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knewhealth · 3 years ago

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Detection and Prevention is Key with Colorectal Cancer

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Colorectal cancer is a common form of cancer, but fortunately, it can be detected early. As with most health conditions, the early detection of colorectal cancer increases your chances of beating the disease.

Most of us don’t think about colorectal health all that much. In fact, because of its situation, it might feel embarrassing to talk about colorectal issues. But learning about colorectal health and screening tests is essential – in fact, it might just save your life.

The good news is that making some healthy lifestyle changes can reduce your chances of developing colorectal cancer. And, with a few regular tests, it’s possible to detect precancerous cells and early-stage cancer.

Here’s what you need to know about colorectal cancer.

What is colorectal cancer?

Colorectal cancer starts in the lower digestive system, specifically the colon or rectum. The colon is also known as the large intestine. When left untreated, colorectal cancer may spread to other parts of the body.

This form of cancer is surprisingly common: according to The American Cancer Society (ACS), about 1 in 23 men and 1 in 25 women will develop colorectal cancer at some point during their lifetime. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) states that colorectal cancer is the second leading cause of cancer deaths in the US, with the first being lung cancer.

Early detection can increase your likelihood of survival and the good news is that a range of treatments are available.

What are the stages of colorectal cancer?

If you’re diagnosed with colorectal cancer, your doctor will probably use staging to tell you how advanced your cancer is, with stage 0 being the earliest stage and stage 4 being the most advanced.

Here’s what the stages of colorectal cancer refer to:

Stage 0 is when abnormal cells are only found in the inner lining of the colon or rectum.

Stage 1 is when the cancer cells have penetrated the lining. At this point, the cells might be growing into the muscle layer of the colon or rectum.

Stage 2 is when the cancer cells have spread to the colon or rectum walls or to nearby tissues.

Stage 3 is when the cancer has moved to the lymph nodes.

Stage 4 is when the cancer has spread both to the lymph nodes and to other organs.

The earlier you detect colorectal cancer, the better. And treatments are generally more effective if it’s detected early.

Who is most likely to get colorectal cancer?

Anybody can get colorectal cancer, which is why it’s important to keep a look out for the signs and seek medical help if you have any worrying symptoms. However, certain people are more likely to develop colorectal cancer than others.

People are more likely to get colorectal cancer if they:

are over 50 years old

have a family history of colorectal cancer

have a personal history of adenomatous polyps

have type 2 diabetes or inflammatory bowel disorder (IBD)

have genetic syndromes, such as Lynch syndrome

are of African American or Ashkenazi Jewish descent

smoke cigarettes

drink alcohol frequently

have a sedentary lifestyle

consume a lot of red meat or processed meat

While you can’t change your age, family medical history, or genes, there are some steps you can take to reduce your risk of developing cancer.

Can you prevent colorectal cancer?

You can’t always prevent colorectal cancer, and some risk factors – such as your age and genetics – can’t be changed. However, research suggests that certain healthy lifestyle changes can reduce your risk of colorectal cancer.

These changes can include:

eating less red meat and processed meats

eating more plant-based foods

exercising regularly

quitting smoking

reducing the amount of alcohol you drink

reducing your stress levels

getting enough sleep

The above lifestyle changes aren’t just good for preventing colorectal cancer, but for preventing a range of health conditions.

Making a lifestyle change can be difficult, but you don’t have to do it alone. If you’re a Knew Health Member, remember to take advantage of our free Health Coaching services. A Health Coach can help you set wellness goals and design a plan to reach and maintain those goals.

Signs and symptoms of colorectal cancer

Early symptoms of colorectal cancer may include:

constipation and diarrhea

nausea and vomiting

unusually narrow stools

the feeling of not being empty after a bowel movement

rectal bleeding and blood in the stool

black stools

abdominal bloating and pain

pain or pressure in the rectum

a lump in the rectum or abdomen

fatigue

anemia

weight loss

decreased appetite

unintentional weight loss

bowel obstruction or bowel perforation

Many of the above symptoms might be caused by another health condition, which is why many people don’t realize they have colorectal cancer until the symptoms become quite severe. Being aware of these symptoms and seeking medical help could enable you to detect it early.

If you’re experiencing these symptoms, it’s essential to speak to your doctor. Explain when the symptom started and describe it. Be prepared to discuss your medical history and your family’s history, if your doctor isn’t yet aware of it. Discuss whether you should be screened for colorectal cancer.

How do you detect colorectal cancer early?

Although you can’t always prevent colorectal cancer, you can detect it early. Regular screening tests for colorectal cancer will help you detect colorectal cancer as soon as possible.

The screening test will include talking with your doctor about your medical history. Your doctor will perform a physical exam and possibly a rectal exam to check for lumps or polyps (both of which are early symptoms of colorectal cancer).

Precancerous polyps can be removed, thus reducing the chances of you developing full-blown cancer.

Should I get screened for colorectal cancer?

If you’re over the age of 50, groups such as The American College of Physicians and The British Medical Journal recommend regular screenings. The CDC and the American Cancer Society, however, recommends having screenings over the age of 45.

You should also have screenings if:

You or someone you’re closely related to (a parent or sibling) have had colorectal polyps or colorectal cancer

You have a genetic condition that makes you more likely to have colorectal cancer

You have an inflammatory bowel disease such as Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis

The American College of Physicians also recommends having a colonoscopy every 10 years. They also recommend having a fecal immunochemical test (FIT) or high sensitivity guaiac-based fecal occult blood test (gFOBT) every two years.

For Knew Health Members, colonoscopies are fully eligible to share through our Medical Cost Sharing Community. We encourage our Members to get screened regularly and share these costs through Knew Health.

How is colorectal cancer treated?

Your cancer treatment plan will be developed by your doctors according to your unique situation. The location of the cancer as well as its stage will affect your treatment plan.

Your treatment plan might include one or more of the following:

chemotherapy

radiation therapy

surgery

radiofrequency ablation (also known as RFA) or cryoablation

other targeted therapies

Certain lifestyle changes, like a change in your diet or quitting cigarettes, might also be wise. Your doctor will advise you on any lifestyle changes you need to make as well as the potential side effects of the above-mentioned treatments.

Cancer treatment can be tough, both mentally and physically, for you and your family. You and your loved ones might benefit from support groups during the treatment period.

More resources on colorectal cancer

If you want to learn more about colorectal cancer, the following resources might be helpful:

The American Cancer Society has a section on colorectal cancer as well as other cancers

The Colorectal Cancer Society has compiled a list of resources for patients

Fight Colorectal Cancer is an organization that focuses on colorectal cancer advocacy

The CDC has a list of colorectal cancer resources

The National Cancer Institute has a range of patient resources on colorectal cancer

If you have colorectal cancer, you might benefit from looking for support groups (either online or in person). Ask your doctor if they can recommend any local support groups.

While colorectal cancer is a common condition, there are many things you can do to prevent it or detect it early. It’s also a condition that can be treated, especially if you detect it early. If you’re concerned about colorectal cancer, talk with your doctor about screening tests.

Resources

The American Cancer Society medical and editorial content team. (2020). Colorectal cancer risk factors. cancer.org/cancer/colon-rectal-cancer/causes-risks-prevention/risk-factors.html

The American Cancer Society Medical and Editorial Content Team. (2019). Key statistics for colorectal cancer. cancer.org/cancer/colon-rectal-cancer/about/key-statistics.html

Colorectal cancer. (n.d.). cancer.org/cancer/colon-rectal-cancer/

Colorectal cancer prevention (PDQ) – patient version. (2019). cancer.gov/types/colorectal/patient/colorectal-prevention-pdq

Colorectal cancer: Screening [Final recommendation statement]. (2016). uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/uspstf/recommendation/colorectal-cancer-screening

Colorectal cancer: Types of treatment. (2019). cancer.net/cancer-types/colorectal-cancer/types-treatment

Mayo Clinic Staff. (2019). Colon cancer. mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/colon-cancer/symptoms-causes/syc-20353669

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stevemoffett · 4 years ago

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A Hard Nap, The Fall of Math, The Star Wars Holiday Special, Disco Point, and There You Are

In January last year, I noticed a sign in myself of the same cancer my dad had back in 2008. Unlike the usual symptoms that set off my paranoia, it wasn’t some vague feeling, it wasn’t an intermittent pain, and it wasn’t a general ill feeling—it was clear and unambiguous, out of the ordinary and one of those symptoms that, if you google it, is under the list of “call your doctor if you experience any of the following.”

It was also nonspecific: this symptom could mean cancer, but it could also mean about five other cancer-unrelated conditions. I called for an appointment that morning with my general practitioner, who said that the earliest available date was about two weeks later.

I knew that the only way my fear would be effectively relieved was with the one sure-fire diagnostic tool for this type of cancer, one that’s recommended for everyone, but not until about age 50: a colonoscopy.

For the two weeks before my GP appointment, I mentally prepared for death. For the record, I do this every time I interpret my body’s signals as cancerous, but the mental preparation usually stops after a few days when the symptom either goes away or when a clear alternative cause presents itself. This time, I didn’t get that kind of relief and, in fact, the symptom repeated more than once between setting the appointment and going to it. Each time, it was like an intrusive thought come to life: you’re going to die. You’re going to go through surgery and chemotherapy like Dad and you’re either going to die early, or find out like he did that the cure is worse than the disease, or maybe you’ll hang on just long enough to experience both.

Winter mornings in Texas can sometimes be surprisingly cold. While stepping out the door on a midsummer morning is like walking into someone’s hot exhale, as you might expect, a 33-degree morning is more like a slap in the face. When I packed everything I figured I’d need to move here a couple of years ago, I threw away my winter coat, thinking, I won’t be needing this anymore. (The coat was also about ten years old at that point.)

My first winter in Texas, I layered a bunch of shirts underneath a light jacket and wore a scarf on freezing days. The second winter, I decided that I’d had enough of being cold. After all, I rationalized, here in Texas it was monetarily possible to never have to feel cold again if you really don’t want to. So I bought the warmest coat I could find, an unstylish, bulky parka made by Caterpillar, the company that makes construction vehicles. No more layering, no more checking the weather before leaving in the morning. I could just put this coat on and not worry about it.

But now, under the shadow of a cancer scare these January mornings, wearing the big coat made me feel less like I was smarter than the weather and more like I was trying to smuggle a terminal disease wherever I went. Under my coat, tie, button-down shirt, undershirt, skin, fat, and muscle, something was growing silently in the dark. While maybe it had slipped up and showed some of its handiwork to me, it was already too late to do much about it now.

Since it has affected my life several times before, and since it is such an exquisite mixture of dread and uncertainty, cancer is one of my mind’s biggest bogeymen. I feel personally insulted by the idea of it. I treat you so well, body—why would you betray me? Was I not nice enough? Is this poetic justice for my vanity? Is it, as the old anecdotal saying goes, due to my worrying?

Not only did I feel like I was smuggling cancer under the big coat, I was also warming it up by drinking my coffee. I was feeding it directly when I ate something too sugary. And I was probably even giving it an evil sense of satisfaction when I got stressed out about it. If I was able to keep my mind off it by working in the lab, mixing and pipetting, using kits, and doing arithmetic in my head, it would come crashing back into focus when I was pulling my gloves off to wash my hands.

I pulled up incognito mode on my phone’s browser during my breaks, googling “5-year survival rate colon cancer age 35.” “Cancer staging colon prognosis.” “Colon cancer smoking.” “Colon cancer smoke one pack in college.” “Colon cancer smoke one pack 18 years ago.” “Colon cancer smoke one pack after seeing Luke Wilson smoking in The Royal Tenenbaums.”

At home, I suddenly started noticing the expiration dates on my nonperishables. What will last longer, I thought, the freshness of this baking soda, or me.

I knew I wasn’t going to be comforted by the first GP visit. After all, they’re usually the first stop to a specialist, unless you have a PPO insurance plan, which I don’t. The doctor listened to my symptoms and family history. “Well,” he said, “Given your history, it’s a good idea to refer you to a GI. But, you seem like you lead a healthy lifestyle otherwise, with none of the other risk factors, so we’ll see what he says.”

I made the GI appointment and had to wait two more weeks for it, with the same circular worrying and googling. At the GI appointment, I sat in the waiting room, the youngest patient there by a few decades, and I felt a little bit ridiculous. On the other hand, I’d also just read a harrowing story about a woman in her late 20s who had colon cancer and died from it. That was a real person, I thought, who at the first phase of it probably went through all the same feelings I was now, the I’m-being-ridiculous and is-this-worth-the-time-and-vacation-days, all the way up until her diagnosis. Not just because I was scared, I felt a pang of sympathy. A disease of the old picking a victim from the young is terrible luck.

And I figured, if it could be her, it could be anyone. But most of all, it could be me.

That last bit, I think, is one of—one of—my greatest flaws, the vanity of always thinking that the worst things will happen to you, in spite of the odds. It’s a way of making yourself feel special, but it has no upside. You don’t feel confidence with this type of special-feeling. In fact, you’re more likely to be timid and self-centered, and you just come across as weird to the outside observer. They might think, There’s only a few steps between that guy and Howard Hughes. Somewhere, deep in your mind, they think: Wires are crossed.

Shortly before I went in, another patient arrived, a man around my age or maybe younger who, despite a dozen or so free seats, declined to sit down. My name was called, and I passed a sign on the way to the back that said, “If you have recently traveled to China and have a fever you must let our staff know.”

This doctor’s exam rooms had floor-to-ceiling windows, the kind you’d see in a movie, instead of the usual dull and bulby, off-white plastic exam room interior. A Spanish medical student came in to give a pre-appointment questionnaire and to take my vitals. He asked, in much better English than I could have mustered in Spanish, “So. There is some blood in they crep?”

When he came in, the GI repeated what my GP had said, and since he was also the person who would be performing a colonoscopy, he said I should set an appointment for one with him. I managed to get a date three weeks later.

From other people’s stories, I knew two things about colonoscopies: they are no fun, especially the night before, but the general anesthesia on the day of the procedure, on the other hand, is fun. I was nervous enough on the day before that I actually asked someone at the pharmacy for help finding the items I was looking for: Polyethylene Glycol (or PEG, which we use all the time for lab experiments, and which I was going to have to drink 2 liters of), Gatorade, and laxative pills. I had to take about 800% of their recommended dosages, each.

The bodily effect of those chemicals was dramatic, and I will spare the details. The worst parts of it, I found, were the generally exhausting physical toll it took, and the feeling by the end that I had some kind of dangerous sodium imbalance: I was sweating between my fingers, for example, but the rest of me felt as dry as paper. At 10PM, I was too tired to do anything, but too nervous to sleep for more than a few hours.

One smaller worry that I felt the next morning, as I took a selfie in my hospital gown to send to a friend back home, making a backward peace sign to show off the IV sticking into my hand and also how brave I was being, was that I might just die right there on the table from the general anesthesia. Part of my grad school research was on Propofol, the most-used general anesthesia nowadays (which, incidentally, also killed Michael Jackson). This was the same drug I was to be given.

I’d never been fully put under anesthesia before. It was astronomically improbable that I’d have an adverse reaction to it and die (and by the way, Michael Jackson abused it, using it far outside of medical praxis—if you’re afraid to get a colonoscopy yourself, don’t be, it could save your life), but keep in mind what I said about my vanity.

“Hey, I’m really scared,” I told the anesthesiologist. He said something, muffled by his mask, that sounded like, “It’ll be all right.” Then he busied himself with a syringe, connecting it to my IV. He depressed it about a third of the way. “This should help you,” he said.

The last thing I said was, “Whoa…I feel it.”

After what felt like a hard, late-afternoon nap, I said, “Hello?”

My head was wrapped with something. When I touched my face, I could feel that there were cotton pads underneath the wrapping, holding my eyes shut. I guess that at some point either mid-procedure or after, my eyes had opened, unseeing, and they’d done this to keep them from drying out. “Hang on, sir,” I heard a nurse say, and my head was unwrapped.

“It’s over?” I asked.

“You’re all done,” he said.

“Gimme a minute, please,” I said, my South Jersey accent peeking out. “I feel a little weird.”

Eventually, I sat up. Two of the nurses helped me stand, and I pumped my arms like I was lifting light, invisible dumbbells. As I put my glasses on and looked around, I thought that they all seemed like they were fighting to not smirk. What did I say while I was blacked out? I wondered, with a twinge of panic, before deciding that it would be worthless to speculate. It could have been anything. There are literally millions of possibilities. Again—it would be worthless to speculate, I told myself, firmly.

An Uber driver, I had been told by hospital staff during a consultation, was not a legally strong enough party to take responsibility for me at discharge. Someone I knew would have to escort me to my apartment. Also, they said, they really would do that thing where you’re back in your own clothes, and they push you to the exit in a wheelchair when you’re all finished. After my procedure, my co-worker stood waiting in the discharge zone with his car as an orderly wheeled me out of the hospital exit. I stood up from the wheelchair and got into the passenger seat of his car, for some reason more aware than usual of the heat coming from the vent and the smell of the car’s leather upholstery. “I still feel weird from the anesthesia,” I said to my friend.

“I’ll bet you do,” he replied.

It was about lunch time, and I had taken the rest of the day off from work. When I got home, I ordered a pizza and lay on my bed. I ate the pizza and watched Star Wars. I had not felt any euphoria when I woke up, I thought hollowly. And my first solid meal in almost forty hours tasted unremarkable. I was still groggy, but not in a pleasant way. I felt cheated.

The hospital staff had put a manilla envelope into my hands as I left. It contained sheets of images the doctor had taken during the procedure. Once lucid, I leafed through them and compared the thumbnail-sized images on printer paper with googled images of cancerous tumors viewed through a colonoscope, trying to diagnose myself.

A couple of the images on the papers had shapes that looked weird, with what seemed like variations in the texture or color of my colon wall that to me, at least, appeared one hundred percent fatal. It was another two weeks before I had a follow-up appointment to go over them with the surgeon.

“See this?” The GI said, two weeks later, pointing to one of the images that had seemed completely normal to me, unlike other ones I had thought were much more scary and unusual-looking. “That’s a low-risk polyp. Of course, now it’s a no-risk polyp, ‘cause it’s gone.”

This medical episode ended only three or so weeks before the whole world changed, but I was all the more grateful for that. If I’d waited to be checked out, then I would have been weighing whether it was worth getting tested against the possibility of being infected with COVID.

The doctor recommended that I get a colonoscopy every five years from now on, but added, “If you want, you can go earlier than that.” I told him thanks, but once every five years sounded fine.

I wrote about the first seven weeks of the pandemic in my last entry. After that, May and June passed in the same way as March and April had. I went back to work in mid-June for two weeks before the first summer COVID spike closed things back up. I continued to play Quake, and I continued to fret about my family.

I had a job interview for a position in northern Maryland in April. I didn’t get it, but I had a good idea why I’d been turned down: the position wanted people with proven math skills. Which makes sense—for the last few years I’d said repeatedly that I wanted to have a job that involves less lab work and more data analysis. This was one of those jobs.

My graduate program gave me a degree in “Computational and Integrative Biology.” Sometimes I shorten it to “Integrative Biology,” or “Computational Biology,” but I always feel sort of dishonest when I tell people my degree. (Apparently this feeling is common among grad students). My own reason for feeling dishonest was because, in any other college, the work I was doing would probably just fall under normal old “Biology.” While it was true I had done course work that reflected “Computational and Integrative” Biology, they were courses taught in a remedial way.

When I say remedial, I mean that they were courses designed to get biologists up to speed on how to do higher-level data analyses with their experiments. For instance, in my “Biomath” course, we went over ordinary differential equations and graph theory. Those are both intermediate-level math types, ones you’d encounter in the later part of an undergraduate math degree program. Throughout that course, there was a lot of handwaving whenever I asked questions.

“Eh…,” the professor might have responded to something I had asked, “that requires a lot of background explanation we don’t need right now to handle the problem here. Just take it as a given for what we’re working on.”

In grad school, it’s common to be well-versed in only your narrow little research tunnel that leads outward to the edge of “known” biology. But a few times each month, several of us students would head to the bar down at the city’s waterfront after work to talk about our research. It usually began with a complaint—“This is the third time this kit wouldn’t work this week and it takes twelve fucking hours to run it each time,”—but to give us a more context for their problem, whoever was griping would have to go back and start at the beginning, recounting all the steps leading to their experiment’s failure.

This was a useful exercise, since a pair of new eyes on your work meant that at least you could get feedback on how to better relate the subject matter when you talked to a non-science audience, and at most, you might get a real solution for the problem you were bumping up against.

But I would sometimes get privately upset, as I sipped my beer and glanced out the window at the river, when a math-centered Computational and Integrative Biology student would start talking about their research. As someone who feels an unpleasant, TV static-like anxiety in my chest the moment I see letters in italics, or one of those big, orphan sorority sigmas following an equal sign during a math seminar, this upset feeling was directed at myself. Because, as a result of my insecurity, I would start listening to the beginning of the math student’s explanation of their research, trip over the first unfamiliar term I heard, lose the thread of what they were talking about, give up, and zone out. The math students, overall, just seemed light years ahead of me.

A critical vocabulary word that I began to mentally tie to the situation—slumming, these math types were slumming when talking to us biologists—was the grain of sand to my insecurity’s oyster. By the time I got my diploma a few years later, it had developed into a little pearl; now I had the feeling that I was, relative to those who’d come from a math background, a fake computational biologist.

