Sometimes the things I have to research for this job depress the hell out of me.
And other times...other times, the logical scientist part of me, the part that's cut off from any emotional feelings I have about the stories I hear at work, the part that makes Dr Chris use terms like "depersonalization" and "derealization"...that part is nearly as intrigued by the effects of tragedy on human psyches as it is heartbroken that such things happen at all.
And I feel like there's something deeply wrong with me, that I'm almost as fascinated as I am appalled.
...yeah.
Friday, 27 December 2013
Friday, 29 November 2013
Thursday, 14 November 2013
Doing What Needs To Be Done
WARNING: Contains graphic medical details which may disturb.
I'm publishing this from the Blogger iPhone app, since I'm just too damn tired to turn on the computer - which is why it's not formatted with the normal fonts and colours, unless I figure out a way to do that from here. Probably I'll have to do it next time I turn the computer on. Which will hopefully be soon - I have some Goodreads books that I've read recently that need to have the data input, and I'm still trying to keep that up to date with books I've recently read, even though the boxes full of books that I was working on inputting pre-reading are on hiatus temporarily.
You may not know what I'm referring to. It's ok, *I* know what I mean.
I'm tired. With fibromyalgia I'm usually tired, but it's unusually strong and pervasive tiredness right now. I had surgery in September - nothing serious, or at least it shouldn't have been. Just women's problems. But I didn't recover well. After the surgery I bled and cramped up every time I got out of bed for nearly two months. Not little cramps and spotting, either - worse pain than during my worst periods (and I have endometriosis and PCOS; my worst periods can be very bad indeed) that made me scream and weep, even with my reasonably high pain threshold. Rivers of blood - during the worst bit, I lost half a pint of blood every day for ten days, maybe two weeks. (No, that's not a guesstimate, either. Make of that what you will.) The doctors were talking about blood transfusions and D&Cs, which I mercifully managed to avoid.
Blood tends to restore most of itself within a few days, and a person my size can probably lose two pints comfortably and twice that without any major danger. (Now, that IS an estimate, I don't know exactly how much blood my body holds.) Half a pint a day certainly wouldn't kill me, but it made me feel like I'd been hit by a truck.
Iron, though - that takes time to build up again. In the UK, women are only allowed to donate blood once every sixteen weeks (other countries vary) because the iron levels take so long to come back to normal - and at a blood drive they only take a pint, usually. So I've been horribly anemic for the last few months. I've been eating spinach and broccoli near enough every day - dear God, am I sick of broccoli! - and red meat when I can, which probably isn't often enough, but my stomach won't tolerate beef more than occasionally, and I can't eat lamb or offal meats at all. And I have iron supplements. But I still feel like shit. Since the surgery I've gone from being someone who gets by most nights on five hours of sleep (sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less) to being someone who needs at least ten hours, preferably twelve or thirteen, just to function for the basics.
I'm having a hard time just getting to school one night a week. The time change particularly hit me this year - it feels like the clocks went back three or four hours, not one. I look at the clock on any given evening, thinking it's tennish, and it's usually 6pm, and I find myself falling asleep an hour into class. Paul coerced me into teaching this year, much to my disgust, but now I'm grateful for it since there's no way I can go back to the helpline and pull 4 12-hour shifts in a week. I had to do one shift last week when Cindy was sick, and just staying awake and manning the phone for twelve hours felt like running a marathon.
So I'm teaching a 90-minute or 2-hour class Mondays and Fridays, and setting (and marking) essays, as well as various paperwork. I barely work twenty hours a week, which isn't good for my bank account, but is better than nothing. I'm not teaching English as much as critical thinking, although we read quite a few stories and parts of books. This last week I've been lazy, though, and set essays from films instead.
School is okay, aside from the falling asleep, but it doesn't quite have the spark that it's had for the last few years. In an effort to make more money, the uni threw two classes together, so we started out with far too many people (although several have dropped out) and yet another new teacher. She's a fine teacher, but I do miss Takana, who I thought of as a friend as well as a sensei. I wouldn't be quite so annoyed about the blended class if they hadn't already put the tuition fees up - or more accurately, split the year into three semesters instead of two. The courses for the last four years have run for 14-15 weeks; now they run 10 weeks each - but they charge the same fees as they did for the 15-week course. Meaning that for a 30-week school year, we're paying an extra 50% on tuition. That's a MASSIVE leap in fees, and I feel that the uni should have been satisfied with that rather than sticking 30 of us, at all different learning levels, together in 1 class. 30 is far too many for a practical language class, even with the dropouts. We previously had 15-16 at our highest (and that was a few too many, when you all have to take turns to have conversations) and 8-10 at our lowest (which was a good number).
In addition, I haven't managed to really bond with anyone in the class, although I know Andrew and Nuala from last year, and a guy named Chris from my first class with Magdalena, and there's a nice girl (I think named Suzanne?) who I ride the bus with and chat to. I don't know if it's me being withdrawn because I don't feel well, or the fact that most of the class knew each other before, or if it's just the people in it, but I don't feel close to anyone. I've never had that - in my previous classes, we either had a really friendly group (as with the groups Takana ran) or I formed a deep, abiding friendship (as with K, who was in Magdalena's class. I don't remember the rest of the people from Magdalena's class very well, because K and I seemed to stick together most of the time, and that was just fine).
It's a little disorienting, because I can only remember one time in my life before that I found it difficult to make friends. That was in Sue's biology class, in 2002 - I was retaking the class after I had to drop out of Jon's bio class the previous year when I got sick and didn't finish my coursework, and on the first lesson she made it quite clear that she had tremendous contempt for me for having to retake. She told me flat-out that she didn't want me in the class, that I didn't deserve to be there - yes, a teacher actually said that to a disabled 18-year-old girl - and every time I made a mistake (which I didn't do often, I was a straight-A student in biology) she'd mock me to the class. ("Look, Miss Frost isn't perfect after all! Careful, or you might end up failing and having to repeat a year like she did!") They followed her lead, and I didn't make any friends there, although I still had friends in my other classes, including Curt and Sanjit in second-year chem, so I didn't feel the loss that much. Although I didn't stay in the class more than a few months, and made a formal complaint about her to the college when I left. Frankly I wish I'd given some sort of walking-out speech to her in front of the rest of the students rather than just not showing up one day; maybe they'd have learned something about being sheeple. Although I can't really blame them - a teacher should be someone you CAN follow the lead on.
