I wasn't making it up

Back in July, I wrote a brief post about how, when driving to work one day, I saw the Google camera car. This is the vehicle that takes all of the pictures for the Street View function on Google maps. By the way, as of last week, all of the images for that have been greatly improved with higher resolution. Your house looks really clear now.

When I told the story at work, people were skeptical. Until yesterday. I decided to see if the reglar street view images had been updated lately, and they had. I looked up that intersection from last July, and there it was. Me, I mean. There I was. Here I am:


(If you click on the photo, you can see the blurry shape of my head and my hand on the wheel. Maybe the blur to my left is me waving.)

No longer a Hallmark holiday

I heard this story on NPR this week and it struck a nerve (although which nerve I cannot say, seeings as how they're all confused). I don't need to see the Holy Family on my Christmas cards, but I do miss all of the pretty cards depicting holiday scenes that used to come to my house. They've been replaced with photo-cards, and nobody even signs those.

I'm never sure what to do with these cards. They don't stand up on the bookcase and they don't lean against aything without falling. And after Christmas...Can I just throw them out? I hope so.

In response to this, I've been sending out pictures of my pets now for at least three Christmases. Oddly enough, nobody seems to understand that it's a joke. Which reminds me--I have a holiday letter to write.

While I'm working on that, here is the NPR story. I love it! Jesuits rock.

Printed entirely without any permission whatsoever...

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97854252
All Things Considered, December 17, 2008 · It's the middle of the day, and I'm opening my Christmas cards. And what do I see when I tear open the envelope? Not Baby Jesus in his manger. Not the Virgin Mary. Not even the Wise Men. No, chances are the card will be a photo of a family on some beach in the Caribbean. Or a picture of somebody's house. Or someone's dog wearing reindeer horns.

These are the new favorite Christmas cards, for even the most pious Christians: the family cards.

Family cards display — on the front — a photo of a happy family, typically wearing red-and-green scarves or red-and-green sweaters. Sometimes the family dog is included, wearing a scarf covered with slobber. Just as often, family cards show the clan on their summer vacation, posing jauntily in bathing suits in the Caribbean. These cards don't say "Merry Christmas" as much as "Look where you didn't go!"

Look, I love family photos during the holidays. Plus, I actually read those annual holiday letters, all of which start with "What a busy year it's been!" Seeing photos of my friends and their families and even enjoying a few sunny beach scenes when it's cold and dark outside is a highlight of December.

But I enjoy the photos more when they're inside the card, not the card itself. Because more and more, even devout Christians have been replacing Jesus, Mary and Joseph with themselves. Doesn't it strike you as weird to set aside the Holy Family in favor of your family? Does a photo of Cabo San Lucas trump the story told by the original San Lucas? Is Christmas really about you?

Still unconvinced? Try a thought experiment. For your next birthday, how would you feel about getting a birthday card with my photo on it? "Happy Birthday! It's a photo of me!" My modest campaign against family cards has less chance of success than another Ralph Nader presidential bid. People will accuse me of being anti-family. But I'm not: I'm more pro-Holy Family. Plus, I'm battling Snapfish, Shutterfly, Kodak and a lot of online card stores that have been promoting this idea with more resources than a poor Jesuit can muster.

So I'll leave you with a simple plea. Place those great photos inside the card. Or how about this: When choosing your Christmas cards this year, think more Jesus and less you. Or, more Virgin Mary, and less Virgin Islands.

The Rev. James Martin is a Jesuit priest and author of My Life with the Saints.

Nervous. System.

It's been three months since I saw the urologist last. Actually, I see her assistant, a feisty nurse practitioner named Mary. When Mary came into the exam room, she knew immediately something had changed. "What's going on? This isn't the happy face I usually see."

I explained that while I had been making progress with the interstitial cystitis for many months, it all got unraveled in the last six weeks. I explained in detail my issues with stabbing abdominal pain, back pain, nausea, and a litany of other symptoms. I offered that it was probably unrelated and I should just make an appointment with an internist and get a physical while I was at it.

