When Complacency Rears it's Ugly Head

I'm on the plane to Chicago, talking to Shelia, before her second and third vodka tonic, about my reasons for this trip. I am going to a seminar at the Embassy Suites on Perianesthesia Nursing, my current work specialty. I explain-as quickly as I possibly can-about the extra certification I hold in the field and the hours of continuing education needed to maintain it. Thirty minutes later she says, "Sounds like that nursing is your main deal and theatre is your hobby." Ah, the words of wisdom from a lush.
I try to explain my way out of this label,"No, nursing is just the bread and butter, and I am just trying to get out of, blah, blah,blah" Yeah Heather, keep digging that hole.

So what or who am I? I know my purpose in a spiritual sense, I know why I am here on earth, but, looking back on the five years since graduating Theatre school, my actions in New York City would never lead someone to conclude that I am an actor. I've done one play, worked with an improv comedy group, and auditioned for a whopping four jobs. Of course light bulbs always flash in the brain while trapped in an aluminum tube seven miles high because your last thoughts as you plummet to earth in a fiery blaze should be about what you didn't do or what chances you didn't take.

I've taken more chances than I suppose I am alloted: skydiving, rock climbing, black diamond skiing, but have I ever devoted my life to my purported passion? I've risked bodily harm, but have I ever risked my emotional core. Nope, Nada, and Nil. During one semester in school, I quit my job and took financial aid to perform in two plays while carrying 20 hours of classes. That was safe devotion. New York City can beat the crap out you the same time it is ripping out your tender heart. So, why am I afraid? I love a good RUSH. This winter I went skiing more times than any other season and spent the rest of the time working. There was no time or money left for new headshots or dance classes. The surge I get from jumping out of a plane or slipping on a cliff two hundred feet high replaces what I am missing from pursing my true passion.

I've complained before about people seeking instant gratification at the exspense of the self and now I realize that's excatly what I've been doing. My job, compared to other nursing work I've done, is like a walk on fluffy clouds while wearing a halo. I love it and I make great money from it. Why would I want to be an extra on a movie set earning one-fourth my daily rate sitting around for the hope that I might be noticed. I decided to write my own stuff for me to perform at a grotty Manhattan pub, though I spend more time blogging and looking at pictures of good-looking men. Complacency has reared it's ugly head.

Complacency doesn't neccesarily have an ugly head nor is it a terrible place to live. It can be a happy zone, but soon the day to day bliss turns to yearning and I realize how I've wasted some precious time. I used to say that I had to grow into my look-I am not an ingenue; I used to say that I needed to lose weight-done that;I used to say I am not ready-never gonna happen. What the Fuck is wrong with me. It's time and I better act soon or I will be sitting in the rocking chair regretting a loveless and childless life. There is a reason I've made specific choices and I don't want to let them go in vain.

Okay so I'm going to get headshots and work on monolouges and take singing and dance lessons.
Can I take a nap first?

I knew there was a website for it. GO GOOGLE, GO

Do they shoot single people in Illinois?

I eat my free hotel breakfast in my hotel room while the movie Twister plays in the background. The clang of silverware tapping on ceramic dishes and the murmur of robust eaters filters in from the open dining area below. I was shunned from that place, so I eat alone. Ok, I know I'm taking a little dramatic license: the townspeople of the Embassy Suites, Chicago-O'Hare, did not brand me with an ornate and dark letter 'S', nor stand me in front of the omelet station to chuck stale watermelon at me. But, as I searched for table, I felt marked. The single people must be in bed sleeping off their hangovers from Saturday night’s Beer Fest and all the families, from the two weddings, are wolfing free bacon and sausage. I found one person by himself, approached him, and politely asked if I could take one of the three open seats at his table. He looked at me as if I asked for his liver, kidney, and corneas. He paused, and then told me his wife would be joining him. "Oh, thanks anyway," I said, adding that I was from New York and we just snatch any open anything. As I backed away, I spoke words that might have gotten me arrested. I was hungry; I didn’t notice the nuclear family conflagration. There were no signs reading, “Couples and Families,” and “Losers.” Otherwise, “I thought you were alone,” would have remained unsaid. Thankfully, he only gave me an evil eye rather than reveal the egg white omelet with spinach centered on my plate to the room. I contained myself and continued my procession through the large room. Each step echoed high school, when I always sat alone. I made one lap around the tables, refilled my coffee, and carried my plate upstairs.