That situation is far removed from this one - my new teacher is nice, and the students aren't hostile - they're just quiet. The lack of friendship so far may well be my doing, anyway - I haven't been at my most charming, since I'm barely awake by the time I get there. But it IS disorienting, nonetheless, to not walk into a room of strangers and make friends within a half hour. I've always made friends so easily. I have trouble *keeping* them, mind you, but I make them easily.
Throw on top of all that the fact that I no longer have my carer's free bus pass - Mom still hasn't gotten onto the council, and I can't be the one to do it, it has to be her who applies - and I'm now spending a tenner a day on getting to school and back, and you can see why the whole thing is feeling more like a chore than the pleasure it's been for the last four years.
I'm okay in myself, it's just things getting on top of me a little. I'm not depressed (although my moods have been up and down with the female problems - hormones are crazy things) but I'm just so tired. The tiredness increases the muscle pains - although that could also be related to the iron levels - and makes it hard to remember to eat and breathe, putting me at risk for chest infections. I realise the ridiculousness of that sentence - you're probably thinking, "FFS, who forgets to breathe?" but I do, when I'm this tired. I'm also on a 1200-calorie diet, created by Teeny Crazy Lady Dietician, which probably doesn't help with the tiredness, but that's another post altogether.
Mom had spinal surgery yesterday. She seems to have cone through it well - she's in good spirits, and feeling less pain, so touch wood that the relief she's getting continues. I'm glad she's doing okay, but it means that there's a whole lot more work to do and I have to do it all alone, because Tony's family are in the process of moving down to their new house in Brighton. I make a competent nursemaid, and I'll do whatever needs to be done, because she's my mother and she would do - and has done - it for me. But despite being competent, nursing is not something I enjoy, and I feel bad that whatever needs to be done for her I do with a generous but not quite cheerful heart.
Probably some of this guilt is due to my ex's girlfriend being a nurse, but that too is best left for another post. Or not. I don't especially want to rehash all those feelings.
But hey ho, it could always be worse. I could be doing all these things while (almost) dying of Scarlet Fever, the way I was during her last spinal operation a few autumns ago. It's easy to forget to be grateful for how much easier things are this time around.
And really, things aren't so bad. I have books. I have a Pokémon game (sadly not X or Y, since I don't yet have a 3DS). I have Christmas coming up, and am trying to decide whether to get into the shopping spirit, or chuck it in and spend what I would have spent on presents on a trip to Barbados. I have friends who do nice things like take me to fireworks displays and watch Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles with me and offer me sheets when the washing machine eats mine. :) People are nice.
And it's been about 10 weeks since the surgery, so as long as I remember to take my supplements (gah) and eat lots of broccoli and spinach (double gah!), in the next six weeks I should start feeling a lot better.
Although if I don't develop super Popeye-strength, I want my money back.
I'm publishing this from the Blogger iPhone app, since I'm just too damn tired to turn on the computer - which is why it's not formatted with the normal fonts and colours, unless I figure out a way to do that from here. Probably I'll have to do it next time I turn the computer on. Which will hopefully be soon - I have some Goodreads books that I've read recently that need to have the data input, and I'm still trying to keep that up to date with books I've recently read, even though the boxes full of books that I was working on inputting pre-reading are on hiatus temporarily.
You may not know what I'm referring to. It's ok, *I* know what I mean.
I'm tired. With fibromyalgia I'm usually tired, but it's unusually strong and pervasive tiredness right now. I had surgery in September - nothing serious, or at least it shouldn't have been. Just women's problems. But I didn't recover well. After the surgery I bled and cramped up every time I got out of bed for nearly two months. Not little cramps and spotting, either - worse pain than during my worst periods (and I have endometriosis and PCOS; my worst periods can be very bad indeed) that made me scream and weep, even with my reasonably high pain threshold. Rivers of blood - during the worst bit, I lost half a pint of blood every day for ten days, maybe two weeks. (No, that's not a guesstimate, either. Make of that what you will.) The doctors were talking about blood transfusions and D&Cs, which I mercifully managed to avoid.
Blood tends to restore most of itself within a few days, and a person my size can probably lose two pints comfortably and twice that without any major danger. (Now, that IS an estimate, I don't know exactly how much blood my body holds.) Half a pint a day certainly wouldn't kill me, but it made me feel like I'd been hit by a truck.
Iron, though - that takes time to build up again. In the UK, women are only allowed to donate blood once every sixteen weeks (other countries vary) because the iron levels take so long to come back to normal - and at a blood drive they only take a pint, usually. So I've been horribly anemic for the last few months. I've been eating spinach and broccoli near enough every day - dear God, am I sick of broccoli! - and red meat when I can, which probably isn't often enough, but my stomach won't tolerate beef more than occasionally, and I can't eat lamb or offal meats at all. And I have iron supplements. But I still feel like shit. Since the surgery I've gone from being someone who gets by most nights on five hours of sleep (sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less) to being someone who needs at least ten hours, preferably twelve or thirteen, just to function for the basics.
I'm having a hard time just getting to school one night a week. The time change particularly hit me this year - it feels like the clocks went back three or four hours, not one. I look at the clock on any given evening, thinking it's tennish, and it's usually 6pm, and I find myself falling asleep an hour into class. Paul coerced me into teaching this year, much to my disgust, but now I'm grateful for it since there's no way I can go back to the helpline and pull 4 12-hour shifts in a week. I had to do one shift last week when Cindy was sick, and just staying awake and manning the phone for twelve hours felt like running a marathon.
So I'm teaching a 90-minute or 2-hour class Mondays and Fridays, and setting (and marking) essays, as well as various paperwork. I barely work twenty hours a week, which isn't good for my bank account, but is better than nothing. I'm not teaching English as much as critical thinking, although we read quite a few stories and parts of books. This last week I've been lazy, though, and set essays from films instead.
School is okay, aside from the falling asleep, but it doesn't quite have the spark that it's had for the last few years. In an effort to make more money, the uni threw two classes together, so we started out with far too many people (although several have dropped out) and yet another new teacher. She's a fine teacher, but I do miss Takana, who I thought of as a friend as well as a sensei. I wouldn't be quite so annoyed about the blended class if they hadn't already put the tuition fees up - or more accurately, split the year into three semesters instead of two. The courses for the last four years have run for 14-15 weeks; now they run 10 weeks each - but they charge the same fees as they did for the 15-week course. Meaning that for a 30-week school year, we're paying an extra 50% on tuition. That's a MASSIVE leap in fees, and I feel that the uni should have been satisfied with that rather than sticking 30 of us, at all different learning levels, together in 1 class. 30 is far too many for a practical language class, even with the dropouts. We previously had 15-16 at our highest (and that was a few too many, when you all have to take turns to have conversations) and 8-10 at our lowest (which was a good number).
