#24 If I only had a brain

Actual Updates

I cooked my first turkey this Thanksgiving! That sounds great, yes, very proud of myself, nobody died, it wasn’t too dried out - but the circumstances were a little more involved than that.

To start with, on Tuesday, I got my booster shot. Hooray! Like most people I’ve talked to, my reaction was roughly the same as my reaction to the earlier two shots: my arm hurt a fair bit, not as much as the second shot which rendered it unusable for a day, but about as much as the first shot which just meant I couldn’t raise it above 90 degrees. And besides that, just feeling a little tired and run down, which of course could just be from my life. Matt got his booster shot on Wednesday evening. Like his first two, it hit him pretty hard - he had a fever and felt like garbage, and spent most of Thursday on the couch. Thursday, you may be aware, is generally when Thanksgiving is celebrated. Thanksgiving is a holiday that we host. I tried to do some pre-work on Wednesday, but I was working and also Hap’s school got out early, so not much got done. That left Thursday to do it all - and after prepping the Snoop Dogg Mac & Cheese, Matt’s symptoms got too tough to work with, and I did the rest, including everything turkey-related, on my own.

Now, I’m not saying I made Thanksgiving dinner for 7 adults on my own on my own. People brought some of the sides; I made 0 desserts or appetizers; I was responsible for the sourcing of 0 fancy cheese.1 By my calculations I made 50% of the dishes, although one was the turkey and (I think) should count for more. I still think that’s nontrivial, though! I also cleaned the whole thing up! Why am I justifying my hard work to you? Anyway, my point is, it was a whole lot, and I managed it, and it was (I think?) a success, and I just wanted to be a little full of myself for a minute because there sure wasn’t any time for that on the day of. Thank you for indulging me! Unless you skimmed ahead, in which case… honestly, I get it.

Okay, moving on! So, like a normal person, I make a lot of song lyric references, especially in contexts with my kid, who doesn’t get any of them because he is 4. One common one is when I’m getting “why”ed to death, which, again, he’s 4, is to eventually respond with “because because because because becauuuuuse - because of the wonderful things he does!” Hap eventually started singing that himself, and I offered to show him the song from whence it came. A blurry YouTube video of just all the “We’re Off to See the Wizard” clips followed, and then: Hap sat through the entire 1 hour and 41 minute running length of The Wizard of Oz. And then did it again later that day. In the past 5 days I have watched it all the way through 6 times. I’ll be able to quote it backwards and forwards inside a week if this keeps up. Weeeeee’re off to see the wizard, the wonderful Wizard of Oz!

There was something else I wanted to talk about in here this month, because I find this to be a good space in which to sort of rubberduck my own understanding of myself (see: the issue where I was like “she/her pronouns are a better fit than anything else even if they’re not perfect” and then the very next month announced the arrival of an optional they), but I don’t feel like it really fits with the vibe of this issue; it is about pain. Physical pain, specifically, and particularly why I have such a weird attitude towards it. I had originally written some copy explaining why I was pushing this off to next month, but I realized the issue wasn’t that long without it, so if you don’t mind a bit of a tonal shift, I guess I’ll go into it now after all!

So this came up when I was nursing my sore arm after my booster shot. Take something for it, said all my well-meaning friends! Don’t be in pain for no reason!Me: but it isn’t a LOT of painThem: but wouldn’t it be better if it was no pain at all?Me: but shouldn’t I just wait until it is a lot of pain so that I don’t waste it? (waste what? a Tylenol?)Them: we love you but you are being very stupid

So naturally, this got me thinking. What is “worth” taking something for? Why do I have this scarcity mindset around taking anything for pain - it isn’t like we’re on the verge of running out, and I never had that problem growing up or in other times of my life either.

When I think about what makes it “worth” taking something, I think about headaches. I get a lot of them, possibly more than my fair share, whatever that is, and have as long as I can remember. The reasons have changed over time (reading in the dark! dehydration! period’s a-comin’! drinking two beers in one sitting at the age of 39!) but the headaches remain the same. The thing is, it doesn’t take much to take care of them, and that’s by design: when I was a kid, I took this drugstore painkiller that exists in Canada but not here, Tempra (basically children’s Tylenol), and when I aged out of its coverage range, I just… kept taking it. I’d fight back my teenaged headaches with a medicine made for kids; I’d just take the amount for 12-year-olds, the highest age the dosage chart covered. And I kept on using kids’ medicine once I moved here, partly because I didn’t want to suddenly blow my own mind with an adult-sized dose, but partly, I think, because I didn’t want to need that adult amount. I had trained my body to respond to this lower dose, which I would only use if the headache was really bothering me and I couldn’t function. So I wasn’t even using children’s medicine on child-sized headaches - I reserved it for my most adult-sized ones.