Inside the hotel room bigger than my apartment I cry. I am not sure why-hormones maybe. I write the book on Alone: eating dinner out, going to movies, snorkeling in Belize, and road tripping to the mountains. It’s not that I hate people, I think this blog proves otherwise, but sometimes my friends can’t go or don’t always like my adrenaline fueled ideas of fun. So, why did his glare and the ensuing stares of others upset me. Feeling homesick for New York as I packed my backpack, I steeled myself to enjoy the day.

The power nap I caught on the forty-minute train ride to the city refreshed me and for the low price of a hot-dog, a homeless man walked me to Michigan Avenue home of Chicago’s famous Magnificent Mile. Did you know that Wood’s American Gothic, Wood’s Nighthawks, and Surat’s Sunday on the Grand Jatte all reside at the Art Institute of Chicago? Neither did I, but that’s not really important to the story.

Ashley, a friend of a friend, met me later in the afternoon and we walked up the mile, over to the shore of Lake Michigan, then back. She points out bastions of urban bliss, eateries and bars, and I retell my faux pas from this morning. She chuckles, explaining the difference between O’Hare and the city. “Out there you’re getting into the burbs,”she says with a lilt of leftover Arkansas, “it’s more of a Midwestern closed-off sensibility.”

That is the crux of it. People in the suburbs say that life in a big city is too fast, too harsh, and too lonely. I lived in the burbs for thirty years and I found the opposite: people are ruder, less accepting, and more insulated. Instead of confronting humanity by walking the streets or riding public transportation, one remains isolated inside a car or single family home. If you are single it’s easier to hole up in your house eating chocolate sauce out of the bottle talking to the cat than braving the looks you might garner sitting alone at a restaurant. In essence it’s okay to be alone, okay to be different and okay to make different choices in a city. At least that’s how I lived it. Yup must have been hormones.


The Art institute of Chicago

Finding the Funny

I was chomping on a veggie burger in the break room at work when one of my coworkers asked me what I thought about laugh therapy-I'm known as the funny one at my job. She went on to describe an Oprah show in which someone on the production staff went to therapy where the participates stand around and laugh and laugh. About nothing. Then they look at each other laughing and start laughing-that's funny so I started laughing. I told my co-worker that fake laughing seemed really stupid and one should just, "find the funny," it's everywhere.

Just got back from googling, "laugh therapy and Oprah" and discovered laughter yoga, an organization dedicated to promoting the benefits of laughing for no reason and imparting techniques of laughter in order to create spiritual understanding. According to the website the movement which began in 1998 has expanded to 4000 "laughter clubs" in over 24 countries. The therapy combines yoga movements with simulated laughter exercises. Of course we all know about the medical benefits of humor, but why must it be fake. The website proudly touts that the sessions prove that, "you do not need a sense of humor, be happy, or have a reason to laugh." Damm, why do I feel so sad now. Life has become so complex that people need to go in a room with other comically challenged to laugh themselves into a gaseous explosion. Maybe my parents raised me wrong but I thought the whole point of being a human was laughing my ass off.

It's is not my intention to belittle this organization-I am sure there are plenty of people who really need a good chortle- but I am troubled by the simulated part of the therapy. Why fake a guffaw or chuckle? . The banner on the website states that they are a, "Global movement for health, joy and world peace." I'm not touching the last article in that triad except to relish a memory of Sandra Bullock in the movie Miss Congeniality. Dr. Mandan Kataria says that the human body does not know the difference between emotional laughter or simulated laughter and that the health benefits are the same: lower stress, better immune system, lower blood pressure, etc. No argument from me there. But what about joy when the class is over does the person return to his/her original humorless state. Can they achieve joy without focusing on the reason they are joyless? The idea of feigning the byproduct of an emotion seems off to me. Why not work on rediscovering the happy gene. The therapy claims to free those individuals from their fears so they can cackle and snort when the opportunity is presented. If it works then more power to them, on the other hand, the movement appears to be another one of those," they're is something wrong with you, pay me money, and I'll give you a twenty minute laughter high." The laughter clubs are free but the classes are not.

