'Hormonal' Why, Whatever Gives You That Impression?

It can be difficult to determine what a woman means exactly when she says she is 'hormonal'. It could simply mean she has a headache, or is a little cranky... perhaps bloated and a little sad. You never can tell. Of course, it's a terrible idea to ask a lady to clarify what level of 'hormonal' she is.

"Hormonal, huh? Are we talking a chocolate cookie dough kind of night? Or a date with the exorcist?"

Bad idea.
It's always polite to respond instead with:

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. Would you like me to rub your [insert body part here: feet, neck, shoulders, breasts, other bits]?"

Also acceptable:

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. Would you like me to run to Krispy Kreme/Sonic/Baskin Robbins/The Cheesemonger at Scardello for you?"

This is indeed what a woman is looking for when she announces her mental state as 'hormonal'. You would only understand this if you had ever been a woman with PMS, tried to understand what that means by asking a woman with PMS, or if you had encountered a wild grizzly while wearing a suit made of raw pork belly. You can either give the bear what it wants, or suffer the wrath.

Sometimes, 'hormonal' is a less predictable form of crazy, bordering on psychosis. Let me preface the description of my day with the fact that its been a very long week with Bart's hospital stay, and I've slept very little. Nevertheless, in retrospect, I probably should have seen the warning signs early, took an Ambien and gone back to bed.

My Saturday:

1. I didn't sleep last night, despite being so tired I couldn't coordinate my hands to do simple tasks when I got home. I went to pour myself some wine, and started pouring about an inch to the right of the mouth of my glass. I watched in amazement as - for the second time this week - I watched myself pour wine all over the counter with zero control of my extremities.

Sudden lack of coordination: sign you might be hormonal. (Wine all over the counter also counts toward diagnosis, crying over said wine is a guarantee of the condition.)

2. Since I was up so early, I started doing laundry and washing dishes at 5:15am. Once a chunk of chores were off my list, I decided to go back and try to grab a nap before it was time to get Bart at the hospital. I laid back down and suddenly, off in the corner of the room, a tiny little grumble started repeating itself. I would barely have dozed off, and the grumble would wake me. It had been raining, the cat was annoying me, and I was so delirious, I didn't care where it was coming from until, in a fit of rage, I realized it was my own stomach and spoke to it in tongues, commanding it to LEAVE ME ALONE SO I CAN SLEEP! Only I was the only one who understood the message, because what came out of my mouth sounded more like WHY DOES EVERYTHING IN MY HOUSE, INCLUDING MY CATS AND MY BODY WANT ME TO BE UNHAPPY?!

Holding your biology responsible for your happiness: sign you might be hormal.

3. Since I was definitely awake again, and evidently hungry, I went to the kitchen and wrestled the pizza box out from the night before. I had wedged it in carelessly, and I knocked some pudding off the second shelf of the fridge. It landed on the island next to the bottle of wine - the one I opened so I could pour it all over the counter. I was suddenly unable to concentrate on anything else except for the life and death decision that I had to make that very second. Do I pick up the pudding - put it back in the fridge (or eat it along the way)? Or do I pour myself a glass of wine? I am essentially still up from the night before, plus it might chill me out enough to get some sleep, and I'm about to eat some pizza - where did the pizza go again? Why not? 2 minutes later, several slices of insanely salty & cheesy goodness, a glass of wine, and me were all snuggled back under the covers watching Mythbusters. The sun wasn't even up yet, it felt perfectly normal.

Rationalizing pizza and chianti as breakfast because the night and morning touch each other in a grey area: sign you might be hormonal.

I'd like to tell you that at this point, I admitted that today was going to be a problem and stayed inside, but tragically, that is not the end to my behavior.

4. While cleaning the house like a madwoman before Bart was discharged, I started a grocery list. I remembered a few things I wanted to get for him and was going to run out in the afternoon when he was settled. I should have foreseen complications when the first three items I wrote on the list were spicy mustard, fritos, and ice cream. As the day dragged on, the list got more insane by the entry. I was coming up with recipes in my head, when I would dream up something I didn't want to make because Bart couldn't eat it, I would modify it so he could. Next thing I know, my shopping list includes 4 stores, things like celeriac, and even a few appliances. Several hours later, I returned to the house with enough produce to stuff a tofurkey the size of my car, a few necessities, and some dangerous plans. Somewhere along the way, I had decided the veggie stock I bought to thin foods for him in the blender was substandard and I needed to make it from scratch. While I was making stock, why not make a ton and freeze it? While I'm making a ton of stock, why not make a soup for dinner tonight with the veggies from the stock? While making veggies in the stock for the soup, why not add some lentils, split-peas and barley for protein and make a cream of veggie soup instead?

