Harnessing the healing power of snark
Sometimes the circumstances of my illness make my life feel very claustrophobic. It’s hard not to get stuck in thinking that I am only my body, only this pain, only a chronic illness patient. When the pain gets really bad and I’m taking lots of meds and can’t go anywhere, the cabin fever and boredom can make me feel crazy.
So I’m very grateful for everything that reminds me that I can always shift my vision and focus on something new, even while acknowledging the truth of how sick I am.
My husband and I have been together for the better part of 24 years, and for most of that time we have been engaged in one of those “discussions” that take place between long-term partners, the theme of which boils down to, “I am right and you are wrong, and as long as I have breath in my body, the driving purpose of my life will be to get you to admit my rightness and acknowledge your error.” The particular form that our “discussion” takes has to do with a blanket that came with me into our marriage, an object designed to provide soothing and comfort, but which has instead become the meeting ground for the battle of our wills.
The crux of the argument has to do with the color of said blanket: I say that it is peach, and my husband insists that it is pink. (This, despite the fact that my mother and I bought the PEACH blanket when I was in high school to match my PEACH wallpaper and my PEACH comforter. But, whatever.)
Things have gotten so ridiculous around here that we refuse to even acknowledge the blanket’s existence anymore, lest we accidentally refer to it by the “wrong” color, and thereby unintentionally cede victory to our opponent. (Because we’re mature like that. And also RIGHT.)
So the other night my husband came home and announced that he had downloaded an app that would take a picture of any object and then identify its color in numbers, numbers which you could then compare to a chart in order to irrevocably determine the object’s “official” color once and for all, forever and ever, world without end, amen.
Naturally we forsook dinner and immediately repaired to the room in which the blanket resides, taking a number of pictures until we both agreed on one which we felt accurately captured the color in question. (I would post those pictures here, but I’m afraid the the force of our argument surrounding them would engulf the entire Internet, upsetting the Earth’s orbit and causing it to crash into the sun, where we would all explode into a flaming ball of death. And I really don’t want to have the end of the world on my conscience. I’ve already got kind of a lot on my plate with this whole fibromyalgia thing.)
The next step (obviously) was to photograph some “control” objects, one which we both agreed was pink, and one we agreed on as peach. Then (of course) we created an Excel spread sheet in order to compare and contrast all the numbers generated by the app.
We then pulled up some color charts, eager to see which one of us would be crowned Victor Of The Blanket’s Color.
And what we discovered was that, not only are there MANY MANY DIFFERENT CHARTS, the values our app gave us did not appear on any of them.
Undaunted, my husband said we could convert the RGB colors into HEX values. (And here you can tell just how desperately I wanted to prove that I WAS RIGHT, by willingly subjecting myself to EVEN MORE MATH. )
We then took ourselves over to Wikipedia (The Source Of All True Knowledge) and looked up “Peach”, which gave us this:
and finally, this:
Which reads, “This box shows the color peach.”
So nobody won. Which is probably a good thing, because (for us) if there’s anything worse than Not Being Right, it’s having to live with the gleeful satisfaction of the person who is, which eventually leaves us with no choice but to stab the other person in the face in order to cause them the same kind of suffering which we’ve had to endure as a result of Being The Opposite Of Right.
So, way to go indeterminate number values. Thanks so much for saving our marriage.
This year (all two-and-a-half weeks of it) I’ve been experimenting with a “word of the year”, one of the lenses through which I might view the next 365 days.
I started off with the word “peace” but it didn’t feel like a perfect fit, and then about halfway through this week the word “vision” appeared in my head.
It’s not surprising considering that my latest fascination is with photography, thanks to the classes of the fabulous Vivienne McMaster (the next one starts on February 1st, so sign up soon!) and a great new camera from Santa.
One of the first ways “vision” is showing up for me has to do with noticing what’s around me.
Given that I’m a writer who’s always looking for material, I’m pretty good at noticing things like gestures, tones, and great dialogue. But now I’m noticing more visual details, like the way the shadows fall on my office carpet at different times during the day, or the fact that even though the trees around me are bare of leaves or blossoms, they are still filled with incredible colors and textures.
So here are some of my favorite visions from this week.