Ha. That it should be so easy.

Mary listened to me and asked questions for 15 minutes. Then she stood up and said, "You need a CT scan. Soon. I have some other thoughts. I'm going to go talk to the doctor and we'll see what she thinks."

It gave me pause. Mary has never called in the doc for as long as I've been going there.

Twenty minutes passed and the doctor came in the room. She was much warmer and friendlier this time. We talked a long time about my physical symptoms, my emotional load, the issues that come with working with survivors of trauma and torture on a daily basis, my shingles and lingering PHN, and my other health concerns, including BP and IBS.

The doc sat back and said, "May, you are on the verge. You are in a precarious situation and you don't even realize it. There is help for you, but I can't do it all and you can't do it alone. You think you can do everything alone, but this time, you're going to have to take a team approach. You have to be on the team. By the way, could you have a more stressful job?"

I asked who else was on the team. Those people include a pain specialist whose work concentrates on conditions related to the nervous system. There's a physiatrist, a psychologist, a therapist who does EMDR, and a physical therapist. I have two books to read, a website to look at, and a CT scan scheduled for next week.

I looked at the list in front of me and asked, "Isn't it possible this is just a flare-up that will go away when whatever irritated me goes away? I mean, yes, this hurts a lot, but it was getting better a few months ago."

Doc looked at me with a sad smile and said, "May, your body is on the verge of a nervous system short-circuit. All you've been through this past year was the start of it, and if you don't take this seriously now, the results could be disastrous. Your nervous system is on overdrive. It is sending out massive waves of signals that are so misinterpreted, they will cause permanent nerve damage if not corrected. The problem is escalating and you need to accept that it's time for a multi-disciplinary approach. There is no waiting."

This really isn't how I hoped to start 2009. I thought bizarre medical conditions would be put to rest in time for the start of the New Year.

So, once again I end the year wanting a whole new brain, but I'd also like to add all new wiring, as well. And a better metabolism.

One more week 'til we feel the Love

I'm not much for holiday traditions, but there is one thing that puts the cherry on my fruitcake. On the Tuesday before Christmas, Darlene Love belts out her version of Christmas cheer on Letterman. I was feeling pretty low last December as it was, and then with the writer's strike, my mood sank even lower into the snowdrifts--Ms. Love was silent for the first time in over 20 years. It was just plain wrong.

Count down the days with me, won't you? To help you get in the spirit, here's Darlene Love bringin' it for the 2006 Letterman performance.



(My husband suggested I explain why I feel so strongly about Darlene Love's Letterman appearance. OK. Back in the mid 1980s, I thought I was going to be married fairly soon. That was the plan, anyway. In October of said year, I found myself quite unexpectedly alone. A few weeks later, I lost my job. A couple of weeks after that, both of my roommates moved out, leaving me more alone and empty than I had ever been in my life. As Christmas approached, I felt as if everything inside had been hollowed out as if I were a chocolate Santa. One night, I was sitting at home and I heard Elvis singing Blue Christmas on the radio. I called my ex and left a rambling phone message. He responded by letting me know that although it had been less than 90 days since our breakup, he was freshly engaged. I got drunk and turned on the TV later that night. Letterman was wrapping up, and there was Darlene Love. I'm sure I had seen her do the Christmas show before, but it han't meant anything. I listened to the song and Darlene was singing everything I felt about my ex at that moment .

I thought that breakup would kill me. So did my family. It didn't. Now I watch Darlene sing Christmas: Baby, Please Come Home every year as a reminder that I have been through some pretty crappy holidays and survived--despite my own doubts.

I thought I left this back East

I thought this was bad...

Until I woke up this morning to see that it was NEGATIVE 15 degrees. That's just not right. I froze my toes and my nose.

Falalala

Who came up with this holiday nonsense? It makes people mean. Not me--other people. Driving and shopping are getting to be acts of courage.