Unhelpfully, the people in charge of hiring for the jobs I want nowadays seemed to agree. All the job listings I was interested in applying for made me feel the same panic that advanced math symbols on powerpoint slides did. The subjects they wanted their applicants to have experience in—machine learning, deep learning, regression analyses—were all frightening, impregnable terms, reminding me either of some kind of giant machine made up of endless tubes and valves, all spitting dangerously hot steam, or of a highly secure, underground bomb shelter that requires fingerprints or eyeball scans to get into. I knew from my previous learning experiences that if I didn’t understand the fundamentals and learned only the higher-level, applied stuff, it was just going to make me feel unworthy, and I’d forget it at once.

But summer had come—it was midsummer now, in fact. The pandemic wasn’t going anywhere, so what was I going to do if I didn’t start learning something? I ended up registering for three classes at a community college back home, which offered their fall semester online. For two thousand dollars, including textbooks, I got a spot in Introductory Statistics, Linear Algebra, and Calculus III.

Calculus III was a risk. I’d taken Calc I and II in undergrad, now about seventeen years ago, and I had earned Bs back then. I didn’t remember much of the material from either class. I’d tried watching Khan Academy videos at various points in the meantime, but could never stick with it. I’d watch several videos in a row, feel like I understood things, try a practice problem, get it wrong, and forget about it after a day or two. But now, I had put actual money into it and, in a few months, a grade would be spit back out, so this time I had real skin in the game.

But I had misgivings that I was too old to learn new stuff, or that I would be one of those students I remember when I was in undergrad, the older students who would grind class to a halt with their endless questions. Or maybe I would get worse grades than I had in undergrad, despite taking things more seriously now.

Two of the classes were taught asynchronously, meaning each lecture was a video that you could pause or replay at your leisure, and all tests were take-home, but the other class, Statistics, was done over Zoom. You might think a Zoom class could be a better way to learn—clarifying questions can be asked immediately, for instance��but for me, at least, it was not. Instead of focusing on the material being taught, the whole time I’d be thinking, “They can see me. Everyone here can see me. I can see me, and I have a dumbass expression on my face. Can they tell that I have a bedsheet instead of a curtain over my window blinds?”

My mind wandered during class just as much as it had while sitting in a lecture hall when I was eighteen, but now, these classes were held later at night, after I’d been working all day and had eaten dinner. As a result of this, and the fact that I find Statistics to be boring when it’s taught as a series of don’t-worry-about-how-we-derived-it formulas to plug numbers into, I did the worst in Statistics.

But Calc and Linear Algebra were more interesting. When I watched the class videos, I got familiar with the disembodied voices of the teachers, who each seemed to be trying to do an impression of Khan Academy videos. My Calc teacher, with his strong Vietnamese accent, would punctuate every few lines of derivation or proof with, “So what does that mean then?” Every time—new topic, new chapter, new problem, exactly the same tone of voice: “So what does that mean then?”

Eventually, in my head, his cadence merged with the tones of Woody Woodpecker’s laugh, and I began saying it to myself as I did chores around my apartment. “So what does that mean, then?” I’d half-sing at my garbage can liner as I cinched it shut. “So what does that mean, then?” I’d say to a wrinkled button-down shirt, enjoying the pepper shaker-y smell of my iron when it’s turned up to its hottest setting. “So what does that mean, then?” I’d say to the window blinds, when considering whether I should replace the bedsheet I’d hung there with an actual curtain, before answering myself that No, this apartment is too temporary for something as tony as curtains.

Sometimes I’d say it three times in a row, like Woody Woodpecker himself:

“So what does that mean, then?”

I kept a Google Sheet of how much time I spent doing work for each class, and found that I averaged about 20 hours a week total. That broke down to approximately an hour and a half each weekday, and on Saturday and Sunday I would go for about six or seven hours each. I’d get up at 7:30 those weekend mornings and brew a pot of coffee, then sit taking notes and working through every part of each assigned homework, not moving on from a problem until I understood everything about it.

I think that those Saturday and Sunday mornings may have been the happiest I felt during the year 2020. In the middle of a difficult Calc problem, not having the answer yet but certain I was on the right track, while also buzzing on caffeine, as a beam of early horizontal sunlight hit my kitchen backsplash and filled the apartment with more brightness than all my lightbulbs put together, I for once did not feel worried. I was unworried about my parents, my sisters, my brother, my sister-in-law, my niece and nephew, and all the pets. Unworried about COVID, or cancer, or the work stresses of the week. Unworried about getting older, about being alone still, or about enjoying being alone too much; unworried about letting all of this time go by and still feeling like real life hasn’t started; unworried about my dad having another stroke, or about my mom just suddenly up and dying out of nowhere, or cancer, or whether my hairline is changing, or the fact that my heart has been skipping a beat sometimes lately, or whether my friends who I speak to on the phone were getting sick of me, or whether I am too graphic when I describe symptoms I am afraid mean I might have cancer, or whether my apartment neighbors will keep me up with their noise again tonight, or whether the tooth sensitivity I feel drinking cold water lately means I need to risk a dentist visit during a pandemic, or whether I will be able to have healthier boundaries with my parents whenever I return to the northeast, or whether I’ll ever feel truly satisfied and content, or whether I’ll ever feel actual joy some day, or whether my hang-ups, and anxieties, and fears, and regrets about my personal and professional choices will end up all ganging up on me at once, or, of course, whether at any given moment, I might have cancer.

My attitude going into the classes was that I would disregard whatever grades I got and simply aim for as much comprehension as possible. But about halfway through the semester, I lost my nerve and began to think of my grades as a direct indicator of my level of understanding. So I started fretting about my grades, and on days of Calc III exams during the second half of the semester, I took vacation time so I could spend the whole day working on them.

It got a little crazy toward the end, but finally, it was over, and I managed to get all As. That made me happy, even if I knew that that kind of satisfaction is a bit immature. But I felt like I was making up for some of the sins I had committed as a college student, my laziness and my previous lack of appreciation for education finally, in a small way, absolved.

I spent Christmas here in Texas. When I think back on Christmases from previous years I find that I can remember the past two years very well because I flew home and packed a lot of family and friend time into a few short days. Before 2018, though, I can’t remember any specific Christmas well enough to recount anything that happened on the day.

But when I was a little kid, I remembered each Christmas perfectly, mainly due to the gifts I got and the room where we put the Christmas tree—where “Christmas happened”: in 1990, it was in the back room and we got a magic set, and also my brother pretended to faint when he saw he’d gotten Reebok Pumps. In 1991, it was in the family room, and my brother and I got the Nintendo game “Base Wars.” In 1992, it was in the living room and we got a Sega Genesis along with the game “Sonic 2.” In 1993, it was in the family room again, and I got a Hot Wheels Key Force car, and my brother got the Genesis game “Hard Ball 3 With Al Michaels.”

In 1994, my grandfather died a few weeks before Christmas, and we got a Sega CD. That was the year I became aware that the Christmas spirit was vulnerable to external forces, one’s first experience with death being the most offensive of those forces, and after a few months I also became aware that a hot new gaming console like the Sega CD could “fail,” slipping into obscurity with a small and unremarkable library of games. As a result, the indestructible-seeming sheen of Christmas fell away, leaving behind a better idea of what Christmas really is: a bare, thin-glassed lightbulb plugged into the middle of the year’s darkest period. After 1994, I can’t really remember what happened each Christmas.

This past Christmas will always be memorable, though, because I spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day pretty much doing one of three things: playing Quake (yes, that hobby still refuses to die), watching something Star Wars-related, or video chatting with my family. At any time when I wasn’t speaking to family, I had Christmas music playing in the background, including while Star Wars was on. I turned the heat up in my apartment to 75 degrees and enjoyed how money-wastingly hot it was getting, until my nose started to bleed from the dry air.

I want to take this opportunity to say that I much prefer Christmas Eve to Christmas Day. Christmas Eve is generally all anticipation and guest arrivals, buoying the mood long into the falling night. From the viewpoint of Christmas Eve, any miracle might happen the following morning. But then after a late, over-buttered breakfast on Christmas Day, there’s nothing much else to do except think about cleaning up and regret how much you’ve eaten. The “anything could happen” feeling is now all gone, collapsed from a dazzling infinity’s worth of possibilities down to one homely outcome.

I hadn’t put up any decorations for my apartment, unless the Christmas music can be considered a decoration. This ended up being a good thing, though, since I didn’t have to take anything down once the holiday was over.

I started taking walks pretty early in the pandemic, my first walk happening after about one week of lockdown. That day there was a surprisingly large amount of people also walking. We all stayed far away from one another, since none of us were wearing masks—the width of even a modest suburban Texas street is still impressively wide, so there was no safety issue. I always took the initiative to be the one who crossed the street if I saw someone, exaggeratedly swinging my arms as I crossed so the person walking toward me could see my intentions even from far away. I did this because I figured it would be harder for the dog-walkers to wrangle their dog across the street and get out of my way, and the people without dogs were either old or were walking in a group.

In the beginning I was walking maybe twice a week, which then became three times, which became five. It held at five times a week during the fall semester because I’d have to be on Zoom from 6:30-8:30 PM Tuesdays and Thursdays, which took up the whole span of time in which I would usually walk. Nowadays, no longer taking classes, I walk every night.

For a while, I tried to get home before sunset, because I’m afraid of being hit by a car in the dark. After the clocks shifted back, I had to choose between walking earlier, during rush hour when everyone was arriving back at their houses from work, or waiting to walk until after the sun has set. I ended up buying one of those reflective construction worker’s vests for $8 on Amazon and waiting for nighttime. I feel like a dork when I wear the vest, but most of the people walking at night who I see are also wearing reflective clothes. Theirs are more chic than my vest, though, looking like they were ordered through an expensive fitness-wear catalogue. I’d buy the same type, but to me, walking is a meditative, solitary act, and I don’t want to feel that I’m catering to externalities like looking stylish while I’m trying to feel solitary. It also acts as a tacit acknowledgement that I’m not a criminal: “I’m making myself as visible as possible! I’m not casing your houses to break into them later on!”

Even though the focus of COVID is on the transmission of disease through shared, respired air, I still pay a lot of attention to contaminated surfaces. When I go out anywhere, I have a routine: first, I put on my going-out clothes (newly clean), then my shoes, which are possibly dirty, since I have to re-tie them sometimes with unwashed hands, so before I touch anything else after tying my shoes, I wash my hands. Then, I put on a mask, turn off all the lights except the one at the front door, pick up my keys with my right hand, slip my phone into my left pocket, and walk to the door. I put my keys in my right pocket (my wallet is already there), open the door with my right hand, turn out the light, step out the door, and take the keys out of my pocket to lock the door with, again, only my right hand.

I use my right hand pretty much everywhere outside—to push or pull open doors, to open my car to retrieve something from it, to open my mailbox and carry my mail in—because I know that if I use my left hand, my phone-operating hand, I’m going to have to put the phone into a little UV light phone-sterilizing box that I bought when I get home. And for some reason, I feel like it’s a small moral failure to have to use that UV box, so I try to keep my left hand from touching anything except for the phone. But I know that if I drive anywhere, all bets are off—both my hands touch the steering wheel, my left hand touches the car door handle while getting out, and I push open doors with both hands whenever I get somewhere. I’m sure that my left hand ends up touching something that may have SARS-CoV-2 on it as I carry out an errand, and therefore into the UV box my phone must go when I get home. But, when I go out to walk, there’s a good chance that I won’t need to touch anything with my left hand between leaving the apartment and coming back. If that’s the case, I can use my phone freely while walking if I want to, but when I get home, I can still just take it from my pocket and place it on my desk, no ultraviolet sterilizing waves needed. But of course then I still have to wash my right hand.

The walk is the same route every night now. It’s a vaguely circular, level 2.7 miles, starting northbound, bearing west, south, then east. It takes about forty minutes for me to walk the whole thing, plus or minus four minutes, depending on how warmed up I get while walking. My heart rate generally goes up to about 115 beats per minute for most of the walk, according to my watch, then spikes to 135 as I climb the stairs to my fourth floor apartment at the end.

Insulated by the sound of music or an audiobook on my headphones, and with my hands stuck in my pockets, actually holding onto the cloth pocket linings themselves, I feel less like a person on a walk and more like someone steering a large, inertia-filled thing—a sailboat that I have to tack against an unfavorable wind, or a bobsled whose blades I have to turn out of deep ruts on the ice. But despite feeling bodily awkward, I find suburbia to be a soothing place to move through. I really don’t understand how some people think of the suburbs as some kind of dystopia, to be honest. My neighborhood has wide streets, as I mentioned, and the houses are almost all ranch-style. The trees, like the houses, are shorter than they are in the northeast. Some of the trees look more like very tall shrubbery. As for the ground, the blades of grass are wider, and the soil is just a bit sandier. Sometimes, I see two-inch-long cockroaches, what people back home would call “water bugs,” creeping across the sidewalks.

I can’t remember the names of the streets on the walk, except for Forrest Street, which I noticed once when I saw the street sign while I was running and it made me think of “Run, Forrest, run!” and Kenilworth Street, which has the same name as a street back at home. Other than those, I only know points along the route by the informal names I’ve assigned to them. There’s a road where it changes direction from heading north to heading east, and it looks over a little park. The lack of houses there gives an unobstructed view of the western horizon. For that reason, I call that part of the route “Sunset Bend.” At another point on the route there is a house where, in the beginning of lockdown last spring, a family was always outside, the parents sitting motionless in Adirondack chairs while their kids all went nuts on the front lawn, playing with the sprinkler, or doing hopscotch, or sitting at one of those tiny plastic picnic tables, playing some board game. That part of the walk I called “Kidville.”

There were other houses that were always so inactive, so abandoned-seeming—the blinds were always closed and there wasn’t a car in the driveway—that I started to wonder if anyone lived there at all, and whether maybe the neighborhood association was mowing its lawn to stave off the shabbiness. But after the switch from walking in daylight to nighttime, I saw that some of those houses, while still shut up and silent, had lights on inside in rooms not facing the street. Looking at those houses is like staring into the vents of a space heater in a dark room.

Eventually I started thinking about how the walk is exactly 2.7 miles. Then, idly, I realized that if you multiply 2.7 by 30, you get 81. That number of years, eighty-one, seems like a decent amount of years to hope to live—it’s not greedy, you’re not asking for a hundred years, for example—but also, maybe when I get closer to 81, there will be better medical treatments and 81 will seem younger. Assuming that doesn’t happen, though, I think of 81 years as more or less “a complete life.” It is very sad, but not exactly a tragedy, to die at 81.

With this in mind, I started translating the distance along my walk to human ages. For instance, 1.0 miles into the walk, times 30, would equal 30 years. And 1.2 miles times 30 would equal 36 years, which is how old I am now. Since by the time I’d discovered this “conversion formula,” the walk was already so familiar to me that I had a very good perspective on how far into the walk any given point felt—the precise moment when I sense that I’m transitioning from the middle to the end phase of the walk, for example. So when I came up with the multiply-by-30 conversion formula, I was interested to see exactly what part of the walk 1.2 miles, or 36 years old, corresponded to.

The answer is that it was later in the walk than I’d hoped. The moment I reach 1.2 miles is long past the most scenic parts of the route; it’s just after a left turn that puts me on a long straightaway of modest houses leading to an arterial road, known to me as the hook-around part of the circuit where in past walks, I had thought, “Now I’m on my way back home.”

Over the next few evenings, I noted other points, ones that had come before the 1.2 mile marker, and compared them to parts of my already-lived life: I graduated high school at 0.6 miles into the walk, which was the beginning of Sunset Bend. I got my master’s degree in a spot where, at nighttime, a streetlight shines through the leaves on a tree, giving the street a dance hall, disco-ball kind of lighting (hence, “Disco Point”). That friendly, lighted patch of street, with a jaunty-looking house standing next to it, makes it my favorite part of the walk. As for points I have not yet reached: still ahead of my current age distance, at around 1.5 miles, is Kidville, but I haven’t seen anyone in the front yard there in months now.

Toward the end, almost back home, there’s a large school property. I’ve never seen anyone on the grounds, except for the occasional person who sneaks onto the running track to jog it. Along one of the fences that borders the school, in springtime last year, someone started zip-tying laminated sheets of paper with jokes written on them to the chain links. The jokes are all clean, and pretty lame—these days it seems like almost all kid-friendly jokes are just puns, like “How did the farmer find his wife? He tractor down!”

One time, I saw a kid about ten years old on his bike, riding along the sidewalk and stopping to read each joke. The fence ends at a small park for toddlers. There’s a big plastic sign at the entrance of the park, faded but still legible, that has a boy’s name displayed on it. Below his name is written a tragically short span of years, and below that, a message: “This park is dedicated to the memory of (the boy’s name), and to all of the little tykes of (the neighborhood).” Whoever it was putting up jokes on the schoolyard fence stopped replacing them with new ones some time during the fall, and I walk too late to ever see anyone playing at the playground. Well, that’s not quite true: very rarely, around 9 PM on warm nights, I might see what appears to be a young mother scrutinizing her phone as her kid swings in the dark.

I haven’t been to the gym to lift any weights since lockdown started. I’ve been able to do cardio in my apartment, but the result of all the cardio and all the walking is that I’ve lost a decent amount of lifting strength, as well as about ten pounds. This is consistent with how life in general has evolved: I have also reduced the list of spaces I travel to, leaving my apartment only to go to work, to pick up groceries, and to walk through my neighborhood. My body, and the edges of my life, have gone through a great miniaturization, but my perspective has adapted with it—each feature within this smaller space seems more detailed, and the day’s moments are of a finer grain. Inside my apartment, I have realized how much the lighting affects the atmosphere, and as a result the mood, so I can change which lights are on when to reflect the mood of each time of day. When I walk at night, sometimes I have the same feeling I did the week before I moved here from New Jersey, a sort of farewell feeling. That feeling started in the fall as a dessert-like flipside to my happy mornings spent doing math homework. Those evenings, I also felt like I was saying goodbye, to a more insecure, more ignorant version of myself, I guess. Nowadays, I get the feeling that I’m saying goodbye to the person who had, until now, always feared that he was missing out on things.

There will be a time, closer to now than now is to the beginning of the pandemic, when I will leave Texas. I will be happy and relieved to return home, whenever that is. But at the same time, there’s a new feeling that is starting to take root, and it’s a weird one: for all the hardship that the pandemic has presented to me, the anxiety for my family and the limitations it’s put on my mobility, social life, and career, for more than ten months now, its most memorable effect, unless I’m affected by the illness itself, will be that it made me love my neighborhood. I have walked more than 500 miles of it over the months, and scores of miles remain to be walked before I move away. I’ve walked during steaming afternoons, during cloudy sunsets, in pre-dawn twilight on cool mornings, and during soft, breezy evenings. It’s always picturesque, pleasant, very green. The houses look inviting, and the dog-walkers wave to me. I listen to music that suits my mood and do the geographical equivalent of palm reading. That’s all, really.

Can a person love a place? Feel gratitude toward landscaping, houses, parked cars, and people viewed only from a distance? Can someone feel affinity to a fox seen in a churchyard and streetlights shining through leaves in the night? Affection for lawn mower exhaust, for the noise of an approaching SUV slowly carving out a bend? Love for landmarks that correspond to moments in one’s past, or to moments that one might encounter in the future?

There will be a time, I hope, when my years in Texas are far in the past. But some day, I will hear a song, or see a house with a certain architecture, or smell a variety of grass, and Texas will return to me. At the same time, I also hope that it isn’t too overwhelming. I’ve found that I can never tell how potent a memory of a particular time or place will be until there’s a lot of distance between me and it. Sometimes, a memory will come gently, settling on me like a haze, ready to be indulged, even laughed at. In such cases I turn up the music that brought the memory, or take a luxuriating whiff of the scent, and I think back on the time, feeling only a little bit sad.

But other memories swoop down like some kind of predatory bird, and in those cases, the nostalgia feels more like the punch of the bird’s talons in the back of my neck. The sense of missing is so strong that it feels less like nostalgia and more like a distilled, portable homesickness. Ridiculously, I’ll even want to return to the memory’s time and place, despite knowing that in reality it had been fraught with pain or unease. Which makes the sneaking feeling growing during this time, at this place, all the more uncanny. I mean, all that this span of time has been, is me, and some terrain, and the wind, and the light of the sun or the moon. No one else. My nostalgia for anything before this was always about times and places with other people. So who will I be missing?

Someone once said, Wherever you go, there you are. But now, I wonder: is that really true?

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iamartemisday · 5 years ago

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Lokane Untold Truths

Jane was six the first time it happened. It was mid-December. She’d exhausted every option available to her to complete her mission. In desperation, she threw all caution to the wind and came out with it. “Daddy, what am I getting for Christmas?”

He looked into her eyes and said, “a junior telescope set and that scientist Barbie doll you wanted. Also a young reader’s copy of Pride and Prejudice. I think your mother wants to corrupt you early.”

When he finished speaking he looked shocked for all of a second. He didn’t have long because he’d, unfortunately, spilled the beans within earshot of his wife, who spent the next few minutes berating him while Jane danced in place at the thought of a telescope.

Over time, more incidents like that began to occur.

“Mrs. Mason,” she asked her third grade teacher the day she announced they’d have a sub for the rest of the week, “how come you’re going on vacation now instead of on the weekend?”

“Oh I’m not actually going on vacation,” Mrs. Mason said. “I’m getting a colonoscopy and I need to spend the next few days cleaning out my bowels.”

