Jan. 26: Choosing joy (between clenched teeth)

My self-improvement effort this year is to choose joy; when faced with a situation that has the potential to super-duper piss me off, I want to try NOT to be pissed off. I don’t know if that’s how everyone else defines the “choosing joy” thing, but that’s how I’m doing it, because it has the greatest potential to being life-changing for me. I realize this is a very lofty goal. ;)

When crossed, my usual first reaction is to defend myself. This might be because I’m human, but also because dissension and confrontation make my heart beat too fast and I prefer for everyone to always be on the same side for always and ever ever ever… or at least not to be assholes. During the State of the Union address last week, when so many Republicans refused to applaud or even pay attention to what the president was saying? Oh. Em. Gee. That made me furious, not because they disagreed with the president (that’s their right), but because their behavior was completely childish. And while I know we’ll never reach consensus on how this country should best be run, do we have to be assholes?

(That answer for many would, apparently, be “Yes, because Obama.”)

  Choose joy, Jen. Choose it. It’s right there. Embrace it.

Ooooooommmmmmmmm…

Sometimes I read the news and think, “Why is this news?” because the issue seems so the-answer-is-clear-why-would-anyone-argue-with-this? straightforward. Example: “bee stings hurt!” Duh. They do. That’s probably 95 percent fact (I suppose some people like ‘em). Not news.

Articles about the importance of getting our kids vaccinated so we don’t revive long-dead pandemic diseases? WHY IS THIS NEWS? It’s news because people have chosen not to vaccinate after a few celebrities said vaccinations are bad. Not scientists, or physicians, or people who actually know what they’re talking about, but people who are beautiful and happen to have a platform.

Brilliant parenting move, people. Brilliant move, too, as a member of the human race.

I take these irresponsible decisions personally, because my immune system was completely zapped during chemotherapy. I did my best to stay away from places where I could easily be infected—airplanes, crowds in general—but couldn’t avoid the occasional risk. The idea that someone I encountered might be carrying measles, and my body couldn’t have fought it off? Geez. It’s scary to think there are people out there who don’t even know they have a weakened immune system, and they go on a little ol’ vacation and come home with the Plague. (Worst souvenir ever.)

There was a piece in The Onion last week about parents’ choice to immunize their kids. It’s satire, but only barely.

So, I’d love to choose joy when I read about WHY people aren’t vaccinating their kids, but it ain’t easy.

Same thing, though slightly less significant for the short term, with, saaaay, climate change deniers. How do people so easily disregard scientific facts? And how is that EVER a political issue?

It kinda reminds me about a Sabbath School teacher who insisted dinosaurs, like unicorns, weren’t real because they weren’t mentioned in the Bible. I remember wondering then, even at nine years old, what those huge fossils archaeologists had found were, if dinosaurs never existed.

Goodness and gracious. Serenity now.

My biggest challenge, obviously, is choosing joy when I see absolutely no joy in or around a situation. It becomes even more challenging when the situation involves people who have attacked me personally. I asked a very wise friend about how to deal with these things better, and she assured me that karma is a very real thing; if I can believe that all people eventually get what they deserve, I can probably back off from my need to exact revenge on the mean ones. She was very right.

I’m not perfect, and there’s still time for me to get fed up with choosing joy, but nowadays, when rotten stuff comes along and I just can’t get it out of my head, my method of coping goes like this:

1. I remind myself that we get out of life what we put in. When I’m especially hurt or angry, I like to think of driving the karma bus through a parking lot full of mean people. (I don’t think that’s exactly what my wise friend had in mind, but hey, it works for me.)
2. I watch cat videos on the Internet, read quotes about kindness and authenticity, pet my critters, cook stuff, or clean.
3. I make a conscious choice not to be angry, hurt, or sad about things/people not in my control.
4. Sometimes it works. More often than not, it works.

If you’re looking to be less critical and/or bothered by the things around you, here’s my advice to you:

1. Ignore it if you can.
2. Distract yourself.
3. Express yourself in a way that will not hurt others (write in a journal, create something, scream into a pillow)
4. If possible, find a way to fix the things that bother you—as Gandhi said, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.”
5. If those things don’t work, avoid people and weapons and alcohol and posting on Facebook. In other words, don’t be an asshole.

Take it from me, because, y’know, I have no idea what I’m talking about.

Jun. 14: True facks

Jack did an animal speech last week for a year-end second grade requirement. Do you remember giving a speech in second grade? Me neither. This one required a poster and comb-bound report, as well—something else I don’t remember having to do in second grade. Like Katie’s covered wagon assignment, I think this is just a test for the parents. Nevertheless…

Jack’s chosen topic was the creepiest creature he could think of: a vampire bat. I printed out a bunch of data from National Geographic and encyclopedia.com, and he chose the points he wanted to use in his report. It was pretty funny listening to him read through all of it, because he’d find something “really gross, Mom!” and read it to me right away. I was all, THIS IS WHAT ‘LEARNING’ IS, BOY, AND SOMETIMES IT’S KINDA COOL.