I am willing to do some holiday decorating--something I ceased to do entirely after 2004. We don't get a tree because the house is too small and the cats and dog find that sort of thing far too intriguing. If we had decided to put up a tree, I had a great idea for unbreakable decorations. I have a big pile of empty pillbottles from all of my prescriptions. I was going to attach ribbons to them and to the lids, and then hang them on the tree, along with a garland paper chain made from all of last year's insurance statements that turned out to be wrong (not in my favor). It would be my most personal tree ever.

I told my family that my husband and I had no interest in exchanging gifts with anyone (meaning them). Everyone was OK with it except for my mother, who will surely shower us with the usual array of cheap and useless Chinese-produced crap. Feeling obligated given her response to our original announcement, we're buying her Omaha steaks and chardonnay. If I could, I would hire a wait staff to cook it and serve it to her. Of course, then she would complain that I should be there to do that for her.

I have no idea what my husband wants. He won't say. It's not that he wants me to guess; I think he feels guilty for asking anyone to spend money on him.

People become so weird and complicated this time of year.

I had some money to spend, so I bought some things for me. I found a fabulous, $6 pair of pink gloves with black fur trim that match the Barbie coat exactly. I found some really lovely things at some of the alternative gift markets I happened upon this season. Mostly, though, I bought things to donate to the refugees I know. I bought things like fluffy towels, nice dishtowels, candles, matched sets of glasses, fancy shower gel with those nylon pouf thingies, gloves, hats, scarves, notebooks, office/school supplies, and all kinds of things pretty, practical, and personal. These gifts may not be extravagant or all that imaginative, but I know they will bring a moment of happiness to the people who receive them. And isn't that the point?

Sad validation

(EDIT: I wrote this last night and accidentally hit "Publish" before I finished writing. Decided to get some sleep and finish this morning.)

What is the best way to gauge how people see us and whether or not our existence has value? How do you know? Is the value we assign to ourselves enough evidence that the daily effort of being is worthwhile?

I make no secret of the fact that I live in a paradoxical state of conflict: I no longer trust myself to make the right decisions about being involved with people beyond the most superficial relationships. I am lonely. I don't want to let anyone near. But I'm still lonely.

For this reason, I depend on professional relationships to keep me connected to the bigger world outside of my head. It's how I remember how to talk to people and to understand what is relevant in the world. If it weren't for this, I would get lost in my own head.

I have to work at it. I have to make sure I don't devolve into being completely socially retarded. Still, I am pleasant and funny and conscientious and aware. That does not mean I am liked. I am sure, in fact, that there are very few people who like me to the point of wanting anything more than those surface encounters.

I've never been popular. I don't have the looks for it, for sure, but I just don't have the personality for it, either. I think too much and say too many dorky things. I have, over the course of my life, proven to be highly...forgettable. I'm not the kind of person that people care about. My value to the world is in what I contribute, what I do for other people, what service or knowledge I can provide. Beyond that, though, I'm mostly under the radar. Unless someone wants something from me, it is quite evident that my presence or lack thereof would go unnoticed.

I try not to dwell. I tell myself I have what I need and it's a neat package inside of my head. There is my friend, Jolie, who may be a thousand miles away, but she's just a phone call away. That's it, though--she's a thousand miles away. Our phone calls are usually quite short and I come away wondering if I'm bothering her.

Joanna. We used to be close, but now she pops her head in only every three or four months or so, no matter how many messages I generate.

For someone who used to talk so much, I never thought I would see the day when the only conversation partner I would have would be binary code rolling off into Cyberspace. I'm not sure if that's a commentary on me and my place in the world, or just a cultural shift in general.

If I stop working, would I cease to exist, or, left with no one to chat with, would I finally shut the fuck up? Hmm.

What prompted today's musing? The realization that when I tried an experiment--to not call anyone, indefinitely, the only phone calls I received in six weeks were related to the nonprofit or to other business. No personal calls. People I call don't call me back. I can live with this invisibility, but it doesn't feel good. My husband tries to console me again and again with the same sentence: "People are busy and involved with their own lives, May; they have important things going on." So, I am not valued.