Everyone laughed as their poor teacher turned bright red and tried to backtrack.

For a while, Jane actually thought it was pretty funny.

“Hey Bobby, how come you won’t go down the slide?” she asked the playground bully.

“Because I’m afraid of heights,” he said. “They make me cry.”

No one took his bullying seriously after that.

One day, it stopped being funny.

“Why don’t you want to eat lunch with me?” she asked Maggie, her best friend in the world since kindergarten.

“Because I don’t like you anymore,” Maggie said. “You’re a weird geek and I want to hang out with the cool kids now.”

Jane didn’t really sit with anyone after that.

By the time she reached high school, she knew something was wrong with her. Or maybe something was right. There were perks to her strange little ability just as much as their were downsides. She’d long since figured out a few things.

Her power only worked when she made eye contact with the target.

Glasses of any sort would not protect them.

Wearing glasses herself would.

Jane couldn’t understand that last one. Perhaps it was a mental block she’d placed on herself to protect her relationships after what happened with Maggie. Or maybe it was just always there.

In her sophomore year, she got up the courage to as the boy she liked on a date (simple yes or no question, it couldn’t possibly go wrong).

“I’d like to, but I can’t,” he said. “My dad beats my mom and I’m afraid to date because I don’t want to be like him.”

The next day, Jane bought six pairs of contact lenses.

For years, she wore them religiously. Nobody ever questioned her. Not in college, not in grad school, not in the desert. Darcy called them lens buddies and Jane didn’t have the heart to correct her.

It got easier to forget about all the chaos her power had caused. She’d remind herself that it could’ve been a lot worse and all things considered, she’d made it to adulthood relatively unscathed. Every now and then she’d forget to put in her contacts and get to hear all about a neighbor’s marital problems or how the overly macho guy at the bar was deeply in love with his male best friend. Otherwise, her days were uneventful and she could almost pretend she was completely normal.

Thor came to her in a storm and they had their adventure.

He came back to her in another storm when an ancient power was (not so) inexplicably drawn to her. That was a bit rough of a reunion. Jane was not exactly happy about his two years of radio silence. Even worse, whatever was inside her had decided it didn’t like contact lenses. They burned like pure fire when she tried to put them back in.

“It’s good to see you,” Jane said, instead of asking where he’d been or any other question she both did and didn’t want the answer to.

He was nice enough to explain, and it was a good explanation. Taking her to Asgard and giving her the grand tour also helped his case.

Jane still couldn’t find the same affection for him that she’d once had, if she had it at all. Their three days in the desert had been a whirlwind of confusing emotions as her entire life was upturned in an instant. Now that they had time to stop and think, Jane wasn’t seeing much more in him than a good friend.

And then came Loki.

Or course Jane knew him, if only in name and face. She got to know him about more closely when she punched him in the face for attaching New York.

“I like her,” he said, smiling evilly at her.

Jane stared at him with her uncovered eyes and got a terrible, but all too tempting idea. “Do you get off on being hit?”

“Not precisely,” he said, “but I do love a woman with fire.”

Jane didn’t know what was funnier, his face or Thor’s. She glanced at Sif and shrugged like she had no idea what was happening and then casually reminded the brothers that they should probably get moving.

The ride out of Asgard was bumpy, and Jane only remembered parts of it. She woke up as they reached Svartalfheim. The Aether called to her, swirling through her with renewed ferocity at the prospect of going ‘home’.

“Finally awake I see,” Loki said, grinning evilly. “That didn’t take long at all.”

“What scared you most as a child?” Jane asked.

“Freya’s cats,” Loki said. “One of them bite me once and I’ve never liked them since.”

Even given the circumstances, Thor couldn’t not laugh. “I knew it.”

If Loki smacked the elves around a little harder than necessary, Jane wouldn’t comment. He was actually kind of gentle with her, even as he shoved her out of the way of a vortex sucking them up.

When he died, Jane actually felt bad for making him expose his secrets like that. Even for someone like him, using her powers like that was just petty. Now that the Aether was gone, those contacts were going right back in. She didn’t even take them out a month later when she and Thor agreed to go their separate ways. It was all for the best anyway.

Late one night, when she been planning another all nighter to finish updated her bridge schematic, she was suddenly overcome with sleep. She awoke in a misty place. Nothing was around for miles, but she wasn’t scared. Nothing could hurt you in a dream, she knew, no matter what the old wive’s tales said.

Even when Loki appeared before her, she didn’t react. Dream or no dream, she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of scaring her.

“Ask me anything,” he said.

Jane blinked her naked eyes. “Is this real?”

“Yes.”

“Are you alive?”

“Yes.”

“How can that be when I saw you die?”

“You saw me lose consciousness, though in fairness, I thought I was dying as well. It seems luck was for once on my side.”

A vision of Asgard appeared. Odin alone on his throne with Gugnir. He smiled warmly at his subjects, though for a moment, his eyes turned green.

“Are you pretending to be Odin?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“What did you do with him?”

“He’s in a retirement home on Midgard. Don’t worry, I chose a nice one.”

“Do you visit him?”

“Once a week.”

“Nice. The orderlies must love you.”

“That wasn’t a question, but yes, they do. I’m a loving, dedicated son in their eyes.”

Jane was fast getting sick of this dream. And she really hated her sneaking suspicion this wasn’t a dream at all and Loki really was alive right now.

“So what now? What do you want from me?”

He stepped closer. “You have an amazing gift, Jane. One which not even I can resist.”

“Thank you,” Jane said. “That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

He laughed. “I don’t believe I have you under a spell, my dear.”

“Do you?”

“I don’t.” He smiled. “You are free to speak as you wish, though I am bound to your every whim.”

“What if I asked you to tell me your greatest secret?”

“You know I would tell you. I would have no choice.”

“Would you want to?”

“I would,” he stepped closer. He was so tall and actually extremely handsome. Weird how she was only just starting to notice. “I would happily tell you anything. You and only you.”

Jane swallowed. Even knowing what she could do, he looked so sincere. “Do… do you regret what you did?”

For the first time, he hesitated and all but whispered his response. “I’m starting to.”

“Do you want to make it right?”

“I don’t think I can.”

“But would you try?”

Another, longer hesitation. A quieter response. “Yes.”

Jane nodded. She took his hand and held it tight. “Then when you’re ready to visit Odin again, come find me.”

The dream ended there and Jane was awake in her lab. She stared at the clock and her heart missed a beat. Not even a minute had passed since she closed her eyes. Almost like that whole event occurred on another plane of existence.

‘It did,’ she told herself. ‘In a dream world.’

But did it really?

She heard footsteps behind her, but wasn’t afraid. He was there when she turned around. Not as Odin, but as himself. He had trimmed his hair a bit and donned a suit. Though he held her gaze, there was a hint of trepidation behind his eyes.

Jane stood and approached him. This time, she had only one question. “Why?”

He took her hands “Don’t you see, Jane? I am the God of Lies. You are the Goddess of Truth.” He leaned in close. Jane couldn’t stop him if she wanted to as their lips met. “We were made for each other.”

And that was the God’s honest truth.

#Lokane #Loki #Jane Foster #fic I won't write #except I guess I kind of did write it?#like fifty percent at least...

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blackbeerandcoffeemovies · 5 years ago

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Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze

This movie came out in 1975 and I’ll be blunt: it has not aged well. You can take that as a warning.

In fact, you find yourself in various states of cringing, laughing hysterically and wincing at how mind-numbingly “campy” this movie is. It would help a lot to remember that this movie was made in a different era, with a different vibe throbbing in the culture. Personally, I watched this movie not just for the memories but to perform a symbolic gesture of sorts; like a wink to a beloved ex-girlfriend who you may have connected with recently.

So if you are still curious enough to continue reading this review though, you’ll get to know more about arguably THE first superhero ever! The prototype from which all the other modern costumed, world-saving, aliens/monsters/despot-fighting paladins found their inspiration from.

But first, let’s take a trip down memory lane. Way down. Thirty-eight years ago to be exact. . .

I grew up with American comics. I was just a Malay kid who was so fascinated with this wondrous world of mighty men battling equally mighty villains. My memory is a bit hazy but I do remember that, as a scrawny 7-year old in 1982, I fondly remember clutching my first comic book with a stupid grin on my face as I left the store selling PX goods and “stateside” items (it was an issue of “The Flash” by the way). This literally and figuratively, colorful piece of literature not only served to enhance my facility with the English language but it also introduced me to a large slice of Americana in all its “Western” ways.

Later, this love of the colored pages unknowingly led me to appreciate another, more ancient kind of literature as soon as I was able to intellectually grasp it: mythology. I graduated from skin-tight, super-powered, 2D heroes to flexing my imagination about ancient stories of immortal gods who could throw lightning bolts, imprison giants, and command the elements. Was I sensing a familiar pattern here?

That underlying pattern, I ultimately found later in university, was called the archetype. To those unfamiliar, the archetype as is known in various fields of studies is basically an image or representation of a grander ideal that we recognize readily when we see it. When you see these beings, your insides get flooded with inspiration and comfort because you know they embody strength, protection, justice, restoring balance and all that good stuff. Such symbols have been around since the dawn of humanity simply because they give us an ideal to aspire to and not be simply hairy meat bags existing just to make it to another day.

So who is Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze exactly? Created in 1933 (Yes, he’s that old. Years later, some super-strong alien with a big letter “S” on his chest would also rip-off the idea of having a Fortress of Solitude in the Arctic and be called “Man of Steel” instead, but let’s not talk about him. . .) from a time that was before the modern comic book format. This was the era of the so-called pulp magazines, circa 1890’s to the 1950s. As the name implies, the paper used was made from wood pulp material with the pages having rough, untrimmed edges very different from the higher-quality paper used in magazines. In terms of literary style, think of them as short, “cheap”, unsophisticated works of fiction for mass consumption with almost no illustrations. Thus, the reader defaults to his/her imagination for further immersive experience. The heroes at this time were in the truest sense crimefighters or ordinary men having heroic exploits by uncovering plots and bringing wrongdoers to justice.

Clark “Doc” Savage Jr. would be the template for the rich, over-achieving polymath industrialist with limitless resources (think Batman, Ironman and Black Panther with a bit of Robin Hood thrown in). He was raised to be the peak of manly perfection having unmatched athletic ability, a photographic memory plus an inventive intellect that would rival Da Vinci or Newton and the discipline that would make a Special Forces operator blush! To add to his already considerable arsenal was his cadre: The Fabulous Five. This crew was made-up of his previous military comrades that included an industrial chemist, a construction engineer, a high-level electrician, a renowned archaeologist/geologist, and even a noted Harvard lawyer. Banding together with Doc taking the lead, they pooled their various skillsets and traveled the world having adventures and fighting for justice. Above all else, Doc Savage apparently had a character that was closest to the ideal of all humanity. This was exemplified in “The Oath” he and his team strove to live by:

“Let me strive every moment of my life to make myself better and better, to the best of my ability, that all may profit by it. Let me think of the right and lend all my assistance to those who need it, with no regard for anything but justice. Let me take what comes with a smile, without loss of courage. Let me be considerate of my country, of my fellow citizens and my associates in everything I say and do. Let me do right to all, and wrong no man.”

Finally, the blessed movie itself. I really believe they could have treated the material better. If you’re a fan of the clownish Batman TV series of the 1960’s, you’ll feel right at home with how the makers of this film approached it. The ridiculously cartoonish characters, the contrived banter/bickering dialog between the team, the mediocre special effects, the lack of depth of emotion. . . Do I really need to go on? I should let you know I’ve never had a colonoscopy before, but I imagine this would be the closest experience to it, with the procedure being done to you with minimal anesthetic as possible!

If this movie had any saving grace whatsoever, it would be lead actor Ron Ely (“Tarzan” TV series of the 1960s). If we’re looking for an archetype of the “ubermensch”, Ely is the closest we have of him with his obvious manly presence and the dignity he carried himself with was convincing. That being said, the grand final fight scene between him and the villain/criminal mastermind apparently displaying their mutual mastery of several martial arts is best watched with strong liquor of your choice. Trust me; it helps numb the cringe!

Yes, this movie was indeed like reconnecting with an old flame. The memories, both good and bad come tumbling back (mostly the good though), but REALITY suddenly comes down hard like the current jealous partner! That was then, this is now. It gives you pause to think that perhaps there’s a reason why it was only good in the past, and that is so you could appreciate what you have NOW in the present.

Doc Savage has a tremendous amount of potential if given the right elements for proper flimhood. Still hoping this granddaddy of superheroes gets to have a worthy remake one day!

#Adventure Action Comics to Film

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an-lauren-blog · 6 years ago

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What I’m all about

If you’re reading this, it means you found my blog. First, let me say that I am not an expert on writing, like most people I bullshit most papers that I write. Second, you should know that I cuss. A lot. I find that it gets my point across. With that out of the way, I can tell you why I’m writing this. The first reason; its a good way to reflect for me. I like journaling but writing is too time consuming and makes my hand cramp. I can’t write fast enough to keep up with my thoughts. The second reason is, if anyone reads this, hopefully they can relate and possibly feel less alone. A lot of issues aren’t talked about enough and this can be a difficult, isolating feeling.

A little about me, I am 21 years old and a student athlete. And most days I feel like I am at least 50. I have bad knees and a bad back, I like to go to bed early, I like baking and crocheting, and I take about 14 pills a day and an injection once a week. I’ve had a history of depression/suicidal thoughts and anxiety, as well as OCD and anger management issues. I recovered from anorexia about 8 years ago. Fall 2017 I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis and after my most recent colonoscopy was told I also have IBS. After about 10 years in therapy, I can say that I am open to talking about all of this. There are many misconceptions about mental illness as well as physical illnesses. Most people I know don't necessarily talk openly about these things. And in some cases most people I know can’t relate to what I’m going through. And I think that is the hardest part for me. So that is my long winded reason for this blog-ish thing. I want to start a discussion about everyday struggles that people face.

I think the most relatable thing I’ve ever read is that dealing with a chronic or mental illness means waking up and consciously deciding to fight that day. Some days I wake up positive and full of energy and other days not so much. It is a conscious decision to be strong even when you’re mentally, physically, and emotionally drained. Sometimes this decision is all you can handle that day. And that’s okay.

My last remarks for this post is no matter what, you are enough. You are strong enough. You are worthy. You are loved. And don’t let anyone tell you different.

#mental disorder #positive mental attitude #you are not alone #you are enough #lets talk about it

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sweethails · 6 years ago

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Prompt List #10 (Y-Z)

Send a request with the number(s) and which prompt list it’s from if you don’t give me the prompt list I will just assume its from #1. and also Give me the character you want!

[Example request]: Can I please have number 2 from prompt list #7 and number 72 from prompt list #10 for peter parker where the reader finds out Pete’s spiderman

You can send in your own prompt(s) or just send in a request without one. these are here to use at your leisure (Most of these are not mine. Credit goes to those who made them.) I am add to this list occasionally so check back later for new ones. This is prompt #10 (Y-Z)

I do not take straight up smut requests even if some prompts sound slightly dirty. (I might change my mind who knows send me your smut request and i might decide to do it) There may be some repeat prompts but bare with me I’m trying to clean them up. Thanks enjoy!!!!!!

There are 336 prompts in this list

Y-You’re not human?"

Yeah, I got that from your 600 voicemails."

Yeah, okay, but i’m cooler."

Yeah, well, I shut everybody out. Don’t take it personally. It’s just easier."

Yeah, well, if you weren’t so drunk maybeIwould."

Yell, scream, cry, please, just say something, anything."

Yes I have four trees. Don’t judge me."

Yes i’m out clubbing on new years. Please just pick me up!"

Yes."

You always bring me so much joy—as soon as you leave the room."

You always cared more about her than you ever did about me."

You always find a way to surprise me."

You are a bloody idiot, you know that?"

You are a very strange person.Well, thanks for noticing."

You are an idiot, you know that?"

You are not as bad as people say. You are much, much worse."

You are NOT having a pumpkin spice latte after what happened last year"

You are the definition of the Grinch."

You aren’t alone. You’ve never been alone."

You aren’t supposed to laugh! I’m embarrassed!"

You believe me, don’t you?"

You betrayed my trust."

You better behave"

You bought my hip hop monster?"

You broke it."

You came for me."

You can do this."

You can only suffer through my whining for so long until you get up and make me a sandwich."

You can spend the night, if you want."

You can wait another 24 hours to open presents."

You can’t always expect me to fix things for you."

You can’t banish me! This is my bed too!"

You can’t even look me in the eyes."

You can’t expect me to stay behind."

You can’t just lose your temper like this every time you get a bit upset!"

You can’t just sit there all day."

You can’t keep it all inside, you know? Bottling it up won’t do any good."

You can’t keep pretending it didn’t happen, cause guess what? It did!"

You can’t leave without letting me hug you first."

You can’t leave- not yet."

You can’t run from time."

You can’t save everyone."

You can’t say that. You’re dating my best friend!"

You changed."

You come to my room and wake me up at 4am, to cuddle?"

You could have warned me!"

You couldn’t handle me even if I came with instructions."

You deserve better."

You deserve so much better."

You did all of this for me?"

You did this on purpose."

You did this"

You did what with who for how many muffins?"

You did what you had to do."

You did what?!"

You didn’t call. You didn’t text. Nothing."

You didn’t do the dishes, I’m not doing you."

You didn’t get in trouble for lying. You got in trouble for lying badly."

YOU DIDN’T TELL ME THE KNIFE WAS REAL!"

You don’t believe in an afterlife?"

You don’t even know me."

You don’t get to tell me what to do."

You don’t have to act like you’re okay."

You don’t look like an angel."

You don’t need to know."

You don’t need to leave so soon."

You don’t need to worry about me."

You don’t remember last night at all, do you?"

You don’t seem like yourself tonight."

You don’t understand, you never do!"

You forgot to buy the presents?"

You got me a kitty?"

You got me a puppy?"

You grow on people, but so does cancer."

You guys are yelling and I want ice cream!"

You had a kid and decided to walk out. You don’t get to call the shots round here."

You have approximately 5 seconds to get out of my face before I kill you."

You have flour on you face."

You have my word."

You have no idea how much I want you right now."

You have no idea what you do to me."

You have no idea."

You have something in you hair.. um–do you want me to get it out?"

You have something in your hair, umm… Do you want me to get it out?"

You have to tell me why were committing a felony before we do it. Not that that’s going to stop us, but at least I’ll have all the facts."

You have your entire life to be a jerk. Why not take today off?"

You haven’t even seen my bad side yet."

You haven’t lost me."

You have… Superpowers?"

You know for a fucking fact that wasn’t supposed to happen."

You know I can’t say it, but surely you understand how I feel?"

You know I didn’t mean that."

You know I’d do anything for you."

You know I’ll kill him/her if he/she hurts you."

You know I’m/we’re always here for you, right?"

You know me better than that."

You know more than you’re telling me."

You know nothing about me.Oh, but I do. I know you want adventure, that’s why you’re here standing in front of me. You want to rebel like everyone else. You want mystery in your life, passion, romance… and maybe even a little danger."

You know what we’re doing is wrong."

You know, we have to be the only best friends that do this."

You know, you can stay if you want to."

You knowIcould never leave you alone on your favorite holiday."

You left your shirt at my house. It’s mine now."

You left. What did you expect me to do?"

You look amazing tonight."

You look awful."

You look beautiful in the moonlight."

You look cute when you’re cold."

You look cute when you’re on my lap."

You look great."

You look like hell."

You look like something I drew with my left/right hand."

You look like the manager for Hot Topic."

You look like you could use a hug."

You look like you need a hug"

You look really cute in that sweater."

You look so comfy, and cuddly."

You look so good like this."

You lost your chance."

You love me as if I deserve you."

You love me."

You lucky bastard."

You made me feel loved and wanted and for that, I’ll always love you."

You made me this way."

You made these cupcakes for me?"

You made your choice."

You make everyday worth living."

You make me feel alive."

You make me feel safe"

You make me feel so damn gushy."

You make me happy."

You make me so happy."

You make me so mad."

You make no sense to me.Welcome to my life."

You meant too much to me."

You might not like me, but you definitely want me."

You need sleep."

You need to control your temper."

You need to leave."

You need to see a doctor."

You need to stop running."

You only annoy me when you’re breathing, really."

You owe me a kiss."

You owe me big time!"

You owe me."

You own my heart."

You play by my rules, got it?"

You promised me a cookie!"

You promised you wouldn’t fall asleep."

You really like him, don’t you?"

You ruined everything.

You said my name in your sleep."

You said you’d always be there for me… so how did this happened? Why weren’t you there?"

You said you’d be there."

You say I’m a bitch like it’s a bad thing."

You say this is what you want but your eyes ares telling me a different story."

You say you’ll stop, but then you keep doing it!"

You seem like a friendly face, mind if I sit with you?"

You seem somewhat familiar. Have I threatened you before?"

You should be nice to me, I just saved your life!"

You should close the door."

You should leave."

You should marry me."

You should see me in my old uniform. I’m pretty sure it still fits."

You should stay hydrated.What?You should-I heard you…"

You shouldn’t do that."

You shouldn’t have gone by yourself."

You should’ve said that yesterday."

You shut your mouth."

You smell like a wet dog."

You smell nice."

You still wear my hoodie?"

You successfully cured him/her of anything interesting about his/her personality."

You think drawing a moustache on their picture will make the situation better?"

You think I’m dumb enough to fall for that stupid move?"

