Saturday, October 27, 2007
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
hair brush fires
downward turn
when hair is wild and won't lie flat and takes sharp turns on the left side of the head then does a U-ie in another spot and is smooth as silk in the front and like curly wirey pubes on the crown, when hair does what it naturally does without Product (hair antidepressants?) when it goes up instead of down like smooth heavy weighty asian hair..when it's light and brittle and curly and inconsistent and frizzy from the Ukraine and defies gravity, the hair goes up.....and the mood goes down. nancy's absolutely positive she would've had a much less negative life if they'd had hair irons and better product in the 70s to keep her hair down and her mood up in her formative teenage years.
nancy remembers when her daughter was 7yo and suffered from "hair bumps." the hair was going up (the little parts that don't stay smooth in the ponytail) and the mood went down. every morning. tears and anxiety over this. to the point that nancy sometimes lied and acted like she was fixing it when she wasn't. nancy noticed that this worked just as well - inverse correllations. consoling (lying) words come out, stress goes away. hair to mood. hair goes up, mood goes down, warm words come out, anxiety goes away. can't change gravity. bumps stay where they are. same with nancy's son. when he can't press a goofy piece of 15yo baby fine hair down, when the hair stubbornly stays up, his mood goes down. nancy suggests a baseball cap for him (cover up the stress). baseball cap down on the head, mood goes up.
really tough day 'round the homestead for lots of reasons not the least of which might be the unhealthy air alerts caused by destructive brush fires haphazardly doing their wild up and down damage through southern california mountains and valleys. fires the shade of nancy's shirt. fires as wild and moody and unmanageable as nancy's hair.
when hair is wild and won't lie flat and takes sharp turns on the left side of the head then does a U-ie in another spot and is smooth as silk in the front and like curly wirey pubes on the crown, when hair does what it naturally does without Product (hair antidepressants?) when it goes up instead of down like smooth heavy weighty asian hair..when it's light and brittle and curly and inconsistent and frizzy from the Ukraine and defies gravity, the hair goes up.....and the mood goes down. nancy's absolutely positive she would've had a much less negative life if they'd had hair irons and better product in the 70s to keep her hair down and her mood up in her formative teenage years. nancy remembers when her daughter was 7yo and suffered from "hair bumps." the hair was going up (the little parts that don't stay smooth in the ponytail) and the mood went down. every morning. tears and anxiety over this. to the point that nancy sometimes lied and acted like she was fixing it when she wasn't. nancy noticed that this worked just as well - inverse correllations. consoling (lying) words come out, stress goes away. hair to mood. hair goes up, mood goes down, warm words come out, anxiety goes away. can't change gravity. bumps stay where they are. same with nancy's son. when he can't press a goofy piece of 15yo baby fine hair down, when the hair stubbornly stays up, his mood goes down. nancy suggests a baseball cap for him (cover up the stress). baseball cap down on the head, mood goes up.
really tough day 'round the homestead for lots of reasons not the least of which might be the unhealthy air alerts caused by destructive brush fires haphazardly doing their wild up and down damage through southern california mountains and valleys. fires the shade of nancy's shirt. fires as wild and moody and unmanageable as nancy's hair.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Monday, October 22, 2007
Monday, October 15, 2007
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Friday, October 5, 2007
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
Mayo Clinic
Boundary issues, expiration dates and the exploding mayonnaise.
nancy first learned about expiration dates when she worked in her dad's doctor's office Dr PLOThicKINs aka known as Zaida. he goes with Bubbie in case you haven't figured that out by now. they are getting frightening close to their expiration dates as they remind nancy every day when she doesn't have enough Time for them. but now Zaida really has some health issues and nancy's feeling the reality of it all. she adores her folks even as she struggles with them. she's wants to tell them they've been pulling the age card since they were just a bit older than nancy is now so nancy steels herself against feeling guilty and actually goes a couple days sometimes without checking in on them. she hopes (and she's pretty sure after a couple decades of therapy) that this won't CAUSE their expiration as they would like her to believe. she'll live dangerously and accept this bit of guilt just to miss a couple lectures from Zaida on however she's failing him lately. actually....this whole mortality thing has kicked everyone's butt into some more respectful behavior all around.
nancy reads writes all this with a little more sadness and reality today. zaida really DOES have a small cancer as Bubbie made her imminently aware of last weekend when she stormed into nancy's house yelling "HE's GOT CANCER!!" it was all nancy could do not to say: well you've been buckin' for this for a few years....not for him to have cancer. oh no. just for a legitimate reason to make nancy feel very shitty. and guess what? it worked. back to this later.....we're still waiting for biopsy results and dr. zaida and dr. brother think it's probably not that bad, thank god. that's not gonna stop bubbie from milking it.