Not feeling sorry for myself. Just realizing that my worth in the world outside of my home is strictly utilitarian. Chairman Mao said that being useful was the most honorable aspect of life. Still processing that.

Safety cloak

(Edit: I felt compelled to write this post as I was rearranging a closet. I had my hand on my gorgeous, size 10, plum-colored, cashmere-blend coat that likely will never fit me again in this lifetime. Still, I can't bear to give it away. I love that coat and it makes me resent the replacement.)

Last year, I needed to buy a coat. It wasn't a pleasant task since the reason for my quest was my ever-expanding ass. Coats that fit in the chest and shoulders had no interest in meeting around my hips.

I went to Ross. It's my favorite store and where I do 90% of my shopping. They had lots of really ugly coats that fit. I wasn't going to pay $80-$90 for something hideous. Instead, I found something outrageous for only $30. I call it The Plus-Size Barbie special. The weird thing is, as much as I detest this coat, I get a lot of compliments on it.

The coat is bright pink, like Dubble-Bubble. It has big, black buttons, cuffed sleeves, a modified empire waist, and a bit of a swing cut (hence the ability to fit around my hips and actually button closed). It's a Liz Claiborne, but I'm sure that Liz didn't design it with my body shape in mind. I hate this coat. I suppose that if I had bought it under different circumstances, it might not irritate me so much, but for now it's a very pink reminder of my failure to actually look like Barbie. I'll bet that this coat is adorable on a size 6 woman.

The upside of this coat is that it offers a degree of protection in an urban environment. Every day, I have to cross one of the busiest streets in the city. Drivers routinely ignore the "No Right On Red" signs, and the "Yield to Pedestrians in Crosswalk" sign is, apparently, invisible. I figure that when I get run over, the driver responsible for my demise will be laughed at as he is led away by the police when he says, "I just didn't see the XXL pink overcoat in the crosswalk." Please.

Mousse me, baby

Good hair. I have a good haircut. Finally. I have never received so many compliments on a haircut.

My faith in cosmetology has been restored.

Just one thing at a time

On Monday I woke up five minutes before the alarm, seven minutes before the SAD wake-up light. I was full-on awake, too, not the usual foggy, groggy, reluctant half-awake that starts most mornings.

My stomach lurched and a sense of dread took over, covering me just as effectively as the fuzzy blanket touching my cheek. I couldn't quite catch my breath and my stomach clenched. Anxiety. I was being squeezed in the tight grip of anxiety. Not a great way to start a Monday morning.

I fought back tears and tried to identify the source of my misery. The wake-up light switched on and the cat, who had been gently licking my hand, walked on my head, abandoning me for the wave of photons pouring out of the light. She's in love with that thing. The light only made me more irritable because now that I could see, I couldn't concentrate on finding the reason anxiety had slapped me awake at 5:55 A.M.

Breathing was a challenge, but I realized it had nothing to do with anxiety. Lately I've felt like my lungs have been pricked full of pinholes, so air goes in but doesn't build up any satisfying, chest-expanding pressure, nor does it seem to stay in my lungs. My most recent inhale generated a loud creaking noise that sounded more like a tired sofa than like a gentle breath.

I made it through the morning routine, but I was slow--so damn slow my husband had to get my breakfast ready. On the way to work, the anxiety almost choked me and I started to cry. There's a huge, perpetual construction project along the creek that I knew I couldn't cry through--it required my complete attention.

Throughout the week, the anxiety showed up several more times, but it was overshadowed by something much more acute. For the past month, a pain has been growing in my lower abdomen. I have IBS and the devil's constellation of symptoms related to interstitial cystitis. One more abdominal pain doesn't usually get my attention, but this one has steadily worsened to the point of being debilitating. I'm not bleeding from any part of my anatomy, so it's not cancer. I can't even identify its origination point. I have something akin to cramps, but much worse. It feels like I am being scraped and poked from the inside out by a thousand jagged pins. Using the toilet has become agony as any function there results in not relief, but almost immediate gut-tearing pain that takes my pinhole-fragile breath away. When I walk, it feel like my bladder is bouncing hard on a rickety suspension system. I can't pull in my gut--the pressure is too uncomfortable and I am chronically bloated. This pain is bad. Really bad.