In addition, I haven't managed to really bond with anyone in the class, although I know Andrew and Nuala from last year, and a guy named Chris from my first class with Magdalena, and there's a nice girl (I think named Suzanne?) who I ride the bus with and chat to. I don't know if it's me being withdrawn because I don't feel well, or the fact that most of the class knew each other before, or if it's just the people in it, but I don't feel close to anyone. I've never had that - in my previous classes, we either had a really friendly group (as with the groups Takana ran) or I formed a deep, abiding friendship (as with K, who was in Magdalena's class. I don't remember the rest of the people from Magdalena's class very well, because K and I seemed to stick together most of the time, and that was just fine).
It's a little disorienting, because I can only remember one time in my life before that I found it difficult to make friends. That was in Sue's biology class, in 2002 - I was retaking the class after I had to drop out of Jon's bio class the previous year when I got sick and didn't finish my coursework, and on the first lesson she made it quite clear that she had tremendous contempt for me for having to retake. She told me flat-out that she didn't want me in the class, that I didn't deserve to be there - yes, a teacher actually said that to a disabled 18-year-old girl - and every time I made a mistake (which I didn't do often, I was a straight-A student in biology) she'd mock me to the class. ("Look, Miss Frost isn't perfect after all! Careful, or you might end up failing and having to repeat a year like she did!") They followed her lead, and I didn't make any friends there, although I still had friends in my other classes, including Curt and Sanjit in second-year chem, so I didn't feel the loss that much. Although I didn't stay in the class more than a few months, and made a formal complaint about her to the college when I left. Frankly I wish I'd given some sort of walking-out speech to her in front of the rest of the students rather than just not showing up one day; maybe they'd have learned something about being sheeple. Although I can't really blame them - a teacher should be someone you CAN follow the lead on.
That situation is far removed from this one - my new teacher is nice, and the students aren't hostile - they're just quiet. The lack of friendship so far may well be my doing, anyway - I haven't been at my most charming, since I'm barely awake by the time I get there. But it IS disorienting, nonetheless, to not walk into a room of strangers and make friends within a half hour. I've always made friends so easily. I have trouble *keeping* them, mind you, but I make them easily.
Throw on top of all that the fact that I no longer have my carer's free bus pass - Mom still hasn't gotten onto the council, and I can't be the one to do it, it has to be her who applies - and I'm now spending a tenner a day on getting to school and back, and you can see why the whole thing is feeling more like a chore than the pleasure it's been for the last four years.
I'm okay in myself, it's just things getting on top of me a little. I'm not depressed (although my moods have been up and down with the female problems - hormones are crazy things) but I'm just so tired. The tiredness increases the muscle pains - although that could also be related to the iron levels - and makes it hard to remember to eat and breathe, putting me at risk for chest infections. I realise the ridiculousness of that sentence - you're probably thinking, "FFS, who forgets to breathe?" but I do, when I'm this tired. I'm also on a 1200-calorie diet, created by Teeny Crazy Lady Dietician, which probably doesn't help with the tiredness, but that's another post altogether.
Mom had spinal surgery yesterday. She seems to have cone through it well - she's in good spirits, and feeling less pain, so touch wood that the relief she's getting continues. I'm glad she's doing okay, but it means that there's a whole lot more work to do and I have to do it all alone, because Tony's family are in the process of moving down to their new house in Brighton. I make a competent nursemaid, and I'll do whatever needs to be done, because she's my mother and she would do - and has done - it for me. But despite being competent, nursing is not something I enjoy, and I feel bad that whatever needs to be done for her I do with a generous but not quite cheerful heart.
Probably some of this guilt is due to my ex's girlfriend being a nurse, but that too is best left for another post. Or not. I don't especially want to rehash all those feelings.
But hey ho, it could always be worse. I could be doing all these things while (almost) dying of Scarlet Fever, the way I was during her last spinal operation a few autumns ago. It's easy to forget to be grateful for how much easier things are this time around.
And really, things aren't so bad. I have books. I have a Pokémon game (sadly not X or Y, since I don't yet have a 3DS). I have Christmas coming up, and am trying to decide whether to get into the shopping spirit, or chuck it in and spend what I would have spent on presents on a trip to Barbados. I have friends who do nice things like take me to fireworks displays and watch Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles with me and offer me sheets when the washing machine eats mine. :) People are nice.
And it's been about 10 weeks since the surgery, so as long as I remember to take my supplements (gah) and eat lots of broccoli and spinach (double gah!), in the next six weeks I should start feeling a lot better.
Although if I don't develop super Popeye-strength, I want my money back.
Monday, 7 October 2013
A Month of Blogs - What Keeps You Up At Night?
What Keeps You Up At Night?
Submitted by Anonymous.
As a writer who seems to have hit a low point in creativity and / or just getting off my ass and writing, I signed myself up to write 31 blog posts during October - one a day - on any subjects that are suggested to me. The only rules for suggestions are that they can't be anything that involve me having to take on a particular viewpoint (so no "Why I Hate Twilight" or "Why Rock Music is the Best Music") - this isn't debating class, and right now I'm not interested in trying to argue something that I may or may not agree with. Anything else goes - it can be a specific subject or a broad one, one that I've written about in the past or something new that will need research. If you're interested in playing along, you can leave a comment here, or email me at thenordicalien@gmail.com. (I'll try and remember to check there, honest!)
I could have written this post in a number of ways. I might do a part 2. And 3. But for now, I decided to play it straight.
Truth is, I don't know everything that keeps me up. Probably it's partially my diet - I've noticed that when I only eat fresh foods with no preservatives, I sleep better. It's partially pain - if I exercise I sleep better. It's partially guilt at my parasitic lifestyle - if I put in a good day's manual labour, I sleep better.
Mostly it's stupid shit. Like worrying.
I saved a kid today. At least I think I did. I was walking through town on my way to the bank, and this kid on a tricycle sped out in front of me. I guess he was 2 or 3. Maybe 4. Hell, he could have been 5 - I'm not good at guessing kids' ages. It was a little plastic trike, not a proper one, so probably not as old as 5. He sure could pedal though. I saw him out of the corner of my eye, but was hurrying to get to the bank, so I wasn't really concentrating on him until I heard someone screech, "Jaden!" which caught my attention - Jaden is my nephew's name, and most people are particularly attuned to the names of their friends and family. Speedy Gonzales - apparently Jaden - rode right in front of me and onto the road, into the path of an oncoming car. The main road in town is busy most of the time, and this was after-school traffic.