Finding the funny
My revolutionary therapy involves looking at the world for the express purpose or laughing at it or those within it. There is funny everywhere, we just need to be alert or we may miss it: the man obsessed with his blackberry who walks into a light poll on Madison Avenue; the woman stuck in traffic on I-95 extracting a hardened snot from the upper reaches of her nose; and the child on the subway smirking at the contorted face of a stranger. I recommend we all watch people trying to parallel park an SUV into a space to small for a Yugo. The starts and stops and 90-point turns are hilarious. One time my dearest friends and I drove home after a video-store induced fight. We all had our own opinions on what to rent that night. Now, I can't recall who won, but a sofa positioned in the exact middle of the road dissolved the tension into an epic giggle fit, the kind that only need to be recalled by a simple, "remember the couch."



I've changed the banner on the top of my site, I figured people may be tired of my fart joke. The picture, which I took in Placencia, Belize, illustrates my mission for this blog; consider it for a moment and find the funny. DO IT NOW! Good, thanks. I realized that is what I do. No matter what I write about, or think about I always find the funny, the strange, the weird, and the quirk.
The laughter train in Finland, courtesy of laughteryoga.org. Now, that is funny.

Vomit happens. At least in my job.

A lovely woman vomited on me a few days ago after her hip operation. The event itself wasn't so terrible; the spew missed my eyes, nose, and mouth and I got to strut around the Recovery Room in my black tank top looking like 'Nurse Abby' on "ER". Nor is the event unusual. Post Anesthesia Care Units across the land feature a host of patients clinging to the stretcher rails retching, regurgitating, and hurling. We nurses hand out the anti-nausea drugs like New York City traffic cops dispense parking tickets. The lady had blown chunks after I gave her a medication to stop her severe shivering(an occasional side effect of anesthesia), plus once she disgorged her stomach of the offending coffee and curdled milk, she felt much better. Still, I squirted the serum of no heaving directly into her intravenous line. Her husband arrived, the first thing she said was, "I threw up?" Never mind the comfort she felt now that the violent shaking had ceased. This got me thinking about society. Human beings refuse to focus on the positive. And then I thought about instant gratification, pleasure, and restless leg syndrome.
As I charted the episode in my nurses' notes I thought about my thirteen-year career and all the times I've given a medication to ease an unpleasant feeling. Of those incidences, how many were really necessary or did I do it simply because we could. I cannot predict the future but my nurse instincts, honed from twenty-thousand plus hours of human observation, tell me the lady above would not have puked again. Yet, we reassure. We can fix anything and we can always make you feel better. Not so. My colleague's patient in the next bed vomited for hours and each time her nurse dutifully called the doctor, who ordered a different medication. We both knew the up-chucking was something the lady would have to deal with for the night. We called because most members of society place great faith in medicine. Defeat is not an option for either party.
A month ago I came down with a low fever and decreased appetite while visiting my cousins in Montreal. I don't often get sick but when I do, I retreat to the sofa with a bottle of Sprite. Wrapped up in blankets, I shiver and shake until sleep and the sprite works it's healing power. My cousin said I was silly for refusing to take Tylenol or Motrin; I countered by stating, "There is a reason for the fever, my body is fighting something." The end result: having taken the Motrin, I sweat the fever down, then slept the bug out. I felt fine in the morning. Had I not taken the pill, would I have had the same result? Judging from past experiences, yes. This anecdote highlights a typical western attitude toward illness, "if you feel bad take a pill." Get the instant gratification, so one does not have to deal with discomfort. Every one I know, for the most part, thinks the same way. I'm not saying that the Motrin harmed me in anyway, however, it was and often times is, unnecessary, as are many of the pills we take today.
On one of the rare nights in which I had a moment to watch television I saw a pharmaceutical commercial for Restless Leg Syndrome. What? McFly? I just read the link I provided from Web MD and according the symptoms, I have restless leg syndrome. I fidget too. Yes for some it's severe then they should already be at the doctor. Pill commercials on TV freak me out. Too much information.
In my local bookstore, I read the back of a book blaming the Pharmaceutical industry for making people sicker. The author claimed to have a quote in which the head of a major pharmacy company stated the following paraphrase: by the twenty-first century he wanted seventy percent of the population using one or more daily medication. Wow, I'm so happy those for-profit health care companies want to make society healthy. Can you imagine the sales meetings- "Let's go out there, do a great job, and make people beg their doc for our horse pill. One, two, three, break! Go Pill Popping." Or the montly board meeting-"Profits are down this quarter, Can we put something in the water?" In my experience, one pill begets two, two begets four and so on. That's not health care. Why the government wont mandate pill makers to become not for-profit boggles my mind, but my distaste for that branch of my industry is another blog. Stay tuned.
And have any of you checked out Web MD, my goodness there are making a world of hypochondriacs. A symptom checker?-did I miss the bus? Next time I have a twitch in my toe, or a pimple I'm gonna surf on over there and find out I have an incurable disease. My point in this tangential rant is to draw attention to the way we view ourselves in general. No matter how you believe our physical body came to be, it's a sublime design intended to balance and moderate itself without intervention. Medical people call this homeostasis and when sickness comes we should support this amazing vessel, not fight it. Vomit happens, we'll live.

