Many Things Do Not Fly

Time for my annual Halloween Rant.  Although this year was better than other years, I’ve still spent a good amount of time thinking about why I get so worked up about the whole thing.  I only had to turn away about 10 kids this year.

Every yearI refuse to give out candy to kids without a costume.  The kids are usually outraged, sometimes chagrined and occasionally able to or charm me in some way (I always give the option to do a trick in lieu of having a costume).   But I always end up being tweaked by the behavior of some adults or children.  I decided to try to tease apart what’s behind this.

In  analyzing my righteous indignation I’ve been reminded of a few key points of fact which I  always keep in mind regarding the holiday:

• Candy is cheap.  It’s about a nickel per piece.
• I don’t have to give out candy at all.  I can shut the door, turn out the lights and hunker down with a movie like lots of reasonable people do every year.
• Many people who are driving their kids to my street to trick-or-treat are coming from a neighborhood where they don’t think the kids will be safe
• I’m not the boss of Halloween.  Even if I were the Halloween Queen, there are not official rules of Halloween which I can enforce.

let me take those points under consideration and deal with them in reverse order.

Queen of the ‘ween I may not be, but there most certainly ARE rules to the festivities.  I am partial to rules, if only so I can acknowledge and then ignore them.  The rules of Halloween may not be widely written or displayed, and they do evolve from generation to generation.In order to set the current record straight, I am documenting the rules of Halloween right here and now.

Rule number 1: People (usually children, but adults as well) dress up in costumes portraying story characters, scary monsters, furniture or something else which they are not in real life.

Rule number 2: Dressed up children walk around a neighborhood, knocking on doors or ringing bells.  When a person answers the door the costumed kids say, “Trick or treat” and hold out their bag or bucket.

Rule number 3: The person who answers the door admires the costumed kid and gives him or her some candy.  Door openers have a container of candy at the ready.  The candy is  store-bought and individually wrapped.  No matter what anyone tells you, pencil toppers are not a good substitute for candy.  Neither are peanuts, bible verses, canned goods or Neccos.  In our neighborhood, however, glow-sticks and fireworks are acceptable.

Rule number 4: Houses where the front porch light is off are not participating.  Do not ring their bell.

Rule number 5:  Parents accompany smaller children, but usually wait on the sidewalk

Rull number 6: Older children may trick-or-treat, but the window of opportunity before they become obnoxious is small.  In these cases, they are usually accompanied by friends instead of parents.  All previous Halloween Protocols are still followed.

As to safe neighborhoods, I can sympathize.  But honestly, it has an much to do with greed as it does with safety.   The kids know who gives out the big candy bars and the best stuff.  My own kids have been known to head to the expensive side of Summit for a little taste of how the other half treats.  They don’t go because 4 blocks south is safer than here.  They go because the want a piece of the pie.

It’s true I don’t have to give out candy at all.  I could shut the door and cocoon for the night, but I love chatting with the kids, seeing the trend in costumery,  and saying hi to the moms and dads who wait down on the sidewalk.  The thought of all that chatting and silliness going on while I sit inside is just too much for me.   I can’t hack it.

Here’s my analysis about why this Holiday gets to me.  The thing is, it’s more than a way to get candy and  dress up.  On a basic level Halloween is a way we show membership in the society we live in.  Sure, some people opt out for religious reasons, some people opt out because they’re cantankerous, some because they don’t approve of the sugar.  I get that, and I believe it’s a valid choice.

But for the people who take part, Halloween is a time we can go to strangers, after dark, knock on their door and have them give us a little present.  It’s a great time to bond with other people, a time when kids and adults can safely express some things.  At it’s core Halloween is a kind of skit, or pantomime about an ideal society.  There are conventions, everyone knows what they are.  In order to keep the society lubed and pleasant we follow them.

Trick-or-treating by the rules says, “Hi.  I’m a membero f this community and I want to play with you.  I know it takes a little effort but I’ve decided to dress up, or dress my kids up, so you’ll know we’re playing the same game, following the same rules.”

When the big kids come dressed in regular clothes, with their big heavy pillowcases held open, that says something too.  What it says is this: “  I don’t want to be a part of this community, but I want you to reward me anyway.  In this little charade, I expect you to be civil and pleasant, let me harvest some of your good will without giving anything back.  You wanna make something out of it?”

The thing is, I’m only supposed to give candy by the same rules where you are supposed to dress up and say trick-or-treat.  You assume I won’t call a foul because I’m stupid or afraid, or that I don’t have any expectations of my fellow community members.  But I do.  I know most people just shake their heads and seethe about the big kids without costumes.   I have a feeling if more people sent them packing, they’d either stay home or they’d play by the rules.

My sister-in-law gave me a good tip for next Halloween.  I’m keeping a cheap stash of masks by the door, where I can offer it to kids who are sans costume.  I like it.  This year I gave out the most insipid and horrible candy to the kids without costume.  They were marshmallow brains with a powdery anti-flavor.  These things sucked out even the memory of candy you’ve loved in the past. Next year it’s wear a mask or forget the candy.

