A mild case of existential dread

COVID is still a thing here in Arizona. I'm laying low in the Bat Cave, hiding out from omicron, even though I know, as a bleeding heart liberal, I'm prone to believe the sky is falling, has always been falling, will always be falling. I don't fear death. I do fear long COVID. My brain already has enough hiccups. I double-mask and glove up when I go to the grocery store. Other than that, I've stopped going into buildings. I walk the streets alone, reveling in the 64F sunshine and wishing it were warmer. Meanwhile my sister in Boston is buried in two feet of snow. She's been feeding birds on her balcony. They are lined up like marauders on the railing. I'm afraid I'll get a text saying she was pecked to smithereens by chickadees and sparrows trying to get to her birdseed stash. 

Meanwhile, it's mild and dry here in Tucson. While I wait to die from a stroke, I have been patting myself on the back for finally getting the upper hand with the little dudes. I have been spraying weekly. I rarely see a little skittery dude now. Not alive, anyway. I see a few on their backs with their limbs frozen in the air. Did you know that some cockroaches are the same color as bits of sautéed onion? I know. Kind of puts you off your feed, doesn't it?

Let's see, what else? No more men with guns this week, no more people pounding on my door at midnight. Yesterday my neighbor on the other side of the wall had a little party with the girls. I couldn't hear the music but the bass from her stereo pounded for several hours through the wall. I wanted to rip a hole with my hammer and stick my head through. Here's Johnny! Now I kill you. However, I refrained. Once again, I was driven to the Internet to discover the name of my malady: misophonia. It's a thing, look it up. Earplugs don't work. I took a folding chair into the closet and sat there with my mp3 player going in my ears until the noise stopped. Eventually my heart settled back into its own rhythm rather than trying to beat in time to a song I could not hear. Neighbors. They come and go. Come August, I will be one who goes. 

Of course, life is uncertain. I'm feeling some existential dread. I heard that term on the radio today. I really like it. I think I will adopt it as my description for my state of mind. How are you, Carol? Oh, feeling a little extra existential dread today, how about you? 

It's hard to mope when the sun is shining. I have to put my back into it. Really make an effort. On these mild sunny days, it takes some serious motivation to maintain my chronic malcontentedness. It's like belonging to Misanthropes Anonymous. Sometimes I have a little slip and hate someone or something but mostly I've got this recovery thing handled. I have a lot to be thankful for. For instance, I think I might be getting a little stronger after five weeks of the bisphosphate pills. One false step on the treacherous Tucson pavement could shatter my timbers but I have hope that if I keep moving, gradually my bones will strengthen. Then when vertigo trips me over a curb, I'm more likely to pop up like Bobo the Clown. 

Mom used to say it's hell getting old. Now that I'm my mother, I can say it too. It's hell getting old. She lasted until 91, though, and I'm only 65. What the heck, Universe?

Speaking of what the heck, when I was fourteen years old, I wrote a book about some pioneers traveling the Oregon Trail. I wrote it in pencil on notebook paper. Five hundred pages. It took me four months. I tied the pages together with yarn and bound the book with kelly-green fabric glued onto corrugated cardboard. I'm looking at it right now as I'm typing this blogpost. It has traveled with me through the years, mainly because I didn't know what to do with it. Scanning it would take forever. Typing it is out of the question. Does it have any value as an artifact? If I were a famous writer or artist, it might. Like, wow, she was only fourteen when she wrote it. Nobody cares, but I still can't bear to relegate it to the recycle bin. 

Now, at last, through the wonder of modern technology, I discover I can have Google Docs type it for me. All I have to do is read it aloud. If I can stomach my teenage maunderings about covered wagons, Indian raids, and cute Indian boys, I don't think it's going to take all that long. Three pages of longhand scrawl condenses to about three typed paragraphs. If I manage to read this entire tome aloud, I think I will find out it's only about a hundred pages. Then I can store it in the cloud, shred the book, and let my literary executor deal with it, if I'm fortunate enough to have one of those. 