Many thanks to Merriam Webster ,without their online thesurus, I could never have come up with the many synonyms and euphemisms for ralphing and 'riding the porcelain bus'.

Molly Shannon plays me in a Movie! or My Dad, The Grillmaster

Ah, I got your attention didn't I? The character Ms. Shannon plays in the movie Year of the Dog may as well be me, but sadly I had nothing to do with the film except seeing it yesterday. Shannon plays a single woman who gives her all her love to her dog, a darling Beagle named Pencil, and then through her relationship with Newt, a dog trainer/savior played with subtle simplicity by Peter Saarsgard, becomes an animal activist of sorts. I don't want to spoil anything, but I recalled many scenes from my own life. When she tells her family she's gone Vegan her sister-in-law panics. "Is that healthy?" She asks through pursed lips and fake concern. Her brother and sister-in-law obviously do not respect her decision and much like my own experience in 'going Vegan,' they dismiss it as a phase.
I went Vegetarian during summer camp 1987 and lived on peanut butter and jelly for three months. It did not stick. I devoured the carcass like a famine survivor upon my return home. My mother's love permeated each meatball she made from her special recipe and my father's gentle nature formed each hand-shaped ground beef patty. He used ketchup and egg in the mix. Don't tell. Food, in my house, like countless others, was love-the love you never spoke about, but knew was there. We had love in my house, don't mistake my words, but the love that comes from food sticks to the ribs long after the gristle is washed away by diet coke. At age thirty, I topped out at 230 pounds. And one day I made the choice.
My mom, dad, and neice visited me in Asheville, North Carolina during the summer of 2001. My dad and I drove to Home Depot where he bought me a small charcoal grill. My father stood by the merits of charcoal over fuel. "Better flavor," he said. I think it cost about 25 bucks plus five for the bag of briquettes I bet my father knew I'd never grill out on my own, even though I said I would. Asheville had a thriving community of Vegan tree-huggers and I was being wooed into their fold. But on this night, for one last time, I put away Peta pamphlets. My four-year niece sitting on the counter-top helped me spear cherry tomatoes and onions for kebabs while my mother placed condiments and dishes on the table. My half-Italian roommate offered up several flavorful seasonings, but my father simply rubbed his magic spice on the steaks then stood sentry at the grill nudging and turning each piece of meat. I wondered about the science behind his actions: Why move this piece away from the flame created by oozing fat, why move that one toward it. He could have worked at the finest steakhouse in the world because, whether it was just us or guests, each person chomped into a piece of gastronomic ecstasy. (except for the aforementioned half-Italian. My dad never gave up the secrets behind the geometry of grilling;he guarded his throne with a placid face, eyes darting to each slab of meat. Maybe he couldn't articulate the why behind his art. Maybe he didn't know, because maybe he'd always done it that way.
"Oh, that must be mom's." I said carrying the plate of kebabs and staring at a lone piece of meat.
"Yea, you know she likes it dead." He said smiling. The steak that night was the best I ever had. I was my last. In the six years since, I can honestly say that I never once missed the flavor, but, sometimes, when I pass the carneceria and the smell of cooking meat invades my nostrils, I am wistful for the grillmaster.