But I was mostly very lucky in my life: while I had a high-ish incidence of headaches, I rarely ever needed to manage pain in other parts of my body. I broke a finger2 playing basketball with my dad at the age of 12, and I don’t know if I took anything at all for it. I honestly do not remember what I did when I broke my hand, some 17 years later. I know I had some ibuprofen, because that’s when I discovered that while it doesn’t do much for headaches with me, it’s great for pains of the body (also came in handy when I was recovering from giving birth!), but I don’t remember taking any except at the most painful moments. With that sort of pain, I kind of want to feel it, you know? If I’m doing a motion that will cause me harm or impede healing, if I roll over on it funny in my sleep, the pain is an alert that will let me know, and if I don’t feel it, I’ll just let it happen. But when it was just sitting there hurting for no good reason other than broken bones hurt, I was willing to take the edge off a bit. Just a bit.

But, okay, that part is almost sensible, but I think where I really go off the deep end is where I start to get almost an ego over it. Look at me, taking the pain. Look at me not making a fuss about it because what can anyone else do? See how much I can handle before I crack? Doesn’t that make me some kind of champion?

I had a lesson in this when I was in labor. I had called the hospital to say the contractions had reached whatever the frequency/duration threshold was for calling the hospital, and they - and I’m not making this up - told me just to wait until I couldn’t take the pain anymore and then come in. I was laughing when I hung up the phone. Looks like I’m going to have this baby in my living room, I said. Telling me not to come in as long as the pain was manageable is the same as telling me not to come in. Like I’m going to admit defeat like that.

Eventually, Matt and my mom and his mom all convinced me it was time to go in, because I could barely walk and tears kept running down my face, which I was quick to point out I had nothing to do with. And then, several hours later, when the doctors were going to hook me up with an epidural because they had to give me another drug that would likely turn the intensity up, I told them the pain was at a 10 (since I thought I had to in order to get the drugs), and it’s true I had never experienced pain that bad, but calling it a 10? The worst it could ever get? I’ve never had my arm ripped off, what if that was worse? And in fact, wasn’t I agreeing to get the good shit specifically because I expected it to get worse? So I felt guilty about saying “10,” and kind of like I might be a wimp. In the middle of labor.

Why am I so worried about being a wimp, or being perceived to be a wimp? Literally none of my life, job, or daily activities are predicated on me being tough. Why do I think admitting that I am experiencing pain, or that it’s a big deal, is admitting defeat? Why do I want to do the least possible for myself? Why am I conflating “attempting not to feel pain” as “being a little princess who can’t handle the slightest discomfort”? You know, when I broke my hand, I knew I had hurt it - but I hemmed and hawed for a few hours about whether I should really go to Emergency about it, because what if it wasn’t broken and they’d think I was a weenie who runs to the hospital every time she had a little owie.

Well. I don’t know if we’re going to solve this today, but I hope everyone who has ever thrown their hands up at my stubborn refusal to take something that would help me feel better3 feels a little seen today. I’m trying, I guess. Maybe the next time I have a headache I’ll head it off before it gets too massive to be denied.

Some links

Lab-grown meat! Fascinating! Plausible! The Cow that Could Feed the Planet

Sharks are venomous now?? Did we not have enough to worry about vis-a-vis sharks? Also, “starry smooth-hound”? Does… does whoever named this thing know that sharks aren’t just a weird species of dog? Venomous Sharks Found in London’s Thames River

It’s true: the seven-day week has no basis in anything! Every other unit of time does! Now more than ever, it’s important to recognize that time is fake. We Live by a Unit of Time that Doesn’t Make Sense

I had no idea about this earlier attempt to metric-ize the USA. I always thought what hijacked the metric system in the USA was that your uncle didn’t want to learn the metric system back in 1975. How Pirates of the Caribbean Hijacked America’s Metric System

Speaking of things I had no idea about. This story has everything: jewel thefts! Polar explorers! The Gays! A guy whose actual real life name was “Pierce Gun Mahony”! The Greatest Unsolved Heist in Irish History

Further in Irish news, how about the work involved in restoring a book that was sort-of-preserved in a bog? I think I’ve shared a link in here about bog bodies before, and the preservative properties of bogs are fascinating to me. But of course they are also damp and that isn’t a book’s best friend. Letters of type came off of the pages! “It Was Terrifying”: Ancient Book’s Journey from Irish Bog to Museum Treasure

Want to know more about the woman behind the mRNA vaccines? Also, do you want to see a serious scientist also get to enjoy having her picture taken in various fashionable outfits? You can be both a genius brain and an enjoyer of nice clothes! One doesn’t cancel the other out! The Scientist Who Saved the World

This is a longer read but it is TRULY SOMETHING. It starts out kind of wowie-zowie get a load of this, and things just get progressively sadder and more chilling as it goes on. Highly recommend. How the FBI Discovered a Real-Life Indiana Jones in, of All Places, Rural Indiana

Another longer read, this time about a society dame who may possibly have been a murderer! Or at least a consumer of murder services. When is someone going to rebrand the hitman industry as MaaS? The Notorious Mrs. Mossler

And finally, this:

What am I reading

A little while ago, Matt bought a batch of old Stephen King books, and as he works his way through them, they land in my to-read pile after he’s done. Sometimes I throw them back - I wasn’t interested in reading about a car that kills people, for instance - but right now I’m nearly done Firestarter, which isn’t bad! It suffers a bit from some outdated tropes, written as it was in 1980 and in the midst of King’s coke years4, and - okay, look, I don’t believe that people should only be allowed to write about characters of their same ethnic group and identities, it can be done well with a lot of attention and some effort (read this article if you’re interested in more on that), but I do kind of think that he shouldn’t. Or at least at that period in his life he was hamhanded about it in a way that was totally fine with his editors and publishers. Maybe he’s grown as a person since. Maybe he isn’t out here writing Native American characters who nearly never speak and when they do it’s a metaphor about the land anymore. Maybe he has, I dunno, talked to an actual Black person in real life.