Going to the store for yogurt and Dimetapp and coming home with an entire evening's worth of prep and cooking (with no room in the freezer to store the results): sign you might be hormonal.

5. The entire day was capped off for me a few minutes ago, when, after ransacking the kitchen looking for sweets, while eating directly out of the container of cookies & cream (too cliche to list as an actual sign of hormonalness), I got a craving so mad for chocolate that I tore apart the refrigerator before moving on the freezer, meticulously looking and eventually finding... behind the pedialyte popsicles... under the box of henna... in a frostbitten package that wasn't even sealed up properly... I found...

Two, just two - Thin Mint cookies. I could hear angels sing. Really, angels.

They looked like they had been entombed in the fortress of solitude for way too long. They weren't really a color anymore, just gray and fuzzy looking. They smelled a little like the hatch chilies they lived next to for a while in the freezer door. I thought about the worst-case scenario. Maybe I'll eat them and they're horrible, and I have to continue looking for chocolate. Maybe I'll bite into them and they are imposters, meant to look like Thin Mints, but actually tiny veggie burgers or the remnants of a chipotle paste I froze into disks. Before I could really reason with myself, one of them was in my mouth. I stood there before the open freezer, eyes closed, head back, chewing a Thin Mint that, by all calculations has to be three years old, covered in freezer burn, with only its single lowly companion in my hand. I popped that last guy in my mouth and savored the taste of a distinct remote possibility that the waxy cardboard I just ate was a Thin Mint. Nothing else mattered. I was victorious.

Looking for, finding, and then eating 3-year old girl scout cookies to satisfy the crazy inside you that is making you destroy your kitchen (and your waistline) all day? Proof you're hormonal. And not just kinda either, sister, you're full-on, grizzly bear, irrationally and incessantly driven - hormonal. Batshit pscyhotic hormonal is right around the corner.

I'd like to post pics and the recipe for my stock and soup, but I'm afraid to go back into the kitchen to grab the camera. I have to allow the estrogen balance to return or I might somehow get myself arrested in there.

Nosh Thoughtfully

I'm a couple of days behind posting this week's mindfulness challenge, so let's wrap up last week's assignment. We were tasked that, when eating a meal, just eat. Don't watch TV, don't look at your phone, don't read the back of a cereal box... just eat. I found this challenge enlightening, some days I couldn't remember the challenge and was halfway through a meal before it popped into my head. If I'm eating on autopilot, I might be overeating, or just overlooking my food. This was easier to do in restaurants, while traveling, all I had to do was leave my phone in my bag. At home and the office, however, it was exceedingly difficult to break the habit of eating at/on/with my computer while I work. If I must be stimulated by something other than my food, I am probably generally overstimulated. Noted.

Another twist to the 'Just Eat' challenge, Bart had his jaw surgery on Wednesday, and with both jaws broken, he can only drink liquids through a syringe. Helping him with this process has been another eye-opener. First, he has no choice but to 'just eat', since it takes both hands, mouth dexterity and concentration to get the tube behind his cheek far enough that his liquefied food doesn't escape down his chin. For the last few days, he's been on clear liquids only... so he's probably starving underneath the surgical bands, but the process of eating is so frustrating, it can't be satisfying. I really have been taking for granted the use of my mouth, not only for eating, but for talking, coughing, sighing, laughing, smirking, screaming, for many things. I need to respect it and when it's in use, pay a little more attention. I really enjoy the cumulative effects of this challenge thus far, by adding one mindfulness measure a week, I'm able to juggle them and keep track of my progress on all of the initiatives. I might eat (just eat) with my left hand, leave the kitchen cleaner than before dinner, and describe the meal with fewer filler words while observing my own hand gestures. And it doesn't at all seem like I'm patting my head and rubbing my belly, they all work in concert. Brilliant. It reminds me of that irritating song kids sing about the guy who works in the button factory, "Hi. My name is Joe. And I work in a button factory. One day, my boss came up to me and said, 'Hey Joe, turn the button with your left hand..." This is incidentally how I learn a room full of people's names in less than an hour. I start with one person, once I remember them, I move on down the line until I've added everyone's faces and names to my memory.