I checked with Jasper and he says it’s OK to write about his growth hormone treatment on the blog, which is a pretty good thing, since I’m having trouble writing about much else.

It’s not like he’s deformed for life, not like he’s terminally ill.  He isn’t even sick.  He’s just missing this one key component which would make him grow like other boys.  I’m relieved that they can say why he’s been like Peter Pan, stopped in childhood.

I don’t feel sorry for myself except maybe when we’re driving to Rochester for yet another appointment.  Those times it doesn’t take long to remind myself to be grateful for the luxury to be able to make the trip and have insurance coverage.  The testing and diagnosis has been  involved and expensive.  Insurance has paid the lion’s share of it.  I don’t know what we would have done without coverage.

So I’m not feeling sorry for myself, but I’m occasionally startled by how jealous I am of other people’s kids.  Chatting with other moms, the character of some of the stories they tell has left me out.  We still chuckle at misunderstandings, nod and make “awww cute” noises at the sweet things our kids do and say.  But there is a new class of story I can’t add anything to.  These are the puberty and growth spurt stories.

The ones which get me the most worked up are the kids who are 4 years younger than Jasper.  These are kids whose moms and dads carried them to the bus stop when Jasper was going to school.  Kids who used to look up to Jasper literally and figuratively.  He’s always hung out with  a mix of kids, many of them younger than he was.  It never bothered me that he chose to play with younger kids.  He wasn’t terribly mature for his age.  But when the ‘little kids’ started to catch up to and then tower over him, it made everything confusing and messy.When their voices changed Jasper and I both felt tricked, jilted in some way.

Lately when the parents get together- even the new with kids way younger than Jasper- when they get together and tell stories of boys outgrowing shoes and pants, and stories of younger siblings being awestruck at the new hair sprouting on their big brother or sister, I don’t feel that camaraderie.  I don’t feel the gleeful “Isn’t this a miraculous journey we’re taking?” Nor do I feel the exasperation of “Isn’t it a pain in the ass to have to keep buying new clothes before the old ones wear out?”

Years ago when Zach’s friends went through the same thing, he was about a year behind, but he progressed steadily and it never entered into my mind that he wouldn’t catch up.   I remember admiring and wondering at the new broad shoulders on the boys and the breasts on the girls.  It’s what’s supposed to happen.  I chuckled at how they all carried themselves self consciously at the 6 th grade graduation ceremony.  It was like someone  snuck into their houses in the night and gave them these new body parts.  My kid was behind, but he was on the same trajectory.  All the parents had a sort of camaraderie because our kids were all doing this miraculous metamorphosis.

When the subject of puberty and growth comes up I feel slightly angry.  I hate those people and their lanky or curvaceous kids.  I only hate them for a little while until I remind myself that they aren’t gloating, they’re marveling.  They’re proud.  I remember proud.  It feels good.  I still feel it when Jasper walks up and starts a conversation with a total stranger.

I remember some time around his 15th year, looking at Zach and seeing that he had man-hair on his legs and biceps which were sculpted and strong.  He was awkward, but at the same time he was coming to grips with the fact that he was stronger than his mom.  It made him proud, you could tell.  And it made me proud for some reason I can’t quite put my finger on.  Maybe it was along the lines of “all sorts of people make babies.  That’s easy.  Me? I made that manly person over there.  That’s right.  I made that.  Isn’t he handsome?”  Whether or not it was justified, I was proud.  And proud feels good.

Jealous feels bad.  This new feeling is the opposite of proud, which I used to think was ashamed.  It’s jealous.  Jealous makes me feel like a bad person, a mean person for not being able to celebrate with these other kids and their parents.  It’s the same feeling I had and still have some times when I see older people going about their lives.  By older I mean older than my mom when she died (so not very old at all).  I’m jealous that they get to be walking to the store, raking leaves or buying a newspaper. I’m jealous of one kid’s hairy armpits and another’s cracking voice.  Jealousy by proxy?

If I feel jealous, I imagine Jasper feels the same.  He’s tired of being mistaken for his mom on the phone, and he’d rather we didn’t discuss the latest kid to have his voice change.  Sometimes after he gets together with kids he hasn’t seen for a long time, he cries and storms around the house in frustration.  The first thing out of the other kids’ mouths is always, “JAsper! You’re exactly the same! You’re still short!”  They’re just dumb kids.

It’s weird to have a medical condition that is simply the absence of something you’ve never had to begin with.  Something you didn’t even miss until everyone else got it.  It’s hard to know where to direct your anger.  I’ve imagined what it would be like to never grow up.  What if you could live for a long long time, but you had to stay 12 forever?