When someone died in Dr PLOThicKINs office, their file wore a little sticker with the word Expired. this happened often in that office not because he was a bad doc (he was the Best and the Brightest) but because he is an oncologist so people die (nancy's college microbiology prof in college confirmed that Cancer is indeed a mutation and if you live long that will happen...) when working at dad's office (meaning zaida's, dr PLOTthicKINs - nancy has mostly become a mother herself so now HER dad has become Zaida because that's what he is to HER kids, it's all very cubist)...anyway, way back when she worked in that office, she had to apply the "expired" stickers on the files after somebody died. and rifle thru lots of insurance forms. she doesn't remember what she got paid to do this or what she was wearing, but it was a very flexible job so that she could do freelance artwork at the same time. it was really nice of her dad to give her this job when she was *struggling* artist/JAP/right brainer who couldn't keep a straight job past 18 months before she felt her life was passing her by....
now nancy has her own right brain child - her son - who is obsessed with expiration dates. not on people -- but on food of any kind. even processed food. chips, condiments, cereals, the occasional yogurt which nancy (the doctor's daughter) explains to her son CAN'T go bad it's already bad, you're SUPPOSED to eat it that way but jonah never believes her. he's got an anxiety/hygiene gene from his dad despite looking and acting mostly like mom. this will be a life long battle.
just the other day he pulled out some Lawry's salt and announced that it had expired three years ago. nancy didn't believe him at first, nor did she think it was relevant when it comes to a flavor enhancer like Lawrys. nancy's brother the psychiatrist has explained to her the scam of expiration dates on psychopharmaceuticals, she's not gonna let a little Lawrys salt from 2004 go to waste. in face she bets Lilly owns Lawrys....
but jonah persisted. he read aloud the 2003 expiration date on the bottle. nancy was busy with something else and decided to let him win this battle (she'll go for the war) and told him to throw it out. she then explained to jonah that Bubbie had probably brought it over 4 years ago to make a turkey breast and nancy forgot to use it after that. she explained (at least to herself) that it's hard to remember to use things when you have no emotional memory of buying it. she has the same trouble in her closet with shoes and sweaters. they only expire when they go out of fashion. and honestly, if you keep them long enough they become "vintage" and cool again - more defiance toward expiration dates and their arbitrariness!! jonah accepted this interpretation and made his eggs with one of five other "fresh" Lawrys that bubbie has brought over since then.
but like any Good Mother...nancy "heard" jonah....(a sign of how healthy is their relationship even if there are spoiled preservatives around the house)...so nancy decided to clean out the condiment drawer today. with gusto she did her best imitation of her organizationally gifted daughter maddy who got those genes from her entitled father who throws Everything out just so he can buy things again--nancy fluidly and efficiently grabbed handfuls of Guilden mustard packages and Best Food Mayo packets from Juniors and Soy sauces from Hop Li and sent them flying into the trash WITHOUT pause...until she came across the exploding mayonnaise. she couldn't help herself. she tried to throw it out..in fact she did. but then she retreived it from the trash. she studied it. thought about it. scanned it. it was yet another reason adam divorced her - retreiving things from the trash, reconsidering decisions after they're made....keeping spoiled food around with the peasant mentality that she'll soon make a stew out of it. this drove her ex nuts (though ironically stew was one of the only dishes he thought she cooked well). but she had to look at it. BLOG IT. it was blown up like one of those metal balloons you get on Mothers Day. it made her think...how long has this been in this drawer? and just how lethal is it?...this would be when her ex husband would yell at her and call her ADD. and tell her she's missing the point. just throw the damn rancid thing out. Stay Focused goddamit.
this is when she'd find him shallow and emotionally unavailable.
