It is hard to undo a lifetime of bad habits.
For most of my years on the planet, I favored the power-through method of life management, recklessly using whatever tools I had at my disposal, caffeine, various unregulated pharmaceuticals, my considerable will, to do so. It's a dangerous combination, that mix of stubbornness and not-enough-ness that many of us seem to be gifted with. Very easy to do yourself considerable damage without even realizing you're doing it.
And now, heading into Week Four of being laid low by some virus/bug/whatever, my own stupidity is clanging madly in that space between my ears. Why did I think it was a good idea to hit the gym twice last week when I needed a cup of coffee each time to do it? Why do I say "yes" to yet another project/outing/favor when most days I'm too tired to wash a sinkful of dishes? And mostly, Why am I not well? Why me? What did I do to deserve this?
Well, I know exactly what I did, how long I did it for and even why I chose to do it in the face of all reasonable evidence that I should not. People with weakened immune systems cannot get away with the kinds of shenanigans that people with healthy immune systems can. Period. And yet I insist upon trying to sneak one more infraction by my poor, hobbled body, one more class, one more meeting, one more cocktail with a friend. So, to paraphrase a thousand woo-woo wits, I will continue to receive the same lesson in different forms until I choose to learn it: Crohn's disease, the cold that won't go away and perhaps (oh, please, God, no) ME/CFS.
That would be the chronic fatigue disorder that Michael Nobbs was diagnosed with back in 1999. It crept up on him like the Crohn's crept up on me, but apparently, he kept on pushing through it for a few more years before he hipped himself to the reality that he might have to slow down a bit. I don't mean to sound superior, here; if wasting, fever and shitting two pints of blood hadn't kept me tethered to my bed, I'd have been pushing, too. (And in my way, I pushed, too, believe me.)
Anyway, I've a cold now (as the Brits would say), and have had (as they'd also say) for going on four weeks. I get a little better. I run out and do a million things. I get a little worse. I collapse, then rouse myself with a cup of drug-of-choice (coffee or tea, depending). I run out and do a million things. I collapse and retreat. Cancel everything. Rest. Feel a wee bit better. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
And Michael?
I wonder if I've been out and about just a bit too much and am finally paying for it. I've got a cold which seems to have gone to my chest. I'm hoping it won't last. I've been enjoying my regular visits to the outside world so much of late and don't want to have to give up on them again. No reason to of course. Everyone gets colds. They come and go. It's just I'm always very nervous about a complete health downturn and am hoping this won't be one.
Is it any wonder I fell in love reading his blog? I mean, if the wonderful drawings (that so remind me of the late, great, Louise Fitzhugh's) weren't enough, his deceptively simple, bell-clear descriptions of his heart's map would.
I've remarked on my obsessive crushes before; this time was no different. Greedily, I burned through much of Michael's site. Then I ordered a picture. Then I ordered his journal, which arrived yesterday, and which I greedily burned through in about ten minutes. Now I'm re-reading it slowly, the way Michael created it. Call it my zen meditation for today. Since the journal is so delightful, it's not a particularly effortful practice, which makes it a useful meditation for a hard-ass like myself.
I love the Internet. I lose hours here, not minding, stumbling upon interesting sites like Michael's that introduce me to even more interesting people, places and things. I also like the mirrors they hold up for me, complete with wonderful life hacks for crazy folk who have a tough time learning our lessons.
You will be doing Michael a solid if you buy his journal. It is hard enough earning a living sometimes when you are well enough to work; for the ill, it becomes exponentially more difficult. But really, you will be doing yourself a favor as well.
And me. Because I want The Beany to be so successful, the next issue comes out in colo(u)r.
xxx c
All images © 2002-2004 Michael Nobbs
Tater, tater in the dark
I put you up here on a lark
Perhaps to make a tiny spark
Inspiring threads like 
While I don't suffer from any paralyzing fears, I do have a few sticky wickets I wrassle with on a fairly constant basis.
One is a fear of unwarranted incarceration. While this fear is usually triggered by some random brush with authority (just seeing a police car upends the hairs on the back of my neck), I think I live with a low level of it all the time. And when life gets a little stressful, I know I'm bound for a repeat broadcast of the long-running nightmare where, after a brief trial complete with slo-mo judge's gavel crashing down to an accompanying basso "GUILTY!" I'm cuffed, hauled off and thrown behind bars that slam shut with a creaky, noir-ish clang. When I lived in New York back in the 1980s, I had a fear of getting bonked on the head, losing my memory and winding up wandering the streets with my shopping cart, so crazy I couldn't recognize my own face on the "missing" flyers, so filthy and worn with exposure that no one else could, either.
