Steven Harper's Blog, page 66
April 24, 2018
To Infinity!
I have my tickets for Infinity War. I love being able to reserve a ticket and a seat in advance so that I can sit where I want without having to arrive an hour before the movie starts!
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Rephrasing It
I've discovered that I get more respectful reactions from people when I don't tell them I'm a teacher. Instead, I tell them I'm a manager who conducts at least five meetings per day, each with over 30 employees, and give my employees personalized feedback on their ongoing projects and oversee the design of new projects intended to further the goals of our system.
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April 16, 2018
Jury Duty, Sexual Assault, and Me
This morning was Jury Duty Day. I drove to the courthouse and went through the annoying security system that requires you to get half undressed.
A small aside: Michigan courthouses don't allow cell phones on the grounds that it's too easy to use them for unauthorized photography. The last time I went to the courthouse was to change my married name, and I didn't want to stand in a long line at the county clerk's office without my phone. So I went through the security with it in my jacket pocket, though first I had to empty my pants pockets and take off my belt and my shoes. As I knew it would, the phone set off the metal detector and the guard found my phone. He handed it to me and told me I'd have to take it back to my car. I agreed to this, but pointed out I'd have to get re-dressed first. I stepped over to a little table to put myself back together, and in seconds the guard was already distracted by more people crowding to get through the security check station. He forgot all about me. I slipped my phone back into my pocket and sauntered downstairs to the clerk's office to change my name. There!
I considered doing that today, but wasn't sure I could pull the same trick twice. In the end, I left my phone in the car. Since I had my laptop, I'd be able to entertain myself and communicate with the outside world easily enough. When I put my laptop case through the x-ray machine, the guard halted it and asked, "Do you have a cell phone in this case?" I was a little startled. You mean the machine couldn't tell? "Nope," I said, and mentally kicked myself. Next time I'll know--put the cell phone into the computer briefcase.
Anyway, I got to the jury room without further incident.
A crap-ton of people were called in for it duty today because the courts had a lot of trials. I found a study carol, unpacked my computer, booted it up, found the complimentary wi-fi, and was just starting in on a new short story when I was called into a trial. Sigh. I shut down, disconnected, packed up, and went upstairs with 49 other people and a shockingly handsome court clerk. Although it was four flights up to the courtroom, almost no one took the elevator, which I found odd. This is America! Who takes the stairs? I sure didn't, not with my coat, briefcase, and laptop!
Upstairs, a huge mass of us jurors filled the courtroom. Clearly, they were figuring on a lot of dismissals. They selected 13 people--not me--to be the initial jurors, and the voire dire began.
In this case, a man was accused of sexual assault. The trial was expected to last two days, which is court code for "probably a week." The judge read off a looooooooooooong list of admonitions, asked each juror some basic questions, and turned questioning over to the lawyers.
One woman everyone hated. She kept saying, "I have very strong opinions about the subject of this trial and about the evidence in the case." The judge pointed three times that out no evidence had been presented yet and that the defendant was still considered an innocent man. But the woman persevered that she had "strong opinions about the evidence." She used that phrase several times, growing more and more forceful. Everyone in the room was getting pissed at her. Finally, the judge said, "It's clear you shouldn't sit on this case. You can leave." The woman grabbed up her purse and marched out. The judge turned to the room and said that anyone who thought they could make outrageous statements to avoid sitting on this trial had better think again.
And guess who was called up to take her seat? Yep--me.
By now, I already knew I wasn't going to be sitting on this jury, but the court didn't know it yet. Unfortunately, there was only one way to deal with this.
"Have you heard the questions we asked the other jurors?" the judge asked me.
"Yes," I said.
"Are there any of them that would have a bearing on this case for you?"
"Yes."
The judge nodded. "What would that be?"
"I'm twice a survivor of sexual assault."
Brief pause. "Do you think it would be inappropriate for you to sit on the jury for this trial?" the judge asked.
