Counting Blessings

     Last night I was trying to download the new update for the Iphone, and I was informed I didn't have enough memory left to support it.  I've had the dropbox app for a while now, but  I didn't set it to automatically upload my whole camera roll because I knew that I didn't want to keep everything.  So I spent two hours going through the whole thing, picture by picture, and I was struck by the succession of monumental moments - good and bad.  It was like excavating through layers of time and made me think of the city of Istanbul, with its sedimentary layers of cultural and historical remnants.
      My camera roll only goes back about a year and a half, but a lot has happened in my life during that time.  I was in a car accident a little over a year ago, that could have been fatal.  Pre-surgery pics and post-surgery pics, X-rays, and the ones of the mangled car.  A major portion of my pictures are of Sal Paradise, my beloved feline friend, who ran away at about a year old, without so much as a parting word.  Those pictures were harder for me to go through than ones from the accident.  There were also so many good memories that warmed my heart to flip through.  Vacations with great friends, some of whom live far away now.  Visits with my family, which I cherish greatly because there is more distance than I would like between us.  Weddings, christenings, holidays, random happy days - they were all there, buried beneath sets of multiple pics of mixed drinks and random pairs of shoes bound for Instagram.
      I think everyone should take a moment to go through the pictures in their phones from the very beginning, but try to look with the eyes of a stranger.  These are freeze-frames of time that you wanted to capture and hold on to.  What impression would a stranger get from peeking into your life through the lens of your camera phone?  I'm willing to bet that they'd see a lot of joy and love.  Doubtlessly there is hardship peppered throughout - but what would the joy mean to you
without the hardship?
      A great friend who is wise beyond her years told me something recently that hasn't left my mind since.  She told me that if the entire world gathered together and everyone threw their problems and issues into a giant pit, and then everyone took turns re-drawing, you would be lucky to get your own problems back.  Maybe really lucky.  Life is really short, people.  Way shorter than we realize on a daily basis.  Judge it by the moments you deemed important enough to document and you'll be surprised at how obvious the blessings and miracles are and how often they occur.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WlBiLNN1NhQ#

Amanda Bynes: From Ask Ashley to Go Ask Alice? Hopefully Not.

       

Amanda Bynes strikes again.  On Monday she was detained for a mental health evaluation after she was found in the driveway of a California residence, lying down next to a "sizable fire" and trying to "snuff flames on her left pant leg."  According to an article in The Daily News yesterday, a man driving by saw her and pulled over; by the time he reached her, she was sans pants and chasing her dog.  The good samaritan, Andrew Liverpool, put out the fire while Bynes ran off and ducked into a nearby liquor store to wash the gasoline off of her Pomeranian.
        The clerk at the store said that she entered the back room without permission and that when he followed her she "reeked of gasoline" and "seemed freaked out" while she rinsed the dog off in a sink.  After waiting to talk to the firefighters, Liverpool got back in his car and went to look for Bynes.  He spotted her talking on her phone on the side of the road.
        Liverpool called 911 with her location and proceeded to block her from getting into a cab, which is allegedly when he recognized her - as a star and a former classmate - apparently Bynes briefly attended the same high school as Liverpool.  "She said she had to go, that her dog was burnt," Liverpool told reporters.  He said the dog was wet, but didn't seem to be burned in any way.  Bynes jumped into the cab but police caught up with her and she was taken to a local hospital, where she is currently waiting out a 5150 hold - an involuntary hospitalization for mental evaluation.

     

        That's the best thing for Amanda Bynes right now, an evaluation.  She set the fire in the driveway of complete strangers who live around the block from her parents, whom she hasn't spoken to in months.  This is an obvious cry for help.  Her recent antics make Britney's (a fellow member of the the 5150 club)

meltdown a few years back look pretty boring.  She was arrested last May for hurling a bong out the window of her NYC apartment when police arrived, responding to a complaint that the actress had rolled and smoked a joint in the building's lobby.  Shortly after, she claimed on Twitter that she was sexually assaulted by the officers who arrested her.
        She will obviously do anything she can think of to get attention - from her recent affinity for outrageous wigs to shopping at Bloomingdale's in nothing but a T-shirt - but the kind of attention she needs is psychiatric.  Her life in the public eye is playing out just like her signature sketch on Nickelondeon's "All That."  She started out all sweet and cute but she is quickly spiraling out of control.  In fact, I bet if Amanda asked Ashley, she'd get an earful.

Pessimists Anonymous

 Hi.  My name is Shannon, and I am a pessimist.  I can't remember my first negative thought, but I have been pessimistic for as long as I can recall.  I've been told it's because I'm too smart; I've been told it's because I'm too lazy; I think it's because I'm addicted to this way of thinking.  It's become a habit, one so ingrained in my daily behavior that now I'm worried it can't be broken.

     I don't want to be like this.  I want to see the good in things - big and small - things like the future and things like long lines at the grocery store.  But I get in theses frames of mind when I only think of what is or could go wrong, and once I start I just can't stop.  That's why I'm here.

     The dichotomy between pessimism and optimism has been nagging at me lately.  I guess it makes sense; I'm going through a time in my life that I know I will look back on as a low point.  I'm sure that good things will come of it - some already have.  See?  I'm really working on being optimistic, but the thing is, it's so damn hard.  It really is like trying to master an addiction.  It's a daily battle - I have to take one day at a time and I'm constantly relapsing.  Alright, I know it isn't as dire as an addiction to cocaine or something like that.  But overcoming addiction to a thing as innocuous in the eyes of the law and society as pessimism is extremely difficult.  If I ever get to the point where I can be optimistic about just somethings without trying, I will consider it a miracle.  