It's not really a magic spice

Lazy Dogs in Suburbia

Yesterday I piloted my maroon Daewoo hatchback-affectionately known as the "golf cart" or "spec" by friends and family-to my friend's four-acre compound in Middletown, NY. My mutt played in the swamp behind the house while I enjoyed my four hour respite away from the New York noise I treasure so, yet feel compelled to leave once in a while. Later in the day, a trip to Target proved that Sebastian, my dearest canine, is a lazy bum. I never thought him to be a lazy animal, sloth like and shiftless, yes, on occasion, but never lazy. He stalks squirrels, rats, and raccoons in Central Park. He dives in to the Hudson river to fetch sticks while keeping an ear open for deer, but refuses to put any effort in chewing a stupid rubber toy. My friend recommended a cylindrical rubber toy, the Kong, which the loving pet owner fills with cheese, peanut butter, or aerated liver pate. The toy is designed to keep your pooch's attention engaged with the extraction of the aforementioned treats instead of your shoes, your couch, or your Billy Joel LP collection. We returned home and filled the toys with the pate(my friend bought it for her dogs). Sebastian licked the Kong as far as his tongue would reach(ooh that sounds dirty) and ran to the swamp. I gave him the Kong for the ride home;he would have nothing to do with it.
Maybe Sebastian has no use for the machinations of yuppie dog owners. That is, in fact, what the Kong is. They feel bad that the dog is home alone so they buy these toys to keep them busy. I am one of them. Sebastian never chewed rawhides and I was not willing to rip apart a pig ear like my former roommate would. He just doesn't chew. This distresses me because he'll masticate a tree branch to death in the dog run. I feel bad knowing he's home alone, simply sleeping on the couch. You would not believe it, but they sell dog t-shirts at Target. This product has no purpose. It does not protect little chihuahuas or yorkies from the cold. Why does this exist? Sebastian would scoff at me if I attempted to put a sweater on him, "Mother! Look at my hair on the floor, I was born for cold." He'd run away if I brought out the 'rocker tee.' I hope there is a special place in the afterlife for people who abuse dogs in this manner. Paris and Britney will be first in line and they will be dressed in un-hot clothes and carried around by Amazon women with one breast.
I guess Sebastian may not be the ultimate city dog or maybe he is lazy. Perhaps he thinks that home is for sleeping and eating and outside is for everything else. One day we might have a place in the country where he can run like the wind.

Weather to Worry

“Is it raining out?” My father asks beginning his ritual morning rising of my brain from the dead.
I roll over and open my left eye to peer at the window.
“No.” I growl “Why?”
“Cause Al Roker’s getting soaked on the Today show,” he says with a glint of enthusiasm and twinge of worry. “Hey says it’s might snow this weekend but it could miss you.”
My father obsesses about my weather more than I do. Florida’s weather alternates between hot and hotter, so I figure the chance for snow, sleet, and hail holds more of an attraction for him. Plus, watching Al Roker in front of Dean and Deluca’s might help him feel closer to his thirty-plus year-old baby. Whatever the reason, I wonder why people, not just my dad, obsess about and, from what I observed this winter, despise bad weather so much.
Whenever the temperature drops below forty degrees my hospital disables the automatic doors to the main lobby. The sign placed outside the entrance reads, “Due to the unusually cold weather the automatic doors have been disabled.” Last I checked the temperature in February often plunges below twenty. What is unusual about that?
I’m not a geologist nor meteorologist, but I remember learning something in elementary school about rotation of the earth and the Northern Hemisphere being further from the suns rays during the winter months. The planet rotated and spun this way for billions of years so, except for some ice ages, it must know what it is doing. Sixty degrees on Groundhog Day scares the crap out of me. What have we done the earth? It seems that I am alone in that sentiment because during those wacky warm days even strangers on the bus mention how fabulous it is. And when the cold moves in, it’s grumble, grumble, and whine. Go move to Florida. Take my old apartment-one mile from the beach; bring truckloads of sunscreen and prepare to roast. I’ll stay in thirties.
On the off chance I actually watch the news I notice the weathermen, when delivering the news about a rainy day, adopt the attitude of a doctor breaking the news of an evil polyp. “Well it looks like rain in the middle of the week, but don’t worry there’s a warm front coming in to push those dark clouds away. It’ll be nice and sunny on the weekend.
Don’t misunderstand. I do not support dark, cold and gloomy days year round. I like the sun in the late spring and summer. I like lollygagging on a rock in Central Park. I just think that we should appreciate the change in weather and realize there is a reason for it. The planet would prune and die without RAIN. Snow protects grass from dog poop and footsteps when it’s frigid, so when spring comes it will grow strong. Okay, I made that up though it makes sense to me.
We are entering a scary time in regard to weather and the state of our planet. Some say that Doomsayer scientists exaggerate the threat of Global Warming. I’m not sure either way, but I do see a change from the New Jersey winters of my childhood to the winters of today.