"Yes," I said.
"Then you're dismissed."
As I filed past the other jurors, who were trying not to stare, the judge added, "Thank you for your candor."
I gathered up my things and left. My heart was beating faster than I would have liked.
One interesting fact I learned from the judge, though: Michigan law states that in cases of sexual assault, the victim's testimony is considered evidence strong enough to convict without reasonable doubt. There's no need for DNA evidence, other witnesses, or anything else.
Out in the hall, I pretended I was one of my students on a bathroom pass and wandered around the courthouse to clear my head. When I figured I'd stretched things out as long as I safely could, I went back to the jury room. On the way, I passed two more groups of jurors heading to courtrooms, so I'm glad I didn't hurry.
Back in the jury room, I got my computer out again and went back to work on my short story. Time passed. We unassigned jurors sat around getting hungrier and hungrier. By now it was well past lunch. They had vending machines, but I didn't want to buy something, only to be told a minute later I could go to lunch. Other rejected jurors trickled into the room looking either stunned or relieved, depending.
Finally the coordinator announced that they were still waiting on the needs of one particular trial, but a bunch of people could go to lunch right now. She read off a list of names that didn't include me. So I had to wait. They don't tell you much of anything at these things, and those of us who remained were getting grouchier and grouchier. I kept writing.
One more time the coordinator got on the loudspeaker and announced that the trial in question wouldn't be seating a jury today. "That means you can all go home. Your service is complete."
Well, then! I gathered up my collection of electronics and went home. Though I do wonder if the people who were sent to lunch ended up being put on a jury when they got back!
And that concluded my jury service.
comments
A small aside: Michigan courthouses don't allow cell phones on the grounds that it's too easy to use them for unauthorized photography. The last time I went to the courthouse was to change my married name, and I didn't want to stand in a long line at the county clerk's office without my phone. So I went through the security with it in my jacket pocket, though first I had to empty my pants pockets and take off my belt and my shoes. As I knew it would, the phone set off the metal detector and the guard found my phone. He handed it to me and told me I'd have to take it back to my car. I agreed to this, but pointed out I'd have to get re-dressed first. I stepped over to a little table to put myself back together, and in seconds the guard was already distracted by more people crowding to get through the security check station. He forgot all about me. I slipped my phone back into my pocket and sauntered downstairs to the clerk's office to change my name. There!
I considered doing that today, but wasn't sure I could pull the same trick twice. In the end, I left my phone in the car. Since I had my laptop, I'd be able to entertain myself and communicate with the outside world easily enough. When I put my laptop case through the x-ray machine, the guard halted it and asked, "Do you have a cell phone in this case?" I was a little startled. You mean the machine couldn't tell? "Nope," I said, and mentally kicked myself. Next time I'll know--put the cell phone into the computer briefcase.
Anyway, I got to the jury room without further incident.
A crap-ton of people were called in for it duty today because the courts had a lot of trials. I found a study carol, unpacked my computer, booted it up, found the complimentary wi-fi, and was just starting in on a new short story when I was called into a trial. Sigh. I shut down, disconnected, packed up, and went upstairs with 49 other people and a shockingly handsome court clerk. Although it was four flights up to the courtroom, almost no one took the elevator, which I found odd. This is America! Who takes the stairs? I sure didn't, not with my coat, briefcase, and laptop!
Upstairs, a huge mass of us jurors filled the courtroom. Clearly, they were figuring on a lot of dismissals. They selected 13 people--not me--to be the initial jurors, and the voire dire began.
In this case, a man was accused of sexual assault. The trial was expected to last two days, which is court code for "probably a week." The judge read off a looooooooooooong list of admonitions, asked each juror some basic questions, and turned questioning over to the lawyers.