What did I just say? No recollection

 

In the past two days, two people have asked me if I'm really a chronic malcontent. I've been complaining in this space since, what, 2010? Maybe this whole blog thing I do isn't clear to anyone but me. You will interpret things I write in your own special way. Probably the most practical lesson I have learned in my years of working a program has been that what others think of me is none of my concern. 

In the past, stating something like that has gotten me into hot water with my family. I can't say I care much. I'm distracted by things other than my blog and its readers. On Monday, in broad daylight, a young white man walked past my window carrying a long gun as if he was looking for someone and meant to use it. Ten minutes later, five police officers showed up with weapons drawn. On Wednesday night around midnight, someone pounded hard on my door. I peeked through the blinds and saw a young white man (not the guy with the gun) standing outside my door as if he expected me to open it for him. Maybe he was looking for the person who lives in the other same-number apartment in the other section of the complex. I didn't open my door to find out. 

I'm hunkered in my burrow, figuratively speaking, wondering how long before I give up trying to fend off reality. Maybe I'm chronically malcontented, maybe I'm just situationally malcontented. Maybe when that stupid ship I have always believed was offshore finally flounders in tie up at my dock, I can heave a sigh of relief and relax. Meanwhile, I soldier on, taking care of bithneth. 

Yesterday my friend E witnessed my signature on my healthcare powers of attorney. My sister now has the authority to pull the plug. I need to mail copies to the State of Arizona and drop off copies to my doctor's office. Next on my list is to fill out the POLST form (printed on orange paper, don't forget) and then write my will. The fun never stops. 

Last night I went through my closet yet again and pulled out some jackets I brought with me, thinking, who knows, COVID might end someday and I might need to look business-presentable. Now both things are unlikely, and I am no longer planning for a future in which it matters how I look. I'm letting go, not hanging on. It's past time to relinquish the past. Into the thrift store donation box the jackets went. I'm trying not to think about the long spaces of time that open up before me when I am less obsessed about my possessions. 

My next task last night was to go through a box of my old writings. I should have done this before I moved. I dug into some dogeared folders and found essays from early college days, as well as some lined notebooks of handwritten stories half-started, never finished. I used my old printer to scan the few things I thought worthy of keeping and jammed the moldering paper in a sack for recycling. 

Some of the handwritten stuff was hard to read. The ink was faded, the handwriting was illegible, and the ideas were trite, melodramatic, and self-conscious (unlike this blog). I had forgotten how much angst I used to have. All my characters were morose and self-righteous, all the scenarios were tense and predictable. If you think I'm a bitter writer now, you should have seen some of the stuff I tore up into pieces last night. Compared to that writer, the malcontent you meet here in this blog is Little Mary Sunshine. 

It serves no purpose except self-centered self-flagellation to retain that part of my past, even in stories. Self-flagellation is so 1980s. Stick a fork in me. Even these documents I've scanned will be lost in the cloud once I'm gone, as links to shared folders fade in memory and email addresses gather dust. Nobody cares. And I no longer care. I'm paring down, letting go, simplifying in preparation for the next adventure. Bottom line, like all humans, I will shuffle off this mortal coil empty-handed. All this stuff I thought was so essential to my wellbeing has become a concrete block around my neck. I feel a great sense of relief to lighten my load. Seven months left on my lease, then I'm off to the unknown. If I don't get shot by a stray bullet while eating my eggs and veggies. 

 

Delinquent neurons are not apologetic

The brain is back. As much as it ever was, anyway, which is good news for me, out here alone in the short branches of the wild west. It's good to have a brain that works when SUVs are coming at me at 50 mph. Last week my brain hiccupped in a weird new way but according to Dr. Google, it is unlikely to happen again, and indeed, my memories are as intact as they were before the hiccup, which is to say, generally faded, tattered, and stored at the back of a dark, high shelf in a closet I rarely can find. All systems normal. 

My mind has been failing for a while. My most recent brain glitch is probably just another notch on the downward spiral into dementia and death. Some years ago I realized that my brain was no longer a reliable partner. Somewhere around the intersection of menopause and my vegan meltdown, which was a rolling disaster that occupied my attention for several years, I became aware that mentally, things were different. 