I was there. The shout had caught my attention well enough. He was fine. I was fine.
I have been worrying all afternoon about how he wouldn't have been fine if things had turned out differently.
Dr chris and I have been over this odd habit of mine many times, and never quite managed to solve it. I don't remember if it has a particular name - he refers to it as a form of transference, similar to the way that when crises happen in my life I handle them gracefully...and then later fall apart or throw a tantrum because a date gets cancelled or someone gives me the wrong soda at the movies. (For the record, I'm fairly easy-going most of the time, and not at all the type of person to throw tantrums, let alone about such anodyne things.) The lay explanation Doc gave me for this is that the energy and stress from crisis after crisis builds up, but because I've spent a lifetime handling some pretty awful situations and acting like the grown-up who holds everything together, I sort of transfer the emotion from the things I can't control (death, illness, bankruptcy, prison) into things that aren't really that important and are therefore safe to fall apart about. TL;DR - I underreact to important shit and then overreact to unimportant shit as a way of compensating.
Supposedly this odd worrying habit of mine is related to this in some way, but we've never been able to rid me of it, only to control it most of the time.
I don't worry about the future. Not much, anyway. The future will happen whether I'm ready for it or not. Instead, I worry about the past. I worry about the things that didn't happen. I worry about Q and E - my SEALs - getting shot and killed while on one of those missions that they can't tell me about. I worry about B, my ex-Marine friend, getting blown up by a landmine during his tour in the Middle East. I worry about my Kurdish friend S being victimized as a child because she's a woman, or my Chinese friend L being aborted or left on the street because her parents wanted a boy. I worry about D, my high-school love, overdosing on drugs when he felt so alienated from the rest of the world, or K committing suicide because of his many traumas. I worry about the stroke that didn't kill my Dad and the ovarian cyst that my Mom had that didn't turn out to be cancer.
None of this happened. Q and E and B are all alive, not currently serving in the military, and in possession of all body parts. I have no idea if S was ever victimized as a kid, but she's grown into an amazingly strong, confident, intelligent woman who takes crap from nobody and still maintains a compassionate heart, and I'm honoured and humbled to call her a friend. L's parents love her more than life itself and would not give her up for anything in the world. D channeled his teenage pain into an extraordinary musical skill, and has now made a name for himself in the trance world, and seems content with life. K did go through a rough period, and still does, but he's alive and kicking and surrounded by those who love him. My Dad is recovering and my Mom is cancer-free and always has been.
I worry about them nonetheless.
And today I worry about what would have happened if I took an earlier bus, or if I had finally signed up for the internet banking that my ex has been telling me to do, or if I'd been wearing high heels and been unable to move quickly, or if the kid hadn't shared a name with my nephew and I'd ignored his mother yelling for him.
Those things didn't happen. You can tell me, but you were there. It doesn't help. I don't know why. Dr Chris doesn't know why either.
And that's what keeps me up, at least for tonight.
See anything you liked? Share it! Just link back to this page.
Submitted by Anonymous.
As a writer who seems to have hit a low point in creativity and / or just getting off my ass and writing, I signed myself up to write 31 blog posts during October - one a day - on any subjects that are suggested to me. The only rules for suggestions are that they can't be anything that involve me having to take on a particular viewpoint (so no "Why I Hate Twilight" or "Why Rock Music is the Best Music") - this isn't debating class, and right now I'm not interested in trying to argue something that I may or may not agree with. Anything else goes - it can be a specific subject or a broad one, one that I've written about in the past or something new that will need research. If you're interested in playing along, you can leave a comment here, or email me at thenordicalien@gmail.com. (I'll try and remember to check there, honest!)
I could have written this post in a number of ways. I might do a part 2. And 3. But for now, I decided to play it straight.
Truth is, I don't know everything that keeps me up. Probably it's partially my diet - I've noticed that when I only eat fresh foods with no preservatives, I sleep better. It's partially pain - if I exercise I sleep better. It's partially guilt at my parasitic lifestyle - if I put in a good day's manual labour, I sleep better.
Mostly it's stupid shit. Like worrying.
I saved a kid today. At least I think I did. I was walking through town on my way to the bank, and this kid on a tricycle sped out in front of me. I guess he was 2 or 3. Maybe 4. Hell, he could have been 5 - I'm not good at guessing kids' ages. It was a little plastic trike, not a proper one, so probably not as old as 5. He sure could pedal though. I saw him out of the corner of my eye, but was hurrying to get to the bank, so I wasn't really concentrating on him until I heard someone screech, "Jaden!" which caught my attention - Jaden is my nephew's name, and most people are particularly attuned to the names of their friends and family. Speedy Gonzales - apparently Jaden - rode right in front of me and onto the road, into the path of an oncoming car. The main road in town is busy most of the time, and this was after-school traffic.
I was there. The shout had caught my attention well enough. He was fine. I was fine.
I have been worrying all afternoon about how he wouldn't have been fine if things had turned out differently.
Dr chris and I have been over this odd habit of mine many times, and never quite managed to solve it. I don't remember if it has a particular name - he refers to it as a form of transference, similar to the way that when crises happen in my life I handle them gracefully...and then later fall apart or throw a tantrum because a date gets cancelled or someone gives me the wrong soda at the movies. (For the record, I'm fairly easy-going most of the time, and not at all the type of person to throw tantrums, let alone about such anodyne things.) The lay explanation Doc gave me for this is that the energy and stress from crisis after crisis builds up, but because I've spent a lifetime handling some pretty awful situations and acting like the grown-up who holds everything together, I sort of transfer the emotion from the things I can't control (death, illness, bankruptcy, prison) into things that aren't really that important and are therefore safe to fall apart about. TL;DR - I underreact to important shit and then overreact to unimportant shit as a way of compensating.
Supposedly this odd worrying habit of mine is related to this in some way, but we've never been able to rid me of it, only to control it most of the time.
I don't worry about the future. Not much, anyway. The future will happen whether I'm ready for it or not. Instead, I worry about the past. I worry about the things that didn't happen. I worry about Q and E - my SEALs - getting shot and killed while on one of those missions that they can't tell me about. I worry about B, my ex-Marine friend, getting blown up by a landmine during his tour in the Middle East. I worry about my Kurdish friend S being victimized as a child because she's a woman, or my Chinese friend L being aborted or left on the street because her parents wanted a boy. I worry about D, my high-school love, overdosing on drugs when he felt so alienated from the rest of the world, or K committing suicide because of his many traumas. I worry about the stroke that didn't kill my Dad and the ovarian cyst that my Mom had that didn't turn out to be cancer.
