Living Falling Down

I would like to take the opportunity to extend a hearty and heartfelt greeting to my fellow nerds out there, but as I am unable to virtually submit a Spock hand gesture, I offer you this:

01101000 01101111 01110111 01100100 01111001

Now, if you are able to discern what that says without the use of Google or a college professor, I encourage you to either apply for a job at NASA or get a girlfriend. Also, contrary to legend, sunlight is NOT fatal and if the constant stream of computer illumination isn’t giving you cancer the mold from your mother’s basement probably is.

It’s not that I disapprove of the stereotypical nerd lifestyle, in fact I’ve lived it for the majority of my stay on this big blue planet. However, in retrospect, it wasn’t the most healthy existance. I had to lose the twenty pounds I gained when living solely off of ramen noodles and candy corn, and once I finally managed to get up from the overstuffed chair which had housed my buttox while I was obsessedly attached to online Sudoku and Facebook I found that it had lost all definition and resembled two hams that some madman had beat mercilessly with a potato peeler. It took months of playing Dance Dance Revolution before I regained the ability to walk without hearing the sound of my own fatty demise racing behind me wearing cleats and swinging a waffle iron. My soul-crushing addiction to muffins didn’t help any either, but I’m working on that (I’ve finally kicked the hard stuff – no more apple cinnamon).

My point is, it IS possible to have a genius IQ (or just a penchant for anime in general) without becoming lost to social interaction. Believe it or not, people who have people may not be the happiest people, but they are better adjusted and tend to live longer. Yes, I will miss the candy corn and World of Warcraft, but now that I live in the real world (where they have these things called “friends” – I’m still trying to figure out what they’re for) not only have I achieved a more healthy approach to life, I’ve also found other nerds who have escaped the alluring draw of technology’s cold, binary logic to embrace the warm, not-so-binary allure of other people’s company.

Also, Spock wasn’t nearly as cool as Riker. There, I’ve said it and I feel much better for it.

01100010 01111001 01100101

• Leave a comment... (16)

It has been suggested that those reading this blog would want to get to know me a little better, but I recognize an attempt at spying when I see one and thus you will get no details out of me to take back to the cockroach overlords. However, in the spirit of increased understanding and to appease the poltergeist of blogging, I shall give you a glimpse of how insane I really am so that you can sit back in your office chair, sip your mocca latte while listening to Coldplay and laugh pretentiously on my account.

A Few Facts:

1. I believe that Hawaiian Sweet Bread, Corn Beef Hash and Tortellini were created solely for my own enjoyment. Anyone who says otherwise can watch me clamp my hands over my ears and hum loudly.

2. I wouldn’t kill for the above, but I would kick you in the shins, grab it, and run away. I might even take the time to shout something insulting or demeaning, but I’d have to be in the right mood.

6. Whenever I hear the word “pickle” I giggle a little inside my head. I have no idea why.

14. I adore socks. I am a faithful follower of the Sock Fairy, a mystical and enlightened being who secretly steals socks out of drawers to unravel and then knit together into giant multicolored scarves for small, sockless gnomes. In her honor, I have a sock collection with every type of socks imaginable – even some with bells on them. Although, strangely, I rarely wear them with shoes. Shoes are not as fun as socks.

16. Someday I swear I will hug a chinchilla. I don’t think I can die happy until I do. I could probably eat cake happy, or go water skiing happy, but I require a chinchilla for more substantial happiness.

20. Give me a flashlight, two Hershey kisses, your wallet and a kitten and I will find some way to annoy you with a flashlight.

I’m certain that covers all of the pertinent and necessary personal information that anyone would care to know about me. That, and I have a dog too. Although that strikes me as the kind of information that no one would be interested in…excluding of course the government spies who are monitoring my every move because they know I have the secret of Atlantis locked away in my left shoe. Sorry, fellas, but I promised the mermaids that I’d keep their secret safe…not that there are any mermaids or underwater cities or giant squid pets named Steve. That would be silly.