The names of new acquaintances flew past me into the ether. Phone numbers evaded my retrieval attempts. I started forgetting names of people I'd known from California, people I'd worked with. Whole portions of conversations went missing. Discussions and decisions were lost to vagueness.

I fought the encroachment of incompetence by denying reality. For years, I had prided myself on my near-eidetic memory. That marvelous (unearned) skill smoothed my path from kindergarten through college and beyond. I refused to believe it was starting to fail. Quelle horreur!

My inability to accept the changes in my brain produced some stinging defeats as I doubled down on defending my mistakes. The facts (which mattered back then, unlike now) always revealed my thinking errors. Go back and look at the minutes, Carol! We said this, not that! When it started to become a pattern, I had to accept the sad reality that something in my brain had changed.

Smack someone down often enough and sooner or later they catch on. Eventually I learned to stop claiming to be correct. Out of sheer grief at being betrayed by the brain I thought I could trust, I swung to the opposite extreme and made sure everyone knew my memories were mired in a wasteland far from any known landmarks. 

My friends were sympathetic but impatient. They would only listen for so long before they were like, yeah, we get it, you're human, can we get back to the business at hand? With my family, when it emerged that Mom had dementia, I couldn't really get much mileage on the complaint engine. Yeah, poor Carol. Sad, but let's get back to poor old Mom! I couldn't compete. That was annoying. When I whined I can't remember, she would roll her eyes and laugh. As her brain deteriorated, though, she got more empathetic. Then I felt like a colossal cad for whining.

I learned to write everything down, a habit I employ to this day. If I didn't have Write blogpost on my calendar every Sunday afternoon, I would not be writing this blog post. 

Last week my brain took a half-day holiday and opted not to make new memories for a few hours. Man, I wish I could just opt out and have someone else take the wheel for a while. The rest of my brain muddled through the afternoon, casting resentful glances at the empty spaces the AWOL neurons had left behind. These slackers didn't tell anyone that they were leaving or where they were going or when they would be back, so the rest of us had to soldier on, moving from moment to moment with no breadcrumb leading back to where we'd been. It's definitely a surreal way to experience reality. A taste of what is to come, perhaps.

After lunch, the delinquent neurons came back online and were like, What's up, dudes? Oh, sorry, did we lock you out of the memory palace? Whoops, our bad. 

Those slackers. I'd like to write them up or something. Maybe tomorrow, if I remember. 

Who am I and what just happened?

Poor old Google can't keep up. I'm opening and closing several web accounts using multiple log-on identities on two different computers and Google keeps trying to alert me, Oh no, there could be a security breach! As long as I remember my passwords, I'm okay. Worst case, I get a text with a magic number. If I ever lose this phone or get a new one, I'm toast. I've lost one yahoo! identity because of a lost phone number. If it happens again, I'll just have to reinvent myself. 

Reinvention is not new to me. For example, I used to be a person who had a cat. Then the cat died (two years ago today) and I reinvented myself as a person who used to have a cat. Up until a year ago, I was someone with a mother. Now I'm not. I used to be a resident of Portland, and now I'm a resident of Tucson. Personal reinvention is the natural progression of life. Or is it reincarnation? I don't know. 

Speaking of starting over, I asked the universe if it wanted me to live in my car. You know how you sometimes ask the Universe stuff? Or is it just me? Universe, I said, if you want me to live in my car, okay, I'll give it a shot, but if you don't, please send money. 

You can't expect the Universe to do all the work. Sometimes the Universe needs help. Right after Christmas, I got on the Web and looked for a job. I found a job listing for an academic editor, updated my CV, figured out how to upload my documents, and clicked Apply. Whoosh! With that click, I had notified the Universe of my willingness to earn.

The Monday after New Year's, I got an email. The next day, I had a phone screen. The day after that, I had a Zoom interview. Thursday I got a job offer. How about that? I had one day to bask in my job-hunting glory. (They want me! I'm not too old!) The basking was short-lived. On Saturday, parts of my brain stopped working. 

