Easy in my harness

Right now, the EMU is quiet. There are no epileptic children squawking, as there often are. It makes this place feel like a pet store full of myna birds and guinea pigs rather than a specialized care unit in one of the more prestigious hospitals on the Eastern Seaboard. When it is quiet like this, and no one is fussing with my electrodes or checking my pulse, and all I can hear are the sounds of minutes passing by I think I might mistake whatever I am feeling for something close to contented.

It is, in some ways, a relief to be literally glued to one spot for a time, at least for me-- at least for now. For all the discomforts of the wires, and the tedium, and the terrible food they bring me (or forget to bring me...), I can sort of make peace with being stuck here. I have to be here, for a predetermined length of time, for a predetermined reason, and that is that, There is no anguish on my part whatsoever over what I should be doing, and if it is the right thing to be doing at all. It is easier to stifle longing for various elsewheres when I cannot even walk across the hall. Of course I cannot be at Knox right now, I am glued here. I am glued here until Monday, and so why bother longing at all?

It is, of course, not so easy to settle into my surroundings when I am at home. There I am also trapped, in a lot of ways (some some of them literal, some of them less so), but for no good reason. When I am able-bodied and un-glued, I do not think I should be content to sit in Maryland, biding my time until somebody signs my permission slip. Just as the wild animal who knows he is injured will allow himself to be handled and caged, and the one who is well will bite and pace when he is restrained, so too do I, I suppose (Now I apologize for that metaphor, I really do, but it was apt, you see. You understand. Don't make fun).

All of this is not to say that I do not want to be at Knox right now, because of course I do.I just have momentarily sorted out "something I want" from "something I should have", and so the turmoil of being trapped has died down. It's nice. When you give up the struggle, it is quiet. The myna birds of the EMU will teach you that.

**Post originally written 3/27/2010. There is sadly very spotty internet in the Epilepsy Monitoring Unit, so it was not published at the time.

Above the Store

Patty is my grandmother. The location is Quincy, Michigan, and this store is arguably one of the most influential places in my life. I grew up playing hide-and-seek in racks of wedding gowns and being babysat by employees, playing in dressing rooms. I can't possibly begin to explain how the store's physical qualities-- its rooms, staircases, wallpaper-- have influenced the aesthetics of my imagination.

Out of all the fantastic spaces in the store, upstairs is by far (in my mind) the best. Formerly apartments, interior walls have been torn down, windows boarded up (covered by the faux-stucco facade), and a place where families used to live their lives is now "storage". As depressing as that sounds, it's kind of fantastic. The following photos far from do the space justice, mostly owing to poor lighting and my incompetency, but it's something. I might steal some photos from Kylie, too, as she has a bit more skill with the camera...











*

*A note on this one: My mother, who "never did drugs" painted this "when she was a kid" Mmhmm...


Hole in the floor


Hole in the ceiling

Krissy crosses the Mason-Dixon line

I can't say I dislike Georgia. The overly-tanned, Corona tee-shirt-wearing, "there are fourteen of us packed into one motel room and we don't care if we keep you up all night blasting music and having sex we won't remember" crowd doesn't exist here, and the retirees don't wear speedos. So it's not Florida. I don't hate it.

Savannah is a kind of charming city, despite the sunburnt senior citizen tourists that it seemed to magnetically attract. Looking past the trolley tours and Thomas Kinkade gift shops, there is Spanish moss, gorgeous architecture, and a decent art museum. I think a lot of the charm of city can be missed, though, if the historic district is all that you see. Driving out of the city, we skipped the expressway and drove through the neighborhoods in search of a place to eat.

As we drove past the manicured gardens surrounded by elaborate wrought-iron fences, I spotted, in the midst of tourist territory, a group of Asian hipsters on bicycles. Continuing on in the same direction, I saw more. Girls in vintage dresses with ironic $250 Nikes, scruffy-looking guys with charcoal smears on their shirts, angular haircuts and dark, plastic-framed glasses abounded. All in the middle of the trolley tour route?

The mystery was solved when I spotted the Savannah College of Art and Design bookstore (we stopped in for coffee and amusing people-watching). While the school's location was obviously based on being in the historic district, rather than its proximity to "Ye Olde Savannah Gift Shoppe", I rather enjoyed the sight of the odd elderly tourist accidentally wandering into art student territory.

Driving out of the downtown, things became even more interesting. Catfish and BBQ joints were common, including the "Oriental Foods Market" occupying an old gas station and selling bamboo, BBQ, noodles, and dried alligator heads. Yum. We ate at Love's seafood, recommended by my mother's Georgia-native friend, which was delicious. (The downside: throwing up catfish nuggets and hush puppies later that evening.)