the toxic exploding mayonnaise was about so much more...it was a metaphor for boundaries. there it was, in its shiny package, its official logo---all normal looking but not. just like nancy. ready to explode if you were sensitive enough to pay attention to such things. it had everything to do with maternal responsibility in a broken home and the slippery slope of narcissistic neglect...how nancy thinks about what to wear every day but doesn't clean out the condiment drawer and how dangerous that has become. life threatening even. she could've thrown this (unwittingly) into Jonah's lunch! for a moment, nancy wants to blame someone else...(blame she has learned is a normal part of grieving). she grew up with Live-in help...it's HER mom's fault. she doesn't have a a visual of bubbie washing a dish. that's it..no one ever taught her to clean out drawers. as long as you Looked Good that day. but nancy was amazed at how much she had in common with the mayonnaise itself...all shiny and slick but exploding with dangerous stuff.
how even a condiment, filled with salt and other less natural preservatives will eventually rebel against it's pretty package after 3 years. it'll try to explode just like nancy did in her marriage--and a few other places just yesterday. it's one thing to defy boundaries in your own life..but what IF she had thrown the exploding rancid mayonnaise into her kids' lunch one day and poisoned them? it got nancy very down. it stopped her dead in her tracks. she doesn't even remember what she was wearing...that's how sad it made her.
but it became yet another in a series of difficult mid-life moments from which she Learned.
turns out boundary decisions are everywhere and she's not good with any of them. but she's working on it. the exploration of the Exploding Mayonaisse is a step toward greater awareness, honesty and empowerment as she accepts her limitations and therefore takes a first step toward managing them more responsibly. examining the messy metaphorical toxins and having the Choice to not put it in her son's lunch (and worry about it all day or god forbid make him sick) is ultimately huge progress.
my therapist told me a couple weeks ago that i even have a Choice to fall in love or not. i'll tackle that option next. after i stop potentially poisoning the kids.
nancy first learned about expiration dates when she worked in her dad's doctor's office Dr PLOThicKINs aka known as Zaida. he goes with Bubbie in case you haven't figured that out by now. they are getting frightening close to their expiration dates as they remind nancy every day when she doesn't have enough Time for them. but now Zaida really has some health issues and nancy's feeling the reality of it all. she adores her folks even as she struggles with them. she's wants to tell them they've been pulling the age card since they were just a bit older than nancy is now so nancy steels herself against feeling guilty and actually goes a couple days sometimes without checking in on them. she hopes (and she's pretty sure after a couple decades of therapy) that this won't CAUSE their expiration as they would like her to believe. she'll live dangerously and accept this bit of guilt just to miss a couple lectures from Zaida on however she's failing him lately. actually....this whole mortality thing has kicked everyone's butt into some more respectful behavior all around.
nancy reads writes all this with a little more sadness and reality today. zaida really DOES have a small cancer as Bubbie made her imminently aware of last weekend when she stormed into nancy's house yelling "HE's GOT CANCER!!" it was all nancy could do not to say: well you've been buckin' for this for a few years....not for him to have cancer. oh no. just for a legitimate reason to make nancy feel very shitty. and guess what? it worked. back to this later.....we're still waiting for biopsy results and dr. zaida and dr. brother think it's probably not that bad, thank god. that's not gonna stop bubbie from milking it.
When someone died in Dr PLOThicKINs office, their file wore a little sticker with the word Expired. this happened often in that office not because he was a bad doc (he was the Best and the Brightest) but because he is an oncologist so people die (nancy's college microbiology prof in college confirmed that Cancer is indeed a mutation and if you live long that will happen...) when working at dad's office (meaning zaida's, dr PLOTthicKINs - nancy has mostly become a mother herself so now HER dad has become Zaida because that's what he is to HER kids, it's all very cubist)...anyway, way back when she worked in that office, she had to apply the "expired" stickers on the files after somebody died. and rifle thru lots of insurance forms. she doesn't remember what she got paid to do this or what she was wearing, but it was a very flexible job so that she could do freelance artwork at the same time. it was really nice of her dad to give her this job when she was *struggling* artist/JAP/right brainer who couldn't keep a straight job past 18 months before she felt her life was passing her by....
now nancy has her own right brain child - her son - who is obsessed with expiration dates. not on people -- but on food of any kind. even processed food. chips, condiments, cereals, the occasional yogurt which nancy (the doctor's daughter) explains to her son CAN'T go bad it's already bad, you're SUPPOSED to eat it that way but jonah never believes her. he's got an anxiety/hygiene gene from his dad despite looking and acting mostly like mom. this will be a life long battle.