It isn’t going to be that way here.  We should be able to start growth hormone shots in about a week.  Once they start, Jasper will probably grow very quickly, about twice as fast as a normal teenager.  That works out to be 3 to 4 inches per year.  We’re going to set up a camera in front of a measuring tape and try to take a picture every day once he starts his treatments.  Watch for it here.

I have a new niece.  She’s named Isla Marie.  She’s lovely.  Right after she was born my brother and I started suggesting names.  We got silly as we are sometimes wont to do. She was born a couple months ago, I thought it was time to let her mom know what our ideas were while she was in the hospital.  Maybe she’ll let us name the next baby.

Our newest family member didn’t have a name for hours and hours. Being the close knit family we are, we sprang into action and started a suggestion list (knowing in our heart of hearts that the name had already been picked, but the parents were shy about announcing it).

Name suggestions, just puttin em out there: Flower, pomegranate, K’shontell, Bonnie, Cadence, Muppet, Clara, Jestipher, Sullivante, Pot-pie, Maple-nut, Fuzzy, Dumpling, Suzie, Zinger, Alabaster, Dong-quai, Dove, Aplet, Verdigris, Hopiness, Mandrill, Sober, Ireland, Strato-cumulus, Tomorrow, Fistula, Bonus, Ligation, Gem, Parley, Love..

IF my mom were alive, she’d just call the baby whatever she wanted anyway, no matter what we named the child.  Either that, or she’d simply call the child “Baby”.  Here’s a poem for Baby:

Isla Marie

Dumpling, Darling, Puddnin’ pie
Cadence, Clara, Lorelei
Jestipher, Verdigris, Daisy,
Suzie-Q, Ireland, Mazy
Maple-nut, Zinger, Plowshare and Dove
Muppet, Puppet, Pinafore, Love
Mandrill, Marzipan, Fuzzyhead-Anne
Sober, Sariah, Fedorah or Stanne
Fecundity, Abstinence, Proliferation
Conception, Creation, Tubal Ligation
Parley, Patricia, Portence or Trial
Cirrus,Tomorrow, Fistula, Smile
Bubbly, Finnley, McInty, McCleire
Elsivir, Ellington, Ensign or Eire
Your Sisters and Brother
Your Dad and your Mother
Are waiting to call you Names

I’m in Rehab. Well a family member of mine is in rehab and the program they’re in asks loved ones to come and do some group work. This is good, bad, stupid and necessary.

It’s good (brilliant actually) because it allows for the doctors to get information from someone other than the addict.  Addicts are notoriously bad at telling the truth.  Having people close enough to have seen the problem, but who aren’t the addict themselves, seems really important to me.  I’m glad to be able to help illuminate the labyrinthian reality that was the life during the time our patient was actively using.

It’s also good because it reminds (if you’ve been through it before) or enlightens us about how normal we are in our abnormality.   How addiction has predictable effects on those close to the addict, not just him or herself.  It allows us to see that dishonesty, embarrassment, anger, fear and shame are part of sociology of alcoholism and drug abuse, not just something wrong with me or our family.  What a relief that is to know.

It’s bad because we are just ass-draggingly tired of dealing with the consequences of our addicts.  We’ve already picked up a lot of slack, done damage control, crisis intervention and rearranged our lives enough.  The program wants family members to come in for 3 days straight.  That’s one more drain on our already depleted resources.  Surprise, surprise, when we went around the room talking about what feelings we had today, the first 3 were resentful and frazzled.

It’s stupid because the technology hasn’t changed much in the last 20 years.  I’d wager the relapse rate hasn’t changed much either.  When the facilitator asked my dad and me to name two feelings we were having today, it seemed impossible that she didn’t know how ridiculous this was.  She did know.  She even cited Stewart Smalley.  But she still asked, “How does that make you feel?” repeatedly.  I think it’s kind of worthless to find out how we feel, unless it’s just an elaborate ploy to extract information from us, which I would approve of.

It’s also stupid because we’re all thrown together in this small group thing with strangers (cool because we realize how alike we all are) and expected to share intimately.  One thing The Group is supposed to do is watch us as we talk about 5 incidents when the addict was using and how we felt during those incidents.  The Group is then supposed to relay back to us how we appeared while we were speaking.  If we get teary eyed, they will comment on that.  If we shake our foot (and we do), they mention that.  If we are stiff and stoic, they let us know that.  As it turns out, there is no way to escape editorializing on what is essentially our public speaking style.

If you’re a fidgeter as my dad and I are, people will be watching and reporting back to you how you capped and uncapped your pen, shook your foot, bit your nails or played with your hair.  Let me tell you a little secret about fidgeters:  We’re nervous already.  Letting us know you’ll be watching for fidgeting is like telling people to not think about hippopotamus.  It’s counter productive unless you’re trying to make people neurotic.

It’s necessary because it recognizes that the nature of alcoholism and drug addiction causes it to be a family disease.  Treating just the addict won’t cut it.  Treating the whole family might not even cut it, but the odds are better.  If nothing else, all those people on 5th floor are safe for a couple weeks.

