Posts filed under 'Just Life'
I married into a pretty amazing family. And I’m not just saying that because my mother-in-law Jean, Jean, the Beauty Queen reads my blog more faithfully than anyone else and actually causes a stir if I don’t post in a while. No, the Carey women are remarkable across the board. To wit, last month I posted a link to an interview my sister-in-law Julie Carey (Chris’ older sister, for those keeping track) did with Obama preceding the Virginia primaries.
Well, while one SIL is busy reporting the news in and around our nation’s capital, another is busy making news in the Pacific Northwest. Chris’ younger sister Amy Carey lives and works on Vashon Island, a beautiful little oasis just off Seattle where she is, among other things, a passionate environmental activist. She’s been featured in her local and regional news quite a bit lately for her work in opposing the expansion of Glacier Northwest’s gravel mining operations on teeny Maury Island, Vashon’s neighbor. Recently, Amy was interviewed by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer last month and is featured in this clip from Channel Five although in the latter she is, oddly enough, not identified. It doesn’t stop her from looking both smart and cappy and being, as is her style, dazzlingly well-informed and articulate. She could have used a little more air time, but I might be biased.
The issue at stake, for those who’s curious, is the environmental impact the mine expansion will have on the ecosystems of both Maury and Vashon Islands, which Glacier Northwest and its proponents seem to be brushing off as both minor and temporary. Many residents of the islands feel quite differently, as you can imagine. You can learn more or get involved by visiting the website of Preserve Our Islands, of which Amy is president.
March 9th, 2008
Last weekend, my niece Olivia did just that. And it looks like such fun, doesn’t it?
Here she is, on the right, with her little friend Kylie, at Olivia’s Chuck E. Cheese birthday party. They hugged and held each other practically the whole day and when they whispered secrets, their noses pressed right up against the other’s cheek. Isn’t pre-inhibition friendship the sweetest thing on earth?
Building on the sweet theme, a tray of girly-pink cupcakes.
Clearly delicious.
Oh. My. God. SPARKLY DRESS UP SHOES! CAN YOU EVEN BELIEVE IT?????
Back at home, Olivia was kind enough to share the spotlight with her uncle Chris and her sister, Rebecca.
For a brief moment, anyway.
Since Olivia’s a wee bit of a ham, it was no trouble talking her into a fashion show featuring the skirts I’d made her for her birthday. First, the girly-pink flowery and hearty one, accompanied by her current favorite “double peace sign” pose.
Then, the one that started as the fabric above. Don’t know if you can see it, but it’s “Olivia” fabric designed by children’s book author Ian Falconer, who pens and illustrates the gorgeous Olivia the pig series.
And wound up as this skirt. Clearly, it works for the model.
February 24th, 2008
We don’t make a particularly big deal out of Valentine’s Day in our household, partly because it’s such a silly affair full of expectations and pressure — and partly because it was usurped in our family six years ago this day by the birth of my niece Olivia. Really, a far more important matter to celebrate.
Still, my husband is not fool enough to let today pass without at least a small gesture of a simple bouquet, my favorite kind. And there’s something just so clean and perfect, so compact and magnificent, about white tulips that I thought you might like to share them.
Speaking of my niece Olivia, I’m not confirming that the fabric above was purchased specifically with her birthday in mind. I’m just showing it to you, is all. It is, the astute observer will note, based on Ian Falconer’s famed and adorable children’s books about Olivia the pig. I’m not sure many children are equipped to really appreciate the beautiful simplicity of Falconer’s work — nor do I think my niece has really reconciled with the idea of being associated with such a porcine figurine — but I just think there’s something heart-breakingly sweet about said piggie and her exploits.
We’re off to Indianapolis tomorrow for a quick weekend trip, in which we will celebrate Olivia’s birthday (belatedly, of course) and Chris’ birthday on Sunday. One of them will be celebrating with a Saturday afternoon bash at Chuck E. Cheese’s, but I shan’t tell you which.
February 14th, 2008
As with most things, I’ve been meaning to write about this for a while. I really like, as a general proposition, small gestures that can make a big difference in the long run. In that vein, my sister just signed my two youngest nieces up for UPromise accounts and the whole thing seems very cool to me. UPromise lets you save money for college for your relatives or even yourself by allocating a small percentage of purchases made with registered credit or debit cards, using certain grocery or retail store loyalty cards, eating at participating restaurants or shopping online at a vast number of websites.
Since I do a fair amount of shopping and eating, I’m already stocking away a little bit here and there. A couple of my favorite restaurants in town will earn me from 4%-8% on my bill. My Kroger rewards card earns me cash when I buy certain items. And when I shop on line, as I am wont to do, I get a little bit of cash into my account. It’s not like I’m saving tons at this point, but my sister and other family members are also doing this for my nieces. It adds up and by the time the girls are college age — they’re 6 and 9 now — I suspect whatever we’ve socked away will be useful.