One woman everyone hated. She kept saying, "I have very strong opinions about the subject of this trial and about the evidence in the case." The judge pointed three times that out no evidence had been presented yet and that the defendant was still considered an innocent man. But the woman persevered that she had "strong opinions about the evidence." She used that phrase several times, growing more and more forceful. Everyone in the room was getting pissed at her. Finally, the judge said, "It's clear you shouldn't sit on this case. You can leave." The woman grabbed up her purse and marched out. The judge turned to the room and said that anyone who thought they could make outrageous statements to avoid sitting on this trial had better think again.
And guess who was called up to take her seat? Yep--me.
By now, I already knew I wasn't going to be sitting on this jury, but the court didn't know it yet. Unfortunately, there was only one way to deal with this.
"Have you heard the questions we asked the other jurors?" the judge asked me.
"Yes," I said.
"Are there any of them that would have a bearing on this case for you?"
"Yes."
The judge nodded. "What would that be?"
"I'm twice a survivor of sexual assault."
Brief pause. "Do you think it would be inappropriate for you to sit on the jury for this trial?" the judge asked.
"Yes," I said.
"Then you're dismissed."
As I filed past the other jurors, who were trying not to stare, the judge added, "Thank you for your candor."
I gathered up my things and left. My heart was beating faster than I would have liked.
One interesting fact I learned from the judge, though: Michigan law states that in cases of sexual assault, the victim's testimony is considered evidence strong enough to convict without reasonable doubt. There's no need for DNA evidence, other witnesses, or anything else.
Out in the hall, I pretended I was one of my students on a bathroom pass and wandered around the courthouse to clear my head. When I figured I'd stretched things out as long as I safely could, I went back to the jury room. On the way, I passed two more groups of jurors heading to courtrooms, so I'm glad I didn't hurry.
Back in the jury room, I got my computer out again and went back to work on my short story. Time passed. We unassigned jurors sat around getting hungrier and hungrier. By now it was well past lunch. They had vending machines, but I didn't want to buy something, only to be told a minute later I could go to lunch. Other rejected jurors trickled into the room looking either stunned or relieved, depending.
Finally the coordinator announced that they were still waiting on the needs of one particular trial, but a bunch of people could go to lunch right now. She read off a list of names that didn't include me. So I had to wait. They don't tell you much of anything at these things, and those of us who remained were getting grouchier and grouchier. I kept writing.
One more time the coordinator got on the loudspeaker and announced that the trial in question wouldn't be seating a jury today. "That means you can all go home. Your service is complete."
Well, then! I gathered up my collection of electronics and went home. Though I do wonder if the people who were sent to lunch ended up being put on a jury when they got back!
And that concluded my jury service.
comments
April 15, 2018
Rockin' the Chicken
The Great Vegetarian Expotition has ended. Darwin and Max, despite earlier enthusiasm for it, kept resisting it or circumventing it (usually by ordering meat at restaurants), and it became a bigger and bigger chore to find food that they would eat without complaining. It was also a major hassle learning to cook in new ways several times a week, especially when I got no help, not even, "Hey, why don't we try this?", from the local residents. It all became more trouble than it was worth, so we ended it.
And today I roasted a chicken.
When I started off, though, I realized I hadn't given this full thought. I'd forgotten to buy anything to stuff or season it with, for one thing. Working with a big piece of meat had also become a little foreign. But the skills came back with some nudging. I decided to stuff the chicken with onions, rosemary, and crushed garlic cloves. I also rubbed a crushed clove all over the skin, then oiled it and salted it. The whole thing when into a dish atop a bed of rough-chopped onions and carrots, and then into the oven. Accompanying dishes were mashed potatoes and cucumber salad.
The chicken came out deliciously! The onions kept the meat moist and tender, and the garlic was strong enough to flavor the meat without overwhelming it. Delightful! Now the bones are simmering for soup stock.
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And today I roasted a chicken.