just the other day he pulled out some Lawry's salt and announced that it had expired three years ago. nancy didn't believe him at first, nor did she think it was relevant when it comes to a flavor enhancer like Lawrys. nancy's brother the psychiatrist has explained to her the scam of expiration dates on psychopharmaceuticals, she's not gonna let a little Lawrys salt from 2004 go to waste. in face she bets Lilly owns Lawrys....
but jonah persisted. he read aloud the 2003 expiration date on the bottle. nancy was busy with something else and decided to let him win this battle (she'll go for the war) and told him to throw it out. she then explained to jonah that Bubbie had probably brought it over 4 years ago to make a turkey breast and nancy forgot to use it after that. she explained (at least to herself) that it's hard to remember to use things when you have no emotional memory of buying it. she has the same trouble in her closet with shoes and sweaters. they only expire when they go out of fashion. and honestly, if you keep them long enough they become "vintage" and cool again - more defiance toward expiration dates and their arbitrariness!! jonah accepted this interpretation and made his eggs with one of five other "fresh" Lawrys that bubbie has brought over since then.
but like any Good Mother...nancy "heard" jonah....(a sign of how healthy is their relationship even if there are spoiled preservatives around the house)...so nancy decided to clean out the condiment drawer today. with gusto she did her best imitation of her organizationally gifted daughter maddy who got those genes from her entitled father who throws Everything out just so he can buy things again--nancy fluidly and efficiently grabbed handfuls of Guilden mustard packages and Best Food Mayo packets from Juniors and Soy sauces from Hop Li and sent them flying into the trash WITHOUT pause...until she came across the exploding mayonnaise. she couldn't help herself. she tried to throw it out..in fact she did. but then she retreived it from the trash. she studied it. thought about it. scanned it. it was yet another reason adam divorced her - retreiving things from the trash, reconsidering decisions after they're made....keeping spoiled food around with the peasant mentality that she'll soon make a stew out of it. this drove her ex nuts (though ironically stew was one of the only dishes he thought she cooked well). but she had to look at it. BLOG IT. it was blown up like one of those metal balloons you get on Mothers Day. it made her think...how long has this been in this drawer? and just how lethal is it?...this would be when her ex husband would yell at her and call her ADD. and tell her she's missing the point. just throw the damn rancid thing out. Stay Focused goddamit.
this is when she'd find him shallow and emotionally unavailable.
the toxic exploding mayonnaise was about so much more...it was a metaphor for boundaries. there it was, in its shiny package, its official logo---all normal looking but not. just like nancy. ready to explode if you were sensitive enough to pay attention to such things. it had everything to do with maternal responsibility in a broken home and the slippery slope of narcissistic neglect...how nancy thinks about what to wear every day but doesn't clean out the condiment drawer and how dangerous that has become. life threatening even. she could've thrown this (unwittingly) into Jonah's lunch! for a moment, nancy wants to blame someone else...(blame she has learned is a normal part of grieving). she grew up with Live-in help...it's HER mom's fault. she doesn't have a a visual of bubbie washing a dish. that's it..no one ever taught her to clean out drawers. as long as you Looked Good that day. but nancy was amazed at how much she had in common with the mayonnaise itself...all shiny and slick but exploding with dangerous stuff.
how even a condiment, filled with salt and other less natural preservatives will eventually rebel against it's pretty package after 3 years. it'll try to explode just like nancy did in her marriage--and a few other places just yesterday. it's one thing to defy boundaries in your own life..but what IF she had thrown the exploding rancid mayonnaise into her kids' lunch one day and poisoned them? it got nancy very down. it stopped her dead in her tracks. she doesn't even remember what she was wearing...that's how sad it made her.
but it became yet another in a series of difficult mid-life moments from which she Learned.
turns out boundary decisions are everywhere and she's not good with any of them. but she's working on it. the exploration of the Exploding Mayonaisse is a step toward greater awareness, honesty and empowerment as she accepts her limitations and therefore takes a first step toward managing them more responsibly. examining the messy metaphorical toxins and having the Choice to not put it in her son's lunch (and worry about it all day or god forbid make him sick) is ultimately huge progress.
my therapist told me a couple weeks ago that i even have a Choice to fall in love or not. i'll tackle that option next. after i stop potentially poisoning the kids.
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