You think that this is easy for me?"

You think this will make me stay?"

You think you can handle it?"

You thought this was real?"

You throw punches, I throw insults."

You told me that you didn’t love me anymore so I did what anybody else would."

You wanna know what sex position produces the ugliest children? Ask your mother."

You wanted me to walk in on you."

You were always gold to me."

You were my everything."

You were ready to leave me for her."

You were sick 5 minutes ago.But I’m not sick now."

You weren’t supposed to laugh! I’m so embarrassed!"

You work for me. You are my slave."

You, my friend, are a complete and utter tosser."

Your ass must be pretty jealous of all the shit that comes out of your mouth."

Your clothes are warm and it’s freezing."

Your doctor called with your colonoscopy results. Good news! They found your head."

Your family tree must be a cactus because everyone on it is a prick."

Your flexibility amazes me. How do you get your foot in your mouth and your head up your ass all at the same times?"

Your hair is so soft.."

Your hair still looks so good."

Your hands are just as dirty."

Your laugh does not sound like an ugly witch cackle now will you please open the door"

Your laugh is so adorable."

Your life was my life’s best part."

Your lips are really warm."

Your lips are so soft. I could kiss them all day."

Your mom texted to tell me you’re pathetic."

Your mom told me your favourite type of pizza but pineapples don’t belong on pizza so I got pepperoni."

Your parents are coming."

Your turn to do the dishes."

You’d be a great dad."

You’d be a great mom."

You’ll be fine."

You’ll never be the man your mother is/was."

You’re a disappointment."

You’re a filthy squid."

You’re a genius with facts, but you’re really stupid with people."

You’re a monster."

You’re a nerd."

You’re a terrible liar."

You’re about as useful as a screen door on a submarine."

You’re acting like this is your first threesome."

You’re always on my mind."

You’re an asshole"

You’re an asshole."

You’re as red as Rudolph!"

You’re beautiful, you know that?"

You’re being dramatic."

You’re bleeding all over my carpet."

You’re blushing"

You’re breathtaking"

You’re crazy! You’re out of your mind!"

You’re cute when you’re angry."

You’re cute when you’re freezing."

You’re cute when you’re mad."

You’re everything to me."

You’re family."

You’re getting a vasectomy. That’s final."

You’re getting crumbs all over my bed"

You’re getting crumbs all over my bed."

You’re getting on my nerves."

You’re going to burn in a very special level of hell. A level they reserve for child molesters, animal abusers and people who talk at the theater."

You’re going to get us expelled!"

You’re going to get us in trouble!"

You’re going to get us kicked out!"

You’re good. A monster pain in the ass… but you’re good."

You’re here late."

You’re hiding under that blanket because you’re blushing?"

You’re hiding under the blanket because you’re blushing?"

You’re holding back."

You’re hot, shame about the personality."

You’re in danger."

You’re in trouble now."

You’re insane, but you might also be brilliant."

You’re jealous, aren’t you?I’m not jealous."

You’re just a little baby."

You’re just a memory now."

You’re just jealous because the voices are talking to me."

You’re just leaving me here? At least have to decency to finish me off with a stick."

You’re just leaving me here?"

You’re just naturally dumb."

You’re just not the same anymore.."

You’re kinda anti-social, you know that?"

You’re like a heater!"

You’re lucky you’re cute"

You’re lying!"

You’re lying."

You’re lying.""

You’re making me blush!"

You’re married!!"

You’re mine. I don’t share"

You’re more than that."

You’re my nerd."

You’re my soulmate?!"

You’re never seeing either of us again."

You’re not a bad problem, you’re a good problem. Not a problem, problem."

You’re not alone and you never will be as long as you have me, got it?"

You’re not alone, I’m right here."

You’re not alone."

You’re not always right you know!

You’re not crazy."

You’re not funny."

You’re not giving me much of a choice."

You’re not going anywhere."

You’re not going to starve yourself on Thanksgiving."

You’re not helping."

You’re not interested, are you?"

You’re not making any sense."

You’re not making this any easier."

You’re not scared of the dark are you?"

You’re not stupid; you just have bad luck when thinking."

You’re not very intimidating."

You’re one hell of a girl."

You’re one hell of a guy."

You’re questioning my methods.I’m not questioning it, I’m saying it’s stupid."

You’re really drunk right now. I don’t think you’re gonna remember any of this.No, I’m not drunk at all. You’re just blurry."

You’re rich and waste your money on that nasty shit."

You’re ruining my life."

You’re safe now."

You’re Satan."

You’re seriously like a man-child."

You’re so adorable."

You’re so beautiful."

You’re so casual about this, is it because you’re use to killing people?"

You’re so cute when you’re half asleep like this.."

You’re so fucking hot when you’re mad"

You’re so fucking hot when you’re mad."

You’re so weird.You have no idea."

You’re so wrong."

You’re special to me."

You’re still giving me the silent treatment?"

You’re such a nerd."

You’re teasing me again…"

You’re telling me all this time you could have used magic!"

You’re telling me one thing but the press is telling me something completely different."

You’re the best!"

You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen."

You’re the one thing keeping me sane right now."

You’re the only one I wanna wake up next to."

You’re the only one I want"

You’re the only person I wanted to be with tonight."

You’re the perfect combination of sexy and cute."

You’re the perfect height for me to rest my chin on your head."

You’re useless with wrapping presents!"

You’re worth every second of my time."

You’re worth it."

You’re wrong and I’ll prove it."

You’ve always felt like home."

You’ve always got me."

You’ve been drinking tonight, haven’t you?"

You’ve been quiet."

You’ve changed."

You’ve got enough to worry about."

You’ve got me on your side."

You’ve ruined me"

You’ve said you’re going to leave, but I don’t want you to go and if I don’t say something now…“

You’ve shown me what love can feel like."

Zombies eat brains. You’re safe."

Zombies have feelings too!"

Other Prompts Here Masterlist Here Request Here

#prompt #prompts #prompt list #prompt lists #prompt list 10 #10

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henry-hart · 7 years ago

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Henry Danger Carnival/Fair Fic: Part 1

Inspired by: @sunbeameyes bc of her Disneyland hc. The ideas in my head were too many and too great to pass this opportunity up, so I hope you enjoy!

Fandom: Henry Danger

Word Count: I have no flippin' idea bc I didn't use Word, and I was NOT about to count each word. No siree. So, it's just A LOT. lolol sorry.

Summary: The gang--Ray, Schwoz, and the kids (Piper included)--spend the day and most of the night at the Swellview Fair.

A/N: Okay, I know Schwoz hides his identity every time he's around Piper in the show, but I don't really see the big deal in having her know that Schwoz works with Henry and Co. or at least that he exists. So, in this fic, Ray has told Piper that Schwoz is his cousin. Also, the story is told in 3rd person omniscient p.o.v because there's a lot of characters, and it's three parts because it turned out to be hella freaking long. I had a lot of fun embellishing this au, so please enjoy! xoxo

-------------------------------

"Come on, Piper. Everyone's waiting on us!" Henry called up the stairs for the third time in a span of twenty minutes. What was taking her so long?

He was supposed to be meeting Charlotte and Jasper at Junk 'n Stuff right now so they could all leave for the Swellview Fair in the park with Ray and Schwoz, but he hadn't even left the house yet because of a certain little sister of his who was taking her sweet time getting ready.

"I'll be done in a minute!" She called back, obviously annoyed.

Henry thought it was pretty audacious of her to be the annoyed one considering he was ready to walk out the door. He had been ready for the last twenty minutes. Piper wasn't waiting on him. He was waiting on her. If anyone had a right to be annoyed, it was Henry.

"You said that ten minutes ago!" He groaned, grabbing onto the banister of the stairs as he slouched down and dropped his face on his arm. He was getting impatient. He didn't even feel like standing any longer. He just wanted to go.

"Well, now I'm nine minutes closer!"

Henry stood back up and made a 'what the' face to the empty house around him. He pinched the bridge of his nose and called back up the stairs, "That doesn't make any sense!"

Piper responded immediately. "You don't make any sense!"

"Okay," Henry relented knowing the conversation was going nowhere.

He tapped his phone screen with his fingers, trying to maintain what little patience he had left while he waited, but it didn't occupy him enough. The sound was a bit aggravating as well, so he decided to count the number of squares on his plaid shirt to pass the time.

When he was at 206 and 15 minutes had passed (Henry considered pointing out that Piper had passed her estimated 10 minutes but thought better of it), Piper appeared at the top of the stairs.

"It's about time," Henry sighed. "You ready?"

Piper gave him an irritated look. "You see me walking down the stairs, don't you?"

Henry shook his head, ever amazed by his sister's readiness to be sarcastic. "You know, I didn't have to invite you."

"Yes you did." Piper stated simply as they walked out of the house and Henry locked the front door. "Mom and Dad are out of town, and you have to watch me. Even though I don't need a babysitter." She added the last part under her breath.

"Okay, that's true, but it's not the only reason." Piper gave him a disbelieving look, but Henry only shrugged. "I don't know. It's Saturday, and the fair is in town. I thought you might want to go because we used to go with Mom and Dad when we were younger. I know you don't really like hanging out with me and my friends, but there's rides and games, and they have that one thing where you get to hit stuff, and I remembered you really liked that one as a kid, so--"

"Alright, I get it." She cut Henry's rambling off.

"The point is I chose to ask you to come." He finished, not looking at her. Of course he loved his little sister, but actually acknowledging that out loud always felt weird.

Piper obviously felt the same because she made a face of mock disgust. "Don't make this any weirder than it needs to be." Piper wasn't going to ever tell Henry this, but she was actually glad to hear that he had chosen to bring her along. It was actually nice to know her older brother wanted her around.

Henry nodded in agreement. He and Piper had a complicated sibling relationship, and too much talk about feelings made them both uncomfortable. "Right. Let's get to Junk 'n Stuff."

"I'll drive us." Piper announced, walking towards the driveway.

Henry grabbed her shoulder to stop her, but she immediately pulled away from him.

"Don't touch me." She ordered in a loud voice, startling Henry who jumped back instantly.

Henry stood still for a minute, shocked by her reaction, but he shook it off. "Whatever. Look, you're not driving us."

Piper crossed her arms defiantly. "Why not?"

"For one, you're too young." Henry said, incredulously. He didn't see how it was even in question. He wasn't even driving yet, and he's older--not to mention of age to actually drive.

"I have a license." She argued.

Henry dragged a heavy hand down his face. "I don't care if the DMV gave you a license. It was obviously a mistake."

He still couldn't believe the DMV could accidentally send an twelve year old a seemingly bonified license. Gives a person real confidence in their government.

Piper shrugged. She didn't care why they sent it. She only cared that they did. "It's still a valid license."

"No, it really isn't." Henry emphasized. "Twelve year olds can't get a license. If the police pulled us over, it wouldn't even matter if it was real or not because you're not even old to enough to be arrested for having a fake license!"

Piper glared at him. "Would you stop being such a baby?" Henry scoffed, but Piper ignored it. "Give me the keys."

"I don't have them." Henry smirked. Piper narrowed her eyes at him, so he continued. "Mom and Dad both took their cars."

Piper let out a frustrated groan, but she let the matter go seeing as how she didn't have any other option. "Fine. We can take the bus."

Henry celebrated his mini-victory in silence as they walked to the bus stop. It wasn't often that Piper gave in that easily.

As they waited for the bus, Henry sent Charlotte a text.

----------

"Henry's bringing Piper." Charlotte told Ray after receiving a text from Hen that said they were on their way.

Charlotte, Jasper, and Ray were all milling about in the store, waiting for Schwoz to get back from his long-overdue colonoscopy and for Henry--and now Piper--to arrive at the store so Ray could drive them all to the fair.

She was glad for the interruption Henry's text brought because, for the past twenty minutes she and Jasper had been at the store, Ray had been going on and on about how the Swellview Fair has the best candy apples anywhere and that he had waited a whole year for the fair to come back to town just so he could eat said apples. Charlotte couldn't believe that someone could talk that much about a piece of food, but somehow Ray had managed it--for twenty whole minutes. Henry's text had come at just the right time; one more mention of any kind of fruit covered in candy or caramel or little chopped nuts, and heads were gonna roll.

Ray and Jasper groaned at the mention of Henry's little sister.

"Hey," Charlotte scolded. "What's wrong with Piper?"

"What isn't wrong with Piper?" Jasper sneered. "The girl is straight up evil." Ray nodded in agreement.

"Well, I organized this whole thing, so I should get the last say in who gets to come with us." Charlotte reasoned.

"But I'm the one driving," Ray argued. "And I'm the one who has to make sure none of you kids gets lost or something. I don't need another bratty kid running around. I've got enough as is." He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder in Jasper's direction. "I didn't even want Jasper here."

Jasper's held his hands up defensively. "Hey!"

Ray pretended not to hear him and continued to look at Charlotte with an expectant expression on his face.

Charlotte waved them both off. "Get over yourselves. Piper isn't that bad. Sure, she's a lot to handle, but she can be really cool." She saw Ray was about to protest, so she quickly added, "Henry's parents are out of town, so Henry has to bring her." Charlotte knew that wasn't the only reason Henry had brought her, but she knew it was the only way to get Jasper and Ray to stop complaining and accept the fact that Piper was officially going with them.

Ray let out an exaggerated groan. "Ugh, fine. The bratty little girl can come." He turned to walk away, but quickly turned back to face Charlotte, one finger held up in her face. "But don't think that this means I'm buying her a candy apple."

Charlotte nearly pulled her hair out. "God, would you forget about the candy apples?"

Ray looked horrified. He placed a hand on his chest. "I will do no such thing."

This time Charlotte walked away rolling her eyes, fed up with Ray's typical flair for the dramatic.

Jasper came up to her then, a large, empty bucket with a ferris wheel on the side in his hands. He gave Ray a mean look when he passed him; he was still miffed about Ray's comment.

Ray couldn't be bothered. Instead, he went to call Schwoz to see if he was on his way so they could leave as soon as Henry--and that Paper girl or whatever her name was--arrived.

"What's that for?" Charlotte asked Jasper warily. She was wondering if her friend's long forgotten bucket obsession was making a brief come back, but she hoped that wasn't the case. Jasper had been a bit excessive with his bucket collection.

Jasper looked down at his bucket and smiled. "This is my ferris wheel bucket for holding all my tokens."

Jasper was so excited about going to the fair, he couldn't stand it. He had never been before, but the way Ray had talked about the candy apples assured him that it was a magical place. He wanted to make sure he was prepared, so he had brought a bucket to store his tokens. He didn't want to be stuck not being able to do anything because he didn't have enough tokens or worse--no place to store them. What would he do with them when he got one of those infamous candy apples? Where would he put them so they wouldn't be stolen? No, he needed this bucket.

Charlotte didn't look like she understood. "Tokens?" Her voice trailed off, waiting for an explanation.

Jasper rolled his eyes, suspecting Charlotte was teasing him, "Yeah, tokens. So I can ride on the rides and play the games and stuff."

"Jasper," Charlotte began slowly. "Fairs don't do tokens. Those are for arcades."

"Oh," Jasper's face fell a little. "Well, I've never been to either. You know how my parents are." He muttered dismissively. "They don't like anything that involves other people."

Charlotte nodded her head in agreement--albeit a little reluctantly. She understood that his parents were strange, but she didn't understand the strange things they did or why they did them. She didn't want to crush Jasper's spirit nor his obvious excitement though, so she offered a solution.

"They give you tickets for the rides, so maybe you can put those in there?" She suggested with a smile.

Jasper perked back up. "Oh, well, great! Then I am prepared."

Charlotte returned Jasper's smile.

The bell on the front door to the shop rang as Henry and Piper walked in.

"We're here!" Henry called out.

Jasper immediately ran to him, eagerly holding his bucket right up to Henry's face. "Look at my bucket! It has a ferris wheel on it!"

"Um, okay?" Henry was a taken aback by Jasper's suddeness, but he gave a good-natured chuckle in response to his friend's excitement. He moved the bucket back so he could actually see what it was instead of a blurry blue mass."Cool bucket, dude."

Jasper felt his cheeks heat a little at Henry's approval. "It's nothing."

Henry smiled, happy to see that Jasper's love for buckets hadn't completely faded. He had wondered if Jasper still collected buckets but just kept it secret; he had been crazy about them at one point, but Henry liked how excited Jasper got about them.

"Okay, can we leave now?" Piper piped up from behind Henry, ceasing all bucket talk. Piper didn't care what Jasper had, bucket or not.

"No," Charlotte sighed, shouldering her bag. "We're waiting on Schwoz--" she stopped when she realized Piper didn't know who Schwoz was.

She looked to Henry then to Jasper, all of them sharing the same nervous look. What were they going to do about Schwoz and Piper? Piper had seen Schwoz before--the crazy happenings that were typical of Swellview had had Schwoz appearing at the Hart house quite a lot--but it was never under the best circumstances. Schwoz had crashed through the roof of Piper's house and landed on top of her at one point. How were they going to explain why he was suddenly coming with them to a fair?

Piper looked from Charlotte to Jasper to her brother with obvious confusion on her face. "What's a Schwoz?"

"Umm," Henry looked to his friends for an answer, but they both shrugged. The sound of Ray talking in the back of the store made a sudden crazy idea come to him. "He's my boss' cousin." He improvised, hoping he had sounded believable.

Piper didn't look like she believed him.

Henry turned to Charlotte and Jasper once again, motioning for them to go along with it.

"Yeah," Charlotte said suddenly. "He's in town for the weekend."

"That's right." Jasper continued. "He's not from around here." He hoped that would keep Piper from asking questions about Schwoz' accent. Henry gave Jasper a grateful look, obviously glad he had added that detail, and Jasper gave him a wink in return.

Piper gave the three of them a look that said she wasn't buying it. "Right." She said skeptically. Lucky for Henry and his friends, Piper didn't care enough to push the issue any further. She was just glad she wasn't spending her Saturday stuck in the house.

"Okay, well let's see if Ray and his cousin are ready leave." Henry said nervously, hoping to get the focus away from Schwoz' identity. "Ray, you ready to go?" He called to the back of the store.

Ray appeared, still holding his phone. "Yeah, I was just on the phone with Schwoz. He's gonna meet us--" he stopped when he saw Piper, taking into account what the rest of the them had just been worrying about.

"Your cousin Schwoz, right?" Henry urged, slightly nodding his head.

Ray looked to Charlotte and Jasper who were both giving him looks that said he should go along with it. Even pretending to be related to Schwoz made his skin crawl, but since he obviously couldn't get rid of the little girl, he was just going to have to acquiesce to the ridiculous lie.

"Yes, my cousin," he said forcefully and not fondly. "Anyway, he's finished with his colon--whatever, and he's waiting for us at the park."

"Then let's go to a fair." Henry said quickly, motioning for everyone to walk out the door.

"Yes, let's," Ray muttered, filling his head with thoughts of candy apples as an incentive to continue on with what had seemed like a good idea at first. Now it was more like babysitting, and he had to pretend to be related to Schwoz. "Candy apples, I am coming for you."

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A/N Part 2: Okay, so this is pretty boring, but I had to set the story up. That's always the boring part. Now that everyone's headed to the same place, things will hopefully be more interesting in the next parts. Please stick around for those because I'm excited to write them. I'm sorry if this sucks, but feel free to tell me if you think it does. Or doesn't. Whichever one. lol I want your feedback, no matter the nature. xoxo

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the-wheelchair-critic · 6 years ago

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Toronto Fringe Festival Accessibility and Disability Art Round-up

Now that another year of Fringe has come and gone, I decided to write a post on my experiences at Fringe, both as a reviewer for NOW Magazine, and when we set ourselves loose on Fringe to explore for ourselves. It’s been a wild ride, impossible to sum up in one article, but I’m going to give it my best shot.

The Extraordinary

The Front of House manager at Theatre Passe Muraille (TPM) gets major props for providing us (my partner who also is a manual chair user and I) the best access experience that we had in our entire Fringe experience. We were at the theatre twice in one day, and for those of you who don’t use manual wheelchairs, the entrance way to TPM is not accessible at all. The incline is too steep to be able to self-propel up it, and the doors too heavy to manage opening by yourself even if you are somehow able to have super human strength and get up there. It’s a doable venue, but I won’t do it unless we’ve made arrangements to have someone outside assist us with getting in. The front of house manager was incredible about assisting us into the venue, by which I mean she didn’t just agree to help, but also checked in with where on the chair she should touch and push, and asked for consent before she touched us. On our second entry into the building later, a volunteer came up behind me and just started pushing, and she found us a few minutes later in the lobby, and apologized that the volunteer hadn’t asked before he did it. She said that she had spoken to him and that he now knew that that was something that he shouldn’t do. Given the number of screaming fights I’ve had with the general public about not touching me without my consent, this was a refreshing and amazing change of pace!

Also making the extraordinary list was Generally Hospital. It was amazing. The team of Ophira Calof, Grace Smith, Alla Rasul, Devan Islas and Sabrina Friedman under the direction of Leigh Cameron make a tight finely tuned comedy machine. Exploring themes that are incredibly relevant to disabled and chronically ill people’s lives such as how to have sex in a wheelchair, and love not being the only thing in the air in the colonoscopy recovery room, they had me in stitches the entire time. My favourite scene was when Rasul, having made a typical able-bodied comment about being a wheelchair user, gets stared down by Calof as she raises her chair to its full height, sticks her fingers out in an “I’m watching you” gesture and silently turns and wheels away, fingers following Rasul. Having spent significant amounts of time in the hospital myself over the years, it makes me wish that next time I need to be in the hospital, I could check myself into Arbitrary General, provided it isn’t during the purge.

