Monthly Archives: February 2011

On The Rules of Fashion

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I have two comments about this picture.

Ella Catliff. Photo from NYMag.com

Comment #1: Her thighs are impossibly skinny.

Comment #2: Is there some magical age at which I will finally gain the illusive ability to wear blacks and browns at the same time and not feel like I am breaking the law? Because, seriously. I have outlandish and overbearing guilt about mixing brown and black. When I was little, my mom taught me three things about color. #1: Don’t mix brown and black. #2: Don’t wear navy and black together, either. And #3: Red is the only color that you can’t mix with purple.

Whether she was right or wrong, it doesn’t matter. These three points of color-mixing are deeply embedded into my fashion sense. They are as real to me as the self-evident truths were to our nation’s founding fathers. And while I’m not trying to strip anyone of their unalienable rights, I would like to be able to confidently mix brown and black without feeling like I was committing treason.

On Asking For Help

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There are times in life when I can’t handle everything by myself.

I like to do everything. I am an accidental know-it-all, an I-don’t-need-your-help, can-handle-it-myself kind of a person. I don’t like to ask for help. I’d rather do it all. Whatever “it all” happens to be.

And so, as you can imagine, nursing school is teaching me about more than just the pathophysiolgy of a hundred million disease processes. It’s also teaching me humility. It’s teaching me how to eat my words. It’s teaching me how to be wrong, and how to be wrong OFTEN. And now, it’s teaching me now to ask for help.

On Wednesday, I had to ask for help. I had a bad day on Wednesday. I don’t mean the kind of bad day that I had before I acquired this depression. I mean I had a bad day.

I found myself on my bed, alone in the house, crying. Really, really crying. All of these thoughts started to swirl around in my head, and I recognized all of these emotions as familiar inhabitants of my mind from the past year. Failure, my greatest enemy, always shows up during these moments. If I wasn’t feeling like a failure already for something that happened (a bad test grade, a personal goal not met, a workout missed, etc.), I tend to get to the failure feelings pretty quickly. Because in Emotional Sarah’s world (as opposed to Rational Sarah’s world), it’s a failure for me to be feeling those feelings.

See what a dangerous place that is? Where your feelings make you a failure and your worst enemy is failure and so when you have feelings you’re a failure and that makes you have more feelings and yeah. That’s usually about the point where I decide to take a nap.

Sleeping, as my first (and only good) therapist told me, is the best way to totally reset your emotions and adrenaline spirals. Any time I started to feel “all spirally” she told me to take a nap. It’s still my number one self-initiated treatment. It works (provided that you can get to sleep).

Just before I feel asleep, I sent Sarah1 a text message. She’s been one of my rocks through this whole depression battle. She has a background in counseling and working with crazy people, so I’m right up her alley. I told her that things were bad, and I was losing control and that I needed her to pray for me or do something. Anything. Then I cried harder. Crying harder always kills the last -enth of whatever energy I have left, and ends with sleeping. I always appreciate the sleeping.

That night, my mother-in-law called me. Sarah1 had passed along the information I’d sent her, knowing that Paula would want to know, and that I would gladly tell her. Paula called me that night and asked me what she should do. She asked if I had been eating, which I hadn’t. She then asked if she could bring me dinner. I, despite everything inside me railing against it, said yes.

The next day, Sarah brought dinner to the house for Zack and me. And on Saturday, Paula showed up with her arms full of groceries. She made dinner for that night, and prepped dinner for several more, shoved it all in the fridge, and wrote out instructions about how long to cook each dish. She washed my dishes and cleaned my kitchen. I sat in the office, just like I had all day, and studied.

So, I ate three meals today for the first time in who-knows-how-long, because I have a family who cares for me, and because I let someone help me. Yesterday, as Paula was cooking in my kitchen, Emotional Sarah felt weak, embarrassed and burdensome because someone had to come do things for me that I know how to do. Things that I should be able to do. But Rational Sarah is beyond happy that she has been blessed with the kind of family who loves me in the kind of way that my family loves me. The kind of family who will come wash your dishes and put a meatloaf in your fridge, just to make the load a little lighter.

Thank you.

Foot Update

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My foot isn’t broken. I didn’t think it was, I just thought it hurt really, really bad. About 72 hours after the nalgene lid slammed into my metatarsal, the pain mostly went away. It’s still a little angry if you start mashing on it, but I can deal with that.

Swelling generally maxes out at about 72 hours post-injury, so as soon as my foot stopped throbbing three days later, I knew I was money. I also gained a personal appreciation for the mantra of “72 HOURS” my clinical instructor has been barking at us for almost a year now. You have to watch for swelling for 72 hours. And if when the swelling goes away, the pain goes too? You’re golden.

