If they can do it, why can't I?

I'm delinquent again on posting my weekly blogpost. My apologies to my five readers. I noticed I have written 606 blogposts. Jiminy crickets. I wonder what would have happened if I had decided not to post anonymously? Probably I would have been fired from my teaching job and thus would never have had the income to get a PhD. I would never have been in a position to take care of my mother for five years. If I had chosen to write under my own name, I would probably have been living in my car since 2013, that is, if I had one. Hm. On the bright side, maybe Mom would have gone to live in my brother's basement, derailing his career instead of mine. Well, I never had a career, so that's not fair. Derailing my descent into whatever the hell this is.

Anonymity can extend to erasing one's preferences. I can hear you asking, what do you mean, Carol? Thanks for asking. I will tell you. While I was riding my bike (or the deceased Linda's bike, I hesitate to claim it as my own) around the mobile home park in the gloaming this evening, it occurred to me that I perhaps don't know myself very well. I mean, when I'm immersed in other people's environments, I start to forget what I like and what I don't like. I take on the culture of my surroundings.

Let me give you some examples. 

When I was dating a runner, I took up running—well, jogging, in my case. When I was living with a surfer, I hung out on the beach (no, I never surfed, not once; apparently even I have a line I will not cross). When I was living with a golfer, I learned how to play golf. Do you see what I am doing? I'm blending in. 

Now I'm in the mobile home park. A bike happened to manifest (thanks to Bill's dead wife, Linda). I was content to cycle around the Park wearing my straw hat. However, my housemate is an avid and competent bicycle rider. This means I am now fitted out with front and back blinking lights and a bike lock. It was also brought to my attention that if I wanted to survive I should wear my bike helmet and a neon yellow vest. This is so the old drivers will see me and hopefully not run over me like they do the lizards I see flattened everywhere. And if I do get squashed, maybe the helmet will leave my head intact so my family can identify my corpse. 

Here's another example. Given that I may soon be living in my car (I mean car camping, don't freak out), I mentioned to my housemate my interest in getting a folding bicycle, thinking, you know, how handy a little bike would be for getting to the campground pit toilet in the middle of the night. Next thing I know, a Craigslist post appears in my phone: folding bike for sale! My housemate is a dynamo.

Do you see what is happening? I'm morphing into a bicyclist! 

Besides knowing all things bicycle, my housemate is skilled in the kitchen. I have been advised to consider eating seaweed and natto. I know what seaweed is, having stabbed many kelp bulbs on Oregon beaches, but natto was a new word to me. Japanese in origin, I was told. I have a rather dreary history with Japanese food, beginning with a MSG-laced quail egg in 1988. I won't bore you with the details. Suffice it to say, that quail egg ushered in a decades-long episode of food additive aversion that lingers to this day. Name a food additive, I react to it. So you can understand my inclination to nix the natto. However, I can't say I'm not intrigued. Will the promised benefits outweigh the risks? I predict I will soon be foraging at the Asian grocer.

Mostly I try to keep my life simple (and therefore ostensibly under my control). My food plan is somewhat spartan. I continue to pare down my possessions. However, I do get impulses to binge and buy. My impulse to buy things is slow-moving but it is powerful. 

Let me give you an example. 

I ride around this mobile home park at dusk. I look into the bright windows. What do I see? Big-screen TVs showing the Kardashians or Survivor or football. Poufy little dogs barking at me through the window (and a few cats, who don't bark). Old women who resemble my mother sitting on flowered couches playing solitaire or knitting. Shelves full of stuff. Lots and lots of stuff. What happens in my brain? I think, hey, I've been deprived for so long, I need some stuff of my own. From there, it's a nanohop to believing I need shelves to store and display that stuff. Then I think, I might have enough money left to buy a mobile home, not in this fancy place, but maybe in a less friendly, more decrepit trailer park in another part of town. 

This thought runs through my head every time I ride or walk through this mobile home park. Even though I know these so-called homeowners don't own the land their manufactured homes sit on; even though I know they are at the mercy of the landowners, who can raise the rent, set the rules, and sell the land at any time; even though I know most of these trailers would crack and crumble if the owners tried to relocate them to another park; even though I know I don't have the income to maintain a car, let alone a mobile home . . . even though I know all that, I still in my mind think, if they can do it, why can't I?