But my biggest fear (outside of rats eating my eyeballs, thanks a lot, 
I know I'm doing something good for me if I get a little of that vertiginous feel when I'm doing it. Walking to my first sewing class I felt mildly excited, but running fabric through the machine for the first time, my fingers mere millimeters from a mechanized needle, I felt my glucose level plummet. Likewise the first time I popped open the door on my G4 to tinker or traveled solo.
I'd run into my friend, David Bickford, at a New Year's Eve party. We'd just closed a show before the holidays and were discussing upcoming theatrical ventures. He's always got some new play going at his 
But when we busted out the guitars so he could show me how the scales actually worked, how they were the same no matter what instrument you picked up, how it was mathematical and logical and beautiful all at once...well, I could have grabbed his face in both hands and kissed him smack on the lips. Because while it wasn't all completely clear yet, I had that thrill of Getting It, that exciting peep under the tent at what things would be, could be like a year from now if I kept at it, of the world that might open up to me if I opened myself up enough to let it.
For someone who grew up in the Bicycling Fish days of feminism, I have pedaled a surprising number of miles. Don't get me wrong: as any of my friends from as far back as Montessori will tell you, I've always been an independent cuss, happier playing on my own than with others, refusing assistance to a fault (you don't end up in the hospital for 11 days with 104ºF fever and bloody intestines because you're smart about asking for help).
But independence is a funny thing. It's not just about things like making your own way (which I do) or buying your own place (which I have); it's about doing them in the right way, in the right time and with the right spirit. Too often in my past I did great things for lousy reasons. I threw myself into series of jobs I only sort of liked, turning them into a career I definitely didn't like, all to prove...what? That I was capable? That I was extraordinary? And to whom? A nameless, faceless crowd of People who, let's face it, couldn't really give a rat's patootie about my next big advertising move.
Likewise, while it shames me deeply, I've spent far too much time and energy looking for relationships, being in relationships, contorting myself to fit in outdated relationships than I have on my relationship with myself. Not just primary relationships, either, it was just as important to win the approval of a parent or a friend or the mail carrier as it was that of a lover. Even while I recognized this was not perhaps the most salubrious way to waltz through life, I couldn't stop myself: I had to exhaust myself. After 41 years of running, I collapsed. Fortunately, that time I not only let go and let God (or whomever, as I like to say), I let go of everything and I let everybody.
And remarkably, things began to shift. I was more grateful for less money. My burning desire to Make It As An Actress turned into a profound respect for the ground I had already gained, and then to a respect for the person (um, me) who'd gained it, and then to a total falling away of all the (wrong) reasons I'd lusted after success, money, fame, validation, and yes, love, leaving just this pure but fiercely burning desire to speak my Truth. And my yearning to be in a primary relationship sort of faded away, bit by bit, until I realized that what I really wanted was authentic connection, period, with myself, with my friends, with the mail carrier. My real longing was for home; the "whom" was almost beside the point. (Sex was not, but that's another post for another day.)
Which brings me back around to the title of this rather long-winded rant (with apologies to Virginia Woolf). For too long, I shunned the idea of home as just so much attachment, a waste of time, money and energy. I lived in a series of shitholes I was only too happy to turn the key on in the morning. When I finally bought a place, I did it for Investment Purposes and for the partner who would surely materialize to join me there (he did). When I lived with S.O.s, I furnished (or not) to please them; when they moved out or I moved on, I kept only what was necessary to get by.
Two of the greatest things I ever got out of any relationship came from my marriage: an introduction to honest-to-God, Italian-American "gravy", as my former in-laws called it, (or "red lead" as Tony Soprano calls it) and to the Chicago-style giardinera that goes so perfectly with it.
For the uninitiated, giardinera (pronounced "jar'-din-AIR" if you're from Chicago) is basically chopped vegetables and spices either marinated in oil or picked in vinegar.
Describing myself to a new acquaintance in a recent email, I noted that the chief difference between the old me (i.e., pre-Crohn's) and the new me (post-Crohn's) is that New Me is happy 99.99% of the time.
It's hard to explain to people who haven't been through it, but the worst thing about any illness is, I think, the not-knowing. I was much more scared about the diarrhea I suffered alone in my apartment pre-diagnosis than I was shitting two pints of blood out of my ass at Cedars-Sinai. Don't get me wrong, it was not without its alarming aspects (mmm...litotes...). But hey, if you're gonna shit two pints of blood, there's really no better place in the world to do it than the IBD ward of a clean, modern, teaching hospital in an industrialized nation. Especially if you have good insurance.