• Leave a comment... (0)

I would like, if I may, to share some truths with you of which you may or may not be aware.

1. You are the chimney of your pants.

Think about it. If your jeans, or slacks, or tear-away atrocities were buildings of some sort, your torso would be the chimney, or quite possibly the attic (which could lead into a strange metaphor about how your ideas and thoughts are the lost and probably forgotten skis and boxes of clothing up there, but I’m not really sure where that would lead). So, in light of this enlightening revelation, I ask you all to clean out your flue.

2. Wherever you go, there you are.

This is one of those few statements that is always completely true…unless you’re not exactly where you are, in which case you’ve either slipped halfway into an alternate dimension or have become dismembered. Either way, you might be in trouble.

3. It would be funny if it weren’t so painful.

Take a moment to process this one: You see a man fall down a set of stairs and then face first into a cake, you’re going to laugh. Especially if it’s on television and hilarious sound effects have been added. However, if you happen to be the man cascading down the stairs towards a frosting-covered fate a good hearty bit of laughter would probably be the last thing on your mind. Yet you know that same guy will be snorting hysterically when he watches the video with it’s “bonk bonk splat” sound effects while he’s getting his cast put on in the emergency room.

4. Crabs love mushrooms with cranberry sauce.

They do.

5. No one has ever offered a crab a mushroom slathered in cranberry sauce.

This, naturally, places some doubt upon the validity of truth number four, but as I’ve yet to be disproven on either count, I stand by my proclamation. In this same strand of life-changing discoveries, I would like to elaborate and tell you also that no one has offered a pickle to a pineapple, a cookie to an antelope and regardless of that book that claims otherwise, no one has ever given a pancake to a pig. I personally have never offered a popsicle to a bullfrog, so I propose myself as the authority on the subject.

That said, I’m off to proposition a pear to a porcupine.

• Leave a comment... (0)

If you were to look at me, even if you looked closely, you would think I was fine. I’m not.

I have what’s called an invisible illness, a sneaky disorder in which the patient suffers from the overworn phrase “but you don’t look sick!” Occasionally there’s the variation of “you must be faking” or “it’s all in your head”, but the stigma is the same. Unless I’m having a particularly bad episode, I look, sound and act like any other perfectly healthy 20-something.

I attribute this assumption not only to the invisible nature of my disease, but the fact that I am a spledid actor. I made a conscious decision when I was diagnosed that I wasn’t going to play it up for sympathy, or let the illness steal away my life until it defines me. As a result, I’ve made a habit of ignoring pain or discomfort and have several tricks up my sleeve for disguising what symptoms the average joe would be able to pick up on. I constantly monitor my body, making certain that I’m aware of what symptoms I’m experiencing and what that means in the grand scheme of things. I research my condition almost daily to stay informed on treatments, advances and techniques to make my life easier, as there is no cure. I am an expert in my own body, with its malfunctions and mistakes, and I use my knowledge effectively to keep hidden what is and maintain a look of normalcy.

It’s not that I care that people know I’m sick. I’m blogging about it, so secrecy obviously isn’t an issue. The trouble is how people treat me whether I am or not. If I’m having a good day and medication time comes around, people freak out when they see me pull 10+ pills out of my bag and start popping them. I’ve been accused of addiction, or dying and not telling anyone, and on one fateful occasion attempting to give someone else a heart attack. On the other hand, if I’m having a bad day and need to travel in a wheelchair or collapse in the middle of the room the accusations become about faking, overreacting, playing for attention or having self-destructive psychiatric behavior.