This week's challenge is to give 'True Compliments'. Once a day, I am to think about someone close to me, a family member, a friend, a co-worker and pay them a genuine compliment. Not the kind of compliment where you notice someone got a haircut and you say you like it, just because you're pointing it out... but a real, thoughtful compliment that you might not otherwise have the opportunity to say. Also, to be aware of the compliments others give you. Why do they do it? What does their compliment do to you?

A big thanks to my big mouth for helping out with this week's challenge. You're awesome, and perfect, and I wouldn't want any other mouth. Does that count as a compliment?

back to hospital noises... Bart should get to come home later today.

Just Eat, and Be Terrified of Being Alone

This past week for the mindfulness challenge, I've been 'paying attention to my hands'. This means I have watched them as if they belonged to someone else... and in most cases, I find I do that already. It might seem odd that I pay so much attention to my hands, but they are an outward symptom of my auto-immune disorder. One I am keenly, sometimes too keenly, aware of. This past week, I tried to behold them as the tools they are... graciously doing my bidding, helping each other, as perfect partners and as independent operators. One thing I take for granted about them is their deep communicative potential. I painted my nails each day a different color and I noticed the people in my life watching me with renewed animation. My gestures were set ablaze by the blue, purple and black polish on my nails. Like a signal light on my fingers, they signed the words I speak.

Of course each of these weeks has meant a significant self-examination, but today's has been especially poignant and painful. This week, my task is to 'Just Eat'. Don't watch tv, text, look up the news or daydream while eating, just eat. It brings to mind all of the things I do that are automatic and robotic.. I usually eat while working during the day, hunched over my computer, focused on the task at hand instead of my noodles/rice/sandwich. I probably eat too much as a result, enjoy too little, and lack connection with my nourishment. This will be a good exercise for me. To date, this week, I've done better than in any other challenge. I ate a few meals with my niece, which means I can't have my attention anywhere but the table. I made it a point tonight to eat at the table with Bart... something that we usually don't do, in order to focus more at my food. I really should respect food as fuel, not entertainment, or mindless comfort. Good luck doing the same this week.

In other news, I watched the movie 127 hours tonight. I'm irrevocably disturbed. At the beginning of the film, I literally screamed in agony that I am not currently in Utah, because I suddenly felt the ache to be there so badly it hurt my physical form. I realize my travelogue might have been vague and indescriptive about the real beauty of this place, but I can describe a little of it as - being on Mars, with no other humans around, no rover, no spacesuit, and the landscape is sucking the oxygen from your body with each breath. I saw so many of these unique and different breathtaking vistas in Utah that I'm quite sure I aged irreparably while there. If you haven't witnessed this place, email me. I'm going back as soon as I can and I want to take you with me.

Anyway, Utah was on my mind because of this film... 127 hours. In the film, a real dude, Aron, falls in a slot canyon and is stuck there for over six days. He has to endure some harsh realities while trapped in this canyon; his arm is clinched between two boulders, he's running out of water, and has no way to communicate to the outside world. Of course, having hiked recently in Utah's slot canyons (in a cast, especially conscious of danger), I immediately hearken to the fact that he is hiking alone. Bart and I disagree on a lot of things, and one of the fundamentals is that he insists on telling the world where he is, while I relish the times when I can disappear into the wilderness alone. Watching this film gives me a little pause, since Aron was only stuck in the canyon for extended periods because no one knew where he was. Isolation in its purest form is like a hug for me. I long to be away from everyone, alone on the face of the earth. In fact, that's what my walkabout was intended to do, put a little distance between me and humanity, and recoup some of my energy - alone. Alas, this is a lovely way for introverts to recharge, but if you fall in a canyon whilst recharging, shame on you if you don't bring a radio...