The Great

Leading off the great list, is Awkward Hug. I knew it was a story that touched on disability, but I was on guard a bit going in because Cory Thibert is not disabled himself, and was instead speaking about his parents experience of disability and how it impacted him. Caregiver stories about disabled people can often be problematic, and speak about disabled people in ways they haven’t consented to, or share a side of the disabled person that they don’t want to be shared. I was really happy about the way that Cory told his story. It was genuine and real, and gave me so much to relate to as a disabled person in the audience. One of the main themes in the play is how Cory’s father, full of anxiety about missing paratransit, and all the ways that can and has left him stranded, leaves all of Cory’s performances just before the final scene. Being a paratransit user, this resonated, and having personally experienced the terrors of an Ottawa winter as a wheelchair user (2 pairs of socks and a protective blanket under good quality boots isn’t enough to keep you from losing feeling in your toes) I can appreciate the particular chord of fear this experience strikes. The emotions are genuine, complex, and nuanced, even as Thibert self-professes his difficulty with expressing his feelings and communication. The only weakness of the work is that sometimes the story loses focus and takes us on unnecessary side trips. I’m not quite sure how the multiple pet stories connected to the core of the story, which is Thibert’s awakening to his parent’s disabilities, and how that influences the relationship that he is able to have with them. Otherwise, this is a fantastic piece from a creator who I look forward to seeing more from.

Also on the great list was the #UrgentExchange with Generator. I got to facilitate a conversation on criticism in disability art, and I had a blast. We didn’t get to any concrete answers, but managed to cover some of the core tensions between the disability community and the theatre criticism community. Some of the key points that came out of our conversation included tensions between wanting to have disability art recognized as part of the mainstream arts scene, which includes opening the door to criticism, but recognizing that mainstream media and disabled people have had a difficult relationship which continues to this day. This leaves many disabled artists distrustful of the media. Another tension is that if critics don’t have adequate language or knowledge of the disability community, are they qualified to comment upon or judge that work? If they aren’t, or they don’t, who is responsible for providing that education? Is it up to the critic, should it be up to the production itself, or the PR company (if one is engaged)? Does the arts sector have the capacity to support this kind of education? Where are the institutions that might provide it? Who do we want even reviewing disability art? Should we even invite able-bodied critics to review disability art pieces? I don’t know if I have any of the answers, but I’m really happy to be asking the questions and having the conversations.

The last item making my great list was Birds Make Me Think About Freedom. I reviewed it for NOW Magazine, so you can check out my writing on it there.

The Bad

There were numerous instances of sketchy accessibility throughout Fringe. George Ignatieff Theatre, I’m looking at you. It wasn’t that it was impossible, it is that it was poorly marked, and if you didn’t know the accessible way into that theatre already, there was a lot of extra uphill walking/rolling required. On my second day there, I had to cover about 50 m on grass because they were doing construction on the building and the truck had blocked the accessible entrance. Not cool U of T. Not cool. Also not so great was signage posted around some of the site specific venues that wasn’t placed in ways that a wheelchair user could access it.

Also, coming in on the bad list was Aspergers: More Tales of a Social Misfit. I also wrote about it for NOW but I want to say a bit more about it as I’ve had some more time to reflect on it. I really wanted to like the show. I came into Fringe being incredibly excited about it and eager to see it. When I left, I felt disappointed, mostly because it felt like to me rather than turning the joke around on neurotypical people, it gave people an excuse to laugh at autistic people. I think Aaron is a smart and capable comedian, and I was hard on him because I think his work has the potential to become this. I think that the disabled community, and able-bodied people too, are ready for work that diverges from old tropes and comedic standbys and gets real with people about the realities of ableism. So, despite the bad review, I hope Aaron continues to work towards this, and I would go see his work again.

The Ugly

Thankfully, there are only two entries to the ugly category. First up, is The Randolph and Annex theatres. Both venues were marked as accessible by Fringe Toronto, and neither of them were. The Randolph scores slightly worse than the Annex as it is completely unsafe for a variety of mobility devices including manual chairs, power chairs or scooters. The ramp to the door was designed for trolleys and not people, and it was not wide enough to accommodate disabled people safely. The ramp to the bathroom also is not doable or safe either. The Annex would be much better if they could address the gravel parking lot a disabled person (but notably not an able-bodied person) must cross to access the ramp. The good thing that came out of this situation however was a really good conversation with the Fringe team, and a plan going forward to make sure that venues used are accessible, and deemed as such by actual disabled people, with detailed information available to the public in advance, moving forward into future years.

The last ugly thing was receiving hate mail for a review. It comes with the territory, so I’m not too shaken about it other than feeling like “woo, now I’m a new critic”, but it sucks when you’re being accused of doing the thing that you’ve stood against publicly again and again. Ultimately, give people a computer and anonymity to hide behind and people will say whatever they feel entitled to though.

So there you have it. With a final evening of Fringe ahead for those of us who don’t have rehearsal tonight, get on out there and Fringe it up!

#fringe toronto #toronto #Performance Criticism #disability art #TheatreTO #theatre review

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pharmacyfollies · 7 years ago

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I Need A New Job: Pharmacy Follies

-Asshole: "I'm here to pick up my prescription. It's for a test and my doctor said I can choose any flavor I want."

Me: "The prescription your doctor sent over doesn't come in different flavors."

Asshole: "That's not what he told me."

Me: "He misinformed you. It only comes in lemon flavor."

Asshole: "Why would he tell me I can choose any flavor I want?"

Me: "Probably because he was thinking of Colyte, which does come with different flavor packs. However, he specifically sent over a prescription for Gavilyte, which only comes in lemon flavor."

Asshole: "Are you sure it doesn't come in different flavors?"

Me: "I'm positive it doesn't."

Asshole: "Can you check?"

Me: "I've been working in this pharmacy for 17 years. I fill scripts for colonoscopy's all the time. I'm absolutely sure that Gavilyte does not come in any other flavor than lemon."

Asshole: "It's not pineapple flavored, is it?"

Me: "I just told you it only comes in lemon flavor."

Asshole: "Well, I hope it's not pineapple."

Me: "It's not pineapple."

Asshole: "It better NOT be!"

Me: "It better not be? This medication is meant to clean out your colon before your doctor sticks a camera up your rectum. So let's not get carried away with the threats."

And she shut the fuck up. Can't say the same for the patient, one of my regulars, behind her who almost died laughing when he got to the counter.

-Me: "You have no more refills. We'll have to call the doctor."

Asshole: "What do you mean that I have no more refills? Are you sure?"

-Asshole: "Well, my doctor said it would be ready...."

Me: "Your doctor is *not* the boss of this pharmacy."

I don't have time for that level of fuckery tonight.

-I'm so not joking that I almost walked out of my job twice in the last 10 days. I'm extremely tired of killing myself over a job that would have me easily replaced with someone who makes less than half of what I make now should I drop dead over the stress. I hate that with the hours being cut that I'm unable to do my job completely. I've noticed that a lot of mistakes are being made and it's only a matter of time before a patient gets hurt.

The part that kills me is I know for a fact this company can afford to staff the pharmacies properly. If we can afford to pay 1(one, uno, ein, un, jeden, wahid) son'bitch millions of dollars and that's not counting the bonuses and shit, then this company ain't as broke as they claim they are as for their reasons for cutting hours.

And because of the hours being cut, I'm stuck dealing with shit ass attitudes from people. Don't give me a fucking attitude because your doctor told you that your prescription would be ready by the time you got here. For one, your doctor doesn't run this pharmacy. Considering that you probably didn't even see your doctor exactly at your scheduled time, I don't know why you'd even believe that your script would be ready when you leave his office. As if you're our only patient. I got 100's of doctor's sending scripts over and I hate to break it to you assholes but there's no way we can have EVERYONE'S prescriptions ready within 15 minutes. So when I tell you it will be ready in 3 hours, I fucking mean it. Arguing with me will NOT change that fact. I feel no sympathy for you if you have to take this medication NOW for a test you're taking tomorrow when your doctor wrote that script 3 months ago.

I'm also tired of people not being prepared when coming to the pharmacy. It's NOT my job to get your insurance information. If you lost the card, YOU call the insurance and get information. I do NOT call insurances for billing information. Mainly because I do NOT have TIME to do so. I got 10 people in line and 5 cars deep in the drive-thru. If you can dick off on Facebook on your cell phone, you can call your insurance.

And the same shit goes with not knowing patient information. Sometimes, I wonder if these ding dongs go up to random people on the street, hand them their scripts and tell them to bring to the pharmacy because I'm losing count of how many idiots come to drop off scripts and have absolutely no idea as to the date of birth, phone number or address for the scripts they're dropping off. If all you know about your best friend Jane is that her last name is Smith, I'm handing that shit right back to you because I'm not playing guessing games. I don't give a shit if your wife is going to be pissed off that I can't fill her prescription because you don't know her birthday. I can't bill an insurance without the correct date of birth and I don't have time to make your stupidity my problem.

I also get that Medicaid is starting to kick some of you dip shits off and/or they're not covering medications like they used to. I have no control over that. I also don't have time to call Medicaid to find out why they're no longer covering $3 box of alcohol swabs. If you don't want to drop $3 on that shit, you ain't hurting me. If you want to be a dirty asshole by not cleaning and sterilizing injection/lancing sites, because spending $3 on alcohol swabs is crazy talk, I won't stop you. Especially if you have a cigarette hanging out of your mouth and/or are driving a brand new Denali.

In case you all can't tell, I'm in dire need of a vacation. And perhaps a sugar daddy to take me away from this fuckery, lol.

-Now, I'm going to address the "Happy Holidays vs Merry Christmas" fuckery that's got everyone's drawers wedged way up their asses.

For those who don't know, I was born to Catholics, baptized Catholic, confirmed as a Catholic, will take Last Rites as a Catholic and I will die a Catholic. Needless to say, that means I worship Mr. C from Galilee and when His birthday rolls around on the 25th, I will celebrate it by engorging myself on food and getting drunk because that's how Mexicans celebrate birthdays, whether the birthday is for a 1 year old or for Jesus. That's just how we celebrate shit. We've been carrying on that sort of revelry going back as far as the Aztecs and I'm just carrying on tradition. In short, I'm a Christian so it's appropriate to tell me Merry Christmas. HOWEVER, hold onto your fucking chonies. You can also wish me a Happy Holidays too. What?!!

Even though I'm a Christian and celebrate Christmas, I know that there are OTHER religious celebrations in December. Because I don't have "Christian" stamped on my forehead, some people may not be aware of my religious beliefs but out of the kindness of their hearts, they want to wish me well by saying Happy Holidays. It's a nicety. Telling me Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas does NOT rub my clitoris the wrong way. It's not like you fucked my boyfriend, kicked my dog, slashed my tires or put a curse on the Cubs.

So when I see assholes getting bent over being told Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas, I really hate to see how they'd react when the shit really hits the fan. There's WAY more important shit to get worked up over than that. You'd think that someone called their mother a whore with the way they act at being told Happy Holidays.

And for the love of all that's sanctified and holy, being INCLUSIVE of others is NOT done at the EXCLUSION of Christians. A lot of assholes use this as an excuse to be cock smokers towards Muslims. I hate to break it to those ignorant wank pots but just because Muslims do not worship Jesus like Christians do does NOT mean they don't believe in Him. Jesus is regarded as a prophet in their religion. Not to mention that I've had many Muslim patients wish me a Merry Christmas and many of my Muslim friends have gotten me Christmas gifts or have participated in Christmas celebrations simply because ain't no one passing up Christmas tamales, pierogi, cupcakes and all that shit just like I ain't passing up Ramadan shawarma and other Middle Eastern food.

So the next time someone says "Happy Holidays" to you, simply say "Thank you" and smile back. Someone was being kind enough to wish you a nice holiday. It's not that big of a deal. Seriously. I would not be surprised if Jesus sees how ugly people get about Happy Holidays vs Merry Christmas and says to himself: "Jesus Christ in a manger!! I got crucified and died for this shit?!!".

-How I be laughing knowing that I won’t have to deal with any Christmas and New Years fuckery because I’ll be off for 10 days between 12-22 and 1-2!!!

youtube

#pharmacy #pharmacy tech #pharmacist #pharmacy technician #pharmacy hell #pharmacy follies

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mellowstarfishbread · 5 years ago

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Spending Freeze Doing a spending freeze is a great way to save up money quickly.A spending freeze is when you don’t spend money for a set period of time. How long? Well, you can decide that. No money whatsoever? You decide that too. It is entirely your decision how exactly you want to do it. How long should I do my spending freeze?This is really up to you. I generally do a few 2-week long spending freezes each year. You could do a freeze for one week, ten days, 2 weeks, or longer. You decide how long you can make it last. It really will depend on your individual circumstances.For your first spending freeze , start with one week. After you conquer your first week, you can decide if you want to continue on for a second week or stop for now and try a second week later on.If your first few weeks fly by without a struggle and you want to keep the freeze going, go for it! So… I can’t buy anything at all? This is something else that’s completely up to you!When I do a spending freeze I don’t buy anything except gas. I do continue to pay our bills (of course!) including the extra amount that we pay towards

our biggest debt

.Some families choose to allow themselves to continue to buy very basic groceries (milk, bread, eggs) during their freeze. For me, I think buying one grocery would make me want to buy another and another. So, it’s easier for me to not buy any groceries during a spending freeze. All I have are condiments! This is something that you should decide based on what you think will work best for you.After your spending freeze, reflect on what worked and what didn’t. Then, decide if there’s anything you’d like to do differently next time. Make your spending freeze successful: Set a goal – Before you begin your spending freeze, it’s important to know why you want to do the freeze and know what you plan to do with the money you’re going to save. This will keep you motivated during your spending freeze. It will also ensure that the money you’ve saved goes toward a beneficial purpose instead of getting spent away or used for something less important. Plan ahead – It’s wise to decide at least a week ahead of time that you’re going to be doing a spending freeze. This helps you to prepare (mentally, and logistically!). Now, don’t go buy a ton of stuff because you know you’ll be going without spending. But, while you’re at the grocery store, maybe think ahead and grab an extra loaf of bread to throw in the freezer. Or if you know you’re running out of a vital supply (like, toilet paper) you can pick that up before you begin your freeze. Eat what you have – Go through your pantry, your fridge, your freezer, and anywhere else that you keep food. Make a list of everything you have and ways to use it.Get your family on board – This is so essential. It’s no fair for you to stop spending and start sacrificing if your spouse is going to keep spending as usual. It has to be a team effort. Have a conversation about working together on the spending freeze to meet the goal you’ve set. Life goes on during your spending freeze Remember that there are so many things you can do without spending any money at all.You can still see your friends. Invite your friends over instead of going out. Or go for a walk. There are so many things you can do without spending money. You just may need to get creative. You can still do fun things with your kids. Go to the park or the library. Do something special at home (like build a pillow fort in the living room). Again, get creative!You can still have romantic date nights with your hubby. Make a meal together. Have a movie night. Build a fire. Go on a hike. There are so many things that you can do without spending money. Shower, Bath and Closets

THE BEST SHOWER CLEANER EVER!1 cup Epsom Salt1/2 cup Baking Soda1/4 cup Blue Dawn Dish LiquidMix it together. Rub in circular motion onto your shower doors with a sponge. Leave for 10 minutes. Rub off with wet sponge and rinse with water. CLEANING BATHROOM TILE AND TUBSSprinkle baking soda in place of scouring powder in your tub or on the tiles. Rub with a damp sponge. Rinse thoroughly. To remove film buildup on bathtubs, apply full-strength vinegar to a sponge and wipe the area. Next, use baking soda as you would scouring powder. Rub with a damp sponge and rinse thoroughly. Vinegar removes most dirt without scrubbing and doesn’t leave a film. Use ¼ cup (or more) vinegar to 1 gallon water.To clean grout, put 3 cups baking soda into a medium-size bowl and add 1 cup warm water. Mix into a smooth paste and scrub into grout with a sponge or toothbrush. Rinse thoroughly and dispose of leftover paste when finished. ZAP CLOSET ODOR, MILDEW AND MOLDEmpty the ClosetRemove everything from the closet and set it aside. Place any machine-washable footwear, damp clothes or laundry-safe wet outerwear into the washer, and then dry them thoroughly after cleaning. Do the same for any clothes that smell musty. After you wash them, you can hang the clothes outside to dry for a fresher scent. Don't put wet shoes into the closet, because they can make it smell musty again. Let them dry in the garage or near the laundry room. In your closet, look for signs of mold, mildew, or anything else that contributes to the musty smell. Check the closet for water leaks in the ceiling or along the walls by looking for water stains. If discovered, be sure to repair them. Clean the ClosetAfter you remove everything from the closet, clean it thoroughly by vacuuming or sweeping up loose debris and then wiping down shelves, doors and walls with a cloth dipped and wrung in a gallon bucket half-filled with warm water and 1/2 cup of vinegar. Let the surfaces of the closet completely dry after cleaning. Place a circulating fan on a chair in front of the closet to speed up the drying process. Reorganize and ReorderCleaning out your closet will also alleviate odors caused when things are too crammed together. Once the closet is clean, go through your clothes and donate what you don't wear. You may even consider organizing the inside of your closet by clothing type -- identified by different colored hangers -- to make it easy to find what you need. Place off-season items in plastic see-through bins on top shelves out of the way, or on the floor beneath clothes. This will give you some extra space.

Keep It Smelling FreshKeep your closet smelling fresh by adding baking soda or coffee grounds to a container with holes in the lid. Put it in a back corner of the closet to absorb odors. You can also add freshly dried lavender to the container or your favorite potpourri if you prefer a fragrance instead. DIY Complete Bathroom Cleaner Ingredients

2 cups warm water distilled for longer-term use or tap water for short-term use

1 TB baking soda

2 TB castile soap

Add 20 drops of the essential oil of your choice. . .lemon. . .lavender.

Instructions

Pour the warm water into the bottle, followed by the baking soda. Shake the bottle to combine the ingredients. Add the castile soap and essential oils, gently shaking the bottle to combine.

Use this spray to clean the tub, tile, toilet, sink, and even floor (particularly around the toilet.) Spray the surface, allow the cleaner to sit for a minute, then wipe with a damp cloth. Rinse the cloth as needed. This also works well in removing stains from carpet!

Ways with Witch Hazel Facial Cleansing Witch hazel has the unique ability to clean skin pores and dry up excessive oil without leaving skin too dry. Witch hazel can often replace a daily cleanser for those with normal skin types. For oily or acne prone skin, swabbing witch hazel throughout the day is a great way to quickly wipe off excessive oil without the hassle of a full face wash. For quick and easy cleansing with witch hazel, check out my homemade cleansing pads that are perfect for oily skin. Homemade “Tucks” Cooling Pads A doctor once recommended Tucks cooling pads to me as a way to cope with the unfortunate side effects of colonoscopy prep. :-/ So I made up some of my own “Tucks” to use during this uncomfortable time and I am happy to report they were a little slice of heaven on earth. To make them, add a couple of drops of lavender essential oil to about an ounce of witch hazel. Mix well, then dip round cotton pads in the solution. Place them in the freezer for an hour or so, then use as needed. Acne Treatment The tannin content in witch hazel has strong astringent as well as antioxidant properties. These astringent properties are cleansing to the skin, while minimizing the size of skin pores. Unlike many harsh commercial acne formulations, it is gentle and non-drying when used to tone and cleanse acne-infected or acne-prone skin. Plain witch hazel may be applied to the skin straight from the bottle using cotton balls.Bags Under The Eyes Some people say that the application of hemorrhoid cream to those little baggies under your eyes can take them away. It’s not an old wives’ tale. One of the magic ingredients in a product like Preparation H is witch hazel, which helps tighten up the skin and reduce the bagginess. Soothe Razor Burn The anti-inflammatory properties of witch hazel stop itchy bumps from forming up around your irritated hair follicles. Splash on after shaving legs or face. Relieve Chicken Pox Blisters Witch Hazel can also help the itching caused from chicken pox. To make a Witch Hazel mixture, take one cup of witch hazel and one cup of water. Mix the two and apply to the skin. Don’t be afraid to lavish this mixture on the skin. The witch hazel can be applied as often as needed. Once you apply the witch hazel and water, let dry. Body Acne Combine witch hazel with rose water to make an effective yet gentle acne-banishing toner for body acne. It’s an easy way to keep acne-prone areas clear, like your chest and back. {stuff} Soothe Diaper Rash If your baby’s rash isn’t healing quick enough, apply witch hazel with a cotton ball and you should see immediate improvement to your baby’s bottom. Heal Cuts and Scrapes Many chemists and pharmacists refer to witch hazel as nature’s answer to Neosporin. Witch hazel can be a substitute for or rubbing alcohol when it comes to cleaning out a cut. Pour a liberal amount of witch hazel over the cut or sore and allow it to dry. Add a bandage and you’re set. You can also use witch hazel on bruises or skin that is blistered or cracked. Harness the natural healing power of witch hazel in a convenient “Neosporin”-style first aid ointment! Scars & Stretch Marks Witch hazel is often used by pregnant women to prevent stretch marks, but it can be used to help loose or excessive skin around scars or stretch marks to tighten, helping to minimize the scar. Treat Inflamed Skin Healing damaged skin is one of witch hazel’s specialties. But as sunburn is also a type of skin inflammation, witch hazel is ideal for treating this too (despite swelling not being obvious.) Treating sunburn with witch hazel will lessen healing time and prevent the infamous skin peeling and flaking. Apply with a washcloth soaked in witch hazel, allowing it to soak into your skin for several minutes. Soothe Tired, Puffy Eyes If your eyes are puffy from crying or lack of sleep (or both), then soak two small cotton pads with witch hazel and put them over your eyes. After 10 minutes, your eyes should be refreshed, and any redness should be gone. Witch hazel is excellent for shrinking blood vessels. Bug Bites With its anti-itch and anti-inflammatory properties, witch hazel is ideal for treating bug bites. Apply the witch hazel with a cotton ball, square or swab directly on the bite. It also works to soothe bites from fleas, flies and insect stings. Household Cleaner Witch hazel can also be combined with lemon juice and baking soda to create an eco-friendly cleaning agent for your bathrooms. Or use it undiluted on chrome, glass and mirrors. You don’t need to rinse as the alcohol-based cleaner readily evaporates, leaving the chrome sparkling clean and germ-free. You can also use 1/2 cup witch hazel, 1 cup of water and about 15 drops of such as Lavender, Lemon, Eucalyptus or Cedar, combined in a spray bottle as an air freshener. Witch hazel on a cotton ball works well to remove hair dye stains on skin, too. Vinyl, linoleum, and tile floors can be kept clean by mopping once a week with a solution made from 1/2 cup of witch hazel and 1 gallon of warm water. Cold Sores Witch Hazel applied on a cold sore when you feel it coming on will prevent it from becoming a blister. If you already have one, use it right away and often and the blister will heal quicker. Jewelry Cleaner Dab some witch hazel on a cotton ball to gently clean your jewelry. Scalp Deep Cleanse Use a witch hazel hair-cleansing routine if you suffer from psoriasis, eczema, or dandruff. Massage the scalp with the witch hazel, followed with shampoo and conditioner. It is also an efficient “between-shampoos” method of washing your hair and scalp. Get Creative with the DishwasherDishwashers aren't just for dishes. You can can wash plenty of things in them that are heat-resistant, such as kids' plastic toys, baseball caps, shoes, tools, switch covers, vent covers, light covers and more. Kitchen sponges, silicone oven mitts, light fixtures, desk accessories, fan exhaust covers, hairbrushes, and makeup brushes all going through dishwasher cycles successfully. But keep the assorted loads separate from the dishes.