When I started off, though, I realized I hadn't given this full thought. I'd forgotten to buy anything to stuff or season it with, for one thing. Working with a big piece of meat had also become a little foreign. But the skills came back with some nudging. I decided to stuff the chicken with onions, rosemary, and crushed garlic cloves. I also rubbed a crushed clove all over the skin, then oiled it and salted it. The whole thing when into a dish atop a bed of rough-chopped onions and carrots, and then into the oven. Accompanying dishes were mashed potatoes and cucumber salad.
The chicken came out deliciously! The onions kept the meat moist and tender, and the garlic was strong enough to flavor the meat without overwhelming it. Delightful! Now the bones are simmering for soup stock.
comments
Jury Duty
I have jury duty on Monday. This is the third time I've been called. The first time, I was put into the jury pool for a trial that was expected to last two weeks. A woman had been watching her sister's husband beating the sister, so the woman blew him away with a shotgun. The question at the trial was whether or not this qualified as defense of self or another. I was quickly disqualified from the pool because my family has a history of domestic abuse, which the judge feared might prejudice me. The trial ultimately lasted SIX weeks, and the woman went to prison. (I think she should have gone free.)
The second time, I sat around until noon, when they told me to go home.
Now's the third time. I know the system is supposed to be random, but it definitely feels unfair when I'm called up three times and I have a ton of friends and family, including Darwin, who say they've =never= been called.
I don't like jury duty. Although I don't lose salary--the school continues to pay me--I do end up with a pile of extra work. I have to make long-term lesson plans that even a monkey can teach, and when I get back, I have to grade an extra-large pile of papers. A smaller complaint is that my life is structured around working 7-3, and suddenly working 9-5 is a major disruption of my life. So I greatly dislike jury duty.
I'm not alone. A lot of people hate jury duty, and this hatred could be mitigated with a number of fixes.
1. Selection should not be completely random. Once you've been called, your name should go to the bottom of the selection barrel so that people who haven't served yet will be selected before you're called up again.
2. It should be law that anyone who is called to jury duty must be paid their usual salary or wage by their employer. Right now, it's purely the employer's decision, and (as you may imagine) companies such as WalMart and McDonald's don't pay employees who have jury duty. This creates serious economic harm for a lot of people, and courts are only semi-sympathetic to people who plead poverty.
3. The court should provide free day care to jurors who need it. Nursing mothers can already be excused from duty, but there's no exemption for stay-at-home parents.
This would make jury duty much easier and more palatable to the public, and it would result in fewer people begging off or inventing excuses to get out of it.
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The second time, I sat around until noon, when they told me to go home.
Now's the third time. I know the system is supposed to be random, but it definitely feels unfair when I'm called up three times and I have a ton of friends and family, including Darwin, who say they've =never= been called.
I don't like jury duty. Although I don't lose salary--the school continues to pay me--I do end up with a pile of extra work. I have to make long-term lesson plans that even a monkey can teach, and when I get back, I have to grade an extra-large pile of papers. A smaller complaint is that my life is structured around working 7-3, and suddenly working 9-5 is a major disruption of my life. So I greatly dislike jury duty.
I'm not alone. A lot of people hate jury duty, and this hatred could be mitigated with a number of fixes.
1. Selection should not be completely random. Once you've been called, your name should go to the bottom of the selection barrel so that people who haven't served yet will be selected before you're called up again.
2. It should be law that anyone who is called to jury duty must be paid their usual salary or wage by their employer. Right now, it's purely the employer's decision, and (as you may imagine) companies such as WalMart and McDonald's don't pay employees who have jury duty. This creates serious economic harm for a lot of people, and courts are only semi-sympathetic to people who plead poverty.
3. The court should provide free day care to jurors who need it. Nursing mothers can already be excused from duty, but there's no exemption for stay-at-home parents.
This would make jury duty much easier and more palatable to the public, and it would result in fewer people begging off or inventing excuses to get out of it.
comments
April 7, 2018
Darwn Clementines
Because Darwin has a favorite snack:
DARWIN'S CLEMENTINES
I sang it to him, and now he's humming it as he wanders about the house, trailing little orange peels behind him.