Except for printing out the pictures he chose, I didn’t help him much with his poster and hardly saw it until he brought it home. Fortunately, Mr. N liked it, because I was a little bit embarrassed when I gave it a good look this afternoon. Shall we dissect it? We shall.

All the photos are clickable for bigger versions.

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The entire poster

Jack picked out a fitting Lettering Delights alphabet for the header.
He asked me to adjust the colors to be less Halloween-y and more bloody.
Then he drew in the blood drops and wrote “Facks about the…” above. I told him
the correct spelling of “facts” and he shrugged (how can a misspeller such as he be my boy???),
but it appears he corrected it at school.

He also drew in a crescent moon dripping blood. Why? I don’t know.

I love that he captioned this “vampire bat labled,” even though (again!) I wish
he’d asked for a little help on the spelling. Nothing like superfluous captions, right?
But what I really love about it is that he drew nipples and a belly button
on the bat. Bats are mammals, so they feed their babies with their boobies.
Duh, Mom!

Here’s another one of my favorite parts. All the red drawings are dead animals
that the bat has bitten. Now, forget the fact that being bit by a vampire bat
does not necessarily kill the animal; it’s way cooler if they’re dead.
I also like the proportions of the animals; that is one big-ass pig!
He made a big deal in his speech about how it’s rare for humans to be bitten
by vampire bats, so that explains the “no” symbol over the sad person who is “screm”-ing.

 

Another superfluous caption.
This picture convinced Jack that vampire bats have only four teeth because that’s all he could see.
I see at least seven, but whatevs.

See? Four teeth.
I do think the drawing of echolocation was pretty creative.

Really?
They’re babies?
In a hand?
Thanks, Science Guy!

A world diagram of where vampire bats live was one of Jack’s priorities
for his poster, but apparently the green areas alone weren’t clear
enough. He also added an explanatory title and wrote that they’re
in “South Amermica” and “Centra Mexico.”
And is that the International Date Line he drew on there?
That is one questionably brilliant boy.

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I am soooo saving this poster for someday when we can all have a good chuckle over all its parts. Right now Vic and I are the only ones who get how goofy it is.

May 4: Kinda gamma-y

I’m like Spiderman. Or Godzilla. They were radioactive, right? Now I am too!

I even got a certificate that says so in case I have to go through security at the airport today. It’s only good for a day, though, and it clearly states that the amount of radiation in me poses no danger to the public, so really, what good does it do me at all? Pffft.

This is all because I had my CT/PET scan today to see what our next move will be in my cancer treatment. I’ve had several CT scans, but today was my first PET scan. Although the procedure was similar to a CT, the information a PET gives us is very different (here’s an idiot’s guide to a PET scan, if you’re interested)—I’m eager to see the pictures.

One of the strangest things about the procedure today was all the nuclear symbols around the machines. There were a lot more than what you see in x-ray or CT areas. Disposal containers were thick, lead, and kept sealed tightly. The syringe that held the radioactive tracer thingie they injected into me was encased in lead. Even the cotton balls were, um, well, okay, they were just regular cotton balls. But everything else was veeery nuclear power plant.

What I hated most about the PET scan was having to follow a high protein/low carb diet for 24 hours beforehand. It was not fun. I’ve eaten like that for weeks at a time, actually, but wasn’t prepared for it this time and hadn’t stocked up on bacon in a while. It made me grouchy, all that not eating bacon. But even worse was not getting coffee this morning. As soon as my scan was finished this morning, Victor and I went out for a lovely breakfast in which we drank coffee and drank coffee and ate potatoes and drank more coffee.

The weird thing is that the 24 hours leading up to becoming radioactive were way more inconvenient than all the hours since then.

Results of the PET scan will be shared as soon as we can get our hands on ‘em.

July 31: Science question

Grrrr... I have three huge mosquito bites on my shins. So shaving my legs would be a bad thing, right? I would hate to risk slicing the top of the bite off, exposing myself to possible infection and gangrene and death. That could kinda suck.

I occasionally get normal mosquito bites; they're small and itchy for a day or so and then they disappear. And sometimes everyone around me gets a bunch of bites and I don't any. But usually I end up with these huge bites that look like I've been sleeping in a nest of spiders. Here are 40-some remedies for these very annoying summertime afflictions. I don't know if any of them really work so you can try them out for yourself and get back to me.

Which reminds me, here's another reason I won't go camping: I have been bitten by a mosquito TWICE on the eyelid, both times while sleeping outside in our "great" nature. Pffft.

And here's a really dumb mosquito killing game.

Mosquito Bite

Now, how long can I use the mosquito bites as an excuse not to shave my legs? I mean, I might as well get some kind of good out of this.

—Jen

June 29: Call me "science idiot"

Here's a quiz that'll make you feel like a big dummy. I certainly did not do well.



(Yes, I know this takes you to an online dating site but it has some fun quizzes so check it out even if you're not ISO someone.)