Truth is, it’s exponentially easier to deal with people who treat me like I’m fine. Granted, I get disapproving looks and snarky comments when I have to ride through a theme park in a wheelchair (it doesn’t help that I look like I’m 16) and hiding my condition adds to the general consensus of “faking it” whenever I do experience severe symptoms. However, this is to be preferred over sympathetic sighs, constant questions of whether or not I’m okay or being handled like a porcelain doll. I realize that I AM a porcelain doll, but that doesn’t mean I can’t aspire to be Raggedy Ann. Besides, it doesn’t seem fair to make the people around me join me in constant worry for my health and safety. I can manage that all on my own.

If anyone’s interested, this nasty little bit of undeserved kharma is called Dysautonomia, and I have a specific strand called Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome or POTS. To make a long medical history short, I experience syncope (collapsing and passing out) and the much worse near-syncope (nearly passing out and feeling like someone really needs to just put a bullet in you and end your misery).  These two are caused by my autonomic nervous system not working right and in turn not forcing my circulatory system to work right. The severity fluctuates on a number of factors (how much sleep I’ve had, if I’ve taken my pills on time, if someone over in Asia sneezed during a blue moon, etc.) and I have days of “I’m fine, I swear” and days of “Oh holy hells, who put that floor there?!” I deal with the symptoms as best I can – sometimes I get the best of them and sometimes they get the best of me.

If I didn’t make an active stand against my disease, I think it would swallow me whole. If I didn’t approach my live with humor and lightheartedness it would easily drag me down with it. That’s why I hide it – not to pretend that it doesn’t exist, but to prove that I can be stronger than that, that I can win a war against my own body breaking down. I can keep up my life, my goals and my desires regardless of how my body fails.

I might fall down, but I’m Living Falling Down.

• Leave a comment... (6)

What would the world be like uninhibited?

Everyone has that little voice in the back of their mind that tells them not to do things, or in my case several voices constantly repeating “Heather, the squirrels wouldn’t appreciate that”, but what would the world be if those voices stopped working? If the filters were removed from speech and actions, would the world even survive the onslaught of anarchy?

Would crime run rampant? Would people lie, cheat, steal, or harm each other without inhibitions to temper them? Or would it be the greatest outlet of creative ingenuity the Earth has ever seen? Without the mind saying “you can’t” or “you shouldn’t” or “no, corndogs aren’t really dogs”, mankind would be free to create some of the most brilliant works of freedom, expressed without limitations or shyness.

The painters would abandon the scholarly definitions of art, perhaps the brushes altogether, and revel in the feel of the color splashing forth without critique or self-doubt – a pure and unadulterated expression of the original idea unfiltered by the mind’s attempt at rationalization.

Course, if that was the case, the art critics would finally start dining on the flesh of the artists they demean like we all know they truly want to and any art that would be created would be rendered moot in the wake of the horrendous destruction of human lives. The only thing that would overshadow this tragedy is what the celebrity gossip bloggers would do to Starbucks. I shiver at the thought.

Better that we keep our inhibitions, I think. No need to increase the speed at which we’re hurdling towards a world dominated by cockroaches because human beings have annihilated themselves in a fit of beastial ID outrage involving push pins and WD 40.

On an unrelated note, I would live to express my love of the cockroach overlords and request that they not blast me into oblivion for being of an inferior species. Thank you.

• Leave a comment... (2)

I’ve never written a blog before. I’m the type of person who likes to keep my private life private, and so I’ve never thought to share with the whole wide internet.

However, the allure of a blank canvas, or in this case an empty web page, is too strong to ignore.

I’ve yet to decide what I want to write about, whether it be opinions, information, or the random nonsense that seems to plague me through my day to day activities (such as the persistant question of whether or not hamsters would make effective ninjas) but once I do, I’d like to get this thing up and running on a weekly basis. It’d be nice to have a forum to express myself, and from what I hear, blogging is a lot like counseling without having to pay to sit on someone’s couch for half an hour.

So, we’ll see what I come up with, and, for the record, I think hamsters would make much better pirates than ninjas. It’s a lot easier for them to wear eye patches than hold nunchucks.

Ttfn,

Heather

• Leave a comment... (2)