We put up a camera outside our house recently to capture the image (ideally) of the person or people who have been harvesting out of the cars in our neighborhood over the last few months. Years possibly, although it did stop for a few months. Sometimes it happens twice a week. We go out in the morning to find the glove box emptied onto the floor, the change slot emptied and the doors ajar.

We’ve lost more than one cell-phone, two electric razors, car-phone chargers, quarters, a large marble curio, 3 CD players, the occasional hand-held video game, a few prescription pills… Nothing of extremely high value, but it’s definitely an annoyance at best and a violation at worst.

After my window was smashed to get my stereo out of the car, I stopped locking the doors. The next time my stereo was taken, I didn’t have to replace a window, but my neighbor down the street did. Kind of a toss-up as to whether we’re better off locking the doors or not.  As a punishment for my negligence (once left the doors unlocked, once left the removable faceplate in the car) I have not replaced the CD player.

As for leaving things in the car, we try hard not to do it, but sometimes we fail, or a phone slips onto the floor unnoticed until we can’t find it and go look on line to see it’s being used to call New Orleans at 3 in the morning.  So although we sometimes make the mistake of leaving something of value in the car, it’s  totally lame for people to blame the day to day folks for an occasional oversight when there’s a guy whose roaming the alleys and streets with the sole intent of stealing other people’s stuff.

We’ve fantasized about sticking mouse-traps in the glove box, which is routinely emptied in the rifling. We talked about an explosive with a blue dye like they put in expensive clothes. We thought about staking out the park and waiting. I actually considered lacing appetizing snacks with sick-making stuff (which as you can see, was a thought that wasn’t well formed)… The whole business has caused much bad energy in our lives.

After a recent spate of riflings both in the alley and on the street, we finally followed through on one plan. We got a night-vision, motion activated camera, which Andy mounted aiming at our cars.

Last night, the second of two nights we’ve had the camera, we caught a guy on video going through my car. It’s kind of creepy and kind of surprising. I thought for sure it was kids. It isn’t. It looks like a middle aged white guy, and he’s riding a bike. he spends all of about 45 seconds going through my car and then rides off with a few coins (and sticky fingers because of the spilled pop in one of the little coin collectors. haha).
We put the video on YouTube and informed the neighbors, asking if they recognized the guy. We got a number of thank-yous from annoyed neighbors. We also got a couple objections to the idea of putting a camera in the alley. People found it disturbing and a little “big brother”. I’m glad we have both in the neighborhood. I’m going to have to disagree with them, however.

My first thought is, but hey, we’re the good guys, and we’re protecting all the good guys. True, but everybody (maybe not everybody, like not the guy rifling our cars) – almost everybody thinks they’re the forces of good, and not everybody is. So just because I think we are, doesn’t give me the right to invade other people’s privacy.

Fair, but I am of the opinion that other people’s privacy pretty much ends once they break into my car.  There is no reasonable expectation of privacy in a public alley.

My  next thought is, but this guy, or these guys, are really pissing me off. More than one bad decision has been made in response to being pissed off, so I guess that isn’t a great defense.

The camera is aimed in front of our garage at our cars, not down the length of the alley, not out into the park. We’re not looking in people’s windows, not policing the activity in the alley. We don’t even check the camera unless it looks like the cars have been tampered with. The system isn’t broadcast, or even close-circuited. We have to go remove the clip from the camera (with a ladder) and check it frame by frame.

This turned out to be a bit of a hitch when the sunflowers got tall enough to trigger the motion sensor.  We got frame after frame of black and white, night vision sunflowers waggling in the wind.  The truth is, I’m not even torn about this at all.  I really like the Predator Extinction Cam.

A friend of mine left last week to spend the year in South America. I’m going to miss her. She started out being the intense, shy and awkward daughter of my neighbor-friends. Somehow I’ve grown attached to her as a friend.

She’s the same age as my oldest son, which puts her in a category much like hummingbirds or other wild animals. When you run across one by itself and it deigns to stay in your company it’s a rare and wondrous thing. You know at any moment they may figure out you’re not one of them, and bolt. The first time she came berry picking with me, alone without her mom, it felt like a gift. When she reminded me in the following years that it was time for us to go picking, it was a different kind of gift. She seemed to enjoy my company.

It’s one thing for a hummingbird to accidentally alight on your shoulder, as wonderful as that is. It’s quite another for that little hummer to seek you out the following day and follow you around the yard while you garden. That’s the feeling I get every time Annie calls or shows up on my doorstep. It fades as we get into the back and forth of being friends, but I haven’t stopped being honored to have her show up in the first place.
I’m not saying I’m in awe of Annie every time we make contact. I’m not. I’m just aware what a great privilege it is to have a young person for a friend when you’re not a young person anymore yourself.