That is how my brain is constantly trying to kill me. I look at people who spend money and think, if they can do it, why can't I? I look at people who drink as much as they want and eat granola, pudding, pancakes, and potato chips and think, if they can do it, why can't I? 

Truth: I could do it. I could do all of that. Nobody would try to stop me. The consequences would be painful and debilitating for me and disgusting to witness for my friends and family, but I could say, eff it and jump off that cliff. If I knew I had three months to live, I would probably do it. Mm, pancakes. 

Visualize a perfect life

Howdy Blogbots. Sorry to keep you waiting. I usually post on Sunday evenings, but last night I had a deadline on a work project. I'm trying to catch up today, but the Universe seems to be conspiring to send me back to bed. The morning temperature was below 60°F, which, if you know me, is not in my optimal operating range. My preferred temperature range is 85°F to 95°F. I went out to hunt and gather wearing fleece. One of my neighbors was standing out in the sun waiting for the Sunvan in Bermuda shorts and a no-sleeved blouse. With my hat, mittens, and fleece jacket, I felt like an alien desert Eskimo. She said hello anyway, which I thought was nice. I managed to persevere and get my shopping done for the week. I really dislike shopping, especially when it is cold. 

Shortly after returning to the Trailer of Creative Minds, I was on a What's App call to a friend and the internet went out. Our connection froze and then disappeared. I thought, oh, no, her internet went out. I went over to my laptop to check my email. I was shocked to see the dreaded notice: No internet connection. Oh, no, my internet was out! Lately, it is happening almost daily. Every time it happens I am reminded that I am an addict. Curse you, Universe! I started to Google how to live without the internet and then remembered I had no internet. I took out the recycling to break the broken brain loop. 

The air pressure ebbs and flows like ocean waves here in the desert. The air breathes, and as it breathes, it takes my inner ear along for the ride, up and down, up and down. I usually notice the moments of relative calm after they are over and I'm back in the rocking boat. Then I realize as I'm holding onto walls and chairs, hey, yesterday actually wasn't too bad. I was able to work without the washing machine in my head constantly running on spin cycle.

I don't know for sure if there is a geographical location that might have steadier air pressure, or if being in such a place will actually make a difference for my head, but the only way I will know is if I go look, as my intrepid housemate points out to me. E is undaunted by the challenges of nomadic living. I'm calling it car camping to lessen my fear. Moving at the speed of light, E sees the adventure in overcoming challenges. Life is a puzzle to be solved. Moving at the speed of an erratic heartbeat, I see only my own fears. Life is a spin cycle to be endured.

As my aging body is starting to betray me, I begin to understand why people resort to magical solutions for illnesses. Visualize perfect health! If a dose of licorice is good for what ails me, then certainly cutting that dose into a fraction of the original dose and putting it into a tiny white pill would have to have more power. Right? The remedy doesn't stand up to reason, but it is so tempting to believe in the miracle when a pushy naturopath is saying trust me, it works. (Curse you, Dr. Tony!)

It is so hard to think sometimes with this hissing snake in my ear. I wonder what it is trying to tell me. Probably something like give up, go back to bed. 

I am not a quitter. Maybe I hang on too long sometimes, clinging long past the sell-by date—jobs, relationships, cities, cars. It's what I do, I guess. Drive it all until it drops in a rusty heap. You can learn some interesting things about the power of stick-to-it-ness when you simply refuse to lay down and give up. I complain a lot, as you know. I'm chronically malcontented, after all. But I still get a lot done, for a self-professed pessimist, and I still keep showing up for life, acting as if I were an optimist. Sometimes it actually works. 

It's all about balance

I sense some sort of adventure is lurking over the horizon. Right now, I'm too tired to chase it, but I think it is close by. I hope once the iron pills kick in, I will have a little more ambition. And color. My friend S said I'm pale. I thought it was just my Zoom lighting. It's important to look good even if you don't feel good. I learned that from my father. Nobody cares how you feel, but everyone cares about how you look. Thanks for everything, Pop. I'd give you back your funky heart valve if I could.

