I do. 

And I know he's happier chasing the squirrels, and buying the groceries, and running the sweeper, and paying the bills. I know it. He knows it. It's just the way it is. And I've learned to be okay with it.

Nevertheless, living with someone who meets all the needs can leave me feeling a little un-needed.

But there is one thing that I do for my family that nobody else does as good as me. There is one territory that hasn't been claimed. One last outpost that's still mine. 

The kitchen. 

Somebody has to feed the superhero.

And even though someone else brings in the groceries, that food would rot on the counters and in the refrigerator if I didn't transform it into deliciousness day in and day out. Whether it's Great Grandma's breaded pork chops, my own velvety-smooth avocado dip, my mouth-watering rhubarb crumble, racks of finger-licking fall-apart barbecue ribs, or homemade soup, or pizza, or chocolate chip cookies without the chocolate chips, just the way he likes them -- I've got it dialed in. 

My food is good, and it's not bragging if it's true. 

My boys don't need me for much around here. They're all very capable. But they do need me to cook for them or they'd be living on Cheerios and take-out.

I know my husband loves me. He's never given me any reason to doubt it. But sometimes, I wonder how much he needs me. And then I cook him a pot roast and the aroma hits him before he's even in the house. And when he walks through the door after a day of rescuing the world, I see his shoulders relax just a teensy bit, and then I enjoy him enjoying a delicious, satisfying meal that I made, and I know that I did that for him, and that he needed it, and that he needs me. 

It's a good thing.