Category Archives: Healthy Health

Jesus Weasels and the Rusty Balloon

Posted on May 4, 2014 | Leave a comment

Those people who love Paul as much as Jesus—
shall we agree to call them the Paulines?
The schematics of sin, the counting of beans,
fault-finding, blame-placing weasels
not just ignoring the big guy’s red letters, but
also forgetting Shorty’s juicy bits
“Better to marry than burn” must have meant
the epistler burned like an old mattress,
like an oil lamp that never empties,
an abandoned refinery post-apocalypse.
But I get it, I really, really do. Without
a clear sense of rules, how the hell do you
know how to pop the rusty balloon
of anxiety in your chest, let alone actually pop it.

______

I wrote this sonnet in tweets, a couple of lines at a time, starting on Friday, finishing today. Made me look at the sonnet differently–I may try again sometime. Tweeting the lines makes me want to make them more stand-alone. Hm.

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Posted in Anxiety/Depression/Yuck, Bloem or Pog, God Stuff, Poetry, Searching, Uncategorized

It’s Hard to Teach When Gollum’s in Your Class

Posted on April 16, 2014 | Leave a comment

It’s hard to teach when Gollum’s in your class.
He’s not the ideal student by any stretch,
but he’ll blame you if he doesn’t pass.

He’s very disruptive, all that muttering “my precious”
and small group work with him is just a bitch.
It’s hard to teach when Gollum’s in your class

because even saying Sméagol when you take attendance,
even smiling when you really want to screech,
you can be sure that he’ll blame you if he doesn’t pass.

He misses class a lot. Just vanishes.
Then swears he was too there. It’s hard to teach
the earnest students when Gollum’s in your class,

but you owe it to the ones who are not treacherous,
the step by by step by steps, the clear approach.
That rat-like monkey will blame you if he doesn’t pass,

but don’t dumb things down. Just do your best.
Backwards design might save you in a hitch.
It’s hard to teach if Gollum’s in your class,
but don’t blame yourself if he shall not pass.

 

_____

If fish were learning outcomes, Gollum would get an A+.

If fish were learning outcomes, Gollum would get an A+.

_____
(photo by Larry and Linda on Flickr, Creative Commons)

(OH that last line–“He shall not pass” sounds so foreordained and the teacher in me keeps hoping, hoping that Gollum will pull it together and squeak out a decent grade. But how can I not play on “shall not pass?” Decisions, decisions…)

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Posted in Anxiety/Depression/Yuck, Burnout, NaPoWriMo, Poetry, Teaching, Uncategorized, Work Life

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At Least More Immune

Posted on April 1, 2014 | Leave a comment

It was a flu bug of panic,
a bad cold of shame,
and mostly I’m over it,
but it comes back again

like a lingering cough,
a fever at night,
and I almost expect it,
but I can’t manage tough

stances and logical self-talk
right when I want to
not each time I want to
even though I know I need to

become immune.

At least more immune.
_____

20130728-104507.jpg
A Kafka t-shirt to launch NaPoWriMo in which I will post a poem every day until I don’t, either a new poem or a revision.

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Posted in Anxiety/Depression/Yuck, NaPoWriMo, Poetry, Uncategorized

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Join the Robbie Alliance!

Posted on August 20, 2013 | 1 comment

Since I am, by my genes and by long habit, a worst-case scenario thinker, I have spent a fair bit of my child’s life (beginning when he was still in my belly) worrying  about every little thing that could go wrong.

I am trying to do less of this, this refusal to enjoy what’s going well TOO much.

Brené Brown calls it “foreboding joy” and explains it this way: “We’re trying to beat vulnerability to the punch. We don’t want to be blindsided by hurt. We don’t want to be caught off-guard, so we literally practice being devastated.”

At some point in my pregnancy, I stopped looking at the scary chapters in What to Expect. I was pregnant, after all, after finally accepting that I would not ever get pregnant, and I wanted to enjoy it.  And I did.

However, the revving up of the school year revs up a particular anxiety for me–how to help my son navigate a world that seems full of peas, peanuts,tree nuts, eggs, dairy products and sesame, all of which he is allergic to, in varying degrees.

All in all, it’ll be fine. I’m meeting with the school nurse tomorrow. I’m checking to make sure his epi pens are not expired. I may write a letter to parents of kids in his class. For me, this has to go in the category of Bad Things That Could Happen to my Kid Which I Need to Prepare for and Then Forget About.

I’m not blase about it, but it doesn’t fill my thoughts every day, so in the realm of Bad Things That Could Happen, it has way less suckitude than other things.  I need to stop reminding myself how scary he looked the one time he went into anaphylactic shock. I have to remember to take epi pens with us, and I have to read and re-read labels, but it isn’t constant vigilance.