She’s not perfect, but overall she’s a remarkable young woman. She prepared and left for this trip to the bottom of the world while her parents were half-way across the country, something I never would have been able to do. She’s staying with a family in Chile and going to school. Impressive. While she’s in Chile I hope she remembers me and makes contact regularly.

Little Canada is as far away as it sounds.  It’s around a thousand miles from St. Paul.  Zach makes the trip almost every day on his bike, because he works there.  As you can imagine, he’s in pretty good shape.

He came home from work the other day, sweaty and tired, but excited.  “Mom, I found something really cool by the railroad tracks on my way home.  It’s really good, but I feel kinda bad about finding it. “  He went out to the garage and returned with two instrument cases.

I like musical instruments.  I can’t really play any of them, but I take in abandoned and orphaned ones on a somewhat regular basis.  They are hung on my wall, sitting on my mantle, hanging from the ceiling.  I think they’re at least as pretty as any wall art I’ve seen.

The two cases Zach had rescued were black standard music cases. One was lined in green velvet and cream satin and contained a violin.  It also had a ticket stub with a name written on the back, chapstick, a lighter, an electronic tuner, mints, a bow, and a long glass vial with extra strings in it.  The other case had an autographed mandolin with an electronic pick-up, gum, a promo card for a local illustrator with two phone numbers written on it, and a backstage pass for a local music venue, First Avenue 7th Street Entry, dated October 2004.

Neither instrument had any identifying information on it other than the autograph on the mandolin.  I looked. Zach looked. We googled the First Ave, to see if they listed who played in 2004.  They did not.  We googled the band name on the backstage pass, got not much.  We looked up the illustrator whose card was in the case with the mandolin.  Nothing.   We checked Craigslist to see if someone had reported the instruments missing in the last day or two.  Found nada.

We tried to decipher the autograph on the mandolin and came up with the unusual name “Wizzary Swoot”.  Musicians are weird.  We googled Wizzary Swoot, Wizzary Sweet, Marcy Sweet, Maury Sweet…  The M or W could possibly pass for an H, so we looked up Harry Sweet as well.  Whole lotta nothin.

After googling local mandolin players, I decided the autograph was probably from Marty Stuart, a local guy, and that it probably wasn’t his mandolin, because people usually don’t autograph their own instrument.  I sent a couple emails to local musicians we knew, and one to First Avenue and waited.  We’d find the person who lost these instruments and lip balm.  We would.

Andy came home and looked over the find.  He was impressed.  He picked up the things in the case and looked them over.  When he came upon the ticket stub with the name on the back he said, “I bet this is will-call and this is your guy”.  Smarty pants.  He did a google search on Jacob Hyer and came up with a myspace page for a local blue-grass band called “Pocahontas County”.  Jacob plays fiddle and mandolin. Bingo.

We sent him and one of his band-mates an email before we went to bed.

We heard nothing the next morning, nothing by lunch.  I went out shopping for a couple hours and when I returned there was an email waiting for me.

It did indeed match up, except for the stickers, which we could see evidence of, but no actual remaining stickers.  I called Jacob.  He happened to be within a mile from us and he came right over.  He looked young, and was oddly fresh-faced for the full beard he sported.  He had little black round glasses framing wide, shell-shocked blue eyes.

When he saw the instrument cases he recognized them immediately.  He squatted and opened them and gave them a quick once-over.  He looked up at us, “This was my childhood fiddle.  I’ve played it since I was a kid. I thought they were gone. This is like unbelievable.”  He stood up, took off his glasses and rubbed his face.  “How did you get them home on your bike? How did you carry them?”  They had straps, Zach explained he had ridden his bike a few times with a guitar case slung over his shoulder, this was sort of the same thing.  “Unreal.  Thanks so much for bringing them back and finding me.  I can’t believe you did it.  My mom told me not to set them down, and to put my name on them…. I’ve just been kicking myself.”  I asked if he’d like a glass of water, which is where people usually say, no thanks, and gracefully exit.  “That would be really great. Thanks.”

He seemed like he didn’t want to leave. He had a check which he had been holding awkwardly since he arrived,   “I’m sorry. I’m a musician, I don’t really have a lot of money. I’ll send you a CD, and you’re all always on the guest list, wherever we’re playing.  This is like a dream, I can’t believe it.”

He stepped in and looked at the collection of instruments on display in the front half of the house, which included 4 guitars, 2 violins, a trumpet, a saxophone, a zither, a clarinet, a drum, a set of chimes, two recorders, a mandolin and an accordion. He shook his head. I guess it could have seemed like retrieving a lost child from a well intentioned, but quirky orphanage.

Andy showed up, shook his hand, and the thank-yous were repeated.  Jacob never put his glasses back on, he kept covering his face with both hands.  He was very relieved, and a little weirded out.  We chatted until we actually needed to leave to get Zach where he was going.  I made him promise to put his name and number inside the instruments.  He agreed he would do so right away.