Which brings me to my second point. I've been well-cared-for my entire life. Long before I met my scout-like husband, my military brother kept me well-prepared for any life outdoors. I was not only equipped for rugged camping at all times at 16, I could set up a full camp, find water and firewood, and fend for myself against a number of adversaries. I felt empowered in the woods because Patrick had taught me how to tie a knot, build a fire, dig a latrine and keep myself safe. I'm not saying I'm a mountain-woman, just able to wield a pocketknife adeptly. When I packed off for Utah in December, it was Patrick who insisted I bring a Ham radio in case I was stuck out of cell range in danger. In truth, most times we were hiking in Utah, the radio was our only way of calling for help. Had I fallen into the same slot canyon as Aron, I would have been able to contact someone immediately. I also would have had GPS coordinates, because I asked to borrow Patrick's handheld GPS. I think the moral of this story is that if you want to be a cowboy, and isolate yourself from the rest of the world, that's fine. I know all about wanting to be alone. But if you want someone to find you when you fall in a hole, you better be willing to rely on others for help. If the extra 1.5 pounds in my pack mean I won't have to amputate my own arm, I'll continue to lug it around. How much does an arm weigh, anyway? Life is so much simpler on the trail.

Happy eating this week, readers. And if you feel compelled to isolate yourselves like I sometimes do, bring a radio. Simple enough.

Let's Get Handsy

Off a week of failure, having made a lame, half-hearted, contrite effort to remove filler words from my speech, I concluded this mindfulness challenge with the thought that while aware of my actions, I am not easily able to modify my speech. I talk for a living, and while I think that I'm conscious of my unnecessary words, I don't think this is the case. I have also heard others' filler words loud and clear this week, like 'I mean', and 'you know'.

On to the next challenge. This week, I'm tasked to pay special attention and appreciate my hands. This is uniquely hard for me, because I spend a lot of my life trying to hide my hands from others and not draw attention to them... even from myself. As the book suggested, I wrote the words 'watch me' on the back of each hand, one rather normal-looking, and the other looking like I went to a serial killer nightclub and got stamped with psycho handwriting... I also put a coat of nail polish on to help me remind myself to observe my hands. They are active most of the day, even in my sleep, and while I give attention to hiding them, this week I'm going to see them as if they belonged to someone else. Without judgment, without self... just the tools I am always close to.

When I was young, people complimented me on my hands... having long fingers and thin bones, I thought they were really special. As I've gotten older, my hands have aged faster than the rest of my body and now wear the signs of my years on earth, outward reminders that my immune system is at war with itself. The only way you can tell that sometimes, despite all attempts, I don't feel well.

Join me in loving your hands this week. This is the perfect challenge for someone I know, who is keenly aware of hands and their elusive power. See a little of that attention in this drawing... appropriately from this week  The challenge is recruiting participants!

Filler Up

Uhhh... okay, so I basically failed the first day of the week 3 mindfulness challenge.

I recorded a lot of my speech today, two classes and several phone calls later, I'm appalled. Even when I'm consciously making an effort to remove the filler words, I'm spewing them all over the place. It's like trying to pat your head and rub your stomach at the same time... in some cases I failed at all of it. In this random 10-minute snippet of today's noon class, I counted the filler... and this is trying REALLY hard not to say this stuff!

• 'so' - 4 times
• 'okay' - 6 times
• 'um' - 8 times
• 'now' - 3 times
• 'alright' - once

And all that trying to speak words and words only, meant that my usual stutter-prevention system was off... and that during the same section, I stammered 14 times and cloaked the stutter with a pause countless times more.

Thus far, I've noticed a few things. I use filler words when I'm trying to BS someone (there's a little of that in this recording), unsure, or if I need to collect my thoughts before answering a question. When I clearly know the answer to something, or my next move, or I'm actively listening to someone else, I don't stutter or fill at all. During the periods of this class where I did my worst at controlling the filler words were the times that I know in my mind I was skipping ahead or thinking of something else, like how to disguise an error or shortcoming of the system I was demonstrating. When your mind wanders, your speech suffers. I'm exhausted and it's only day 1 of this week's challenge. I have my work cut out for me.

Filler Words. Mindfulness Week 3.

Week 3 - Mindfulness challenge:

This week, through the mindfulness challenge, I am tasked to use no 'filler words'. These words are those that we fill in when we need to extend, add nonverbal weight, or procrastinate within a sentence... An example, "So, I was talking to my cousin, like, just the other day, and she, uh, she was working on this thing that is basically an art project, anyway, she like doesn't know what to do with the end product, or something." In this case, the italicized words are filler... they don't add any meaning to the sentence itself. We say them because they, like... they do something for us, anyway... the assignment is to identify them and remove them from our vocabulary.