None of this happened. Q and E and B are all alive, not currently serving in the military, and in possession of all body parts. I have no idea if S was ever victimized as a kid, but she's grown into an amazingly strong, confident, intelligent woman who takes crap from nobody and still maintains a compassionate heart, and I'm honoured and humbled to call her a friend. L's parents love her more than life itself and would not give her up for anything in the world. D channeled his teenage pain into an extraordinary musical skill, and has now made a name for himself in the trance world, and seems content with life. K did go through a rough period, and still does, but he's alive and kicking and surrounded by those who love him. My Dad is recovering and my Mom is cancer-free and always has been.
I worry about them nonetheless.
And today I worry about what would have happened if I took an earlier bus, or if I had finally signed up for the internet banking that my ex has been telling me to do, or if I'd been wearing high heels and been unable to move quickly, or if the kid hadn't shared a name with my nephew and I'd ignored his mother yelling for him.
Those things didn't happen. You can tell me, but you were there. It doesn't help. I don't know why. Dr Chris doesn't know why either.
And that's what keeps me up, at least for tonight.
See anything you liked? Share it! Just link back to this page.
Sunday, 6 October 2013
A Month of Blogs - How Not To Fall In Downward Dog
How Not to Fall in Downward Dog
Suggested by Dee Dee M.
As a writer who seems to have hit a low point in creativity and / or just getting off my ass and writing, I signed myself up to write 31 blog posts during October - one a day - on any subjects that are suggested to me. The only rules for suggestions are that they can't be anything that involve me having to take on a particular viewpoint (so no "Why I Hate Twilight" or "Why Rock Music is the Best Music") - this isn't debating class, and right now I'm not interested in trying to argue something that I may or may not agree with. Anything else goes - it can be a specific subject or a broad one, one that I've written about in the past or something new that will need research. If you're interested in playing along, you can leave a comment here, or email me at thenordicalien@gmail.com. (I'll try and remember to check there, honest!)
I was both intrigued and worried when I got this post request, which is why I'm writing it out of the order that it came in. The worrying part was whether I'd actually be able to write it, since a) I haven't taken a yoga class since 2005; and b) when I did, I was too busy giggling with my friend over the term "downward dog" to have committed much to memory. The intriguing part is also the above, since it's a post that I knew would take research, and the possibility of learning something new is always an intriguing one.
My first port of call was YouTube videos. The comments on these indicated that I was going to be cringing by the end, but when I started to play the clips, things didn't look so bad. Oh, THAT one! I exclaimed. I remember that position! I wonder if I can still do it? I got off my bed onto the floor, adopted a very undignified position on my hands and knees, stomach and breasts swinging unrestrainedly, curled my toes under, and pushed up into an approximation of downward dog. Ten seconds later I had a puffy red eye from taking a boob to the face, but I also had a feeling of accomplishment.
Note to self: wear a sports bra while attempting yoga.
So admittedly, I didn't see too many problems with this position. I think this may have something to do with an unconventional childhood full of unconventional pastimes, one of which was pony-vaulting. For the uninitiated, pony-vaulting is basically a form of horse-based gymnastics. Yoga poses, ballet poses, eventual handstands and headstands and somersaults...all of it on (or off of) the back of a cantering horse. It was the one and only dangerous thing my mother ever let me do, and I'm grateful for it, although I never got up to the handstand stage. I spent my early years in Menorca, and in the eighties it was a little dead in the winter, and we were only doing half days in school at this point, so Robbie (my childhood friend) and I found ourselves enrolled in this thoroughly bizarre circus gym class twice a week in the afternoons. Robbie was much better at it than I was, as a result of having twice my energy levels, a daredevil streak wider than the Mississippi, and a mother who didn't freak out over every little thing he did. We learned to ride bareback; to ride backwards; to spin around on our butts ("la molina" - the windmill); to balance on one hand and one knee while we raised an arm and the opposite leg high in the air ("la bandera" - the flag); to lie on our stomach and bend a leg behind us at both the hip and knee so the sole of our foot touched the top of our head (I think that one had a name, but I don't remember what it was).
Long story short: if you can pull off a yoga pose while balancing on a large sorrel gelding named Chianti, you can probably do it anywhere.
However, that doesn't mean that you can do it well. Or that you can communicate how to do it to anyone else. So with that in mind, I decided to ask a professional.
Haley Blackman is the owner and yoga teacher at The Beauty of Yoga, based in London and Herts. She teaches Hatha, Hatha Flow and Yin Yoga, and she was nice enough to write me some easy-to-follow (I hope!) instructions to quote for this post.
Keep fingers spread and push the top of the mat away from the body, really pressing down with the triangle between the forefingers and thumb, says Haley. Keep eyes of the elbows facing one another, triceps rolled outwards, shoulders away from ears. Cinch in the waist, extend up through the torso like a telescope and extend the chest towards the thighs. Sitting bones are lifted towards the sky. Lift the knees to engage the quads, lift through the shins. Heels are gently reaching towards the floor. Keep breathing slowly and deeply. Once these body parts are activated the pose can be held.
So there you have it. I may have to take another class to be able to picture these instructions fully - and if I do, I'll write a Part 2 to this post - but hopefully anyone who knows the basics of yoga will be able to understand.
Me, I have plenty more bicep curls and oblique-strengthening exercises to do until I can hold my downward dog comfortably for more than five seconds. :)
Check out The Beauty of Yoga's Facebook page here - https://www.facebook.com/TheBeautyofYogaUK .
Or follow on Twitter @thebeautyofyoga.
See anything you liked? Share it! Just link back to this page.
Suggested by Dee Dee M.
As a writer who seems to have hit a low point in creativity and / or just getting off my ass and writing, I signed myself up to write 31 blog posts during October - one a day - on any subjects that are suggested to me. The only rules for suggestions are that they can't be anything that involve me having to take on a particular viewpoint (so no "Why I Hate Twilight" or "Why Rock Music is the Best Music") - this isn't debating class, and right now I'm not interested in trying to argue something that I may or may not agree with. Anything else goes - it can be a specific subject or a broad one, one that I've written about in the past or something new that will need research. If you're interested in playing along, you can leave a comment here, or email me at thenordicalien@gmail.com. (I'll try and remember to check there, honest!)