He had finished up a gig late at night two days before Zach found the cases.  He set them down while he was loading up his car, and driven away without them.  By the time he realized he didn’t have them, they had gone missing.  Whoever found them had peeled off the stickers and stashed the instruments near the railroad tracks, under a bridge.  I bet they’re mad.  But it made for a good story for us.

I’m taking a math class.  It’s to help me brush up for the GRE (a test graduate programs like to see before they decide whether or not to admit you).  Math was never my strong suit.  More than one teacher passed me because they knew I was working my butt off and they felt sorry for me.

My new math teacher is impossibly young.  He says people always say he looks younger than his age, which is reassuring since he looks about 20.  He’s Asian, stocky, clean-cut and full of himself.  Full of himself because he knows he’s right.  He’s on the side of truth and justice, self sufficiency and hard work.  Math.  He’s on the side of math. Unfairly maligned, too often blamed and made the whipping boy of the undisciplined and the lazy mind.

On the first day of class, as he’s handing out course materials he begins to try to indoctrinate us.  It’s subtle.  “You guys should think about something while you’re here.  Every day I hear people say they’re not good at math, or that they can’t do math, that they hate math.  It’s socially acceptable.  People admit it all the time.  But do you ever hear people say they’re not good at reading, or they hate reading?  People would never admit that.  Why?  It’s something to think about.”

Something to think about indeed.  Let me process for a minute, here…. Ok, done.  I hate my new math teacher.

We get to the part of class where we’re talking about percents.  He decides to tell us a cautionary tale.  Once, while walking through the mall, he saw a big sale at Bed, Bath and Beyond.  40 percent off everything.  He spied a beautiful trash can, one he’d been wanting for a long time.  Stainless, with a pneumatic closer so it won’t slam shut.  It started off around a hundred and fifty bucks.  He grabbed his find and took it to the counter.

He figured the girl behind the counter was about 16 years old.  She rang him up and told him his total was 60 bucks.  Being an upstanding citizen, he told the girl that couldn’t be right.  She said, nope, that’s the right price.  He started to try to explain the difference between forty percent of something and forty percent off something.  He said he finally gave up and took his generous discount… Because (and here we see the weak-minded get their just desserts despite the benevolent attempts of the math-ters), “I decided, look, if they’re dumb enough to hire someone like that, they deserve what they get.”

In case you’re the type of person for whom math comes easily, but writing or parsing out language does not, let me walk you through what I heard on my first day of math class after 20 years off.

Underlying implications:

• It is socially acceptable to be bad at math, and to admit it
• It is socially unacceptable to be bad at reading and to admit it.  Reading being the favorite son of the society.
• If we are bad at math, it is probably due to our willingness to accept that as our fate, due to the prejudice our culture has against math.  If we are good at it, it is due at least in part to our ability to surmount the social pressures trying to dumb us down.  Our moral superiority shines through the dark cloud of anti-intellectualism.
• No one is dumb enough to admit they aren’t a good reader, this is because our culture provides support and encouragement, making the inability to read a non-option
• People who are bad at math shouldn’t be hired, and it’s ok to take advantage of them without feeling bad
• Not only is it OK to take advantage of them, but also anyone who deigns to employ them or otherwise give them legitimacy.
• It is acceptable to spend ninety dollars on a container for your trash.

Setting aside the fact that we’ve spent thousands of hours and tens of thousands of dollars trying to get our son to be able to read, I was a little insulted.

The more hours I invest into trying to learn math, the more angry I get.  I sort of believed what people said to me for a long time which was this:  “You’re a smart girl, you have a high IQ, there is no reason you can’t do math.  You’ve bought into the societal expectation that girls aren’t good at math, and you’re not really trying.”

Now I remember glazing over in math class in high school, so maybe I was lazy.  But in college, I remember trying really hard.  I couldn’t make things stick in my head.  Even that I had chalked up to being distracted, unmotivated or poorly taught.  This time, I was going to (am still going to) really try hard.  Focus and do my homework, pay attention in class, ask for help when I don’t understand.

Every time I do math homework, I come close to tears.  Every.  Time.  I think of myself as a competent person who can do anything she sets her mind to.  This is the decade of my life where I learn to accept my limits.  I’m still going to work hard (hours every day) to improve my math score (which was in the 33rd percentile).  But I’m going to know that when I have trouble, it’s because the math part of my brain was accidentally coated in Teflon during production.  It makes things harder for me.

The numbers and chunks of problems seem like they move around on the page when I do homework.  I can’t seem to accurately transcribe a problem from one part of the page to the other.  I can get a problem right, but when it comes to to the next problem of the same type, I suddenly cannot remember how I did the last one. Sometimes when I narrate out loud, I say one number, but write a different one (which I only notice when someone who’s working with me, stops me).   It’s like trying to watch a pixellated TV screen, or one where the horizontal control is out of whack.