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DARWIN'S CLEMENTINES
In a township, in a suburb
Where he loved to spend his time,
Ypsilanti was his plan, he
He loved his luscious clementines.
CHORUS
Oh my Darwin, oh my Darwin
Oh my Darwin's clementines,
You are noshed and gone forever.
Dreadful sorry, clementines.
Light he was and like a fairy
(Not like those you have in mind),
He collected and erected
Giant piles of clementines.
Dropped them down into the juicer
(It was Model 99).
Extra pulpy, how he noshed the
Luscious orange clementines.
Drove he daily to the office
Ev'ry morning just at nine
Hit a splinter by the river
And he dropped his clementines.
Orange skins bobbed in the water
Blowing bubbles, soft and fine
But the swim, see, was too grim, he
Lost his luscious clementines.
How he missed them! How he missed them!
How he missed his clementines
But a small green nectarine be-
Came his brand new clementine.
Oh my Darwin, oh my Darwin
Oh my Darwin's clementines,
You are noshed and gone forever.
Dreadful sorry, clementines!
I sang it to him, and now he's humming it as he wanders about the house, trailing little orange peels behind him.
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April 5, 2018
WIP and Yay!
Despite the difficulties, I finally finished the first draft of my latest novel, tentatively titled RESURRECTION MEN. 118,000 carefully-chosen words. Go me!
I'm going to let it sit for a couple weeks and then start the rewrites. I want this book done by May!
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I'm going to let it sit for a couple weeks and then start the rewrites. I want this book done by May!
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Writing, Kidney Stones, and Me
As regular readers of this blog know, I was smashed flat last fall and winter by about two dozen kidney stones which took multiple painful operations and awful procedures to remove. It cost me. For months, all I could do was drag from one day to the next, barely handling the minimum it took to hold my life and job in place.
It stole my writing from me. Dealing with this took all my energy, including my creative energy. You would think that while I'm confined to a chair or bed, I'd have plenty of time to write, and you'd be right in saying I had TIME, but the writing wasn't there. Everything that got on the page was awful, and it took enormous effort to produce just the crap.
This made me angry and upset in new ways. I mean, I've been through operations before. The year previous, my gall bladder had to come out, and that flattened me for a month. But in that case, I knew it was coming, knew the recovery period would be difficult, knew I wouldn't be able to write. The operation also didn't slap me in the face with memories of sexual assault. So I was ready for it and had prepared.
The kidney stones came out of nowhere. The operations went on and on and on and on. The pain was continuous and debilitating. The regular use of anesthesia triggered deep depression, anxiety, and outright terror. The anesthesia was the most horrible. I had no control over what was happening to me while I was unconscious, and I eventually found out they had done things to me and not told me about them.
And so I lost more than four months of writing.
In the grand scheme of things, this isn't a big deal, I suppose. I wasn't under deadline, so that wasn't a worry. (Though not having a deadline is in itself a worry!) Lots of writers go through periods where they aren't writing because of Life Stuff--having babies, family emergencies, and so on.
But this loss hit me hard, and I simply can't "put it into perspective," as well-meaning people tell me to do. This is partly because this shit came out of nowhere, hugely because the nature of the operations tore open wounds surrounding sexual assault that I thought were long healed, and partly because writing is my main way of coping with the world. I use words on a screen to retain control. I control the story, I control the characters, I control the narrative of my own life on this blog. So not only had I lost control of my body. I had lost control of the way I keep myself stable.
A big part of my identity is writing no matter what. I've never missed a deadline, ever. When we were in Ukraine, adopting the boys, I wrote on my laptop during the down times and finished the book on time. When I got divorced and found myself a single father of three boys with enormous psychological and physical needs, I still finished the book. When things got really horrible and my family was being torn apart by homelessness and abuse, I still finished the book. (I had even, for the first time in my life, asked my editor for an extension on the last one, and she said I couldn't have it because the book was already listed in the catalogs. So I finished the book.)