I was both intrigued and worried when I got this post request, which is why I'm writing it out of the order that it came in. The worrying part was whether I'd actually be able to write it, since a) I haven't taken a yoga class since 2005; and b) when I did, I was too busy giggling with my friend over the term "downward dog" to have committed much to memory. The intriguing part is also the above, since it's a post that I knew would take research, and the possibility of learning something new is always an intriguing one.
My first port of call was YouTube videos. The comments on these indicated that I was going to be cringing by the end, but when I started to play the clips, things didn't look so bad. Oh, THAT one! I exclaimed. I remember that position! I wonder if I can still do it? I got off my bed onto the floor, adopted a very undignified position on my hands and knees, stomach and breasts swinging unrestrainedly, curled my toes under, and pushed up into an approximation of downward dog. Ten seconds later I had a puffy red eye from taking a boob to the face, but I also had a feeling of accomplishment.
Note to self: wear a sports bra while attempting yoga.
So admittedly, I didn't see too many problems with this position. I think this may have something to do with an unconventional childhood full of unconventional pastimes, one of which was pony-vaulting. For the uninitiated, pony-vaulting is basically a form of horse-based gymnastics. Yoga poses, ballet poses, eventual handstands and headstands and somersaults...all of it on (or off of) the back of a cantering horse. It was the one and only dangerous thing my mother ever let me do, and I'm grateful for it, although I never got up to the handstand stage. I spent my early years in Menorca, and in the eighties it was a little dead in the winter, and we were only doing half days in school at this point, so Robbie (my childhood friend) and I found ourselves enrolled in this thoroughly bizarre circus gym class twice a week in the afternoons. Robbie was much better at it than I was, as a result of having twice my energy levels, a daredevil streak wider than the Mississippi, and a mother who didn't freak out over every little thing he did. We learned to ride bareback; to ride backwards; to spin around on our butts ("la molina" - the windmill); to balance on one hand and one knee while we raised an arm and the opposite leg high in the air ("la bandera" - the flag); to lie on our stomach and bend a leg behind us at both the hip and knee so the sole of our foot touched the top of our head (I think that one had a name, but I don't remember what it was).
Long story short: if you can pull off a yoga pose while balancing on a large sorrel gelding named Chianti, you can probably do it anywhere.
However, that doesn't mean that you can do it well. Or that you can communicate how to do it to anyone else. So with that in mind, I decided to ask a professional.
Haley Blackman is the owner and yoga teacher at The Beauty of Yoga, based in London and Herts. She teaches Hatha, Hatha Flow and Yin Yoga, and she was nice enough to write me some easy-to-follow (I hope!) instructions to quote for this post.
Keep fingers spread and push the top of the mat away from the body, really pressing down with the triangle between the forefingers and thumb, says Haley. Keep eyes of the elbows facing one another, triceps rolled outwards, shoulders away from ears. Cinch in the waist, extend up through the torso like a telescope and extend the chest towards the thighs. Sitting bones are lifted towards the sky. Lift the knees to engage the quads, lift through the shins. Heels are gently reaching towards the floor. Keep breathing slowly and deeply. Once these body parts are activated the pose can be held.
So there you have it. I may have to take another class to be able to picture these instructions fully - and if I do, I'll write a Part 2 to this post - but hopefully anyone who knows the basics of yoga will be able to understand.
Me, I have plenty more bicep curls and oblique-strengthening exercises to do until I can hold my downward dog comfortably for more than five seconds. :)
Check out The Beauty of Yoga's Facebook page here - https://www.facebook.com/TheBeautyofYogaUK .
Or follow on Twitter @thebeautyofyoga.
See anything you liked? Share it! Just link back to this page.
Saturday, 5 October 2013
A Month of Blogs - The Thigh Gap
The Thigh Gap
Suggested by Anonymous.
As a writer who seems to have hit a low point in creativity and / or just getting off my ass and writing, I signed myself up to write 31 blog posts during October - one a day - on any subjects that are suggested to me. The only rules for suggestions are that they can't be anything that involve me having to take on a particular viewpoint (so no "Why I Hate Twilight" or "Why Rock Music is the Best Music") - this isn't debating class, and right now I'm not interested in trying to argue something that I may or may not agree with. Anything else goes - it can be a specific subject or a broad one, one that I've written about in the past or something new that will need research. If you're interested in playing along, you can leave a comment here, or email me at thenordicalien@gmail.com. (I'll try and remember to check there, honest!)
Someone - I don't know who - suggested that I write about the space between a girl's thighs. I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that they're not asking me to talk about vaginas.
Truth is, I'm sick to death of this topic. That isn't a dig at you, Anonymous - it's probably an interesting topic for those who don't hear about it from every young girl they talk to. (That's a lot, btw.) I'm sick of the topic because everywhere I turn I see girls - and women - cursing their perfectly nice bodies and feeling inadequate because they don't have the new (well, several years' old) fashion accessory that's taken the world by storm.
I first heard of "The Gap" when a male friend of mine liked a Facebook page, and it came up on my wall. I thought they were talking about the clothing store until I checked out the page, to find that it was a collection of photos paying homage to women whose thighs didn't touch. All sorts of women - tall, short, skinny, muscular, Black, White, Asian...the only thing they had in common was a space at the top of their legs.
I shrugged, thought to myself, I've seen weirder things, and closed the page. What I didn't expect was to see people talking about this EVERYWHERE.
Being someone who likes her research, I decided to find out how a girl goes about acquiring this gold-standard accessory. And do you know what I found? You can't. Not healthily, anyway. Of course anyone who gets super-thin will lose thigh fat and eventually muscle, but that doesn't happen for a long time, not until you're severely underweight. (And frankly, losing muscle mass isn't something you want to do. Trust me on that one - I've lost muscle through serious illness, and it makes you horribly weak, and takes forever to build back up. Not to mention the fact that generally less muscle = lower metabolic rate.)
So except in the case of unhealthy weight loss, you can't get a thigh gap. You either have one or you don't. It all depends on the angle of your pelvis and how your femurs - that's your thigh bones - sit in their sockets.
Of course, if you're overweight, when you lose weight you might find that you have one. I have no idea if I have or not; my legs have been heavy most of my life, even during those few slimmish college years.
So essentially, all these girls are making themselves feel inadequate, are killing themselves in the gym, to get something that cannot physically happen unless you already have the physiology. Imagine having a bunch of girls trying to diet and exercise their way into getting longer arms, or smaller feet. Sound silly to you? Yeah, me too. You can't change your skeleton.