Worst/Best Analogies

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Zack sent me a link to the 56 best/worst analogies today, and I am in love. It’s a site, that, as you would expect from the name, is filled with the worst (but best) analogies ever written (and collected and published) by high school students. It’s been around the web for a while, but it needs to be posted here, lest someone’s life have the terrible misfortune to have never read this awesome list. Go, ye, to the website, and enjoy.

This is Zack’s favorite:
#8) He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame. Maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.

These are some of mine:
#5) John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

#15) He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at asolar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.

#18) The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn’t.

#27) The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.

#30) It hurt the way your tongue hurts after you accidentally staple it to the wall.

#50) Her artistic sense was exquisitely refined, like someone who can tell butter from I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter.

#53) You know how in “Rocky” he prepares for the fight by punching sides of raw beef? Well, yesterday it was as cold as that meat locker he was in.

My Poor 5th Metatarsal

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“Well, that’s it, then,” Zack said, while audibly trying to contain his laughter. “That’s the solution. I’ll just drop a bottle on your foot every morning after you work out. Then you’ll never be sore from a workout again.”I rolled my eyes as loudly as I could. I had to make it loud because I was talking to him on the phone while I limped from to the library between classes.

I had just explained to him that, despite having worked out with Marie yesterday, I wasn’t feeling much muscle pain. Instead, all I could think about was the throbbing in my right foot.

I injured my right foot this morning when, as I was getting out of bed, I stood up and reached to grab my water bottle (a 36 oz nalgene). Instead of actually grabbing my water bottle, I simply swatted it off of my nightstand, sending the (full) bottle careening head-first towards the earth, only to be saved from its terrible floor-smashing fate by my right foot’s fifth metatarsal. The fourth metatarsal is involved, too. But the fifth. The fifth one really took most of the blow.

I’m not saying my 5th metatarsal is broken. I’m just saying that this happens to be where the heavy bottle landed and where the pain is currently radiating from in my right foot. That’s all I’m saying.

As an answer to his mockery, I plainly informed him, “Zack. This really actually hurts.”

“I KNOW,” he said, “I gathered that from the way you said ‘OW’ this morning.”

I could tell by the tonality of his voice that his eyes were smiling. Still. Despite my poor 5th metatarsal. Zack always laughs at me when I’m being serious. (He especially laughs at me when I’m trying to be serious about an ‘owie.’ I find this to be frustrating. Unfortunately, the only thing Zack finds more hilarious than me being serious, is the way I get frustrated when he laughs at me for being serious. It’s a vicious cycle. Seriously.)

I explained to him that I had only said OW in that loud and flat tone of voice because a.) it hurt and b.) I was trying my damnedest to keep from screaming. Since he was still asleep, I thought it might be rude if I’d have turned into the town crier at that particular moment. So I went with OW, instead. It was the best I could come up with at the moment. So shoot me. (Just not in the foot.)

But Zack woke up when he heard the crash, snapping to attention when he heard me say ‘OW.’ As soon as I saw that he was awake, and then coupled that knowledge with the fact that the OW had not (in any way, shape or form) been a sufficient outcry of pain, I decided to just go ahead and let it all out. I curled up back on the bed, held my foot, and cried. Zack held me as I cried. And then I’m pretty sure he fell back asleep, but I’m not holding it against him. It was pretty early in the morning.

Good news, though. Turns out, my lack of soreness this morning was completely unrelated to my (maybe) broken foot. It was just the trickiness of delayed-onset lactic acid build up. Because I’m plenty sore now, AND my foot is swollen and discolored. DOUBLE TROUBLE!

Now Entering: Survival Mode

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My sister-in-law, Sarah1, sent me a text message today. She told me that she missed me and asked me when we could hang out again.

I said, “Spring break.”
She said, “That’s what I figured.”

Folks, the shit has hitteth the fan. I am officially in survival/nose-to-the-grindstone mode. Usually, I can figure out a way to make all of this work–figure out a way to fit everything in. Usually, my study buddy Jennifer and I can be found in the corner of some room in the library creating an attack plan and orchestrating a master schedule that will provide for optimal results. Jennifer and I have always aimed for A’s.

This semester, we’re adjusted our trajectory. We are now aiming for survival. We’re going to make it, but it’s gonna be a close one.

At Least I’m Not All Alone with the Torture

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I got this text message from Marie today:
“My sneeze was just followed by an audible “OW!” in the library.”

On Friday, she thought it’d be a really fun idea to make us do 500 ab moves. As in, 20 crunches, 20 toe touches, 20 butt lifts, 20 mason twists and 20 side crunches (on each side, so nevermind the fact that that’s really 120 moves X 5, which equals 600.)