To talk about the story for a second, it’s more of a “scary government experiments” tale than a “scary kid starts fires with her brain” story, which is a relief - kids are all spooky as hell by nature, for some reason, but I didn’t really feel like reading that story. This one is more interesting. By about three-quarters of the way through, for instance, there had been relatively little actual firestarting, which is always a good sign with a horror book - there are enough other reasons for the characters to be afraid that the pyrokinesis is almost a side note. Almost.

Tunes I’ve been listening to lately

I need to learn this song for the silly little cover project aka the band I hope develops into a real band either before we move or after. The learning is not going great so far. The song has a WHOLE lot of words and also my voice isn’t truly back yet after a recent cold, and if I ask much of it, it seizes up into coughs5. Good thing the silly little band isn’t a real band yet and there’s no consequence for being slow to learn a song.

Okay, this song came out in 1994 and has been stuck in my head ever since, but the really weird part is that it seems like I’m the only person who remembers it. It was on the radio relatively frequently! Do you know what brought it back to my mind this time? I was listening to the 90s MuchMusic Dance Mix compilations, trying to find the one that soundtracked my high school dances, and it turns out it was NOT the pleasingly-rhyming Dance Mix 96, but actually the previous year. No, this song isn’t on it. No, I’m not putting any songs from that in here.

I was kind of casting around a bit for a third song to pick, since I’ve been in a weird listening spot lately with what’s been coming up in the rotation and having stopped listening to much on Spotify since November and December don’t count for Wrapped, and god knows I love a stat; speaking of Wrapped, that just came out yesterday, but I can’t just put on my top song since another song by the same artist is already in this year’s playlist (which: just a minute, we’ll get to it!!). I’ve also just broken out the Christmas music, one of the few things I actually enjoy about the season, but I’m not about to drop some Make We Joy Now in this Fest on you. Yes that’s what I listen to. Anyway, I listened to this album the other night and Tanya Tagaq is awesome and this song is not just great on its own merits but also in a science way?

And because it’s the December issue, that means it’s time for the annual playlist of all the songs I shared this year! Yay! Have fun, Spotify doesn’t count anything this month so this won’t make them say you love, I don’t know, 70s greaseball rock or whatever new incredibly picky genre categories they dream up next year. Here it is:

This month’s top 5: Wizard of Oz facts

Brought to you by the IMDB trivia section.

1. In the scene where they meet the Cowardly Lion, Dorothy slaps him, and then clearly has to stifle a giggle by burying her face in Toto’s fur. This is because Judy Garland could not keep it together in this scene. This was the best take they had.

2. Once you know the Tin Man has a heavy Boston accent, it’s impossible not to notice it. He just wishes he had a haht, ked.

3. Judy Garland was basically wearing a binder in this movie so as to try to give the impression of being about 13.

4. They were going to do some extremely fancy footwork to handle the scene where Dorothy opens the door of her house having landed in Oz, since that shot has both black-and-white (well, sepia) and Technicolor in it. But they wound up being smart about it and shooting the whole shot in Technicolor and just painting the house portion of the set in sepia tones.

5. The Munchkins are mostly dubbed - I found this out when I was trying to see if their voices were sped up or something to give that high-pitched effect - because they were a troupe of performers from Europe and most of them didn’t speak English.

Bonus Wizard-of-Oz-adjacent fact: I watched the sequel, Return to Oz, when I was about 6 and it terrified me. Those wheely guys just messed me up. I actually thought they were the flying monkeys from the original, but with wheels added, but having just looked them up, they were a whole other thing - kind of like Slendermen bent double with wheels instead of their hands and feet. Everything else about it also sounds horrible but all I could remember was being scared shitless by some guys with wheels. You should probably go watch it and report back.

So! Another year of this thing in the books. Who knew? And another year of the pandemic in the books, too. I would say “who knew” about that but I think that answer would just depress us.

If you’re looking to do some year-end giving, you know I have some thoughts for you on that. As you’re probably aware (especially if you’re one of my 3 readers back in the motherland, what’s up old pals), my beloved home province of BC6 has been going through it, climate-wise. The fires and heat in the summer, and then most recently, a month’s worth of rain in a couple days - and the month in question being one of the rainy months. The landslides and destruction were monumental, and every highway connecting the coast with the rest of the country was washed out or blocked or impassable at some point. Small towns are cut off completely; even in the cities there are serious supply shortages and challenges. And people have been talking a lot about giving to the Red Cross to help, which, ok, they are there, but if you’d rather give to mutual aid and community care funds, here is a list of some verified options.

Thank you for reading this for yet another year of my dumb bullshit and other people’s smart bullshit! Stay tuned for a whole lot more of the same in 2022!