(Actually, I remember back in 2000 or 2001, one of the - thankfully short-lived - fads amongst high-society women was to have surgery on their feet. Know what they did? They had their last tarsal and metatarsal removed so their feet looked more slimline and fit into designer shoes. Yes, they had their baby toes cut off. There were actually surgeons out there willing to cut off body parts so women could pander to fashion trends. Turns out you actually CAN change your skeleton sometimes...if you have enough money...and lack enough sense.)
I happen to like the look of thigh gaps, if they're on a woman who has one naturally. If you have one along with good health and good muscle tone, I think they look nice. I wouldn't mind having one. I might get one when I get closer to my goal weight, since I have quite wide hips. We'll see. But if I don't I certainly am not going to feel inferior to women who do. That's just ridiculous, and sad. The body you're meant to have is the one you've been given. Eat well, exercise well, look after it, and accept it the way it is.
See anything you like? Share it! Just link back to this page.
Suggested by Anonymous.
As a writer who seems to have hit a low point in creativity and / or just getting off my ass and writing, I signed myself up to write 31 blog posts during October - one a day - on any subjects that are suggested to me. The only rules for suggestions are that they can't be anything that involve me having to take on a particular viewpoint (so no "Why I Hate Twilight" or "Why Rock Music is the Best Music") - this isn't debating class, and right now I'm not interested in trying to argue something that I may or may not agree with. Anything else goes - it can be a specific subject or a broad one, one that I've written about in the past or something new that will need research. If you're interested in playing along, you can leave a comment here, or email me at thenordicalien@gmail.com. (I'll try and remember to check there, honest!)
Someone - I don't know who - suggested that I write about the space between a girl's thighs. I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that they're not asking me to talk about vaginas.
Truth is, I'm sick to death of this topic. That isn't a dig at you, Anonymous - it's probably an interesting topic for those who don't hear about it from every young girl they talk to. (That's a lot, btw.) I'm sick of the topic because everywhere I turn I see girls - and women - cursing their perfectly nice bodies and feeling inadequate because they don't have the new (well, several years' old) fashion accessory that's taken the world by storm.
I first heard of "The Gap" when a male friend of mine liked a Facebook page, and it came up on my wall. I thought they were talking about the clothing store until I checked out the page, to find that it was a collection of photos paying homage to women whose thighs didn't touch. All sorts of women - tall, short, skinny, muscular, Black, White, Asian...the only thing they had in common was a space at the top of their legs.
I shrugged, thought to myself, I've seen weirder things, and closed the page. What I didn't expect was to see people talking about this EVERYWHERE.
Being someone who likes her research, I decided to find out how a girl goes about acquiring this gold-standard accessory. And do you know what I found? You can't. Not healthily, anyway. Of course anyone who gets super-thin will lose thigh fat and eventually muscle, but that doesn't happen for a long time, not until you're severely underweight. (And frankly, losing muscle mass isn't something you want to do. Trust me on that one - I've lost muscle through serious illness, and it makes you horribly weak, and takes forever to build back up. Not to mention the fact that generally less muscle = lower metabolic rate.)
So except in the case of unhealthy weight loss, you can't get a thigh gap. You either have one or you don't. It all depends on the angle of your pelvis and how your femurs - that's your thigh bones - sit in their sockets.
Of course, if you're overweight, when you lose weight you might find that you have one. I have no idea if I have or not; my legs have been heavy most of my life, even during those few slimmish college years.
So essentially, all these girls are making themselves feel inadequate, are killing themselves in the gym, to get something that cannot physically happen unless you already have the physiology. Imagine having a bunch of girls trying to diet and exercise their way into getting longer arms, or smaller feet. Sound silly to you? Yeah, me too. You can't change your skeleton.
(Actually, I remember back in 2000 or 2001, one of the - thankfully short-lived - fads amongst high-society women was to have surgery on their feet. Know what they did? They had their last tarsal and metatarsal removed so their feet looked more slimline and fit into designer shoes. Yes, they had their baby toes cut off. There were actually surgeons out there willing to cut off body parts so women could pander to fashion trends. Turns out you actually CAN change your skeleton sometimes...if you have enough money...and lack enough sense.)
I happen to like the look of thigh gaps, if they're on a woman who has one naturally. If you have one along with good health and good muscle tone, I think they look nice. I wouldn't mind having one. I might get one when I get closer to my goal weight, since I have quite wide hips. We'll see. But if I don't I certainly am not going to feel inferior to women who do. That's just ridiculous, and sad. The body you're meant to have is the one you've been given. Eat well, exercise well, look after it, and accept it the way it is.
See anything you like? Share it! Just link back to this page.
Friday, 4 October 2013
A Month of Blogs - Are Dogs Really Man's Best Friend?
Are Dogs Really Man's Best Friend?
Suggested by Joanna J.
As a writer who seems to have hit a low point in creativity and / or just getting off my ass and writing, I signed myself up to write 31 blog posts during October - one a day - on any subjects that are suggested to me. The only rules for suggestions are that they can't be anything that involve me having to take on a particular viewpoint (so no "Why I Hate Twilight" or "Why Rock Music is the Best Music") - this isn't debating class, and right now I'm not interested in trying to argue something that I may or may not agree with. Anything else goes - it can be a specific subject or a broad one, one that I've written about in the past or something new that will need research. If you're interested in playing along, you can leave a comment here, or email me at thenordicalien@gmail.com. (I'll try and remember to check there, honest!)
I was talking to my ex on whatsapp while I was writing this post, and when he asked me what I was writing, I told him.
"They're not," he said.
"Personally, I think books are man's best friend," I said.
I was expecting him to say something about cats. He's very much a cat person.
"Boobs are man's best friend," said he.
That story has nothing to do with this post, but it made me smile.
Are dogs man's best friend? Many people would say yes.
I am not really a dog person, so my answer is a more restrained, sometimes.
I had a dog once. Actually I had two dogs, sort of, except that the first one - a black Lab puppy called Knight, when I was 9 - was bought by my mother's lodger as a joint present for "the kids" (me and her son, who was a couple years younger than me), and was never really my dog at all. I think Sarah only said he was for the two of us as a way of getting him into the house, since I was never allowed to walk him, rarely allowed to play with him, and he met a sad end after a confrontation with a car when he was only a few months old. (Sarah was a not a big believer in rules, thinking that they stifled kids' and animals' natural growth, and her disdain for such things extended to the idea of keeping a very young puppy on a leash when out in public. Eyeroll.)
But I digress.