Speaking of looking good, I'm glad my housemate is back, and I'm really glad E didn't have to witness my week of starvation prep for the procedure, now two weeks in my hindmost of rear view mirrors. Some things are better suffered in solitude, massive liquid diarrhea explosions being one of them. It wasn't just a wild goose chase up a colon with a camera. They did find something that might account for my iron anemia. Biopsies indicate it is something benevolent, but it's unclear what if anything comes next, besides take iron pills. 

The heart thing had me a little worried, I admit. However, after a chat with my primary care person, I've feel reassured I can live with this, whatever this is, at least for the immediate future. The cardiologist isn't precisely sure what he's working with (am I a two-leafer or a three-leafer? We need another test to tell for sure). That will happen in November. Another IV. Ho hum. 

In any case, I'm over it. All of it. I'm over everything. I just wish I could regain some equilibrium and get the hissing in my ear to stop, but maybe it's all just part of the new balancing act I'm being called to execute, now that I'm officially old. 

I've never been good at balancing. In high school we had to do a couple weeks of gymnastics, which included torture sessions on various intimidating pieces of equipment. The parallel bars, the horse thing, the mini-horse, what did we call that little thing, the Shetland pony? I can't remember. And of course, the balance beam. I was terrible at all of it. I had no strength, no grace, and most of all, no gumption. About all I could manage was a respectable handstand. I've never had any poise. From elementary school onward, gym class was endless humiliation and embarrassment. 

It hasn't improved with adulthood. I used to be able to run, well, jog, let's be clear. I was never a sprinter. I liked to think I had potential as a long distance runner, but I lacked discipline. I didn't care enough to train rigorously. I ran one marathon, slowly, and called it good. Now I can barely trot twenty yards before my heart is hammering and my lungs are wheezing. Maybe when the iron pills kick in . . . 

I'm dwelling on all this because I just had a birthday. Fall is a time of reflection, and having a fall birthday invites self-reflection. My self-reflection does not include mirrors but it does include a hefty dose of self-criticism. I am not used to thinking of myself as a sick person. Even though I have never been graceful (my sister was the ballet dancer and figure skater, not me. I played softball and volleyball), I never thought of myself as physically weak. Emotionally frayed, yes, but I could always throw a ball if I had to. Now I have to find a new equilibrium. I don't know how close I can get to the cliff edge before I fall into the abyss. I used to walk that cliff edge, metaphorically speaking. Now I can't see it because my eyes are filming over with cataracts. I can't hear the hiss of empty air over the hiss of my dysfunctional Eustachian tube. I can't even enjoy chewing my food from fear that osteoporosis and bisphosphonates have given me necrosis in my jaw. 

You are probably thinking, oh, what's the use? Why do we keep going when it is so obviously futile and fatal? Right, I get you. It's all about balance. When the heart isn't pounding, when my ear isn't crackling, when my eyes are closed, and I'm leaning securely against something so I won't fall over, I can feel the cold evening desert air coming in the bathroom window. Today it was so humid, I almost thought I could smell the ocean. 

You know what parts of the U.S. have the least amount of air pressure fluctuation? Along the southern coasts at sea level. Southern California, southern Florida. One of these days it will be time for a road trip. As soon as the iron pills kick in. 

Stuff piling up in the rear view mirror

I'm listening to some old Pablo Cruise on YouTube while I undertake another round of Swedish death cleaning. Today I packed up my collection of academic books into one small but heavy cardboard box. The music is making me sad. I'm remembering the 1970s. Love will find a way. Ha. Overly optimistic sentiment. I'm sad because in the 70s, I didn't know what I was capable of, good and bad. My brain was still forming. Now I look at these books on factor analysis and structural equation modeling and marvel that my brain was once capable of comprehending their content. I peaked in 2013. It's been a messy downhill slide ever since.

Lately I seem to dip in and out of jettison mode. Today this is what is on my mind. I had planned to write about my exciting adventure preparing for and undergoing an endoscopy and a colonoscopy (I got the twofer deal), but I'm over it. That is so last week. I can't find the energy to even think about it. Even though few things are funnier than having a camera rammed up one's butt, suffice it to say, I have nothing new to offer. Most of you have probably already had to suffer the indignity one or more times. All I can say is, thank God for my friend S and praise the Lord and pass the Propofol. Lying there trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey, with a plastic gizmo holding my mouth open and my privates flapping in the wind, I was never so glad to exit stage right in all my life.  