I’m not asking for disability payments,or anything.  I’m just asking for a little nonjudgmental understanding, and an admission of what a crap-shoot intelligences are.  Math people, I’m just asking for you to help me as best you can, without being so overtly disdainful.  That’s all.  There’s something awry with my wiring and I can’t fix it.

Those of you who can do math, please consider letting go of the idea that I’m lazy, or the product of a broken society.   I realize this means I’ll have to tolerate your inability to differentiate between ‘women’ and ‘woman’, Mr. Hmong speaking math professor, without feeling like you’re just careless.  I’ll have to let go of my little twinge of superiority when you misspell  words like there, their and they’re, you’re, your, were, where, we’re, etc. I’ll miss feeling superior, but I’ll really understand what you mean when you say you’re just a bad speller.

I had my first mammogram recently.  It wasn’t as bad as everyone said it would be.  I was kind of relieved.  Yeah they squished my breasts mechanically, but the technician was nice, and although it was a little uncomfortable, it wasn’t painful.  She warmed the equipment up with a heating pad while I got gowned.  She handled my body as if I were livestock she really hated to send to the slaughter, but that’s what the 4H program dictated.  She was gentle and firm.

A week or so later, I got notice that they wanted me to come in for a second mammogram, but not at their clinic.  They wanted me to go to the University Breast Center and have digital mammography.  Now the only digital exam I have had done (that I recall) is one they like to call the “digital rectal exam”, which is one they like to spring on a person who is already in the stirrups, and at no particularly discernible interval.  It’s like playing nasty Russian Roulette every time.  This had to be better than that.

Anyway… Who wouldn’t want to go to somewhere called the Breast Center?  It sounds round and soft and pleasant, doesn’t it?  Warm and homey.  Peaches and Creamy, friendly and nice.  Aside from the slightly unnerving fact that they didn’t like my first mammogram, I wasn’t dreading this visit too much.   I should have been.  It was way worse than the first, except that they gave me a clean bill of breastly health when it was all over.

The Breast Center was not warm, it was freezing cold.  They take you back, get you gowned in a semi-private waiting/changing area and have you sit in that area until they’re ready for you.  Now I was cold and half-naked.  That sucked.  They have hot-chocolate packages and hot water to make yourself cocoa, but you can’t bring it back with you under any circumstances.  I know.  I tried.  The nurse hissed at me and said she could get me another gown, if I was cold.  And hell yeah, I was cold.  Remember, people I keep my house at 65 in the winter. I can handle a chill.  This was COLD.  My goosebump and nipple erector muscles were getting tired.

The machinery they used to do the mammogram is similar, but different in three ways.  First and most importantly, it was not warmed by a heating pad by a nice nurse/technician.  Secondly, it is digital and therefore the nurse/tech person can see immediately if the pictures are good.  Thirdly, whereas the first set of mammograms I had done merely squished my breasts to the thickness of a decent pancake, this place seemed to have the machine set on ‘crepe’.

It wasn’t even the squishing that hurt the most.  It was her driving my ribcage into the corner of the machine so as to get a better shot.   The feeling was a lot like what I get when they give me an exray at the dentist.  That’s usually the worst part of the exam.  Seems like I must have a very small jaw, because the corners of that little cardboard thing always dig into the tender area under my tongue even after the hygienist does that worthless little bending-of-the-corners maneuver.

It hurt, it was cold, and the nurse had none of the nice 4H attitude.  She was all business, angry even.   The nerve of me,  having breasts and bringing them into her cold and sterile breast center.

It’s hard making a switch with a medicine you’ve been taking for 20 years, but I felt good about it. I’d be sleepy, maybe even crabby while I worked my way down from the one so as to ramp up the other. I knew that. But I might be able to actually be out in the sun for an hour without getting itchy spots. Maybe I wouldn’t have dry mouth or the facial flushing… Who knew what else could change for the better when I got that dirty drug out of my system.

And I was crabby as I worked down. No wonder, I was talking a lot in my sleep, I remember scratching at the air, I yelled out people’s names, I kicked and I remembered the passage of time through the night. I woke up tired.

When I started to add the new clean drug (Klonopin) to my very reduced dose, I did fall asleep faster, but I didn’t stay quiet through the night. I hung in there for a week then called the sleep doctor who wanted me to come in, which I did. I was tired and crabby, sleepy all day.  The doc breezed in, looked at my chart, verified that I wasn’t sleeping well and made a decision.

“You’re down very low in the Imipramine, now. I want you to go all the way up to a full milligram  of the Klonopin. Lower your Imipramine one more time for a week then get off that altogether. Call me in a week. We have some options after that. We put you back on the Imipramine, we can switch to another drug similar to the Klonopin or one close to the Imipramine.”   He was in and out in 5 minutes or less. Great, we had a plan.

I went up to the full 1mg of Klonopin and had my first night of black sleep. A couple more of those and I’d be a new woman. I felt dopey, but sometimes that happens when people haven’t been sleeping well. A couple times in the morning, when I was standing at the sink or putting on a sock, I started to tip over. Like I wasn’t quite awake yet. But I did indeed sleep like the dead. Good for me.