I had a dog. Bonni was a Jack Russell - her papers said purebred, although mom and I agreed that this was a load of bollocks. Mama said I could have a puppy for my tenth birthday, providing I was responsible for her, and being folks who didn't really know about the need to get dogs from shelters or friends' litters, or at least from registered breeders, we trundled off to a pet shop in Bushey a few days after I turned ten. This was 1994, before shops stopped selling kittens and puppies. The man in the shop had a bunch of Yorkshire Terrier puppies who looked like hairy rats, and one white ball of fluff with brown patches on. He told us that we wouldn't be able to take any of them home today, as they weren't quite ready to be sold, and I remember almost having a meltdown in the store. While my episodes of behaving badly as a kid can be counted probably on one hand (and certainly on two), I had really wanted a puppy to take home. At that age, patience wasn't my strong suit.
Come to think of it, it still isn't. I get crabby waiting for books to come in the mail. I nearly threw a wobbly on Friday because my couriered package of candy corn and mellowcreme pumpkins didn't arrive.
Anyway.
Mom managed to calm me down, and we decided that even if we had to wait, we'd get one of these puppies. Not one of the Yorkshires - neither mom nor I have ever been fond of that breed - but the white and brown fluffball. We went and told the man, and he seemed shocked that I wanted her. That one? He said. Oh, you can take that one home with you now. I didn't realise you wanted that one.
By this time I had built up quite an amount of loathing for the man, but I was so thrilled to be getting my very own dog that we paid and took her home. This was the beginning of a very strange, tempestuous, often frustrating relationship.
Bonni was neurotic. There really isn't any other way to say it. You know those girls you see on TV and if you're unlucky, in real life - the ones who are quivering masses of tension, who cry every time they get picked last for gym, who cling to their boyfriends as though they have no way of breathing or moving on their own, who treat every disappointment, from relationship breakups to bad grades to broken fingernails as though it were a life-altering crisis? Those girls? Bonni was the canine equivalent. I've never worked out if this was due to abuse that she suffered before we got her, or something that I did wrong, or if she just picked up on my mother's anxiety disorders and tendency to cling. Probably all of the above. My mom can be a limpet at times - although she's better now than she was when I was a kid - and animals definitely pick up on human behaviour. I certainly knew nothing about training a puppy, and I failed her grossly in that regard. And she was almost certainly abused and / or neglected by the pet shop owner, or the breeder before him. When we first took her to the vet, the vet was so furious at her state that she had to leave the room for several minutes before she could talk to us. She had more fleas and worms than the vet had ever seen, there were patches of red, inflamed skin infection on her forelegs, she had mastitis, her tail had been docked, and she was at least four weeks younger than her papers said - meaning that we got her when she was less than a month old.
(I am happy to say that the vet managed to get the pet shop closed down shortly after that, and the shop owner prosecuted.)
I'd like to inject a serious piece of advice / warning here - don't ever buy a dog for a child, or even for yourself, without doing your research first. Find out how to raise a dog right, if you've never raised one before. Research different breed characteristics to find out what sort of breed / mix would suit you, rather than just buying the first one you find that looks cute. Read as many books as you can and be prepared to shell out the money for a comprehensive obedience / house-training course if you're buying a puppy. Don't even consider getting a dog if you have a hair-trigger temper, or an aversion to rules, or control issues.
We did it wrong. We loved our puppy, but we should never have had her. We didn't have the money to get her professionally trained, and she was untrainable at home. We didn't have the time and energy to walk her for the several hours a day that a dog with so much energy required. Mom has always had issues with control, and having had children who were almost unfailingly obedient and respectful, she took Bonni's disobedience and challenges to authority as a personal insult. We screwed up in every possible way. This is what I mean when I say that I am not a dog person. I don't have the patience or personal skills to raise a dog to be happy and well-adjusted. I can just barely handle cats.
But oh, how I loved her, even when she drove me round the bend. During the first year, we took her to school quite often to show her off to the other kids. As a young dog, she enjoyed the company of people she didn't know, although she got crabby around strangers when she got older. We used to walk in the woods after school most days, for an hour or so. Other days we'd go to the park and throw sticks. She had an incredible grip - something Jack Russells are known for - and she loved to play tug-of-war with sticks or her leash. Imagine the horror that mom and I experienced when we were playing one day and a couple of her teeth flew out. We rushed her straight to the vet, who laughed and explained that puppies lose their milk teeth, same as human kids. Neither of us had had any idea.
When she got a little older, we got her one of the microchip passports, and took her to Spain with us, where we used to run along the beach and bark and the waves. Yes, we. I've done my share of running and barking.
As she got older, she got more and more clingy. She'd cry if you left her outside for more than five minutes, even in the summer. She'd cry when you locked her in the kitchen. She was a compulsive licker and jumper. My allergies worsened as I got older, to the point that I had red weals over my body most of the time from her dander, and if she licked me my skin would start to peel off, so I didn't spend as much cuddling time as she wanted. (Although I think anything less than 100% of the time would have been less than she wanted.) I wish there'd been a dog whisperer around to help me train her and make her feel better, but at that time I'd never heard of such a thing.
She reminds me of my mother in so many ways.
Bonni survived until she was 16, when she started getting sick. We're not sure what was wrong with her, because she didn't make it to the vet's appointment. She had a big lump on her head one day. The next day it was bigger and she was having trouble walking and standing up. Next day she was gone.
Sometimes I think I would like to get a dog again. I like dogs much in the way that I like children - that is, I like to borrow a friend's and then be able to give them back at the end of the day. I like to read about dogs. Dean Koontz writes his canine companions particularly well - some are super-smart, genetically engineered dogs (he's a thriller / sci-fi writer) and others are ordinary, friendly, loyal, wonderful pups that anyone would be thrilled to call part of the family.
I read Koontz, and I think I want this. Then I realise, I don't really know how to cope with family.
Dogs probably are man's best friend. That said, not all people do well having best friends. Some of us find too much closeness to be stifling. Some of us don't like having anyone around who relies on us too much. And that's OK.
After all, there's always cats.
Or Pokemon.
Some of Dean Koontz's books with awesome dogs:
Watchers - featuring a genetically enhanced golden retriever with a wicked sense of humor - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32423.Watchers .
One Door Away From Heaven - featuring a boy who can form human-dog friendship bonds - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15746.One_Door_Away_from_Heaven .
The Darkest Evening of the Year - featuring a dog who came back as an angel - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/379316.The_Darkest_Evening_of_the_Year .
See anything you like? Share it! Just link back to this page.
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