So that's done. No polyps, no cancer, I got the ten year warranty, so this entire surreal experience is fast receding in the rear view mirror. I've already forgotten the week of starvation and the night spent scrolling through Instagram while parked on the toilet. It's all a hazy blur best left on the side of the road. 

Now that I'm eating food again, I have the luxury of resuming my anxiety about my heart. It keeps thumping and bumping along, but with the exception of the first few days of monitoring (during which I was starving), I actually feel pretty good. I don't have a lot of energy (iron anemia) but now that the colonoscopy is done, I can start taking the iron supplement. I hope that restores my superpowers. I am looking forward to channeling my inner Popeye. 

I'm chagrined that I still have so much to jettison. I dragged along pieces of my former lives with me when I moved to Tucson in 2021. My academic books. My art supplies. My sewing machine. Who do I think I am? A person who still knows how to do statistics? I think my editing days are over. My brain cells and my patience seems to have run out at the same time. It's time to say goodbye to the books (so much money spent on those books, argh). I will donate them to the library foundation. They were happy to receive my DVDs and music CDs. I fear their eyes will roll back in their heads when they see these obscure academic titles but who cares. With my donation, I amputate, exorcise, erase, I don't know what word to use, I release that part of me that is atrophied and useless. 

Same with the art supplies. I dismembered the three framed acrylic paintings I brought with me into their separate elements. The canvas will go out with tomorrow's trash, to start a new life in the landfill. The frames and the stretcher bars will find a home with some as-yet-to-be-discovered Freecycler, who will also be thrilled to receive an almost full pad of vintage newsprint, two (expensive) birch drawing boards, a dozen large tubes of (still good) acrylic paint, and fifty-plus artists brushes in all sizes and conditions. All the stuff I dragged with me from Portland, thinking I can't claim to be an artist without a box of art supplies. Ha. I still draw. I drew a picture today. There you see it, hot off the whatever you call lined paper in a composition notebook. I was sitting in a Zoom meeting, drawing while listening, channeling my inner curmudgeon, as is my wont.

My sewing machine will be the last to go. It's such a practical tool, unlike statistics books and art supplies. I might keep it for a while longer, at least until I decide to hit the road. Even then, I might pack it on the roof of my car, in one of those roof boxes. I might want to make car seats and curtains, who knows. With Popeyes on them. 

It's hard to let go of some of these things, not because they are intrinsically valuable but because of the parts of me they represented. I don't have those parts anymore. It's likely the statistician in me is gone for good. The artist in me has morphed into a writer-slash-illustrator or cartoonist, caricaturist? I don't know what to call myself. I'm still an artist. I'm just not a painter anymore. I had a gulp when I saw my easel go away, but ripping up my old paintings was surprisingly easy. I have photos.

So the question is, who am I now? I'm still figuring that out. My brain and body have changed. I'm no longer capable of doing some things. Maybe I can't do math anymore, or find the right words to describe what I am feeling. Maybe my writing is mundane and silly. Maybe my drawings are trivial and idiosyncratic. Maybe I only have the energy to putter slowly on a bike around the trailer park. It's okay. I can still make myself laugh with my stories. The jokes are for me. As long as I find joy in the creative process, I will keep creating. When it stops being fun, I will go do something else.

My heart is broken

How many times over the past couple years have I said "my heart is broken"? Haven't you? More times than we can count, probably. We've all had losses. My cat died at the beginning of the pandemic. I still haven't recovered, I doubt I ever will. Then Covid swept us under. So many people lost loved ones. Mom dodged Covid but died of an aneurysm in her upper GI tract almost a year to the day after Eddie died. Then wham bam, four months later, I find myself in Tucson, just in time for monsoon and wondering what the heck happened.

After a bizarre year at the Bat Cave, finally I come to rest here in the Trailer Del Arte. I thought, finally, a place to breathe, to catch my breath. A place to regroup and figure out what comes next. Not so fast, the Universe seems to be saying. This week I got the unsettling news that my heart really is broken. Not just emotionally and metaphorically, but also physically. 

WTF, Universe!? 