Foil's Your Friend Wrap some tin foil along the edges of your pie and pot pie crusts (once they have browned) to prevent burning. You will get perfect golden crusts every single time. You can also cover turkey and chicken legs and wings with foil once they have browned to prevent burning. It works like a charm. Make stove clean up easyCut tin foil to fit under the burners on your stove. This way when you have spills and drips you don’t have to scrub, you can just remove the tin foil and toss it. This also works great in ovens and even on outdoor grills. Warm upTin foil reflects heat, so place a large sheet of it behind your heating unit. It will kick some toasty heat back your way and heat your room faster without additional expense. If you have plants that need some more sun you can place a sheet of foil near them to reflect both. Help plants drain, for lessCreate balls of tin foil and drop them into your flower pots before adding the soil. They will help fill the pots for less, and will also help create better drainage for the plants. Sharpen your scissors /Can OpenerIf your scissors are becoming dull, just snip a piece of tin foil with them a few times. The snipping action against the foil will help sharpen the blades quickly and easily making it another creative uses of tin foil. Quadruple fold 6 inches of foil, them use your can opener on it as if opening a normal can. Craft an easy cupWhether you need something to hold a condiment, paint, shampoo, or even water, you can craft a cup out of tin foil. Just bend the foil into a cup shape and roll the edges. It is perfect for holding gels, dips, and liquids when in a bind. Simplify Paint JobsPrevent a mess and wasted paint when you wrap your paint brushes up in foil. The paint won’t dry and stick to the bristles, and you can start painting again when you are ready without any issue. Not only is it good as a wrap for your paintbrushes, but also perfect for lining your paint trays so you can enjoy easy clean up. Make a quick scouring padBall up the tinfoil and use it as a quick scouring pad. It is perfect for scrubbing pots and pans and cutting through that caked on grime. Just toss away the scrub when done. Iron Two Sides at OncePlace a layer of tinfoil onto your iron board prior to ironing. As you iron it will reflect heat, helping you remove wrinkles on both sides of the fabric or garment.It is time to take a new look at tinfoil. Give some of these uses your consideration and see how helpful of a tool it can be in all areas of your home. Castile SoapAll soaps are made with fats, but castile soap is unique in that it is made from vegetable oils rather than animal fats. This style of soap making originated in the Castile region of Spain (hence the name!) where it was made from pure, local olive oil. Although olive oil is the traditional base for this soap, it can be made with coconut, hemp, avocado, almond, walnut, and many other vegetable oils.This soap is typically concentrated, completely biodegradable, and cleans gently, yet effectively. It can be used in a dizzying number of different ways. Natural Body WashCastile soap on its own makes a great body wash, but adding a bit of moisturizing honey and some skin-nourishing oils can take it to the next level! All-Purpose Cleaning SprayYou can use castile soap to make a great all-purpose cleaning spray that’s great for cleaning up everyday messes. Just add 1/4 cup of soap to 1 quart of warm water, then stir to combine. Pour the solution into a spray bottle to use.Feel free to add a few drops of

lemon oil

tea tree oil

to the spray for added cleaning power. Or you could use

Dr. Bronner’s Tea Tree Castile Liquid Soap

, which already includes tea tree oil as an ingredient! Reusable Cleaning WipesThose store-bought antibacterial cleaning wipes are certainly convenient for wiping down counter tops and other surfaces, but they’re also expensive and create unnecessary waste! But with a little castile soap, you can make your very own kitchen cleaning wipes that are totally reusable! Get the full instructions on how to make them at the link below. Fruit & Veggie WashUse castile soap to make a cleansing solution for washing fresh produce. Fill your sink or a large bowl with water, then add 1/4 teaspoon of castile soap. Dunk your produce into the water and swish it around to knock any dirt or debris loose. Then rinse your produce under clean, cool water and it’ll be ready to eat! Foaming Hand WashUse castile soap to make a great foaming hand soap at home! Just stir together castile soap, a bit of coconut oil, and some germ-fighting essential oils, and pour it into a foaming soap bottle. My favorite thing about this soap is that it not only leaves your hands feeling, but moisturized too! Get the full recipe for my natural foaming hand soap at the link below. Deter AntsUse castile soap to make a spray that will help deter ants. Add 1/4 cup of

tea tree castile soap

to 1 quart of warm water, and stir to mix. (If you don’t have any on hand, you can use

plain castile soap

and add 6-8 drops of

tea tree essential oil

for the same effect.)Pour the mixture into a spray bottle, then spray it onto areas where you’ve spotted ants hanging around. (Keep this spray away from plants, as this solution could burn them.) “Soft Scrub” CleanerUse castile soap to make your own homemade “Soft Scrub” style abrasive cleaner. In addition to the cleansing soap, this formula also contains baking soda to help scrub away tough grime. Get the full recipe for this useful homemade cleaner at the link below! Baby SoapCastile soap is very gentle, making it a great option cleaning sensitive baby skin! Add 1 ounce of soap to 2 ounces of purified or distilled water. Add 3-5 drops of

lavender essential oil

, if desired. Use the solution to wash your baby as usual, making sure to keep the soap mixture away from your baby’s eyes! Oil Soap Garden SprayInsect issues, fungal infections, and other diseases can create real problems for home gardeners. But you can use castile soap to make your own oil soap garden spray that acts as a natural insecticide and fungicide!My daughter relies on this spray to keep powdery mildew at bay when it creeps into her garden late in the summer. Get the full recipe for my oil soap plant spray below! Shaving CreamRub a little bit of castile soap between wet hands to create a luscious lather that’s perfect for shaving! The oils in the soap help the razor glide across your skin, reducing razor burn and nicks. Use it on your face, underarms, legs, or wherever! Dog ShampooBecause it’s so gentle, castile soap makes a great dog shampoo! Just wet your dog’s coat and work a small amount of soap into it until you achieve a good lather. Continue shampooing, then rinse well. Your dog’s coat will look clean and shiny once it’s dry! Hand-Washing DishesFill your sink with 10 parts warm water and 1 part castile soap. Use the wash solution to wash and rinse your dishes as usual. You can also use the same ratio to make a soapy solution to use in those handy

refillable dish scrubbing brushes

. Honey Facial CleanserCastile soap is one of the ingredients in one of my favorite homemade beauty concoctions, my honey facial cleanser. Honey acts as a humectant, absorbing and retaining moisture in the skin, plus it contains skin-nourishing antioxidants! And the soap cleanses skin without stripping away natural oils. Get the recipe for my all-natural honey facial cleanser at the link below. Window CleanerIf your windows need a lot of help in the cleaning department, use castile soap to help power through the grime. Add 1 tablespoon of soap to 1 quart of water, then pour the mixture into a spray bottle. Spray it liberally onto your windows, then use a sponge or scrubber to power through the grime. Follow with a rinse of club soda, or rinse with a mixture of 1 part water and 1 part vinegar. Foot ScrubGet silky smooth and sandal-ready feet by making this quick and easy scrub! Combine 1 cup of sugar, 1 tablespoon of castile soap, 2 tablespoons of coconut oil, and 4 drops of

peppermint essential oil

. Use it to scrub away dry skin for softer feet! Bedding WashUse this special wash method to kill and eliminate dust mites from your bedding. Add 1/3 cup of castile soap to your washing machine along with your bedding. Pour 1/2 cup of vinegar into the fabric softener cup or dispenser, so it gets added during the rinse cycle.Start a wash cycle on the hottest water setting, then once the cycle is done, dry your bedding on the hottest dry cycle. (Keep in mind that these instructions are for standard washing machines. Those with HE washers should use 2-3 tablespoons of soap and 1/4 cup of vinegar.) Clear Sinus CongestionUse a castile soap with essential oils to help clear sinus congestion. Fill a large bowl with hot water, and add a squeeze of

peppermint soap

eucalyptus soap

. Then lean over the bowl, and drape a towel over your head to trap the steam inside. Breathe deeply, and you’ll feel your airways and nasal passages start to open up! Mopping SolutionAdd 1/2 cup of castile soap to 3 gallons of hot water to make a simple and effective mopping solution. Dip your mop into your bucket, and mop your way to clean and shiny floors! Makeup Brush CleanerUse castile soap to make a gentle cleaning solution for your makeup brushes! Squirt a small amount of soap into a small bowl, then fill the rest of the bowl with warm water. Swish your makeup brushes around in the soapy water, then rinse the brushes with cool water until the water runs clear. Allow the brushes to air dry completely before using. Makeup RemoverMake a simple makeup remover solution by mixing equal parts castile soap, witch hazel, and a carrier oil of your choice. Use with a soft cloth or cotton pad to gently remove eye makeup. Bonus Tip! – How To Turn A Bar Of Castile Soap Into Liquid SoapBuying bars of castile soap can often cheaper than buying the liquid kind. But you can actually turn bar soap into liquid soap quite easily!Start by chopping up the bar of soap into tiny pieces, then place the soap pieces in a pint-size mason jar. Fill the jar with boiling water and let it sit for about 20 minutes. Then stir well to make sure the soap is completely dissolved.

Natural and homemade insecticides Oil spray insecticideA homemade insecticide made from vegetable oil mixed with a mild soap (such as Dr. Bronner's castile soap) can have a devastating effect on certain troublesome insects, such as aphids, mites, thrips, etc. To make a basic oil spray insecticide, mix 1 cup of vegetable oil with 1 tablespoon of soap (cover and shake thoroughly), and then when ready to apply, add 2 teaspoons of the oil spray mix with 1 quart of water, shake thoroughly, and spray directly on the surfaces of the plants which are being affected by the little pests. The oil coats the bodies of the insects, effectively suffocating them, as it blocks the pores through which they breathe. Soap spray insecticideA very similar homemade pesticide to the oil spray is a soap spray, which is also effective for controlling mites, aphids, whiteflies, beetles, and other hungry little insects. To make a basic soap spray insecticide, mix 1 1/2 teaspoons of a mild liquid soap (such as castile soap) with 1 quart of water, and spray the mixture directly on the infected surfaces of the plants. A soap spray insecticide works in a similar fashion as an oil spray pesticide, and can be applied as necessary though it is always recommended to NOT apply it during the hot sunny part of the day, but rather in the evenings or early mornings. Diatomaceous earth as a natural pesticideThis natural substance with a somewhat unwieldy name is made from a sedimentary rock created by fossilized algae (diatoms), and which is a rather abundant resource (

diatomaceous earth is said to make up 26% of the earth's crust by weight

). Diatomaceous earth has a number of uses in and around the home, and acting as a natural insecticide is just one of them. This material works not by poisoning or smothering the insects, but instead by virtue of its abrasive qualities and its affinity for absorbing the lipids (a waxy substance) from insects' exoskeleton, which then dehydrates them to death. Diatomaceous earth is often available at garden stores, although many times only in large bags, so if you've got a small yard, consider splitting it with a neighbor. To apply, simply dust the ground around your plants, or even sprinkle it on the foliage, where it will help control snails and slugs as well as other crawling insects. Due to its dried nature, in order to be an effective natural pesticide, diatomaceous earth needs to be reapplied after every rain. Garlic insecticide sprayGarlic is well-known for its pungent aroma, which is delectable to some and yet repellent to others, and it is this strong scent that comes into play when used as a natural insecticide. Actually, it's not really clear if garlic spray and chile spray (below) are actually insecticides or are more likely insect repellents, but either way, these common kitchen ingredients can be used to knock down, or even knock out, insect infestations in the garden. To make a basic garlic spray, take 2 whole bulbs (not just 2 cloves) and puree them in a blender or food processor with a small amount of water. quart of water. Let the mixture sit overnight, then strain it into a quart jar, adding 1/2 cup of vegetable oil (optional), 1 teaspoon of mild liquid soap, and enough water to fill the jar. To use this homemade insecticide, use 1 cup of mixture with 1 quart of water and spray liberally on infested plants. Chile pepper insecticide spraySimilar to garlic spray, chile pepper spray is a great homemade natural insect repellent that can be used for a variety of different pests. Chile spray can be made from either fresh hot peppers or chile pepper powder. To make a basic chile spray from pepper powder, mix 1 tablespoon of chile powder with 1 quart of water and several drops of mild liquid soap. This mixture can be used full-strength on the leaves of affected plants. To make chile spray from fresh chile peppers, blend or puree 1/2 cup of peppers with 1 cup of water, then add 1 quart of water and bring to a boil. Let sit until cooled, then strain out the chile material, add several drops of liquid soap to it and spray as desired.[Caution: Hot chile peppers can be very potent on humans as well, so be sure to wear gloves when handling them, and keep any sprays made from them away from eyes, nose, and mouth.] All-in-one homemade insecticide sprayTo make it, puree 1 bulb of garlic and 1 small onion, add 1 teaspoon of cayenne pepper powder and let steep for an hour. Strain the mixture and add 1 tablespoon of liquid soap and mix well. To apply this homemade insecticide, spray it full-strength onto both the upper surface of the leaves, as well as the undersides, and store the remainder in the refrigerator for up to a week if desired. Tomato leaf as a natural insecticideTomato plants are part of the nightshade family, and as such, contain alkaloids such as the aptly named "tomatine," which can effectively control aphids and other insects. To make tomato leaf spray for a natural insecticide, chop 2 cups of fresh tomato leaves (which can be taken from the bottom part of the plant) into 1 quart of water, and let steep overnight. Strain out the plant material and spray onto plant foliage. Unusual, Questionable Life Solutions Homemade WetJet Cleaning SolutionIngredients:

1 cup white vinegar

1 cup water

3-5 drops dish soap

Directions:Stir all ingredients in a small bowl and set aside to use with a microfiber mop, rag or sponge.If you have the wet Jet mop, you can fill the solution hold with the mixture. Use furniture wax on your car.Just spray it on and shine it to a quick buff! Much quicker than car wax and it's just as effective!! Marry someone frugal.If you're having trouble with money, seek out a partner that has a great financial head on their shoulders. If you're in debt, they'll help you get out of it. If you throw money away, they'll help you save. Don't waste money on toilet paper. Use newspaper, junk mail, bills and more!There is a great deal of satisfaction that comes from wiping your butt on a credit card mailing or an electricity bill. And it helps the environment as well as your pocket! Unplug everything In your home when you're not using it. Even clocks!Before I go to bed at night, I spend 10 minutes walking around the home unplugging everything that isn't in use. That includes the TV, the DVD player, the toaster, the computer and even the alarm clock on my nightstand if I'm not at work the next day. Saves me a bunch of money every month as these items all

drain power

. DON'T UNPLUG THE FRIDGE. Turn your old wine into vinegar.If you've got some old wine laying around that isn't drinkable, you can turn it into

vinegar

. Just pour it into a container, preferably a barrel, and let it age. Voila, fine vinegar! Top-up your condiments with packets from fast-food restaurants.You always get a bunch of extra ketchups, mustards, mayos and other condiments when you eat at a fast-food joint. Don't throw them away. Open them up and pour them into your bottled condiments at home. You'll be surprised how much longer your bottle of ketchup will last. Gals, order LARGE meals on dates!Hey, when you're taken out to dinner make the most of it. I know I do. Just order a large meal and take half of it home in a box or doggy bag. Two free meals for the price of one. Spend less money than you make Cut your own hair.It's not difficult. Also cut the hair of your children and the rest of your family. You'll save a small fortune. Use the free envelopes you get with bills and junk mail.Cover the company's address with a label, put on your own stamp and use it for whatever you want. Get free lemonade whenever you eat out.Order a glass of water with extra lemons, pour in some sweetener from the beverage holder and hey presto, lemonade for free! (I know for a fact that some people actually do this and most waiters hate it.) Free umbrellas are always available.Just pop along to your local library and tell them you lost one. They usually have a stash in the lost and found section — say yours is black and small and they'll almost always have one. Score! It also works for sunglasses. (I'd say this one is stealing. But some people disagree.) Buy something for $1. Sell it for $2. Repeat. Plant fake flowers in your gardenThey last for years, require no maintenance and are in full bloom in winter. Use old toilets as flower planters.They look bold and attractive (??) and are usually available for free on

Craigslist

. Use your employer's resources.It's not stealing if you use them at work. Don't bring your own headache pills, tissues or drinks. Your employer should provide them all and you should take full advantage, including the endless supply of free coffee and tea! Turn off your car engine at red lights.You will save a bunch of gas over time instead of leaving the engine idling. Free food from the grocery stores.They throw away perfectly good food every night. You can eat like a king for free on the bags of food they throw away at the end of the day. Take a "vacation" at Christmas to save money on gifts.Just let everyone know you're going away for the holidays and will exchange gifts when you return. Then lay low, buy all of your presents in the after-Christmas sales for way less money and have a very happy New Year! Keep one cup from every fast-food restaurant you visitWhenever you go back, just take the cup in with you and refill it at the fountain. You'll never have to pay for a drink again! (I'm sure this one is stealing.) Cover your floors with carpet samplesYou can pick them up very cheap, and sometimes free, from most carpet and hardware stores. Just arrange them in squares and glue them down. Great for a basement, playroom or even a hobby room. Also works with wallpaper samples. Spill your drink at a bar or restaurantWait until your beer is around one-third full, then get in the way of a member of the wait staff and make sure they "make" you spill your drink. They'll usually offer to get you a free replacement, and it will be FULL! (Yep, this one is really dishonest.) Keep a pitcher close to the SinkWhen you're running the faucet waiting for the hot water to come through, let the pitcher catch the cold water. You can use it later to water plants, flowers or boil pasta. Train your cat to use the toiletIt's easy to train a cat to jump up onto the seat and go into the toilet. It will save you a fortune in cat litter. Getting him to flush is the hard part. Get your paint at one quarter of the priceSo this one is sneaky but it works. Pick out the exact color you want and get it mixed in the quantity you want. Take it back the next day to the hardware store you got it from and say the shade is off. They'll give you a full refund, and also put the "bad tint" on the sale shelf for $5 a can, roughly $15 less than the full price. Just go in the next day and buy all your paint back! Score!! (I'm sure it works, but man is that dishonest.) Free flowers for birthdays, weddings and more!Just go to a nearby cemetery and swipe some new flowers from a grave. The dead people won't miss them and someone else will get a smile from them. (Karma anyone?) Old hair makes great stuffing for pillowsIf you don't cut your own hair, the local barber shop or hair salon will gladly give you the cuttings from the floor. It's soft, free and biodegradable. Newspapers make great blanketsThey're not just for homeless people. If you get chilly at nights, slip newspaper pages between the sheet and duvet. Newspaper is a tremendous insulator. Shop at midnightThose late-night hours are great. You'll have no lines at the checkout, no crowded aisles, and your pick of the bargains and markdowns that are being put out for the next day. Flush with less waterPlace a common house brick inside a plastic bag and seal it. Repeat this seal with another bag, just to make it super water proof (you don't want brick corrosion). Put this in your toilet's tank and it will save you a lot of money on your water bill over the years. Learn to speed readYou'll be amazed at how many new books you can read for free if you increase your reading speed. I spend an hour or two at Borders almost every evening and usually get through two brand new books every week. No charge. Go through the trash at a college campus on move-out dayCollege kids throw things out with no regard for their worth. They just want them gone, and they don't want to move them. I have picked up refrigerators, microwaves, desks, chairs, shelves and even TVs! Negotiate your hours at work.Rush hour driving is a gas guzzling experience. Train tickets are also more expensive at rush hour. See if you can start early and leave early. You'll work the same hours but save commuting cash! Drive at 55 mph on the highwaysIt may take you a little longer to get where you're going, but this is the optimal speed for good fuel consumption. You'll get a way

better mpg from your car

. Don't throw away old, bruised and soft fruitThey can be great for making smoothies, muffins and other snacks and drinks that require flavor without needing the fruit to be in perfect condition. Use your electric oven wiselyThese things take so long to cool down that you can actually turn them off 5 minutes before the cooking time is up, and your dish will come out fine. Also works well with toaster ovens. Dump your partner at the right timeIf you're thinking of quitting a relationship, make sure you exit before any major anniversaries, birthdays or anything like that. The last thing you want to do is buy an expensive present right before you go your separate ways. (I'd call that one a bit mercenary.) Go at least one year without buying clothes or shoesI'm serious! Usually, you're just buying on impulse anyway. It's been proven that most of us only use about 20% of the stuff in our closets, so why add more to that unused portion? After a year, you will have saved hundreds and hundreds of dollars. Guys, don't get marriedThere may be tax breaks but when you're single you're rolling in money, even on a low salary. Get married and it will all go away. For a start, women need way more money than men, including toiletries, clothes, shoes, hair styling and more. Most women can't go five days on one big batch of chili or spaghetti — they want variety. And salads cost a fortune too. Once you start having kids, kiss goodbye to any extra cash you did have. Seriously, stay single. It's the best way to save money. Do the gift-giving lotterySimple premise but it saves all of us a fortune in my family. We put all the names in a hat at Christmas, and then each pick out one. Kinda like secret Santa, but without the secret. And that way, you're all not buying gifts for everyone. Big waste of money that holiday. Become good friends with Your NeighborsThey will always have things that you can borrow instead of buying them. My neighbor comes over to use my edger, and I use his cultivator. Works great. Go on a One-Day-a-Week FastThat means only six days a week of meals instead of seven. Over 52 weeks, that's over 150 combined breakfasts, lunches and dinners that you don't have to buy. And you'll lose weight too! Plastic WrapConquer unrolling it for use by storing it in the Freezer to eliminate clinging. Cut the Electric Bill in Half

I encourage you to do this experiment on your own to prove how much money you can save. It may vary by your electric provider but I’d bet you’ll save a significant amount. My bill was cut in half the first month. CHARGE IN THE CARTo save more on your electric bill, you want to use less electricity. One easy way to do this is to skip the house.Car chargers are inexpensive and it’ll make up its cost in savings.I pretty much only charge my phone in the

car

. I just automatically plug it in whenever I get in the car. If your car allows you to plug in USB cords, you can charge other devices in the car too.I’ve charged my iPad and kindle in the car. Most devices come with a USB charger and can be charged in the car. FIND BETTER SOURCES OF LIGHTIf you’re still using incandescent (read: old) light bulbs, switch them out for LED.