                                                   

     There are people who make optimism look easy.  How do they do it?  I'm finding the fact to be one of life's greatest mysteries these days.  I envy the skill of optimism; and it is a skill, I've decided.  Just like some people are born with a proclivity for art or music or math, some are naturally and innately prone to optimism.  But most, I think, have to work at it.  Tend it, like a garden.  I'm a big reader, so I often think in terms of literary symbols; I can think of a perfect example: a certain lonely, sick rose growing in a vacant lot from my beloved Dark Tower series.  But the allusion is of course useless to anyone who hasn't read it.  I'm trying to come up with a literary symbol that would be instantly recognizable to everyone but, alas, that is becoming impossible these days.  However, optimism is the driving force behind every quest taken on by every hero in every great story ever told.  Optimism and hope can be confused, but they are different things.  I'm not exactly sure how, I just know that hope comes much easier; but neither are just the stuff of stories.  For me, optimism appears to be the difference between life and existence. 

Feline Spongiform Encephalopathy: The Science Behind Crazy Cat Ladies

        The results of a Danish study on 45,000 women, conducted over a period of thirty years, were made public this past summer that discovered a link between cat ownership and suicide.  Women infected with a parasite found in cat feces called Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii) were found to be 1.5 times more likely to commit suicide.  This isn't a very large increase, but when added to the findings of previous studies - links between T. gondii and changes in behavior and mental illnesses like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder - the correlation between cat ladies and madness is difficult to ignore.  Now, I realize this is a relatively old study, but I just found out about it and I have too many cat ladies in my life, crazy or otherwise, to not comment.
       

        With the cat ladies I know, the most obvious sign of insanity is the number of cats they possess.  If you met them out in public, you may not necessarily think to yourself that they were crazy; but if you were invited into their home, the words "Crazy Cat Lady" would leap into your head, completely unbidden.  According to an article on npr.org, "Scientists still aren't sure how the parasite affects a person's brain, [...] But in rodents, it causes cysts to form in areas of the brain involved in behavior.  A study of rats also found that infection caused them to lose their fear of cats and become attracted to the odor of cat urine. That behavioral change would increase the chance that a rat would be eaten by a cat — allowing the parasite to get into the cat's intestine, which is the only place it can reproduce sexually."  This is what I have observed in crazy cat ladies, as well; the more cats they own, the more attracted they are to the idea of having more.  The article notes that cats don't eat people very often, so the parasite can't benefit from infecting humans, we are just "collateral damage."

Notice All The Cat "Artwork"; The Herd Just Isn't Enough

       
        Well, scientists may still be unsure what T. gondii infection does to the human brain, but I can tell you.  The cat ladies that I know love their cats like family, take them for walks and rides in the car, and in many cases they seem to have more rights than human family members.  It's a mental illness that makes women want to dress their cats in sweaters, nuzzle them like boyfriends and eat next to them at the dinner table.  These cysts apparently form in the area of the female human brain that creates songs about the names of cats and feels compelled to ascribe human emotions to feline facial expressions.  I understand it because I've been surrounded by crazy cat ladies all my life, and because now I'm finally falling victim to the disease myself.  I realize that I am way too obsessed with my cat, but I just can't help it, so I will try to take it easy on my more advanced counterparts and keep praying that my personal case of Mad Cat Disease is a slowly metastasizing one.

My Own Private Oubliette

Have you ever felt like you’ve fallen into a hole?  Like you’re clinging to the side of a cliff, at the point where the prospect of climbing back up to the top is too daunting but you can’t see the bottom and you’re too scared to let go?  

 I’m in that hole right now, talking to you from my niche in the wall, a temporary foothold that will let go at any moment.  It might be difficult to hear me.  You may have to lean in and cup your ear.  But be careful.  Don’t fall in.  I wouldn’t wish this on anyone, and if I can’t save myself, I’m afraid you’ll be on your own.

Like Alice, I was trying to avoid the mundane tedium of the everyday.  I wandered off and fell in.  But mine is no rabbit hole.  Its walls are not lined with clocks and cupboards.  There is no Wonderland at the bottom.

Truth be told, there is no bottom.  It just keeps going and going.  Its walls are lined with sharp roots and slimy fungus.  The more desperately I try to claw toward salvation the dirtier and more battered I become.

Why do I carry on this mad clawing?  It would be so much easier to cross my arms and feet and fall down into the abyss that I know will claim me in the end.  But I know someone will keep me from falling.  They will keep me from falling but won’t pull me out.  And now I’m past the point of seeking succor ~ I fend off the helping hands.  I long for the oubliette that is waiting for me.  Maybe that is what this hole is; maybe I’m in it now.

I don’t want a lifeline.  Sometimes I long to hear my own death rattle; in my morbid little musings, it is a comforting sound.  What I really want is for the people trying to pull me up to come to the same realization as me: that it is a silly venture – inane and futile.  What is waiting at the top?  My hole is dark, but it is warm.  Analogous to that of Jack the Bear, the invisible man.  His hole was bright, but he was invisible.  Mine is dark but I must be conspicuous down here because people won’t let me have any peace.

What I want is for someone to help me – but not help me out.  Help me overcome this senseless, innate need to fight my way up.  Help me tie my hands and feet together.

So I can go sailing down

Into the sadness

Into the sleep

Into the quiet

Into the deep.

But I can’t ask anyone to do that.  And no one would volunteer.  I haven’t the courage to dig in and climb up or to fold my arms and fall down.  I’m stuck here, clinging to the side of this hole.  An oubliette I’ve built for myself; teetering in a purgatory I’ve created.