Fatigue. I went from being a person who couldn't sleep to one who can't stay awake. I'm exhausted half-way through my work day. When I come home, I fall asleep on the couch by 7:30 and don't wake up until 10:00. This is no winter malaise, despite the cold. Sometimes I get so cold, my feet hurt from the sensation. My body is wracked with chills that come in great spasms. The only relief is to wear pajamas, socks, and a fleece, and then get into bed under lots of covers with an oversized heating pad to warm my core.

I don't know if this is urinary, intestinal, or gynecological. This is exactly where I started two years ago and a succession of blood tests, ultrasounds, and digital exams revealed nothing. I have no interest in going through that again.

My body's pain mechanisms haven't worked right since I had shingles. It's bad enough I have chronic breast pain (harmless--it's referred pain from the shingles nerve damage).

I'm worried about the nonprofit. I'm concerned about my lackluster job performance lately. I'm obsessed with the thoughts surrounding my health. For whatever reason, I am petrified my BP drugs are going to fail. What will I do if and when that happens?

Anxiety. It's never just one thing. It's not the fear the drugs will fail; it's a gut-wrenching fear that my BP will overpower them and I will break apart into a shattered mess of irrational, rude, hyper-kinetic, labile mood, socially inappropriate unpleasantness. Why can't hypomania be unipolar the way depression is?

Coping would be much easier if these things would visit one at a time.

I am not afraid to die, but the thought of chronic suffering has me sliding into that dark place where anxiety finds a fertile environment that throws me even more off-kilter.

If I could just sleep a little bit more, maybe someone could wake me when it's over.

Semantics, implications and inference

First comes the agonizing confusion, gut-wrenching erratic feelings, and anxiety. Next comes the diagnosis and medical treatment, supplemented by self-education and the eventual realization that not all illnesses are perceived equally. Some are serious but not taken seriously. Some are grave and if the patient decides to go for treatment, he or she is considered to be "brave." And then there is an entire class of illness that, because the word "mental" is tacked on before the word "illness," well, the patient is in for a fight, but will never be considered courageous.

Somewhere near the beginning of this blog, someone wrote that instead of calling it by any euphemism, this class of malady should be called, simply, illness. I agree. Why do we differentiate? My illness is biological, it is unpredictable, I did nothing to bring it on, and there is nothing, absolutely nothing, I can do to cure it. A cure is exactly what I want, though.

If you have diabetes or if you survive cancer, you can still run for political office, open a daycare center, and buy a gun. If you go on Oprah, it will be as a role model, not as a worst-case scenario.
I once posed a question on a bipolar forum, "If it's neurological in nature, why is it considered a mental illness?" Nobody was able to give me a satisfactory answer. One person said, "It's because this illness affects the mind and behavior." Well, so do other illnesses. The thing is, the term "mental illness" tells very little about the illnesses themselves. The implications, however, are unmistakable.

We live in a culture of insidious implications. To say someone is ill is meant to imply that it is a physical problem, and probably one that couldn't have been avoided. It is forgiveable. When you say mental illness, though, only those who have intimate knowledge of what those illnesses bring with them can really understand why any and all illness is illness. Everyone else infers the following:

• It's not real.
• It has no tangible etiology.
• It's willful.
• You could change it if you wanted to.
• You brought it on yourself.
• You're weak.
• You're trying to get attention/avoid responsibility/be hurtful/get out of something.
• It's because you lack maturity.

The term mental illness robs us of credibility just as it is used to explain away inexplicable actions. It is a catch-all, get-out-of-jail-free card for criminals, celebrities, and politicians.

It tells nothing, but implies far too much.

I gained five pounds in two weeks for no apparent reason, and it's definitely not water weight. I am too traumatized to write.