This wrecked me. It stole my writing, it stole my identity, it stole my control, and it stole my mental stability.
The writing eventually started to come back. I knew it would. This was never a question, really, and all the well-meaning people who said, "Don't worry; it'll come back" miss the point. I lost four months of my writing life, and I can't get them back. This has had an impact on the novel I'm working on. It should have been done by last January. Here it is April, and the book isn't done yet. I should be four months into my next book. I'm not.
The events also created bad triggers for me. I can't watch TV shows or movies set in a hospital, especially when a patient is drugged, unconscious, in a coma, given anesthesia, or loses their memory (many of my operations gave me short-term amnesia, which removed my decision-making power). The show JESSICA JONES has this as a running theme, and I have to skip past large sections of it to make it watchable for me. When I see these things, I get angry and anxious and feel like someone is coming for me.
There are also more anxiety/anger/paranoia triggers than the above, ones I don't want to discuss here because they're too personal even for this blog.
My counselor says, "Avoid the triggers. Do things or think about things that don't create the fear."
Seems common sense, right? But it isn't. I WANT MY LIFE BACK THE WAY IT WAS. Why the hell should I have to avoid these simple things I used to enjoy or were a harmless part of my life? I want to confront, not avoid.
It still has a further impact on my writing. Before the hospital shit started up, I had already plotted out the novel I was writing. I had already decided a character was going to survive being buried alive. However, this is an event for which the phrase "worst trauma ever" was invented, and I didn't want the rest of the book to be about how the character coped. So I'd decided said character would be drugged into insensibility before the actual burial and wouldn't remember anything until after his rescue.
However, this turned out to be prescient of my own situation, in a very bad way. Versed, which prevents short-term memory from becoming long-term memory, is a standard drug in many operations. The patient is awake, or semi-conscious, and goes through all the pain, but doesn't remember it. I read about one case in which a surgeon had flayed open a patient's arm, only to have the patient wake up due to an error by the anesthesiologist. The man screamed in agony, but the surgeon had to keep on operating. He screamed and screamed until the anesthesiologist could does him with Versed and more anesthetic. So when he woke up afterward, he had no memory of the incident at all, even though he'd been awake for it. The OR nurse who wrote about it said it was the only time he ever threw up during a procedure. This horrifies me. Did anything like this happen while =I= was out? My head knows I'm more likely to get into a car accident than have this happen to me, and I'm worrying about the wrong stuff, but my emotions shout, "What the hell do you know?"
Anyway, I got to the scene in the book when the character was about to be drugged and buried. When the drug was forced on the character, my heart rate went way up and I had to stop writing. I came back to it the next day, got out a couple sentences, and had to walk away again. It took me over a week just to write two paragraphs.
So eight months after the operations began and four months after they ended, they're still having an impact on me and my writing.
I know life is change and we all become different people than we were because of events exactly like this. But I don't LIKE this person I've become. He's fearful and cowardly and anxious and needy and he has to tiptoe around certain topics and he takes a steady stream of anxiety meds to get him through the week. I don't like this new me. I haven't gained anything from this. When Nietzsche said "That which does not kill us, makes us stronger," he was being an ass. I'm weaker than I was, not stronger. Survival doesn't equal strength.
All I can do is keep working on it with my counselor and myself. This I'm doing.
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It stole my writing from me. Dealing with this took all my energy, including my creative energy. You would think that while I'm confined to a chair or bed, I'd have plenty of time to write, and you'd be right in saying I had TIME, but the writing wasn't there. Everything that got on the page was awful, and it took enormous effort to produce just the crap.
This made me angry and upset in new ways. I mean, I've been through operations before. The year previous, my gall bladder had to come out, and that flattened me for a month. But in that case, I knew it was coming, knew the recovery period would be difficult, knew I wouldn't be able to write. The operation also didn't slap me in the face with memories of sexual assault. So I was ready for it and had prepared.