I was still low energy. My life felt hard. My husband was having a difficult time at work and when he came home, he’d plug into a computer with headphones and go off into the ether.  I hated him.  I was sick of him ignoring me, sick of feeling like I wasn’t important enough to talk to.  My 15 year old was snotty  sometimes yelled at me.  I didn’t like his recent choice of friends, and had no idea what to do about it. His school didn’t feel supportive, either.  I was totally sick of parenting.  I wasn’t good at it, it wasn’t good to me.

My oldest son wasn’t doing well at all, at least I didn’t think so. Not based on the mail from people he owed money to, or who threatened him with police action for fraud, or cigarette companies who wanted to send him coupons and special deals. I wouldn’t know how he was really doing, because I never saw him or heard from him. This was especially disheartening because it’s such a lame thing for a mother to complain about.  Ick, who wants to hear that?   Of course he doesn’t call, he’s 20!

I was doing well in my class, but I hated it, and felt like there was no way I was ever going to be a good interpreter or qualify to get into a graduate program I’d be really good at. One thing I could do well was write, but I didn’t have anything to say when I did write. At least nothing that didn’t sound like self-indulgent whining. Nobody wanted to hear that crap. I’m an amateur, I’d always be an amateur, and people were tired of me and my drivel.

All of these things, and more really weighed on me, drgged me out.  By mother’s day I was in trouble.  Shortly after waking up, I thought, “I wish I were dead”.   I couldn’t get through the day without crying.  We went out for dinner on mother’s day and I had to excuse myself and go cry in the bathroom after an unpleasant interaction with my kid.  I hated my life. The rest of what should have been my support network seemed to me like they were way too busy with their own stuff to be burdened with my troubles.

I got home and went to bed. I lay in my bed while Jasper and Andy plugged themselves in.  I cried. This was my life: Crappy mom (proof is in the pudding), neglected wife, decent student but nothing spectacular, mediocre Spanish speaker with the nerve to try to do interpreting, undisciplined writer, shoddy housekeeper, aging, gaining weight, disappearing jawline…  going nowhere.   By the time Andy came up for bed, I was utterly bereft, and could only come up with, “Why can’t you be nice to me?” between very wet and sniffly sobs.  He didn’t answer, just patted my back.

The next day I told him I was feeling really bad that we really needed to talk.  He assured me we would, but went all but underground.  He left town for a couple days, and when he came back he was very busy.  He didn’t come to bed until I was asleep or almost asleep, just generally stayed on the down-low.

Somewhere in the middle of that fog, I realized I had a medical problem, and I should get professional help.  What was happening to me was that I had slid into a depression.   I had been depressed before in my life for short periods, or because of some bad event.  I had never just slipped into this feeling and not had it go away after a couple days.  It was oppressive, like walking around with a heavy wet blanket over my shoulders.

I did all the stuff I tell people who are battling depression to do.  I didn’t go back to bed, I got up and walked outside every day.  I exercised and ate good food.  I tried to be grateful for the things I have. That just made me feel like more of a schmuck for feeling bad.  Or it made me feel terrible for the people who didn’t have all my blessings.

A friend asked if I had looked into side effects of my new medication, and a light-bulb went on in my head.  I went to take a look.  Depression turns out to be one possible side effect of Klonopin.  On top of that, I was coming off an anti-depressant (albeit a very low dose).   After a few more bad, sad days, I got an appointment with a psychiatrist who could see me quickly and help me reverse the process of medication switching I had started.   She agreed that this was a medication induced depressive episode, and that I should get off the Klonopin

What I learned was this:  Depression is very chemical, and very real.  When it talks to you, it uses your own voice and it is very convincing.  It seems to me, one of the most dangerous things it told me was that no one wanted to hear me whine.  This kept me from telling people that I was in trouble.  I complained about my husband, my kids, my life… But I didn’t talk about feeling sad all the time, feeling down and wishing I were dead.   I understood for the first time why people I love who are depressed don’t always talk about how bad they feel.

It made me understand how real the skewed perspective can look when the chemicals in your brain aren’t mixed quite right.  It looks real because it’s based on real existing fault-lines in your life.  It isn’t totall made up crap. It’s an inability to deal with real crap.  And since the crap is real, the rest of it must be real.  I believed that nothing could get better, and any attempt to make it better was just me trying to get out from under my responsibility for the miserable life I had created.

I have started working back off of Klonopin.  It’s not a high dose, so I’m not having any problems doing it.  I’m quite happy going back to my dirty drug.  Turns out that tipping over thing is another side effect of Klonopin.  So was my utter inability to come up with the right word.   It felt like half of my sentences were ending with “That thing”.

I’m feeling better.  Mostly, but it was really icky.  I’m usually fascinated with reading the side effects of drugs, I don’t know why I didn’t do it this time.  Another lesson learned.