LED bulbs

use up to 85% less energy. They cost more to purchase, but you’ll come out on top in the long run. Aside from the benefit that you’ll see when your electric bill comes in, LED light bulbs last much longer. They last up to 22 years! It depends on how much you use them. I assume they won’t last quite as long if you leave the light on all day every day. But they’ll definitely last longer than a regular bulb! Unplug Everything but the FridgeTruly, you'll see about 50% savings over a month. Ideas for Mismatched Leftover Socks

Heating Pads: Put rice in them and tie shut. Heat in the microwave a minute or two to get it hot. Cheap heating pad for your neck or back or any sore spot. You can slide these between the sheets in winter right before bedtime. It's an old-fashioned bed warmer.

Cat Toys: Make a cat toy by adding some catnip inside the sock. Sew it shut and cut off the excess. Your cat will have hours of fun attacking and playing with the catnip sock.

Soap-Savers: Drop the last bit of a bar of soap in them and tie in knot. Wet the sock and rub it to get a lather for washing. This works well for little kids who have a hard time hanging onto slippery soap in the bathtub.

Mug Warmers: Cut off the ankle part of a stretchy sock to make a mug warmer or cozy for your coffee cup.

Just Wear Them! When you wear boots or long pants in winter, no one will know your socks don't match. You can also wear the mismatched socks for at-home days when your appearance doesn't matter.

H202 Is a Nickname

The brown bottle of hydrogen peroxide in your bathroom cabinet or first aid kit can do a lot more than taking care of small cuts and wounds. You can boost the performance of plants in your garden, clean your home and laundry, and improve your beauty routine.

Hydrogen peroxide, H2O2, is sold in concentrations of three to ten percent at most drug stores. The three percent solution works great for household cleaning and disinfecting.

Using Hydrogen Peroxide Around the House

Sanitize Beauty and Manicure Tools

Disinfect Toothbrushes and Mouth GuardsWarning

Get Sweet-Smelling, Prettier Feet

Whiten Discolored Nails

Freshen and Disinfect Kitchen Sponges

Keep Cutting Boards Bacteria-Free

Sanitize Your Refrigerator

Brighten Discolored Cookware

Make Reusable Grocery Bags Healthier

Clean Tile Grout

Put a Shine on Mirrors

Whiten Dingy Clothes

Get Rid of Underarm Sweat Stains on White Shirts

Breathe Easier

Kill Dust Mites

Disinfect Kids' and Pets' Toys

Make Your Garden Grow

Protect Plants From Disease

Each time you use tweezers, manicure or pedicure tools, and eyelash curlers they come in contact with body soil and bacteria. A dip or rub-down with a bit of hydrogen peroxide will sanitize the tools and prevent infections.

Toothbrushes, retainers, and sports mouth guards can be disinfected by a quick soak in hydrogen peroxide. Give each a good rinse with plain water before using them.

There is one thing you should not do with hydrogen peroxide: swallow it. Even at the 3 percent concentration, it can cause blistering in the mouth, vomiting, and abdominal distress.

Smelly feet are covered with bacteria that are causing the odor. Mix a foot soak with one part hydrogen peroxide to three parts warm water. The same treatment will help protect against spreading athlete's foot fungus and even soften calluses and corns.

Mix one part hydrogen peroxide to two parts baking soda in a bowl to form a paste. It will foam a bit but when it stops spread the paste over and under your nails. Let it work for three minutes and then rinse with plain water.

Kitchen sponges harbor some really scary bacteria like E.coli and Salmonella. Disinfect them daily with a solution of 50 percent water and 50 percent hydrogen peroxide.

Each time you use wooden or plastic cutting boards, little scratches appear that can trap bacteria. A quick spritz with hydrogen peroxide will keep them safe to use.

After you've cleaned out your refrigerator and before you add that new box of baking soda, spray the inside with hydrogen peroxide to kill any lingering bacteria. Let it work for several minutes and then wipe down with plain water.

Mix a paste of baking soda and hydrogen peroxide to spread on the interior of discolored ceramic-coated cookware. This will help lighten stains and gently clean the surface.

Reusable grocery bags are great for the environment but not always so good for your health. The bags should be washed frequently and correctly. However, if you don't have time for a thorough cleaning, give the interiors a quick spray with hydrogen peroxide to kill harmful bacteria.

Grout between the bathroom and kitchen tiles not only gets dirty, but it can also get covered with mildew. One of the best ways to kill the fungus is hydrogen peroxide. To whiten grout, mix a paste of baking soda and hydrogen peroxide. Spread it on the tile (it will also help cut through soap scum) and let it work for five minutes. Wipe away with plain water to see the sparkle.

Use a lint-free microfiber cloth and a spray of hydrogen peroxide to create a streak-free mirror.

If you don't like using chlorine bleach, add some hydrogen peroxide instead to a load of dingy white clothes. Add one cup of hydrogen peroxide to the washer or automatic bleach dispenser before adding water or clothes.

Mix 1/4 cup hydrogen peroxide, 1/4 cup baking soda, and 1/4 cup water in a bowl. Use a soft-bristled brush to work the solution into underarm stains and allow it to sit for at least 30 minutes. Give it one more final scrub with the brush and then wash as usual.

Dehumidifiers and humidifiers are perfect breeding grounds for molds due to the moisture and heat they collect or generate. Keep them clean by running a solution of half water and half hydrogen peroxide through them monthly.

Dust mites thrive on the small bits of skin we shed in our homes, particularly in the bedroom. Give your mattress a spray with hydrogen peroxide to kill the insects. Allow the mattress to dry completely before remaking the bed with clean bedding.

To kill germs and bacteria, spray plastic toys with hydrogen peroxide. Allow it to sit on the surfaces for a few minutes and then rinse with plain water.

That extra oxygen molecule in hydrogen peroxide boosts a plant's ability to absorb nutrients from the soil. And all it takes is just a little bit. Mix a solution of one teaspoon hydrogen peroxide in one gallon of room-temperature water. Use it right away to fertilize outdoor and indoor plants.

Insects, fungus, and plant diseases can easily be transferred from plant to plant. Use hydrogen peroxide to sanitize garden tools and containers after each use.

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junker-town · 5 years ago

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Watching ‘Uncut Gems’ is sports

Adam Sandler as Howard Ratner, awful human. | A24

‘Uncut Gems’ will make you feel absolutely filthy. In a good way. I think.

In theory, Uncut Gems shouldn’t be so stressful. It is both a gambling movie and a sports movie, and that means you should know from the start that the climax will hinge on One Big Bet that is either going to score or not.

It should be clear that because Adam Sandler plays a degenerate gambler, things wont be going well for him. That even when he wins a little, he’ll soon lose a lot. The directors, the Safdie brothers, signal from the start that they aren’t interested in romanticizing any part of Howard Ratner’s life. The camera opens on an Ethiopian mine, travels through shafts into an opal’s crystal structure and then, quite literally, out of Ratner’s bowels to reveal that Sandler’s Ratner is undergoing a colonoscopy. That’s what they make of their main character.

Ratner is a purveyor of shiny things, all of them cursed to drag him deeper into agony and loneliness. His stuff — his apartment, his jewelry store, his clothes — clutters the screen, suffocating him even as he spends the entire movie trying to secure the means to accumulate more. He’s a miserable human who can only put himself in circumstances that make him more miserable, and by the end you won’t understand why you want to root for him, even though you will.

If you stop to think, you might guess where everything is headed. There’s no time to think about anything. Uncut Gems will make you empathize with a lying, philandering scumbag because everyone in this movie is a lying, philandering scumbag to some extent. And the movie starts like a train leaving the station and Ratner’s the caboose, and that train gets going too fast to change cars so he’s the one you hitch with. And everything that might get him out of his jam has a caveat attached to it. In Uncut Gems, Ratner’s cycle of self-destruction is perpetual and predictable and god it hurts so bad to watch him zoom past every off-ramp to safety.

And also captivating. I can’t emphasize enough that this extremely painful, ostensibly predictable movie is also transfixing, and not in the car wreck sense. This movie will make you hope for the best like a stupid idiot. Every moment is spent waiting for some score or scheme to pay off, and every once in a while one of them does, reigniting hope for this awful, doomed man who is VERY low on the list of people who deserve to have their happiness fulfilled. Because yes, if Ratner can just get his precious stone from Demany, who lent it to Kevin Garnett, at The Weeknd’s show and get it to auction where, if it even gets a quarter of the money he thinks it’s worth, it might stave off the men who have made it abundantly clear they will break his fucking legs if he doesn’t pay, then everything might turn out OK. And Ratner really doesn’t seem like the type of guy who would just run away to Alaska, even though you, the viewer, would have done so an hour ago if you were in his place.

Yes, the cast is a Mad Libs of actors, but they’re also brilliant. Sandler might get an Oscar nod, but he isn’t the pulse of the movie. It’s everybody else. It’s Kevin Garnett, who plays Kevin Garnett better than anyone will ever play Kevin Garnett. It’s Mike Francesa, who sadly only has two scenes but looked eerily comfortable as an overworked, old school bookie/restaurant owner. It’s Julia Fox, who stole almost every scene she was in as Ratner’s mistress, and whose real life was somehow more badass and batshit crazy than her character’s, and who should be showered with awards as much or more than anyone in this movie that is giving me heart palpitations even as I write about it.

Maybe Ratner would move to Alaska if the people around him weren’t so sickeningly good at being alternately terrifying and sweet and manipulative of a man who they would leave in the gutter if he didn’t owe them or they didn’t owe him. That’s the other thing you should know about this movie: there’s nothing to it, really. No one wants anything more than what Howard wants, and all Howard wants is to get out of gambling debt so he can be free to rack up a gambling debt again. His motivation is that money is his sustenance. There is nothing you should be learning from this film, except that people are largely selfish, and that betting on anything is probably stupid.

Uncut Gems is series of limbic manipulations with pinpoint accuracy. If any part of it can be described as “feel good,” maybe it’s that: you don’t have to invest any mental energy into it. Unlike some other Big Deal movies this year, it won’t make you re-examine the edifice of marriage, or expose economic inequality’s corrosive tendrils, or anything like that. It has no place in a canon to consider. If there is an Uncut Gems 2, it would and should be illegal except in international waters.

Perhaps the greatest trick that Uncut Gems pulls is that climax, which centers on a 2012 playoff game between the Celtics and the 76ers, so that during a white-knuckle movie’s whitest knuckle moment we’re watching Howard watch Garnett shoot long two-pointers through a CRT TV and yelping every time the ball bounces on the rim and either falls or doesn’t. That is to say, Uncut Gems makes a game we might already know the outcome of just as exciting as it was was when we might have watched it live.

This may be the most accurate sports movie I have ever seen. Whereas a conventional sports movie throws what feels like insurmountable challenges at the protagonists, only to resolve them neatly, in Uncut Gems, the outcome is unnecessary. The point is that you’ve become an emotional hostage. And you don’t have to be a degenerate gambler to know the feeling; any sports fan understands, because what is our favorite sports team if not our very own lying, philandering scumbag who we’ve tethered ourselves to arbitrarily and imbued with unearned loyalty and hope that may never be repaid, and whose feelings we’ll never feel reciprocated?

By the end of the Uncut Gems it dawns on you that you’re just figuratively and literally watching sports, and even in realizing what a dummy, a rube, a sucker you must be to get duped into watching a rerun, you can’t look away as a ball that boing-boing’d in real life during a basketball game years ago boing-boings again, menacingly, because the life of a man you hate is on the line.

A man, mind you, whose colonoscopy you were forced to witness two hours before. Uncut Gems isn’t subtle. From the moment the camera crawls out of a man’s bowels, that filthy feeling is exactly the point. So consider this a warning and an endorsement: you will walk away from Uncut Gems both horrified and impressed, and you won’t be a better person for it. Worst or best of all, you’ll discover that you can empathize with it.

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noelmu · 7 years ago

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WEEK(S) IN REVIEW 8/6/17-8/19/17

Right before we left on our cruise last month, two of my regular outlets reached out to me with assignments for interviews. I had to turn both down, because the likely timing of each was going to coincide with me being literally out to sea. One was with Arcade Fire frontman Win Butler, and was supposed to happen a week before the release of the band’s new album Everything Now. I was disappointed to miss it, because I think that record is half-stellar and half-muddled, and I had a lot of questions about how it came to be. Fortunately for me, both The A.V. Club and Arcade Fire’s publicist were willing to wait until I got back, even though that meant the interview ultimately happened after the LP was already out.

The other offer was even harder to say no to. My New York Times editor Gilbert Cruz was in contact with David Lynch’s staff about doing an interview specifically focused on Lynch’s work as the sound designer for his TV series Twin Peaks. Lynch doesn’t do a lot of press, and he’s not big on broad, contemplative conversations about the meaning of his art, so both his willingness to talk and the narrow topic were rare opportunities. I was thrilled then when the back-and-forth on setting the interview up lasted long enough for me to get back home and get back into the mix.

I was uncommonly anxious about the Lynch interview, in part because It happened toward the end of the day on a busy Monday (the kids’ first day of school), and in part I wasn’t sure what I was going to get from the director during the 15 minutes I’d been granted. But as it turned out, Mr. Lynch was enthusiastic, thoughtful, gracious, and funny, giving more detailed answers than I’d expected.

The interview was trimmed by Gilbert, and then again by another NYT editor -- first to make it a little tighter, and then to make it short enough to run in the paper’s print edition. Nothing of substance was lost. The overall thrust and themes of my chat with Mr. Lynch is there in the finished version; and given how popular the article has been on social media since it posted on Thursday, I think Lynch fans are enjoying it.

(Aside: The interview posted literally about an hour before my wife Donna went under sedation for a colonoscopy. It was a routine “hey, you’re an old person now” exploratory procedure, unrelated to any health concerns, but the whole process was still a highly stressful multi-day hassle for both of us, and the enthusiastic reaction to the Lynch piece helped ease both of our anxieties that particular day. So thanks to all of y’all who read the interview and commented on Thursday.)

Anyway, since Lynch talks so rarely, I thought I’d share two extended exchanges that were cut from the published interview, plus one aside that was part of a longer response that did make it into the Times. There’s nothing essential here, but I enjoyed the way he phrased these responses.

For example, while describing the process of choosing sound effects, Lynch said to me, “Y’know, there can be very bad doorknob sounds. It just breaks the thing. So you try to get the doorknob’s sound to live in the picture, and be correct.” I love savor the plainspoken poetry of that.

That was the aside. Here are the two exchanges:

NYT: There have been several scenes this season where dialogue repeats, and people or machines will say the same phrases over and over: like with Johnny Horne’s malfunctioning teddy bear robot, or the Woodsman’s speech on the radio. When you add in the music and the background effects, those scenes are almost like a musical composition.

Lynch: Yeah! In a weird way it is. It’s beautiful. With the sound and the dialogue, it has to be a certain loudness. It has to be a certain way. If you want it to feel real, cleaning the dialogue and preparing the dialogue is a real art. You can do things to remove bad background sounds but if you eat into the voice, it doesn’t sound right. It’s a tricky, tricky business to get it all sounding right and clean. But it is like music. And the way people talk, y’know, that’s so important. If they’re talking real quietly, or if they’re talking the way I am now. Or the pauses in between. It’s a lot like music.

NYT: Can you compare it to picking out notes on a piano until you hear the one that makes the melody?

Lynch: In a way. Y’know, you have an idea. It’s like when you read a thing and then an image pops into your head, or however that happens. You’re seeing a picture in your brain like on TV. Everybody has this experience. If you’ve got an idea for a chair, there’s a chair. You see it. Then you look closer and you see that it’s made of wood. Then you see that it’s got, y’know, some cushion on it. And it’s a certain proportion. So then when you build a chair you just follow that idea, and that’s the way it is.

You have an idea that you’ve fallen in love with, and now you’ve got to translate that to cinema. Every single element that makes it up, you’ve got to check it against the idea. It involves lots and lots of talking, and lots of looking, and talking some more, and getting everybody on the same path. Little by little bit, you start getting this stuff that’s true to the idea. And you just stay on that as good as you can.

So there you go. Both the Lynch and Butler interviews are linked below in full, if you missed them earlier this week. I also have two lengthy essays for The Week about new Netflix shows, a well-received Very Special Episode column about Friends, and an eclectic assortment of reviews.

I went into August having decided not to pitch anything, figuring that with fall coming I’d either already be getting calls to do September preview pieces or I’d just spend the month selling DVDs to pay the bills -- while cleaning the house, getting the kids ready for the new school year, and helping Donna through her complicated schedule of semester-prep, academic research, and doctor visits.

So far hough August has turned out to contain a good mix of this and that: a lot of personal business, but also a lot of rare opportunities and lucrative assignments. Below are first fruits of the month. There should be more to come.

The A.V. Club Interview: Win Butler on why he ignores the internet, and why he expects Arcade Fire to stick around A Very Special Episode: A very special Friends from 1997 debated the meaning of “on a break” Movie Review: The powerful Whose Streets? looks back at the unrest in Ferguson Best Of: The best movies of 1997 (I wrote about The Apostle, Breakdown, and Fast Cheap & Out Of Control)

The Los Angeles Times Movie Review: The Farthest pays homage to Voyager, and human potential Movie Review: Siri-type app turns lethal in Bedeviled Movie Review: The Ice Cream Truck soft serves its horror Movie Review: Lycan recycles werewolf and horror formulas with little payoff Movie Review: Muddled sci-fi thriller What Happened To Monday is still fun and has Noomi Rapace times seven New In Home Entertainment: Alien: Covenant is one of the best of the Alien franchise movies New In Home Entertainment: Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 is less surprising but more visual than the first

The New York Times Interview: “I Love Winds": David Lynch on the Sound of Twin Peaks TV Review: Twin Peaks Season 3, Episode 13: Starting Position  TV Review: Twin Peaks Season 3, Episode 14: Who Is The Dreamer?