(originally published here on October 9, 2006)
So today I finally got out of the house after what seemed like a million days stuck inside (although in actuality it was probably less than seven, which is why my husband is in charge of all math in our relationship), so I went to hang out at the tiny Starbucks at our grocery store. It reminded me of a trip to Seattle I took about 7 years ago to visit my two oldest friends in the world, which was also my introduction to Starbucks. Here was my reaction.
Back when I was in high school peer pressure was easy to spot, and there were always very clear-cut reasons available to me for saying “No”. Smoking? Um, no thanks, on account of all the cancer and all the death. Drinking? Hm, think I’ll pass, as I have no desire for my parents to kill me for engaging in such behavior. Sex? I couldn’t stand anyone else’s children; I certainly didn’t want any of my own.
But by the time I finally finished school, got married, and entered my thirties, I began to relax. Surely, I thought, the time of being scorned for being “different” had passed.
Oh silly, naive woman.
All that getting older meant was that I was now eligible to experience Peer Pressure For The 21st Century. What might that be, you ask? Only every time someone turns to me and says, “Hey, you wanna go and get some coffee?” Because no, I don’t. And apparently, the fact that I am thirty-four years old and do not drink coffee makes me just as much of a nerd now as I was back when I wore maroon knee socks to the first day of eighth grade.
And what I want to know is, just who got to make that rule? Because I hate to break it to you, all you super-caffeinated, latte-loving, Hot Beverage Elitists. But coffee? Does Not Taste Good. And deep down in your secret heart of hearts, I know you know this too. Why else would we now have specialty coffee shops selling a multitude of coffee products specifically designed to camouflage the taste of coffee by adding a zillion other flavors?
Yet all you coffee drinkers persist in proselytizing us “unconverted” with the zeal of someone who will be forever banned from Brewed Bean Heaven by the Java Gods themselves if you fail in your mission to convert us to your way of thinking. (Seriously, what’s up with that?) Because, no, I would not like to try your coffee ice cream, coffee gum, coffee milkshakes, or coffee iced beverages. Because the whole “tastes-like-coffee” part? Would be the part I hate!
And it doesn’t do any good to try and explain this to you. Apparently, the possibility of another human being not enjoying your own personal Elixir Of Life is completely incomprehensible to you. Because every time I try, you all just look at me with the dazed, blank expression that would’ve been appropriate had I just announced, “You know, I feel so much freer now that I’ve decided to go naked from the waist down.”
The reason that I’m bringing all of this up right now is that I just spent the last week in Seattle which is, of course, The Mecca Of All Things Coffee. I didn’t think anything about it until I discovered that the friends I was visiting were all coffee drinkers. And unfortunately, they are also Friends Who Know Things About Me, which gave them some pretty serious leverage to hold over me if they so chose. (As in, “Hey, Jen. Remember how back when we were ten we used to compete over who would get braces first because we thought braces were really cool? And so we’d put paper clips on our teeth and …” ACK! No! Please stop! I’ll drink anything you want if you just please stop talking now!)
Fortunately for me, these friends are also very nice. (Hi, Jen. Hi, Ana.) But they were definitely Women On A Mission last week, a mission they tricked me into joining through the following conversation:
Jen and Ana: “Have you ever actually tried coffee?”
Me: “Well, no.”
Jen and Ana: “So how do you KNOW that you don’t like it?”
Me: “Damn you and your evil logic!”
But because they are nice they decided to work me up gradually to the point of consuming beverages containing actual coffee. So first we started out with a nice Chai Tea Latte. Then we worked our way up to a tasty Snickers Steamer. And then, on Saturday evening, came the moment of truth: a Pumpkin Spice Latte. Which I tried. And did not like. Because…wait for it…IT TASTED LIKE COFFEE!
They were nice about it though, and gave me lots of credit for trying, although I still don’t think they were completely convinced (What? You no longer wear any pants? What?)
But I survived and have now returned to The Land Of Coke which, as everyone knows, is the only drink you’ll ever need.
What?! You don’t like Coke? Dude! Seriously. What’s wrong with you?
I’m not really into making New Year’s resolutions given my tendencies toward compulsive and bi-polar-esque behavior, as well as the fact that I have no idea in January what will be capturing my attention by the end of the year.
Instead for the past 3 years I have used Leonie Dawson’s “Create Your Amazing Year” workbooks, which I highly recommend. They are all the things I love: fun, pretty, easy, flexible, colorful, creative, imaginative, and expansive.