Even cooler, you can link the money to 529 savings accounts — which let you save dough for your kids for college — and put it in there with the click of a button. I’ve sent links to my friends with small kids encouraging them to start UPromise accounts and invite their friends and families to participate. As my sister said, her kids have enough crap, so it would be really helpful if, on their birthdays, the money that my family spends on gifts went into their UPromise and/or 529 accounts.
When my sister gets 529 accounts set up for my nieces, I can even make a small, automatic monthly contribution that could add up over time. College is stupid expensive these days, so I can’t imagine how much it will cost even for a basic in-state education when my nieces go. (And, yes, if they wind up dropping out and going into food service, you can withdraw the money that wasn’t spent on college.)
February 14th, 2008
As you probably know by now, Barack Obama triumphed over Hillary Clinton in the ever-important Virginia primary. A couple of days before the primary, my sister-in-law Julie Carey — a veteran reporter for DC-area NBC affiliate Channel Four — sat down for a one-on-one interview with Obama. You can watch the interview, in two parts, on the NBC4.com website. Sadly, the camera never pans to Julie, but the most important part remains: I’m one degree of separation from Obama now.
And lest I get accused of currying favor, I’ve also been meaning to provide a link to this story, which ran last week on NPR’s Day to Day. It’s an interview with legendary political activist Robin Morgan, whose 1970 essay “Goodbye to All That” became a famous text in the drive to end politics as usual in this country, particularly where gender issues were concerned. Morgan has since penned a follow-up essay, entitled “Goodbye to All That (#2),” which calls for another look at the double-standard that exists in this campaign between the way women politicians are covered in the media, compared to their male counterparts.
One of the most jarring incidents Morgan points to in the NPR piece is the heckling of Hillary Clinton last night during a speech in the beltway. The senator was disrupted by a man who called out, “Iron my shirt!” As Morgan points out, the incident was covered and repeated — often with amusement — in the media in the days that follow. However, Morgan posits that there would have been a vastly different reaction had it been Obama on stage and a heckler cried out, “Shine my shoes!” It’s a simple illustration of a really salient point — that we, as a nation, will tolerate gender discrimination when a similar inicidence of racial discrimination would have caused riots.
As evolved as we like to think we are, Morgan’s new essay — which has been widely circulated via email — is an important one for our times. It’s uncomfortable — and perhaps especially so for women — to be reminded of and to acknowledge how far we haven’t come in the area of gender and politics. You don’t have to be a fan of Hillary Clinton’s to appreciate what Morgan’s essay has to say — merely a proponent of equality along gender lines.
February 13th, 2008
Well, we got our three inches. (That’s what she said!) It’s frankly more than a tad disappointing, given yesterday’s commotion about winter storms, but apparently it’s enough to cancel schools. Which seems a bit ridiculous to me. This is Michigan, people. If we can’t get our children to school because of three inches of snow, what hope is there?
Astute observers will note that I am penning this entry at what is a ridiculously early hour for me. I woke around six this morning with that strange combo where your body is completely exhausted but your brain won’t let you fall back to sleep. I think it’s part of the Effexor withdrawal, which I haven’t written about since my disastrous attempt to come off it a couple of weeks ago. I’ll provide a quick update at the risk of boring 99% of my readers in the hope that it might prove useful to that 1% who is having a similar experience.
As I noted, coming off even the smallest available dosage — 37.5 mg capsules — was a nightmare I’d prefer not to repeat. So I decided to step down even more slowly, which meant actually opening up the capsules, counting the granules of medication and manually cutting them in half. (For the record, there are an average of 126 grains of Effexor in each capsule.) I’ve been on that lower dose for over a week and it’s been much, much easier. It’s not symptom free — there are the occasional “zaps” and some other stuff — but it’s not terrible.
Today I’m stepping down again to 1/4 of the 37.5 mg capsules and we’ll see how that goes. I suspect, as I’ve read, that the real symptoms kick in when you drop off entirely, but I’m hoping if I do this for a week and then stop, things won’t be nearly as bad as before. I’ll keep you posted. I know it’s riveting.
On the flip side, I think I’m experiencing some pain relief from the new drug I’m on for fibromyalgia, neuronton. (Or, more accurately, the generic version, gabapentin.) It’s just hard to tell sometimes if it’s real relief or if I’m just in a place in the pain cycle where I feel better. I also have been doing a little research on neurontin withdrawal, in case this doesn’t work, and that doesn’t seem like a pleasant experience either. That scares me a little. But what should I do? Just live with the pain? Blech. Sometimes I just wish someone would fix me.