My friends Beth and Mat, however much they are able to be joyful (and they are, actually, a VERY joyful family, way better at it than my own family), do have to practice constant vigilance because their son Robbie, the same age as my son, has Juvenile Diabetes. Here’s what Beth had to say about it today on Facebook:

I’ve been trying to limit my type 1 diabetes-related posts so that you all don’t get tired of hearing me talk about it. But know that T1D never gets tired of imposing itself on our lives. Every day we take it on and it affects everyone in the family, though obviously Robbie most of all. Just last night we had ice cream before bed and a bit later R’s blood sugar was super high. We went to sleep thinking that maybe the insulin was slow taking effect since we treated him afterwards. Then an hour or so later I woke up with a jolt and realized we’d never actually treated him. We gave him his insulin, but he continued to be high the rest of the night. I invite you to pick a day and pick a child (or yourself) and imagine having to account for every bite of food that enters the body. Imagine trying to calculate how exercise affects the blood sugar – running around a lot? Less than usual? Going swimming? Imagine calculating how excitement or nerves impacts the blood sugar level too. Imagine watching your child as he lives his life, always wondering in the back of your mind if he’s going low, risking a seizure or going high and risking all the scary long term complications. Every day is a new battle. We hang tough and the terrain grows familiar, but we pray for a cure daily. That’s why we support JDRF.

What a life motto: “we hang tough and the terrain grows familiar, but we pray for a cure daily.”

That’s so different from my worst-case-scenario worry-wart-ism. It’s almost its opposite. It’s dealing with reality and still figuring out how to enjoy ice cream when you can.

Look at their amazing boys–

Great kids! That's Robbie on the left, with the peace shirt.

Great kids! That’s Robbie on the left, with the peace shirt.

We don’t get to see this great family much any more, but in honor of how awesome they are, and what a great cause this is, I’ve contributed to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.

You can contribute to, through the Robbie Alliance. I know we can’t all say yes to all the good causes we’d like to contribute to, but I hope you can help this organization, this family, and this really terrific kid.

And also, they have a terrific logo:

robbiealliance

_____

This post is partially a thank you and a perk from my Indiegogo campaign, which I called “a shout out on my blog.”

I like to think it would have occurred to me to promote this very good cause even if Beth hadn’t contributed to my fundraiser, but it didn’t occur to me last year, even when I made a contribution to the JDRF. I am so slow sometimes….

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Posted in Folks I Loves, Good Things 2 Good People, Healthy Health, Indiegogo Perk "A shout out", Uncategorized

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WTF Wisconsin

Posted on August 15, 2013 | 2 comments

Well, o.k., I’ll admit it. I haven’t gotten too riled up about the Solidarity Singers getting arrested.  Sorry.

I mean–I did mention it at my 30th high school reunion over the weekend, that they were arresting old people in my state, but I’m pretty sure I shrugged my shoulders at some point each time I mentioned it.

Partly it’s me tending my own emotional acre–I’ve sort of made a rule for myself, in an ongoing attempt to be more sane, that if I don’t have time to DO SOMETHING about a particular issue, I can give myself a free pass not reading about it/getting worked up about it.

(NOTE: I see this disengagement as a temporary state. When I feel healthier, when I feel as though my own emotional acre is well-tended, I will peek farther again. When I have maintained my house for a few months of NOT feeling as though I were half a matchbook collection away from being an episode of Hoarders, I will re-engage.  Hell–maybe I’m there now, because….)

Wow am I pissed about Matt Rothschild getting arrested today.

It’s not that I was ever against the Solidarity Singers. I sang with them a couple times. I was proud to sing with them standing next to Margaret Rozga, now famous for speaking truth to power at  an MLK, Jr. event.

I think maybe I was just tired of protest. Spring 2011, Wisconsin’s Arab-esque spring, was wonderful and horrible. I took my son to march–he made a sign that had pictures of cats on it that said, “Hey Hey Meow Meow Walker Talk to Unions Now.”

I overcame my one bit of introversion–I don’t like to knock on people’s doors to ask them about politics (or Jesus, for that matter)–and gathered some signatures for the Recall.

But when the Recall failed, I just felt politically wiped out.  Tom Barrett? Really? Seems like a nice guy, but really? That’s all we could muster on behalf of half a million signatures?

So like a lot of other people, I’ve just hunkered down & tried to do my job and love my family and maybe just maybe work on de-cluttering my house in case I decide there’s a state I can move to where all this won’t happen. (Where is that? Vermont?)