One of the practices that she (as well as many others) recommend is that of choosing a word to be your theme for the year. So this year I have chosen as my theme the word “Peace”.
The other practice I have started has to do with my new found love of photography.
I started taking e-courses with Vivienne McMaster, most especially the “Be Your Own Beloved” class last fall (highly, highly HIGHLY recommend; go and sign up for the next session right now!) , and now I’m seeing visual stories wherever I go. So I’ve joined Instagram, and everyday I look for a picture to represent how peace is showing up in my life that day.
I’m so excited at this new way I’ve found to tell stories, and so I want to start sharing some of my peaceful pictures here with you. Here is a collage of all the pictures I took last week:
Blessings to all as we start another new year.
That Time Some Lady Asked Me If I Was My Niece’s Grandmother (GRANDMOTHER!), And How I Deserve A Medal For Not Punching Her In The Face
Dear Fibro: Suck It
Hey-Do You Know What Kind Of Bug This Is, And Why A Whole Colony Of Them Are Routinely Committing Suicide In My Bathtub?
No, Seriously Fibro: You Suck Enormous Freaking Donkey Balls
An Ode To The Cracks In My Couch
And Speaking Of Being Confined To My Couch, How The Hell Did Everything In My Living Room Become Beige?!
Stop Calling My House And Asking Me For Money, Dammit!
&$#!@*&%!!
How All Of The Students I’ve Ever Taught Have Graduated From College And Are Getting Married, So Now I Am Officially Old.
OMG, Fibro: Give Me A F*&^#@! Break Already!
The Cats Will Not Stop Looking At Me Funny!
How I Hate Every Other Illness Because They’ve Stolen All The Good Ribbon Colors
Dear My Fibro Doctor: Please Just Let Me Be Sad And Hurting Sometimes; Please Don’t Try To Make Me Be Happy And Grateful And Looking On The Bright Side All The Time. Living With A Chronic Illness IS REALLY HARD.
How You Are Clearly Violating All The Laws Of The Known Universe By Naming Your Tea Shop An Adverb
How Math Is Still Evil
Fibro: I WILL CUT YOU AND I WILL KILL YOU WITH FIRE AND THEN EAT YOUR FACE.
How We Were Stupid And Then A Raccoon Started Showing Up On Our Back Porch Every Day At 2 In The Afternoon And Then We Had To Pay A Lot Of Money Because Of All The Stupid That We Were Being
I Love My Cats And You Should Too, v.1-27
How If I Have To Be Confined To This House For One More Nanosecond, I Will Have No Choice But To Go And Throw Myself In Front Of A Bus
Dear Fibro: Hit The Road, Jack, And Don’t You Come Back No More (Fibromyalgia: Mwahahahaha)
VERONICA MAAAAAAAAAARS!!
How I Will Clearly Never Be Funny EVER AGAIN, And So I Just Need To Stop Writing And Delete My Entire Blog, And No, I Am NOT Being All-Or-Nothing, And No, I AM NOT Stuck In Pain Brain; This Is Totally Real And True
How No One Seems To Understand The Emotional Significance Of The Death Of Our Vacuum Cleaner
I Just Can’t Deal With One More Day Of Pain. I Don’t Think I Can Do This Anymore.
Dear Keratin Treatment: Where Have You Been All My Life?
How French Fries Should Officially Be Approved By The FDA As A Treatment For Fibromyalgia.
Dear Cats: Could You Please Stop Passing Around That Icky Eye Goop?
A Hymn Of Praise To My New CPAP Machine
How It Only Took 14 Years, But We Finally Finished Our State Quarters Collection
We are currently in an extended stretch of gloomy weather here which we normally don’t experience until January, and I am having a hard time dealing with it.
“The whole summer was like this too,” I complained to my husband. “It’s like nature wants me to be depressed.”
“I don’t think so,” he said. “I think nature wants things to be moist; it’s the moisture delivery system that’s depressing you.”
(This does not make me feel any more kindly toward nature. It still feels personal.)
And the weather is not the only thing trying to break me. I’ve spent the past two months in such an endless cycle of chronic migraines and fibromyalgia pain that I have officially become the “ScrInch” who dreads Christmas.
The world has much to answer for these days.