Because of my line of work, I'm naturally sensitive to certain filler phrases. I have been cataloguing them for years, actually. It's somewhat of a tic, each time people say words or phrases that I find worthless in their speech, especially repeat offenders, I count the instance. It's so bad for certain people that I can't hear any of their message, and their phrases or words are in the quadruple digits of lifetime misuse. There is a trainer at work who says 'things of that nature' so much during her presentations, that I have never been able to watch a single training she presents without missing the message entirely, leaving only with a tally of "TOFTN's". It especially bothers me when people say things that are filler phrases, but incorrectly... for instance, I had a boss that used to say 'things to that nature' instead, a double-whammy. Not only is the phrase completely worthless, but it is more meaningless because it was repeated incorrectly.

Besides some OCD tendencies, this focus comes from a deep root within my development, since I have a stutter. Many people with stutters add utterances or sounds to their speech to cover the pause or stammer that is occurring on certain words. For instance, instead of saying t-t-t-traffic, I might say uh-traffic instead. I've worked very hard over the years to avoid these cover (filler) words, instead, adjusting the cadence of my speech to disguise the stammer with a pregnant pause that sounds thoughtful or natural. It doesn't mean I've eliminated filler words, just that I've adapted to the problem I used them to cover. So this week, to experience mindfulness, I'll examine speech, and find the words I use to say nothing at all. I spend a good time yapping thoughtlessly, so it should be quite a task. I'll start by recording a training I have early tomorrow and counting my own worthless speech.

On my list to remove, before ever listening to myself for this meaning:

• apparently
• so
• like
• absolutely (not filler, just overused by me)
• uh
• pauses

I challenge you to examine your speech, how much time do you spend making worthless noise? And who do you subject to mindless filler words? Do you use them more often when you're made nervous by your audience? Bored? Uncertain?

Our words communicate our entire being, our intelligence, socialization, interest level, confidence, and sometimes, our message (if we're lucky). Don't they deserve a little scrutiny to ensure we're communicating directly, not shrouding our message in verbal smoke and mirrors?

Good luck, like, seriously.

Leaving No Trace, But Making An Impact

This week’s mission to ‘leave no trace’ continues. I’m still trying to leave the kitchen cleaner and better than I found it. This means that everything gets put away and cleaned up each time I visit the room. I’ve found this surprisingly easy and satisfying, knowing that I’m leaving a clean space to come back to. The exercise has also allowed me to appreciate the impact that I have on the world, something as simple as wiping down the counter is a reminder of the stewardship I can offer this place. It’s creeping outside of the kitchen as well. Yesterday, we walked up to Starbucks and on the way home, I picked up a coffee cup on the side of the road that someone had carelessly thrown out. I don’t think that I would have been compelled to pick up the trash if it hadn’t been for this week’s mindfulness challenge. I am encouraged by my resolution to keep the one room clean, and feel like I can take a little extra responsibility to make the world a little better because I was here, even if it only means a piece of trash. I would have walked past the coffee cup and not given it a second thought last week, but this week I think, I’ve got a free hand, I can carry that trash home and put it in the garbage. That’s been the attitude in the kitchen too, instead of taking a dish to the kitchen counter and leaving it there to clean later, I follow through and wash it. It’s extremely gratifying. This stewardship is contagious as well, after I picked up the coffee cup, Tiffany felt compelled to pick up some trash too. Even just one piece makes a difference, a tiny change that is compounded by people who see you do it. Empowerment.

While we’re on the subject of littering, it occurs to me that the trash people throw out of their cars might say something about them. From cigarette butts to apple cores, the things people choose to send out the window are unique and possibly based on socioeconomic or cultural factors. For instance, if I littered, my garbage would most likely consist of BC powder packets and diet Pepsi cans. Since I don’t, there is usually one or more of these items behind my seat in the car waiting to be properly disposed of. Here are the items we collected on our way home yesterday, you can use your imagination to picture the litterbugs responsible. Maybe one of them was a yuppie late for work, tossing their latte cup out the window of their BMW, too self-important to waste any energy on finding a trashcan. Another, a late-night partygoer, careless enough to drink and drive, but cautious enough to discard the open container in case the police stop them. They all need to make a better effort.

This week's challenge continues on the road, I'm trying to leave no trace in the bathroom of my hotel room.