And at first, when the not-cool, not Tubbs-cops, started arresting singers, I will admit that I was thinking “just apply for a permit already.” But here’s the thing. I really think if there were a group of people showing up every day at noon to sing songs in praise of Scott Walker, the Wisconsin Department of Administration would never have made the policy about requiring permits in the first place.

And after a few weeks of this, I’ve decided I agree–this is political speech set to music. If we have freedom of speech, if we want to honor the proud Wisconsin tradition of honoring dissent, then permits shouldn’t be required for protests in the Capitol Rotunda.

I’ll admit one other thing–I’ve been wondering if all my liberal friends who are outraged about this would be equally supportive if a pro-life protesters were to go to the Capitol (if we ever have a pro-choice governor again), and sing “Jesus Loves the Little Children” and hold up signs of dead babies. (That may not be equivalent, but it would all fall under the category of political speech, and now that I’m getting worked up, I’ll just go ahead and throw my wondering out there.)

But today–arresting a journalist for observing and calling it “obstruction?” I’m so angry and scared I can’t muster disengagement.

And yet, I don’t know what to do. Go to the Capitol and observe? Protest? Sing? Get arrested? I really don’t have time. I would totally have a panic attack. And what would that help?

I don’t know what to do, but I know what I need. Or at least what I wish for.

1. Examples of liberals supporting conservative speech at the Capitol, especially that which made them feel icky.

2. Famous people to come and sing and get arrested. Lots of folks are tweeting in support. That’s pretty much nothing. Even I’m doing that.

3. Famous journalists to come and observe and get arrested. I mean–I know who Matthew Rothschild is, but more people know who Jon Stewart is.  Isn’t that sabbatical of his about over?

4. I really need someone amazing to run against Walker in 2014. I don’t know if he could do it, but I’m most excited about Mahlon Mitchell.

5. Mostly I need someone to tell me what I might do to make any of this better. (I’ll ask Dale Schultz next time I see him in Richland Center.) Other than just being pissed and scared and feeling icky, I mean. Because I’m already doing that.

 

_____

Update:  a friend reminds me that when Doyle was governor, pro-life protestors were on the square frequently, and we’re assuming they didn’t have to get a permit.

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Posted in Anxiety/Depression/Yuck, On Wisconsin, Politics, Top Ten Top Five Top Three Lists, Uncategorized

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The Thinger for the Clutter Contained

Posted on July 4, 2013 | Leave a comment

Having declared repeatedly in public that my home was “half a matchbook collection away from being an episode of Hoarders” (saying this I am exaggerating, but not by as much as I would prefer), I have been plunging this summer, over and over, into our accumulated everything.

This is not easy.

One becomes a pack rat through a combo pack of habits, issues, and inept strategies.

For me, nearly every bit of sorting, cleaning, pitching, packing, reorganizing, moving, shifting, recycling, re-gifting, tagging for yard sales, and donating involves a commensurate inner activity.

Ideally, the inner activity means reflecting on and evaluating all the habits and strategies mentioned previously, and also gently, gently nudging apart the layers of issues involved that led me to the place in the first place.

Sometimes the inner activity is limited to “Ack!” or “oh my god” or “sheesh.”

But I keep at it.

I can be very persistent.

Some of this is deeply satisfying, the emptying of a container of stuff I no longer want, thus making it available to contain other stuff I do want.

And fairly often when I say or even think the word “container,” I think of James Thurber, and “Here Lies Miss Groby” (the first paragraph of which is available even to non-subscribers of the New Yorker, which fortunately contains the quote I was remembering).

“He remembers staying awake nights saying over and over ‘The thinger for the thing contained’ or thinking of an example of the Thing Contained for the Container. If a woman were to grab a bottle of Grade A and say to her husband, ‘Get away from me, or I’ll hit you with the milk’, that would be a Thing Contained for the Container.”

This is a way of talking about metonymy. I wonder if the act of blogging about metonymy will help me remember its definition in contrast to synecdoche. Probably not. But I would like to stake a claim here: I began saying “Schenectady” in place of “synecdoche” years and years before Charlie Kaufman made a movie called Synecdoche, New York, which I still haven’t seen.

All this is a way of procrastinating, by the way.

One last bit of reverie, before I head once more unto the breach, my friends:

I called my blog “marniere” because I’m fascinated by sinkholes. Fascinated and horrified by the idea of a chasm opening up where there previously was none. A chasm with ample space.

If you pitched your clutter in a sinkhole, you wouldn’t be able to access any of it easily. But you would be able to pitch and keep pitching for the longest time.

(I need to write part 2 for this a reminiscence of my childhhood entitled, “The Ravine Where We Threw Trash.” But for now, it’s once more unto the breach I’ve made in the wall of accumulated everything.)