The kidney stones came out of nowhere. The operations went on and on and on and on. The pain was continuous and debilitating. The regular use of anesthesia triggered deep depression, anxiety, and outright terror. The anesthesia was the most horrible. I had no control over what was happening to me while I was unconscious, and I eventually found out they had done things to me and not told me about them.
And so I lost more than four months of writing.
In the grand scheme of things, this isn't a big deal, I suppose. I wasn't under deadline, so that wasn't a worry. (Though not having a deadline is in itself a worry!) Lots of writers go through periods where they aren't writing because of Life Stuff--having babies, family emergencies, and so on.
But this loss hit me hard, and I simply can't "put it into perspective," as well-meaning people tell me to do. This is partly because this shit came out of nowhere, hugely because the nature of the operations tore open wounds surrounding sexual assault that I thought were long healed, and partly because writing is my main way of coping with the world. I use words on a screen to retain control. I control the story, I control the characters, I control the narrative of my own life on this blog. So not only had I lost control of my body. I had lost control of the way I keep myself stable.
A big part of my identity is writing no matter what. I've never missed a deadline, ever. When we were in Ukraine, adopting the boys, I wrote on my laptop during the down times and finished the book on time. When I got divorced and found myself a single father of three boys with enormous psychological and physical needs, I still finished the book. When things got really horrible and my family was being torn apart by homelessness and abuse, I still finished the book. (I had even, for the first time in my life, asked my editor for an extension on the last one, and she said I couldn't have it because the book was already listed in the catalogs. So I finished the book.)
This wrecked me. It stole my writing, it stole my identity, it stole my control, and it stole my mental stability.
The writing eventually started to come back. I knew it would. This was never a question, really, and all the well-meaning people who said, "Don't worry; it'll come back" miss the point. I lost four months of my writing life, and I can't get them back. This has had an impact on the novel I'm working on. It should have been done by last January. Here it is April, and the book isn't done yet. I should be four months into my next book. I'm not.
The events also created bad triggers for me. I can't watch TV shows or movies set in a hospital, especially when a patient is drugged, unconscious, in a coma, given anesthesia, or loses their memory (many of my operations gave me short-term amnesia, which removed my decision-making power). The show JESSICA JONES has this as a running theme, and I have to skip past large sections of it to make it watchable for me. When I see these things, I get angry and anxious and feel like someone is coming for me.
There are also more anxiety/anger/paranoia triggers than the above, ones I don't want to discuss here because they're too personal even for this blog.
My counselor says, "Avoid the triggers. Do things or think about things that don't create the fear."
Seems common sense, right? But it isn't. I WANT MY LIFE BACK THE WAY IT WAS. Why the hell should I have to avoid these simple things I used to enjoy or were a harmless part of my life? I want to confront, not avoid.
It still has a further impact on my writing. Before the hospital shit started up, I had already plotted out the novel I was writing. I had already decided a character was going to survive being buried alive. However, this is an event for which the phrase "worst trauma ever" was invented, and I didn't want the rest of the book to be about how the character coped. So I'd decided said character would be drugged into insensibility before the actual burial and wouldn't remember anything until after his rescue.
However, this turned out to be prescient of my own situation, in a very bad way. Versed, which prevents short-term memory from becoming long-term memory, is a standard drug in many operations. The patient is awake, or semi-conscious, and goes through all the pain, but doesn't remember it. I read about one case in which a surgeon had flayed open a patient's arm, only to have the patient wake up due to an error by the anesthesiologist. The man screamed in agony, but the surgeon had to keep on operating. He screamed and screamed until the anesthesiologist could does him with Versed and more anesthetic. So when he woke up afterward, he had no memory of the incident at all, even though he'd been awake for it. The OR nurse who wrote about it said it was the only time he ever threw up during a procedure. This horrifies me. Did anything like this happen while =I= was out? My head knows I'm more likely to get into a car accident than have this happen to me, and I'm worrying about the wrong stuff, but my emotions shout, "What the hell do you know?"