Rolling Stone The 25 Greatest South Park Moments, Updated (I wrote the season 19 premiere and finale, and Mr. Garrison becoming president in season 20)

The Week My teen son has autism. Here's what Netflix's new dramedy Atypical gets wrong. The Defenders blessedly abandons the super-hero backstory

#Week In Review

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edrecoveryprobs · 7 years ago

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RE: Anons (finally!!) 1-8

In this post:

#2: How to handle surgery-related diets

#4: our fave recovery blogs

#5: dealing with bullying about vitiligo

#8: Recovering through the transition to college + how to challenge romanticizing ED thoughts

[CW behavior mention]

1. hi, sorry to bother you but I'm nervous I might have an eating disorder? I've been hospitalized for malnutrition in the past, but I just wasn't eating enough. the behaviors now are like binge purge restrict so on so on. I've been eating about [x] calories a day now because I want to lose weight without binging/ purging. should i tell someone about this, or is this normal?

FAQ #3 but yes definitely tell someone who can help!

2. I have to have a endoscopy/colonoscopy in a few weeks, and the prep for it has me completely on edge. In order to have the procedure done, I have to eat a restricted diet for a week, not eat for [x amount of time], and then take a super powerful laxative. My doctor also recommended I go on a weight loss diet, even though I'm still at a healthy BMI. After being recovered for several years, I've been struggling with a relapse, and I'm afraid that this will push me over the edge. Any tips on how to deal?

Sorry this is so late! Here’s advice for anyone else in your situation.

First, tell your doctor! Ask which elements of this are most important, and which can be worked around. Your ED is a complicating condition, so they should really know about it -- they’re treating YOU, not just your colon.

Second, give your laxatives to someone you trust, preferably someone who lives with you. If you can, enlist their support with mealtimes as well. If you get really sad at the end of the meal bc you can feel yourself falling back into that old place, that’s okay. Have them remind you that this is temporary, and that food is not as black-and-white as your ED wants it to be. Cede responsibility for figuring out your intake to this trusted person. Also -- make sure no one lets you know your weight at any point! Perhaps they can tell you when you’re back at your normal weight but that’s it!! The less you can obsessively track, the better.

Third, get into therapy NOW. Once this diet is over and everything gets quiet is when the ED stuff really starts to hit. I find that usually my recovery phase is ½ as long as my restrictive phase if I’m in therapy, and 2x as long if I’m not.

Fourth, acknowledge that this is unusually difficult and that struggling with a difficult thing doesn’t negate all the work you’ve been doing for years. You’ve built a solid foundation that has a good chance of keeping you stable through this rough time, and even if that starts to crack you have those same foundation-building skills to get it back to good.

I hope things went well for you <3

3. your blog always makes me feel valid and safe. thank you.

You’re so welcome! I’m glad it helps <3

4. Hey!! Do you know of any other positive recovery blogs? Im too scared to look in the tags bc they're full of pro ana things :( I love your blog, thank you!!! ❤❤

Fyoured was my fave, idk if they’re still active though! There’s also scienceofeds but that’s mostly summarizing current medical literature on it. Edreocoverystarfish and clinicallydepressedpug are also great! You can also check out our reblog tag

5. I've been suffering from vitiligo practically my whole life and it's something that affects me both psychically and emotionally. My brother often makes fun of me because of it, his favourite name for me is ''Michael Jackson"

That’s so shitty of him. If it helps, siblings tend to be rather shitty as they’re growing up, because it usually takes like 15-20 years to learn the basic emotional skills it takes to really be there for someone you love. Some people (especially masculine-identified people because of the social penalties associated) take longer to learn or never do at all. That’s not your fault.

For what it’s worth, siblings tend to make fun of whatever your biggest insecurities are, because humans learn how to affect others’ emotions before they learn how to affect them positively. Mine was acne for a while, especially since I struggle with dermatillomania (skin-picking) -- my siblings would wait for a Papa John’s commercial of a pepperoni pizza, point to it, and say “hey look, it’s Selena! HA HA HA!!”. My sister was really insecure about her hair being parted exactly down the middle, so my other sister and I would make fun of her for that. What I mean to say is, it’s not about the vitiligo. It’s about your brother not having learned yet how to NOT be a rude little shit.

Also, there’s no absolute that different colored patches of skin are ugly or bad. Calico cats are so cute! Freckles are adorable! Winnie Harlow is so talented! Find reminders in your life and/or online that different isn’t bad, and that this difference can be jaw-droppingly gorgeous or heart-breakingly adorable or lovably cute. It’s all about how you wear it.

And finally, know that love is always a choice -- including self-love. Rather, it is a combination of tons of small choices. Am I treating myself with love? Do I talk to myself lovingly, the way I would talk to a friend who was in my situation? Do I appreciate what my skin does for me, pigment or no pigment? Am I cultivating a life full of things and people that validate that love? It’s hard at first, it always is, but once you start it becomes a really awesome habit. Here is a great place to start (adjust pronouns as appropriate).

Sending you lots of love <3

[CW poop mention]

6. Hi, this incredibly embarrassing, but I recently experienced some personal trauma and so I am having problems with eating... Mostly restrictive and the inability to swallow some foods. However, I am having some digestive problems, mostly issues with skid marks. I was wondering if this is common and if there is a remedy for it... This is the first time I have experienced something like this. Sorry.

First, I really honestly don’t think anyone goes through their life without ever getting skid marks lol so you’re not a freak at all. I get them from time to time and I don’t really have digestive problems. Usually it just means I need to eat more fiber or adjust the balance of my diet. Also, this might sound weird, but anal kegels might help! The anal ring is all muscles, after all, and if restricting is a problem then all muscles have probably atrophied a little bit, including those. And finally, it might just be bad toilet paper. There’s lots of kinds that are practically useless and turn into a pulpy mess instead of doing their damn job. If you’re at home, consider getting stronger toilet paper (2-ply etc) or carrying baby wipes in a purse or backpack. Black underwear can also help with the insecurity aspect.

7. I love your blog so much! It helps knowing what other people are going through while making it a little humorous. Stay awesome!!

:D will do!

[CW romanticizing relapse, negative body image] 8. I have been battling with my ed for [x amount of time] now. In [y]th grade I got so tiny, I felt so pretty. I had never been skinny until then. I gained a lot of weight from being on so many medications, and now I am at an average weight but I am so unhappy with my body. I still struggle with purging and skipping meals. I start college this fall and I am terrified that I am going to let ana control me since no one will notice. I just want to feel beautiful and I know I wont until I'm tiny…

Something I’ve been going through recently is trying to lovingly remind myself when these thoughts pop up: I’m not believing this stuff because it’s true, I believe it because I’m literally crazy. It’s somewhat counterintuitive, but those beliefs can really take ahold of you if you take them seriously. But it’s just a symptom of the mental illness you know you already have. It’s like if you were prone to visual or audial hallucinations -- they feel real. They look real. They sound real. Of course you’d believe there are lions chasing you right now, because all of the senses you usually trust are indicating that that’s true. But also, if you can use the knowledge you have to try to see past them, you can actually interact much better with your environment.

Facts: you feel unhappy with your body. You still struggle with disordered behaviors. You start college this fall. College represents a big challenge to your ability to keep ana under control.

Beliefs: I can’t feel good unless I am thin. I can’t help but do what my ED says. I must keep this all a secret. I can’t get any help.

In the past 5 years, there have been times you’ve felt happy. Even when you weren’t thin. State memory means it’s hard to think of times you’ve felt differently, but it’s just a fact about human brains that we can’t feel one feeling for very long without switching it up.

Also, I guarantee you that you weren’t happy then. It’s so easy to romanticize thinness -- we see thinness romanticized literally ad nauseam -- but it’s such an empty feeling to be stuck in your ED. It’s so hopeless. It feels so crappy to walk into a restaurant with your friends, to see them all laughing and having fun when all you can think about is how terrifying it is to order food and how much you want to run away. When I really think about how awful each moment is with an ED, how I’m constantly either freaking out about eating or dreading the next time I’ll have to eat, how I had to numb myself constantly because reality felt so bleak.... Thin just isn’t worth it.

And let’s be clear: thin isn’t pretty. It’s just thin. Thin people CAN be pretty, but so can people of size, and so can very muscular people, and so can people whose body shape is more average. And eating disorders will make you thin at the expense of everything your body needs to maintain itself. It’s like insisting that houses are only thin if they have columns out front, so you hack off the front door, peel off the siding, pry up all the furniture, and stack up this pile of garbage to make some columns. You’re better off with a column-less but functioning house than one full of holes and empty inside.

Before you get to college, look up the mental health resources. Sign up for counseling through your school ASAP!!! Counseling tends to fill up as midterms approach, so this way you’ll be covered in case things go downhill later. Also, TELL people you trust. This you must do even if everything in you screams not to, because everything in you will scream not to, because your ED brain is actually trying to kill you. The more trusted people you tell, the less you have to fight it on your own, and the more resources you have to fight it. ALSO, see if there is an ED support group or a body positivity group on campus. Being around people who can gently call out disordered thoughts is a huge relief! And finally, explore other things that make you feel beautiful. Some people like makeup, and seeing how much of appearance is just illusion. Some feel beautiful when they know that they are strong and agile. Experiment with your clothing. Cut or dye your hair. Now is the time to test out different styles, and those are so much more fun to work on than calorie counting.

Lastly, you have more to do than be tiny. Mice are tiny. 5 cent candies are tiny. Pinky toe nails are tiny. What can you do that’s new? That helps you learn? That’s helpful? That’s exciting? Ana ignores all of that because of an obsession with BEING one thing. But ana doesn’t know shit about all the weird, cool, funny, wild stuff you can do. Show her what she’s missing.

Best of luck to you, and if you find yourself struggling in college don’t be afraid to message us back. We’re here for you throughout your recovery process <3

#surgery #laxatives #recovery and college #vitiligo #fanmail #skid marks #anonymous #ask

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liberallifeblog · 8 years ago

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Your First Colonoscopy! What to Expect

Whee! Time for a Tube Up Your Tuchus!

image: wikimedia commons

By Crabby McSlacker So, some perspective here: for people with serious illnesses who've been through hardcore, painful, debilitating, invasive medical procedures? A colonoscopy is probably child's play. (Although let's be clear, that's just an expression. If your child actually plays this way? We need to talk). But for most people, there's at least a little trepidation. And for many, if statistics are to be believed, that fear is significant enough to skip the procedure entirely! Well sure, it could save your life and all, but really? Do you have to? There are actually some alternative colon cancer screening methods. But since I didn't get to use one of them myself, discussion of these will be brief, and possibly a little bitter. I've had a couple of colonoscopies now. (And an additional bowel prep due to my hysterectomy.) My second colonoscopy was just a few days ago and the memories are still fresh. So I'm thinking it's time to share some info and observations and tips? This is after all, a health blog, although with recent posts on tattoos and winter travel, it's easy to miss that part. Here's the thing: for some people the whole colonoscopy thing is a breeze. For a very few unlucky folks: it's horrible. For most people I know, myself included: the procedure and the prep are somewhere in the middle. Decidedly unpleasant but not intolerable. But being a whiner myself, I get tired of all those public-spirited accounts of the colonoscopy process that make it sound entirely innocuous in order to get you to go ahead and get yours. I'm not going to lie to you just to make sure you go do it. You need to and you will be really glad you did it! But it's not exactly fun. Here's at least one chronic complainer's take on what's involved. And for those of you who have already joined this exclusive club? I'll be curious if your experience was similar or if there are all kinds of different colonoscopy experiences. Warning: due to mature and disgusting subject matter, reader discretion is advised.

Why You Should Suck it Up and Get a Colonoscopy (or Other Screening Test)

According to the NIH, colon cancer is the second leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States. This blows me away, considering how slow-growing and preventable colon cancer generally is. And while overall rates are going down because of better screening, rates in people under 50 are going up. Environmental toxins? Diet? Bad karma? Who knows, but it means that screening, and even early screening, are more important than ever.

What Are Some Alternatives to Colonoscopy to Screen for Colon Cancer?

Home Stool-Testing Options: These include FIT (fecal immunochemical test) and Colorguard. There are pretty obvious upsides to not having to prep your bowels, get doped up with sedatives, and have a stranger ram a scope up your butt to see what lurks inside. But the downsides include less accuracy, and a need for more frequent testing. Do you want to send in a smear of your poop to a lab every year? (Or, in the case of the pricier ColorGuard test, every three years?) On the other hand, if you are at low risk and would otherwise skip screening entirely, these are definitely worth looking into. Sigmoidoscopy: These are in many ways similar to a colonoscopy. You still have to do bowel prep, and there's a scope involved, but the doctors' don't look at nearly as much once they're up in there. This may mean less sedation is needed, but you have to wonder: what's the point of going through all that if they're only going to look at the left half of your colon? Virtual Colonoscopy: This alternative does not generally require sedation; an x-ray technician obtains images of your colon from outside your body, not from inside. Sounds great, right? But virtual colonoscopies still involve bowel prep, plus you have to swallow a contrast agent. You will still have a tube inserted where the sun don't shine, but not nearly as far up. It's there to inflate your bowels so they can get a better look. Fun times, right? There are others possibilities in the works too, stay tuned! Like camera pills and, even more exciting, blood tests for cancer that detect cancers in early stages anywhere in your body.

When it's Time for Your Colonoscopy

1. Carefully Pick Your Provider or Facility This may not be an option depending on your insurance or geography, but if it is... there does seem to be a difference in various facilities in terms both of expertise and patient-coddling. Some clinics are brusque and factory-like, others are extremely solicitous and try to make the experience as tolerable as possible. Ask friends who've been through it, talk to doctors, read reviews if you can find any. If you are high-maintenance like Crabby is, you will appreciate having expert doctors and kind nurses and assistants to hold your hand, listen to your concerns (however misguided or hysterical), and get reassurance that you that will indeed survive relatively unscathed. 2. Don't Blow Off the Instructions, Read 'Em When You Get 'Em If you are freaked out about the whole thing, you may attempt to pretend it isn't happening. Totally understandable! Yet if in order to maintain this illusion you avoid the literature you've been given? You will run into trouble. Sorry, you can't wait til the last minute to deal with the details, or you'll have to reschedule and probably pay a hefty cancellation fee. Some of the prep starts a week in advance, with certain foods (mainly nuts and seeds), medications, and supplements you need to avoid. Then a few days out there are even more prohibitions. There is also a prescription you'll have to fill, and lead-time can be essential on this one. My first bowel prep they RAN OUT of the Rx I wanted and I had to drink twice as much of an old-school kind because that was all they had. Also, while there are "generic" prep instructions like I'm giving here, each practitioner has their own take on it, so read what THEY send, don't rely on The Google. So steel yourself, make yourself read the damn thing when they send it, then mark your calendar or send yourself a reminder or whatever on the first date when you're supposed to start doing things differently.

Colonoscopy Prep

Part 1: The Part Where You Starve Yourself OK, technically you won't be starving. The "clear liquid" diet you have to be on the day before you go in will actually let you drink and eat a days worth of calories in the form of Seven Up and chicken broth and jello. (But not red or purple jello). A clear liquid diet is no fun. You can have coffee or tea (yay!) but can't put any milk in it. You will feel cranky and deprived no matter how much of that stuff you have. But here is an important tip: Get a few calories, even if they're stupid, pointless, ridiculous calories. If you are trying to lose weight or are otherwise mindful of calories or carbs, this may seem like an excellent opportunity to bank a lot of missed meals. You can't eat normal food anyway. And really, is Seven-Up any more satisfying than club soda or iced tea or a diet drink? Why not just have a no-sugar beverage instead? Nothing you're going to have under the "clear liquids" category, whether caloric or not, resembles actual food. So why not just hydrate and skip the sugar? Well, a little of this caloric deprivation is fine, especially if you are used to fasting. You will probably have a pretty low-cal day just because of the "no fun" aspect. But I discovered something interesting: Even though I occasionally do some intermittent fasting , and I'm totally used to functioning normally without calories for a day? Total fasting can be a really bad idea before a colonoscopy because you need a reasonably strong stomach for disgusting nature of the upcoming bowel prep. The combo of the laxative regimen below, combined with low blood sugar from fasting was, for me, pretty much a disaster, even though I was very conscientious about hydrating. So my advice: get at least half a days calories in you, even if they're of necessity mostly sugar. Part 2: Choke Down the Most Disgusting Fluid You Will Ever Consume in Your Life

Photo: Missy Meyer

There seem to be many variations in formulas. I've tried three: the first was the hilariously named GoLytely. Yep, I think that's pronounced "Go Lightly." Could anything be further from the truth? Don't kid yourself: you will not be "going lightly." I've also had "HalfLytely," which is a version of GoLytely that requires a smaller volume of fluid and, as I recall, some pills. Neither of these taste totally horrible, not that they're pleasant. But the texture is icky and the grossness factor builds exponentially as you force yourself to drink more and more of the liquid. Of the two I'd go with the Half version. My third, and least favorite, was SuPrep. It required the least amount of dilution and the overall volume was the smallest. But the taste was horrific. The grapey faux-fruit overlay did not conceal the essential bitter, metallic and salty grossness it. It was a two step process, and for reasons I will bore you with below I would never, ever, ever, ever do that again. Part 3: Station Yourself Near the Toilet and Pray for Mercy (Sensitive readers: you may want to skip these next paragraphs). Again, the first two times were not so bad with the GoLytely variants. More fluid was involved in the ingestion process, so the clean-out was not painful, just extremely thorough. Sort of amazing and amusing really. But it was all over the day before the procedure, and I slept just fine the night before. This time, the SuPrep was a nightmare. I took the first dose, as instructed, at 5 p.m. the night before my procedure, but it only worked little by little. By bedtime I was exhausted but I was terrified to sleep because it was still wreaking havoc on my innards, and I was petrified I'd soil the bed. (I managed not to, thank god). But I had to get up repeatedly during the night, and as of 5 a.m. the next morning, I was still running to the john from the first dose. And I still had one more dose to come. I briefly considered doing a swan dive out the third floor window instead, but then the whole torture of the first half of the prep would have been wasted and I don't know if 3 floors would even be fatal. The second dose made me feel so nauseated that I threw it all up an hour later, and I feared that my whole procedure would be cancelled because I still wasn't entirely, um, "cleansed." I was still using the restroom minutes before the procedure.

What Happens During Your Colonoscopy?

Sedation: You change into a hospital gown (I was allowed to keep my socks and bra on) and they stick you with an IV in your arm or on the back of your hand. Or in my case, they stick you and stick you and stick you and stick you. My veins are shy that way, initially defeating even the most veteran of nurses, but eventually they always manage to get in. At this point, patient accounts vary. Most people get conscious sedation, which is supposed to relax you, ease discomfort, and induce amnesia. A few people are so resistant to the drugs they remember the whole thing, and some of these people report more than mild discomfort. Yet I've read that most people don't experience much distress at all. But see the catch here? Personal accounts of an entirely painless procedure are inherently unreliable. Most patients have no clue because they don't remember! And I suspect there's something of a health industry conspiracy to maintain the illusion that because you don't remember pain, there wasn't any. My first colonoscopy I definitely felt a sharp poke at the first bend and yelped. No memories after that. The second time? The last thing I remember was the request to roll over on my side. So I don't remember them snaking a tube up my colon but I'm confident they did. In fact, procedures were undertaken each time involving hot snares. I can't imagine I enjoyed these, but I was pretty doped up, so it's possible I didn't feel 'em much. No way to know, right? Which creeps me out more than a little. Another tip: tell the staff before they sedate you if you've had bad experiences in the past with nausea and vomiting following anesthesia. I have, so they added anti-nausea medication to the IV, and hallelujah, it worked! Not barfy at all afterwards.

After Your Colonoscopy

You have to have someone there to take you home, and don't make any big plans afterwards. My first time we'd scheduled dinner with friends and I was practically face down in my plate of tacos and we had to leave early to get me back to bed. Many people feel only a little groggy and are fairly functional afterwards. I am so NOT one of those people. I become a zombified lump of useless humanity with limited ability to speak or move, though my wife claims I am quite adorable in this state. All I can do is sleep. Possibly this is because the staff know a high-maintenance whiner when they see one coming and they dope me up accordingly. This time I was even more out of it than before, and it became quickly apparent when I tried to leave that I needed a wheelchair to get to the car. Once home, my patient wife got me to bed and I went straight to sleep in my clothes and slept all afternoon. I woke up for a couple hours, ate, and went back to bed and slept like a dead person through the whole night. But the next morning... It was over and I felt great. I was Queen of the World! This is a cool thing about a colonoscopy. You survive it, and it's like a rite of passage. Even more than that stupid AARP card you get in the mail, your post-colonoscopy status qualifies for full membership in the Sensible and Responsible Middle-Aged Person Club. And let's stop apologizing for that, ok? We Responsible Middle-Aged People rock and we are setting ourselves up to be healthy, vital, and Bad-Ass Old People. We should all have wild tribal post-colonoscopy ceremonies or something a few days after the procedure. What do you say, maybe we do some jello tequila shooters and play our old Rolling Stone albums at full volume and sing and dance and howl at the moon? Well, as long as moonrise is early enough than we can be in bed by nine p.m.

What If They Find Something?

This will be the subject for a future post, since I'm one of those people who Has Things to Find. I'm still awaiting pathology results, but I can say this much: Don't panic! It's the people who have these things and don't know about them who are in trouble, not you. I'm thinking maybe I'll follow up later with a post about polyps, diverticulosis and hemorrhoids since I am lucky enough to host these. I'm sure all you readers can't wait to read about these and all the other fascinating aspects of colon health that we could discuss! Or, um, maybe not. Do you dread your first colonoscopy or have you already survived it? Any other medical procedures or tests that strike fear in your heart? Your First Colonoscopy! What to Expect posted first on http://ift.tt/2kDxLY4

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