The "small murmur" turned into a rather alarming diagnosis of aortic stenosis. "Mild to moderate" calcification of the aortic valve. Better than "severe" I guess, but any amount is not good. Apparently my valve has an amount of calcification that would typically be seen in a person in their 70s or 80s. The question is, what type of valve do I have? Is it a two-leaf or a three-leaf? Nobody knows, which is why I have a referral for a CT scan. Lucky me. Ho hum. Another scan. 

Meanwhile, I am now the proud wearer of a little white box attached to the left side of my chest. It's about an inch and a half square and it sits in a blue plastic casing that is permanently attached to a piece of tape that is glued to my chest. Inside the piece of tape some electrodes are embedded. This strange limpet communicates with a slim shiny smartphone, which must be within thirty feet of the sensor at all times or it throws a hissy fit. The sensor communicates with the smartphone, and the smartphone transmits my EKG in real time 24/7 to some company somewhere, God only knows. Far as I know, there is no GPS, so I am not being tracked. Not that I'm going anywhere. 

So this thing has to cling to my chest for thirty days. I can shower with it on. Every few days or so, it needs recharging. I did that yesterday. It felt so good to peel that thing off me and get my skin back. I plugged the sensor into it's charger and waited for the light to turn from blinking amber to green. And waited. And waited. Finally I decided to plug it into the USB port on my computer. That seemed to do the trick. Then I had the fun of figuring out how to put on a new patch. The med aide put it on me at the doctor's office. She showed me the process but my audio memory, well, my memory in general, is not great. I have since referred to the instruction booklet multiple times to tell me what to do. 

The smartphone needs recharging every night. It wakes up randomly and beeps. The day after I had the device, an alert on the phone said it wasn't sending data and to call the 800 number. I called the 800 number and got a nice person who spoke excellent English and who told me how to fix it. Since then, the phone seems to be happy. I wear it strapped around my waist in a stretchy piece of cloth. Apparently the battery in the sensor will last longer if the phone is in close proximity. I feel like I'm carrying two electronic infants, one strapped to my waist and the other glued to my chest. Like Giga Pets, they need a lot of attention. 

Sorry if I'm boring you. It's easier to tell you about the details of the barnacle clinging to my chest than it is to describe the thoughts going through my head at the news that my heart doesn't work right anymore. This all happened very quickly. I'm still in shock and denial.

I admit, it did occur to me that I might have brought this on myself by all the times I moaned, "My heart is broken" over the past two years. What do they say, be careful what you wish for? No, that's not the adage I want. What you resist, persists? Um, no, that's not right. Something about if you say something, it will happen? I don't know. The assumption is that our minds have control over our bodies. That if we got cancer, we must have wanted to for some unknown reason. Some sort of cosmic lesson. 

Besides being colossally unhelpful and cruel, it is also not true that if we say something, it will happen. How many times over the years did I state an intention to lose a few pounds, or get more exercise, or turn my art into a business? Right. As if my mind had such power. I'd be thin, wealthy, and living in the Caribbean if simply visualizing my success means it is going to happen. It's the "do what you love and the money will follow" idea, which is the worst advice for artists ever given. 

Do I take the blame for my broken heart? You might say, well, Carol, weren't you raised on Wonder bread, Froot Loops, Crisco, hamburger patties, and canned green beans? As an adult, didn't you drink, didn't you smoke cigarettes, eat red meat and lots of saturated fat and processed foods? Yes to the first one, no to the second. I was vegetarian for a long time. I have never smoked cigarettes. I haven't had a drink in years. My worst vice is coffee. Black, no sugar.

Compared to many Americans, I eat a spartan diet. Maybe it was too spartan, who knows. I don't blame my environment so much as I blame my genes. The cardiologist asked me if I had kids. When I said no, he said that's good, because they would have the risk of the same problem. This is largely genetic. Maybe a defect that went unnoticed until now, I don't know. My father had a heart problem, not enough to keep him out of the military but it caught up to him eventually. By the time he was willing to do something about it, it was too late. He was too weak for heart surgery. He fell off the front porch and broke his hip, but it was his heart that killed him. 

Today I feel pretty good, given I've been on a starvation diet for three days in preparation for a colonoscopy tomorrow. I assume the technicians will read my chart and take all necessary precautions. It would be pretty embarrassing to have a heart attack while I've got a camera up my butt.