We did the first round. I thought I was going to die.
We did the second round. I was pretty sure I was going to vomit.
We were doing the third round when I actually blacked out a little bit. I was like, “ARE WE IN THE SECOND ROUND OR THE THIRD ROUND?”
Marie giggled. Third round, she said. We were in the third round.
I celebrated. WHOO. Third round! Almost done!
Marie giggled again.

Then she started the fourth round.
Then she finished it.
Then she started the fifth round.

I finally protested. We always do three sets of EVERYTHING. We never do more than three sets. I started whining louder than I usually whine. She busted up my whining with some nonsense about how since the core works hard for our body all of the time, the core workouts have to be especially brutal in order to achieve effects. I don’t know if this is true, or if this is trainer bullshit. If it is true, don’t tell me. I’d like to go on believing that it’s trainer bullshit.

Anyway, I was like SCREW EFFECTS. I WANT TO DIE.

As she continued with her round #5, I began to mix up her Ab500 plan by doing other abdominal-type workout things that weren’t going to leave me with a lust for murder in my heart. I did a few planks. I’m not trying to brag, (ahem), but I can do a lot of planks. I’m a plank master. (Just because Zack and I used to do them in our at-home workouts because I hate sit-ups.) That night, though, I could only do a couple rounds of planks, because my shoulders totally gave out. Why did my shoulders give out? Because Marie had just made me complete her “Big 50″ shoulder routine. THREE TIMES. She merrily told me after we finished, “I just make my clients do that once, but since you’re working out with the trainer, you have to do it three times.”

So, yeah. Yeah, maybe I bailed on the FIVE HUNDRED (or, 600 if you can count correctly, WHICH I CAN) ab moves. Maybe I only got in 400 and some planks. But I would have done more planks if I could’ve used my arms to hold myself up. Which I couldn’t. Because of the 150 shoulder moves. Needless to say, I was not very forthcoming with pity when Marie was whining to me about how the Friday Evening At The Gym Torture Fest left her with some sensitivity in her abdominal region. And I will not be very forthcoming with pity, at least not until I can shift gears in my car without feeling like someone punched me in the gut.

Who knew it required so many ab muscles to put the Jetta into reverse?

Life Lessons with Peppers

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I made my world-famous fajitas for my friends Betsy and Randy for dinner tonight. Betsy and Randy are some of my dearest friends. I’ve known Betsy forever; we went to high school and college together. Betsy married Randy, who also went to college with us. Randy loves guns and is about to graduate from nursing school. Do you see how these relationships work? Age-old friendships, guns and nursing? Win, win, win. Everyone is happy.

Betsy, Randy, Zack and I all like to eat spicy food, so I didn’t worry at all when I blended up my special magical fajita mix and let the meat soak up flavor and spice all afternoon. I knew it was going to leave us all with a nice afterburn and possibly a slightly runny nose, but I didn’t care. Deliciousness with an afterburn is just all that much more delicious.

At dinner, though, Betsy seemed to be really affected by the spice. We ate dinner outside on some patio furniture by the grill. There was a nice chill in the air — Betsy and I were both wearing sweaters — but I noticed as the dinner progressed that she had sweat beading up on her forehead. She was really feeling the spice.

She’s a tough lady, though. She didn’t complain. She just kept on eating those fajitas.

As I finished eating my last taco, I watched Betsy as she loaded up another taco. She’d wondered outloud as to whether the heat was coming from the meat she was eating or the taco’s fixin’s. I didn’t think anything about that question until I noticed that she was heaping on the toppings that I’d chopped up before we’d gone outside to the patio. To consolidate the number of containers, I’d put the onions, bell peppers, cilantro and jalapenos all into the same Tupperware container. I heaped each one of the chopped toppings into its own corner of the plastic bowl, and they had done a good job of staying put. And Betsy was heaping the peppers directly from the jalapeno corner.

As soon as I figured it out, I asked, “Oh my gosh, are you piling raw jalapeno peppers onto your tacos?!” Betsy looked at me with a gaze that burned a hole through my face. I’m not sure if it was anger or just the jalapenos that caused the burning, but something did, that much is for sure. She said, “THE WHAT?” Apparently, she’d been unaware that I’d chopped jalapeno peppers for the dinner. She thought she had been heaping gentle and crispy bell peppers onto her fajitas all this time.

At that point, I made a sacrifice that any good friend would do after she realized that she’d just flamed out her friend’s sinus cavities. I poured half of my margarita into her glass.

Sharing margaritas is a sign of true love. I learned tonight that another sign of caring would be to properly label your fajita toppings. And I also learned that perhaps it’s better to wash more dishes than it is to have your best friend melt the inside of her head.