It happened while I was on a Zoom meeting. Maybe I was super stressed out, I don't recall. I had a ten- minute talk, and luckily, I had notes. I think what I said made sense, but I can't be sure. I don't remember much. By the time the talk was over, I was experiencing a phenomenon known as transient global amnesia. Now that I'm more or less on intimate terms with the condition, I think I can snuggle up to it and call it TGA. 

TGA is a sudden, profound, temporary inability to form short-term memories. I know! Who knew such a thing was even possible!? Not me. I thought I'd had a stroke. After the Zoom meeting ended, I ran to the mirror and started making faces at myself and flailing my arms around in the air over my head. Was my mouth drooping? Had I started drooling? Were my arms matching each other in their range of motion? No to the first two questions, yes to the third. Did I know my name? Yes. Could I type? Let's find out.

I consulted Dr. Google and quickly discovered my malady had a name. Transient global amnesia. It sounds frightening, and it was. Transient sounded reassuring, but global? Amnesia? Oh no, who am I? What just happened?

TGA is a strange phenomenon. My mind had wandered out into the short branches and could not find its way back home. Thoughts ran through my brain like water. Once they passed through my mental processor, they were gone as if they had never existed. File not found, file deleted, file corrupt. I was literally trapped in each moment, like a goldfish in a water bubble. I could not reconjure the thoughts I'd just had moments before. I could have a conversation, but I could not hold the thread of the conversation in my mind. Every sentence was new, disconnected from anything that just passed. I attended another two meetings, limping from one sentence to the next, before I could eat lunch and assess the damage. Formats and agendas saved me. I could read, I could follow directions. I just couldn't remember what had just happened. 

The word that kept me calm was temporary. Sure enough, in a few hours, the fog lifted. The websites I consulted indicated I might not remember much about what happened during the episode. I know what I had done because I had notes and my calendar, but I can't recall specifics of what I said or what others said. A few hazy images linger now, but mostly yesterday afternoon is a black hole. 

I have profound empathy for what my demented mother most likely suffered in her final years. It was utterly confounding and disabling to be unable to access my short-term memories. It's ironic that the goal of meditators is to detach from distractions and stay in the present moment. Someone should figure out how to put TGAs in a bottle, Red Bull for Buddhists. Guaranteed to keep you in the here and now.

I don't think I am cut out for meditation. Before this episode, I was neutral on the idea of the here and now. Now I am sure, being stuck in the here and now is not nirvana. It's okay to visit, but don't lose your way back to where you were. 

Which leads me back around to this new editing job. It's a part-time remote gig editing dissertation chapters for half a dozen students a few weeks of each ten-week term. I need a functional brain to do the job. I'd like to believe that the Universe has come through, delivering an income source when asked, so I don't have to end up living in my car, but we know the Universe can be a trickster. 

This week the new college is checking out my former employer, a crummy career college that laid off a bunch of teachers in 2013, me included, and finally gasped its last in 2020, thanks to COVID. The defunct career college (of which I have blogged a great deal! See just about any post prior to 2013) is following good camping practices by packing it in, packing it out, and leaving no trace. I had to send copies of my W2s to the background check company to prove I actually worked there. 

The new school might decide I'm a liar. I doubt it, though. They need people like me, people who are intrinsically motivated by something other than money. It's a for-profit institution. If you have read my blog over the years, you know how I feel about for-profit higher education. I know they underpay employees to keep tuition low. I know the hours will be ridiculous, and I will have no say in anything. I know this from experience. If they decide to hire me, I will accept the job with my eyes open. Editing student papers will help me stay current in my quest to be of service to nontraditional graduate students who need support and guidance. It's my thing.  

As long as my brain holds out, I will keep trying to live usefully and walk humbly. 