February 1st, 2008
Okay, the sky is not falling. But you might be forgiven for thinking so given the mad crowds I just tackled at Trader Joe’s. Here I thought dropping into TJ’s mid-morning on a Thursday would be a breeze, but little did I know that there’s a winter storm on the way. In the old days, I think that sent people to the grocery store to stock up on bread and milk, but in this town, it sends them to Trader Joe’s to stock up on organic pomegranate juice and bags of white cheddar Pirate’s Booty.
Am I the only one who looks forward to the inches of snow we’re expecting — maybe four tonight and the same again tomorrow? Apparently so. I may also be one of the few who don’t actually have to leave their houses during the day and I could see how tackling it could certainly be maddening. Still, I love me some winter storm action. Yeah, yeah. Ask me again after five years in Michigan, but for now, I’ll lay in the firewood and enjoy.
Maybe I’ll even find time to catch up on the things I haven’t posted about here. I’ve been meaning to upload a handful of pics from our trip to St. Louis, nearly two weeks ago now. Plus there’s a handful of projects I’ve been working on and snapping photos of my FO’s (that’s craft speak for Finished Objects). And I haven’t even commented on what’s going on in Britney’s life! So much to catch up on. But not now. Now I’m heading out the door to the gym. You know, to stock up on muscle mass before the snow starts.
January 31st, 2008
I’m writing this blog entry on a plane from St. Louis to Detroit. By the time you read this, I’ll have copied and pasted it online, but right now it’s nearly 11 pm. We’re running late on our return flight home after a short but, as these definitions go, long weekend in St. Louis. I’m finding myself feeling a little anxious as the plane bumps along the clouds and it occurred to me that there’s comfort to be found in writing about it.
I’ve actually been thinking a lot about fear, lately, since that’s really what my “anxiety” is. There was a time when I was so terrified of the idea of flying that I simply didn’t do it – probably from the time I was 15 or so until I was 26. Since returning to the friendly skies nearly 11 years ago now, I’ve had an interesting journey – if you’ll pardon the travel pun – when it comes to my fear. Generally speaking, it has ebbed as I have traveled more and more, as I have become used to both the notion and practice of air travel.
Also playing a significant role has been my evolving spirituality, if you will. For me that’s less about feeling a connection to a single higher deity than it is about developing a sense of my place in the world, my connection to the things around me, my acceptance of not being in control of everything and, frankly, my dwindling need to be in control of everything. Whether or not I believe in God is both boring and, really, neither here nor there.
Suffice it to say that a lot of experiences I’ve had in the past decade or so have helped me arrive at my own version of faith. After all, even in the direst of circumstances, I can’t deny that I have always been okay, that my needs have always been met – whether or not I realized it at the time. Or whether or not I agreed with that assessment at the time. It doesn’t mean that things haven’t been awful or difficult or scary or any of those negative things – just that I have always, always been okay despite all of that.
Over the years, as I quietly built my little “spirituality” sandcastle over in the corner, I’ve heard it said many times that fear is the absence of faith. There are times I agree with this statement and times when I’m not sure, but I think there’s truth in it, and that’s what has me thinking tonight, as my stomach does little hurdles when the plane bounces even a tad. Does my fear mean I don’t know that I’m going to be okay? Is that, in essence, what fear is? And why am I sometimes perfectly fine when flying and, at other times, prone to anxiety that feeds off itself and builds until I’m clutching Chris’ arm and making him tell me again and again that we are okay.
That last sentence would seem to suggest that, yes, fear must be the opposite of knowing that I’m going to be okay, since that’s what I’m asking Chris to tell me. (And by tell me, I really mean that he should be able to guarantee this which, as a man who is both wise and well-versed in air travel statistics, he feels pretty confident doing.) So why am I able to feel sometimes that I’ll be okay and other times that I’m not? Why does the very act of sitting here, laptop propped open and tapping away at the keys seem to help mitigate the effect of the turbulent air that’s shimmying the plane ever-so-slightly from side to side as we go through some cloud cover?
I know that it has something to do with how I feel physically. I’ve learned that if I’m tired (which I am) or if I’ve had too much caffeine (which I have), I’m prone to feelings of disquietude and jitteriness. And that those things suggest to me that I’m not okay and then that recognition turns on itself and I seem to hover on this very tenuous line between this side, on which our heroine will be okay and behave like a grown up, and this side, on which our heroine will give over entirely to the very physical sensations of fear and devolve into a blubbering, inconsolable mass certain of doom until the moment the wheels touch the tarmac at the other end.
In these circumstances, my fear presents itself to me like a temptation. Or maybe even like a fact, gnawing at me from the inside, aching for recognition, waving its arms and knowing that if I will just give it the nod, it can and will, in seconds, take over my entire being. As embarrassing as it is to admit this, my inner mantra in these situations very much relies on trying to keep fear at bay. “I will not give into fear,” I tell myself, over and over again, interspersed with, “I’m okay right now.” Believe me, I’m as embarrassed to admit that as you are for me in reading it. But while I’m at it, I might as well note that it doesn’t always work very well, largely because I consider myself a pretty unreliable narrator. I hear these things in my head, in my own voice, and some other part of me thinks, “That’s rich, coming from you. You’re a wreck!”