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Posted in Anxiety/Depression/Yuck, Procrastination, Sustainable Chaos, Uncategorized

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Much Ado (Very, Very Much)

Posted on June 29, 2013 | Leave a comment

My anxious thoughts do woo me like Don John,
with wild tales of catastrophe, with shame,
and I play stupid Claudio each and every time.
I fall for lies. I forget everything I’ve known.
Up next the betrayed Hero inside me dies.
Not really dead, but a bad-ass swoon, or worse–
the split-second wish that everything would end
if this building, choking, chewing panic can’t.
Only Beatrice says it can. I always lose
when I argue with myself. I am a mess.
Only Benedick, in pill form, thus,
can hush me, with his little medicated kiss.

_____
That Joss Whedon. I tell you what. I loved, loved, loved his Much Ado About Nothing.

Having been swamped a bit with anxiety lately, I’ve been thinking on it, and am concluding that anxiety is a big, fat liar. But sneaky, and seductive.

Today’s wisdom, thus: if the sneaky liar is as cute as Sean Maher playing Don John, no wonder I keep falling for it.

Sean Maher taken by Gage Skidmore

Sean Maher
taken by Gage Skidmore

And, fortunately, all’s well that ends well, right? (Because in this case, Beatrice is right–the panic never lasts. Also note: I’m so sorry to repeat the structure of Shakespeare here in my sonnet, giving Benedick the last word. I just tell myself he must be an awesome kisser in that last scene, if she stops talking entirely.)

But wouldn’t it be lovely, if my inner Claudio developed his shit-detector a wee bit more?

And if my inner Hero freaking stood up for herself instead of swooning?

Well. One does what one can to line one’s psychological ducks up*, and then one hopes the duck poop doesn’t give everyone swimmer’s itch.

_____

*including the appropriate and authorized use of anti-anxiety meds, thank you very much

(Image of Sean Maher available through Creative Commons license on Flickr.)

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Posted in Anxiety/Depression/Yuck, Bloem or Pog, Car Sonnets, Folks I Loves, Healthy Health, Joss Whedon, Poetry, Searching, Uncategorized

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Creative People Say Yes (Sometimes)

Posted on June 12, 2013 | 4 comments

I once came upon my cousin Reid practicing different ways to say “no.” He was 3 or 4 at the time. “No, I couldn’t possibly,” he said. “Absolutely not.”

He was onto something, that little ‘un. At least in my family, saying no takes practice.

Saying no? I’m big on it. Sometimes I’m even good at it. I certainly like the IDEA of saying no.

I’ve written about a fair number of times:
“How do I do that? How do I become the sort of person who says no to things?”

Clitter-Clatter Clutter Time , which references two terrific posts by my favorite tattooed Lutheran blogger, Nadia Bolz Weber, “The Spiritual Practice of Saying No,” and its companion piece, “The Spiritual Practice of Saying Yes!”

The Sarcastic Lutheran says, “The people who are inclined to say yes to everything do all the work and then burn out and become resentful about the people who are inclined to say no to everything. It’s as though the world is divided into martyrs and slackers.”

I don’t make a very good martyr or slacker, either one, not for very long.

I worked enough 50+ hours this spring semester, I worry my slacker credentials are in danger of not being renewed.

Busy as I’ve been, I’m nowhere close to martyrdom. I have some regrets, but I don’t regret all of the times I said yes. (Or came up with something to do that no one even asked me to do.)

Recent things that added to my to do list that I am particularly happy to locate in the land of “yes!”:

  • In addition to volunteering in my son’s classroom at the River Valley Elementary Studio School a couple hours a week, presenting a lesson on storytelling, with a way of talking about narrative arc that was a big hit.
  • Leading the Westby Co-Op Credit Union Board of Directors and branch managers in creativity exercises.
  • Serving as a (paid) reader for writing sample/placement tests for incoming UW-R students, and as a local developmental writing coordinator (unpaid).

In general, I am unrealistic about how the number of things I try to get done will fit into the number of available hours, and I don’t necessarily do things in the right order (which sometimes does and sometimes does not qualify as procrastination).

Thus, some of my commitments (such as returning student work promptly) suffered this spring, and probably, saying “yes” to new stuff impacted the ongoing stuff.

In general, I need to parse, pare, and prune my To Do list.

So, in one way, I totally get Kevin Ashton’s “Creative People Say No.”

He is right that “We do not have enough time as it is. There are groceries to buy, gas tanks to fill, families to love and day jobs to do.”

And he is right that “Time is the raw material of creation.”

Time is a precious resource. It must be guarded. I get it.