Let me take you to noisy town

Happy new year, Blogbots, all six of you. How are you doing? I hope you are staying safe in this stupid cold season. Yes, cold. Tucson temps fell below freezing last night. For the past week, we've been socked in with clouds and rain. It felt like Portland in early November. Then the clouds rolled east, leaving clear skies. You know what happens in the desert at night: The temperature plummets. I can hear you say, Really, Carol? Plummets? When I say plummets, I know it's all relative. Some of you are in actual plummet-prone places. (Have I ever used the word plummets so many times in one paragraph?) I'm thinking Albuquerque. Minneapolis. I'll step aside; I can't compete. However, remember, I moved here for the famous warm winters! I've been checking the maps for someplace warmer and drier that doesn't involve moving to another planet.

Speaking of noise, fireworks! On New Year's Eve, the big vacant lot just over the cinder block wall on the far side of the parking area was the scene of some pretty impressive DIY displays. (I kept checking to make sure my car wasn't on fire.) I'm on the first floor, so I couldn't see much through the trees and the block wall, but my neighbors upstairs were on the parapet above me, oohing and ahhing at each explosion and glittery colorful burst. I imagine they were sitting in chairs, but I didn't go up the stairs to find out. I don't think I could have interacted with them without resentfully asking them to use their indoor voices after 10:00 p.m. Anyway, New Year's is a thing here. The fireworks were hammering the neighborhood from six o'clock until the taco dropped at midnight. (There really was a taco drop somewhere in Tucson, I'm not making that up.) By 12:30 a.m., everyone had shot their firecracker inventories. I'm sure that is when the heavy drinking started, but I was asleep by then, worn out by the noise. 

Today the sun was brilliant. I walked my usual 30-minute circuit, enjoying the balmy 60°F warmth and sunshine. In daylight, I glimpsed the house that is the source of the neighborhood party noise. The sub-woofer was still going. A pre-teen boy was dancing on the flat roof, I kid you not. Speaking of kids, I am going to guess this is the house that keeps chickens and a goat on the property. A rooster crows at odd hours of the day, and occasionally I hear a goat bleating. I'm so confused. Meanwhile, the pounding bass continues to pound. I can't hear it, but I can feel it in my decrepit bones. 

Anyway, happy ho ho and all that stuff. I'm trying to ignore the cacophony of noises in and around the Bat Cave. The neighbor kid's bedroom is on the other side of the wall, five feet from where I sit. She's got a television. My loaner refrigerator is drowning out most of her noise. The loaner fridge has a little drummer boy behind the ice box. Whenever the fan comes on, he sits up and does his clattery thing to awaken the defroster, and then goes back to sleep. The fan roars on for another hour. This is a very small apartment. The only way to escape a noise is by drowning it out with a bigger noise. But the granddaddy of noise comes from that house on the other side of the vacant lot. It's always party time in the Old Pueblo.

Speaking of confused, last night I went onto one of my websites to update the copyright year. My heart dropped when instead of my website, I saw the infamous white screen of death. Oh no! I suspected a plug-in had gone bad, failed to update or something, but I couldn't get into my admin area to deactivate the culprit. What's a non-tech-savvy oldster to do? Failure was not an option. I did some noodling around on the internet and remembered that my ancient computer still has an old ftp program, which I used to use to shuffle files hither and thither. Would it still work? Would I remember how to use it? 

I bashed around, trying to follow instructions from multiple web experts, and eventually stumbled on some solution. Lo, when I clicked the button, my website reappeared, resurrected from the dead. I was able to repair my plug-in problem and now things seem to be functioning properly. Such are the dilemmas of stubborn DIY oldsters who do not want to admit things are harder than they used to be. Not that I've ever been a tech wizard. I'm a fast reader, is all. 

For example, tonight I was leading a Zoom meeting. Suddenly we were inundated with Zoom bombers. For a moment I was paralyzed with shock. Then I realized I needed to find the host credentials and log on as the host. I did that, and eventually I figured out how to remove the trespassers. Someone advised me to lock the meeting. I did that, and after that, we carried on in peace and quiet. I've never been a Zoom host before but I learned quickly. I admit, I felt a certain amount of satisfaction in having the power to eject someone from a meeting. I can think of umpteen times over the years I wished I'd had that power. So long, bye bye. Of course, I'm sure lots of people wished they had that power over me.