Anyway, I got to the scene in the book when the character was about to be drugged and buried. When the drug was forced on the character, my heart rate went way up and I had to stop writing. I came back to it the next day, got out a couple sentences, and had to walk away again. It took me over a week just to write two paragraphs.
So eight months after the operations began and four months after they ended, they're still having an impact on me and my writing.
I know life is change and we all become different people than we were because of events exactly like this. But I don't LIKE this person I've become. He's fearful and cowardly and anxious and needy and he has to tiptoe around certain topics and he takes a steady stream of anxiety meds to get him through the week. I don't like this new me. I haven't gained anything from this. When Nietzsche said "That which does not kill us, makes us stronger," he was being an ass. I'm weaker than I was, not stronger. Survival doesn't equal strength.
All I can do is keep working on it with my counselor and myself. This I'm doing.
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Sucking the House
Today we're having the air ducts cleaned. (Spring break is a glamorous time of year.) We should have had it done years ago, really. We've had the house painted, put in new wood floors, and had carpeting done twice since we've moved in. All this puts extra debris into the ventilation system. Plus, we have no idea if the previous owner ever cleaned the ducts.
I do know that the house gets dusty quickly. All this points toward dirty ventilation ducts.
As I write this, a pair of workmen are bustling about the house doing arcane things with long hoses connected to a very strange truck in the driveway:
The puffy things poking up with tumescent urgency are vacuum filters.
The cats were unceremoniously stuffed into the basement store room, where they've since folded themselves into tiny singularities and vanished. Nothing gets more freaked than a cat who sees a giant hose snake through the house.
And soon we'll have clean air. Yay!
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I do know that the house gets dusty quickly. All this points toward dirty ventilation ducts.
As I write this, a pair of workmen are bustling about the house doing arcane things with long hoses connected to a very strange truck in the driveway:
The puffy things poking up with tumescent urgency are vacuum filters.
The cats were unceremoniously stuffed into the basement store room, where they've since folded themselves into tiny singularities and vanished. Nothing gets more freaked than a cat who sees a giant hose snake through the house.
And soon we'll have clean air. Yay!
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Break!
Spring break started last Friday. Oh, how we needed this. Between mid-February and all of March, we had no breaks at all. You may say to yourself, "Well, =I= don't get a break during that time, and I don't get a spring break, either." This may be true, but we're a school, and kids aren't adults. They need more breaks and more down time than adults. And when it's been a long time since even a three-day weekend, you can feel it. A steady tension builds. The number of discipline referrals goes up. The number of missing assignments goes up. It's harder to hold students' attention and keep them on task. The winter doldrums make it even worse. This creates added tension and stress for the adults.
So it was greeted with great relief when spring break finally arrived.
We haven't done much, ourselves. Darwin is in the middle of budget season at work, so he's extra busy and we can never take a trip. I've been just resting a lot, really--puttering around the house, doing some extra cleaning, playing Corey more.
When we get back, we head into the downhill part of the year, which is another battle. My seniors (and I have three sections of them) always figure the year ends at spring break. A lot of them take trips to somewhere summery, and when they get back, they want the year to be over. We also have a number of activities that disrupt the usual schedule--state testing, AP tests, senior meetings and assemblies, and so on.
Off we go!
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So it was greeted with great relief when spring break finally arrived.
We haven't done much, ourselves. Darwin is in the middle of budget season at work, so he's extra busy and we can never take a trip. I've been just resting a lot, really--puttering around the house, doing some extra cleaning, playing Corey more.
When we get back, we head into the downhill part of the year, which is another battle. My seniors (and I have three sections of them) always figure the year ends at spring break. A lot of them take trips to somewhere summery, and when they get back, they want the year to be over. We also have a number of activities that disrupt the usual schedule--state testing, AP tests, senior meetings and assemblies, and so on.
Off we go!
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