But wow did that blog post bug me.

(more on page 2!)

Pages: 1 2

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Posted in Burnout, Creativity, Daring Greatly, Family, Procrastination, Sustainable Chaos, Teaching, Uncategorized, Work Life, Writing

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Something Beyond Cynicism

Posted on June 7, 2013 | 4 comments

On the other side of burnout
there is rest, there is a place
where even my incompetence
has a bucket it fits into.

As I compost all my bitterness,
my misplaced hopefulness,
my misspent hours,
I watch the steam

rise up from what’s rotten.

A wisp of a moist gray ghost,
a sign of moving on,
a sweet portent

there and gone.

What’s done
is done.

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Posted in Bloem or Pog, Burnout, Daring Greatly, Poetry, Searching, Sustainable Chaos, Teaching, Work Life

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Something I (Seriously) Don’t Have Any More Time For

Posted on May 10, 2013 | 4 comments

Worrying about whether or not people are making fun of me behind my back and I just don’t hear them.

“Pictures of People Who Mock Me” is provocative. It’s a much-read article from Salon.com, a daring idea for a series of photos, and it stuck in my imagination, so I would say it met at least some of the author’s/photographer’s goals. It bothered me, though, in two ways I’m not sure she intended.

My first GENIUS and BRILLIANT and INCREDIBLY WISE response was to think, “OH MY GOD. People probably make fun of me for being fat and I just don’t notice because I am a.)oblivious and b.)not just fat but also hard of hearing.”

That surely wasn’t the intent. That first response didn’t last very long. I just don’t have time to wonder, at least not for very long, if anyone’s response to me has anything to do with how much I weigh.

It occurs to me, of course. Today in the pool, I got there early enough to snag the lane I wanted. Another woman got there just a little later. Typically, people waiting on a lane sit on a bench by the pool. She sat on the side, straddling a lane marker, kicking her legs gently. She wasn’t right next to me, but close by. It occurred to me she might be trying to get those of us in the pool to hurry it up. It occurred to me she might look at me and think she deserved the lane more than me because she was in better shape. It then occurred to me that maybe she just wanted to make sure she was first in line because she really, really wanted to get her laps in. Whatever she was doing probably had absolutely nothing to do with my size, my fitness level, with me at all.

But I swam one more lap than I had planned just to make sure I wasn’t ceding my place in the pool out of insecurity on my part. (And on the off chance she was trying to be intimidating.)

Second, I’m doing lots and lots of difficult, ongoing, hard work in my own head about shame. Did I mention it’s difficult? Everything Brene Brown ever wrote helps me. The people who did indeed mock Haley Morris-Cafeiro were wrong to do it. Mean to do it. If they saw themselves as shaming her in order to motivate her, they were mean and wrong and totally not up on the research that shows shame is not a good motivator for change (cf: everything Brene Brown ever wrote).

But since shame makes everything worse, not better, it made me uncomfortable to watch the photographer shame the shamers.

And then also, I had a whole train of thought about weight and body image and how we stake our place on the planet:

Engine of this train thought: it’s all about attitude. If you believe you’re beautiful and if you’re confident, you pull yourself past anyone who is making fun of you IF they bother to make fun of the Big-Ass Engine Who Could.

Coal car for the Big-Ass Engine Who Could: it’s all about energy. If you’re busy and you got places to go and things to do, people will have a hard time catching up to you to make faces behind your back. And you really don’t have time to spend on people who can’t be bothered to criticize you to your face. Probably don’t have time for people who CAN be bothered to make fun of you to your face.

Freight Car for the Big-Ass Engine Who Could: people who walk around mocking others have a bigger problem that whomever they are mocking. We all have issues. Baggage. Freight. Mocking others is one really ineffective way to deal with our own stuff.

Caboose: Beyonce.

Queen Latifah. Adele. I mean, seriously. It’s not about the pounds.

I know fat-shaming is real. I know it’s a problem. I also know someone who wants to shame has only one part of the equation. If I refuse to be shamed, all the fat-shaming in the world will fall flat. (Not that I’m resilient enough to resist all of it, in all the world. But don’t try to get me out the pool before I’m ready.)

I’m larger than I’d like to be. I’m working on it. I’m not sure reading/looking at “Pictures of People Who Mock Me” helped me, but it’s not her job to help me. It’s mine, and I’m doing it, and in regard to this article, I’ve done it.

And now I’m done.

Besides. Why would I spend any more moments at all on any of the above when I could be hanging out with our new kitten?

Vanessa Quivertail

Vanessa Quivertail

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Posted in Body Image, Daring Greatly, Healthy Health, Sustainable Chaos, Uncategorized

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