I’ve tried very hard to dissect my fear of flying – or, more accurately, my sometimes-fear-of-bouncing-a-lot-while-flying because it seems to me that it’s something that should improve consistently on an upward trajectory. The more I fly, the more I land safely, the less fear should even be an option for me in these circumstances. I should know better. Would that it were so easy. When fear takes over, what I know has little bearing on the panic party taking place in my brain. I’m not absent faith – just faith that I’ll be okay. I seem to have a lot of faith that I won’t. What’s that about? It’s all so, so hard to say. All I know is that now we’re much closer to Detroit and even if that means it’s been a long, long blog entry for you, my gentle reader, it’s been immensely soothing for me.
January 21st, 2008
Those of you in the greater St. Louis metropolitan area will be thrilled — thrilled, I say — to hear that I’m returning to my old stomping grounds this weekend for another episode/installment/theater of the absurd performance of Free Candy, St. Louis’ #1 live, non-broadcast, local interest talk show. Yes, Tom Weber just couldn’t take the heat trying to fill my shoes and has skedaddled off to Minnesota. He said something about a job with Minnesota Public Radio but, I mean, I think we all know the real story.
Even more exciting, while we’ll be at ol’ reliable Hartford Coffee Company on Sunday night, we’re starting at a new time of 6 pm, so all of you who belly-ache about being out past 8 pm on a school night won’t have an excuse not to attend. In addition, Amanda and I are thrilled to be sharing a bill of sorts with the fine folks who churn out 52nd City, truly a labor of literary love, which is one of the finest city lit mags I’ve seen. We’ll be celebrating the release of their latest issue, themed and titled “Stupid,” from 5 pm to 6 pm. There’ll be some deals and fun in the mix, and I strongly urge you to come out, have some good, clean fun and support both us and them!
Oh, as for Free Candy, we’re still firming up our guests — as we are wont to do until the 11th hour — but we do know that one of them will be guest favorite Debbie Baldwin from the Ladue News, who’s fun personified. Hope to see you there!
January 17th, 2008
First, wow. While I seem to have a solid number of blog readers, they’re not usually particularly active when it comes to commenting. So I was very moved to read the few but meaningful responses to yesterday’s post, especially those from strangers who must have stumbled upon this blog while trolling the ‘net in response to the NYT article I mentioned.
I thought it was worth noting that the second half of today’s episode of The Diane Rehm Show on NPR was dedicated to the topic of fibromyalgia. (Thanks, by the way, to the many friends who tipped me off!) I was intitially frustrated by the broadcast, which kicked off with New York Times reporter Alex Berenson making more broad generalizations about both fibromyalgia and doctors’ opinions about it. (Berenson, for the record, seems to cover the business of drugs for the New York Times. He does not appear to be a healthcare reporter and seems to have written a grand total of one article about fibromyalgia. Which brings up another pet peeve of mine, this positioning of journalists as instant experts on any given topic. But I digress.) However, I thought the broadcast generally went uphill from there and I found the comments of the doctors featured to be, for the most part, heartening. In case you missed it, you can listen to it on the DR Show’s website here.
And as reluctant as I am to report on my own failures (on which, I assure you, I am an expert), I decided after some debate to post here that I was simply unable to continue my withdrawal from Effexor XR. By last night, I had been withdrawing for nearly three days and I could not handle it anymore. As someone who lives with chronic pain, I can take a lot. But I have never in my life experienced anything as uncomfortable and disconcerting as this withdrawal. I would, I can tell you without exaggeration, have walked through my withdrawal from alcohol or cigarettes again before going on another minute.
By midnight, I was sobbing uncontrollably in bed, my skin crawling, my brain “zapping” every time my eyes moved from side to side. But, worst of all, I was seized with what I can only describe as an unshakeable sense of doom, to the extent that I was convinced I wouldn’t live until morning if I went to sleep. Poor Chris was thrown for a loop, probably a bit terrified in his own right, wondering what had happened to his wife. After he did some research, we concluded that the best thing for me would be to take some Effexor and to take another stab at this withdrawal, far more slowly, when I return from St. Louis next week.
I’m not writing about this to garner pity. I’m writing about it because I am a reasonably sane person who has withdrawn from a thing or two in her lifetime — and I had wondered if the horror stories I read about Effexor withdrawal on bulletin boards could possibly have been true. I’m not exaggerating when I say that what I experienced yesterday was one of the most difficult experiences of my life. And I think it’s important to say so. I think it’s important to talk about these things, to keep giving a voice to these things. Because if we don’t, then I think what happens is the very thing I railed against in yesterday’s post — no one believes us.
January 15th, 2008
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