Tourists, hipsters, and food aside, the biggest impression Savannah made on me was the importance of religion in the South. And so, based on my day in and around Savannah, I present:

You know you're in the Bible belt when...

-Easter services are advertised on billboards and with commercials

-The motel with hourly rates and an attached liquor store has a bible verse on its sign

-There are bible verses on menus, but no wine list to be found

-Even the synagogues look like cathedrals, down to the cross-shaped floor plan

-The island you're staying on has three restaurants, no grocery store, but five churches

And

-A waffle house on Sunday morning at 10:30 is empty, but at 11:30, the line stretches out the door, everyone dressed in suits and dresses

That's all I can think of at the moment....

Flexible Fabric Is Better

I really hate plastic band-aids. They remind me of every part of my chilhood that I hated. The uncomfortable feeling of it being either too tight or too loose depending on how you move, the way it never really fits, I can't stand it. No matter what you do, a plastic band-aid will not be comfortable.

You have to make sure, when applying a plastic band-aid, to choose the correct size. If you pick one too large, you will not only waste it, because there are always less big ones ion a box, but you will cover a larger area with adhesive than neccessary. This means more stinging than neccessary when the time comes to rip the band-aid off. If you choose one too small, it will fall off easily, exposing the wound and losing adhesive. You will then have to apply a secondary band-aid. A careful consideration of band-aid proportion is very important.

I hate things that don't fit. I always have, always will. I refused to wear anything but stretch pants until the age of eleven. I still refuse to wear souvenir tee-shirts until at least two years later, after they've shrunk and I've grown. I will only wear certain pants with certain shirts, not because I care so much that I look cool, but so that things don't bulge or baag or cling in the unappealing ways that most people don't even think about. Things don't necessarily have to be tailored--the occasional tunic or breezy linen blouse is fine. However, they must be carefully matched so that the outfit is balanced, not baggy all over, but not loose on the top and skin-tight on the bottom. I like it when things fit.

Also important when using a plastic band-aid is applying it. Certain angles are not condusive to muscular movement, and certyain locations on the body are hard to fit band-aides to. When dealing with a difficult spot, multiple band-aids are sometimes needed to protect a wound. It is also important that they are not made too tight or loose, as it may case wrinkling or other undersirable things, like peeling or loss of adhesive.

I'm pretty sure that half of my childhood was spent making sure things fit properly. I did not like it when I was playing with a friend dressed in pastels and I was wearing brights. I did not enjoy putting on my mother's shoes, because they were obviously too big. I wasted hours and hours of collective classtime reorganizing my desk at school to accomadate each and every new item, from a stray pencil to a new workbook. Textbooks on the right, stacked parallel to the blackboard, folders and workbooks on the left, perpendicular, pencil cases and tissue boxes had to be level, and no more than two writing utensils coiuld fit in the pencil tray without being stacked. This was very important.

When wearing a plastic band-aid, regardless of whether or not the box says "waterproof", bear this in mind: Plastic band-aids are not waterproof. Do not wash your hands if you are wearing one on your thumb. It will start peeling and you will have to reapply. After bathing or showering, you must also reapply. It is possible though, to kind of "wash around" a bandaid, say, when rinsing your hands off because they are sticky. To avoid loss of adhesive, use one hand to carefully wash the other, rather than slathering both in suds under the faucet. With great care, it is possible to both wash your hands and keep a band-aid. It doesn't quite get your hands as clean, and the band-aid doesn't ever really stay dry, so really it's simply a hassle.

I also really hated conflict as a child, I still do. When I weas young, though, I really hated it. I hated disagreements and uncomfortableness to a point where when my sister and I made up imaginary games, I would sooner have our characters redecorate three times than have them go on an adventure and potentially get in trouble with their imaginary parents or get lost in an imaginary world. I couldn't watch "Arthur" if the characters were fighting. It made me too upset. This feeling applyed to my real life as well, where from third to eigth grade, I carefully cultivated friendships with members of "groups" that did not get along. In elementary school I would schedule when I would sit at what lunch table, because my friends didn't all get along, and I didn't want to upset anyone by not sitting with them. Monday, Wednesday, Friday at Bridget's table, Tuesday and Thurday at Sam's. Every week the schedule rotated, so it was even. The two groups never hated each other, they just didn't get along. I scurried back and forth this way well through juniopr high, taking pains to ensure everything remained intact, that I wouldn't lose bearing in one group by spending too much time with the other. I sidestepped conflict, promoted mediation, and made compromise my middle name.

Plain plastic band-aids are ugly. They not only have the discomforts listed above, but they are just not as cool as the neon ones with cartoons on them. They are boring and tacky, but not in the over-the-top tacky way band-aids should be.

Because of my chilhood quirks above, I turned out to be a really dull child. I hated dirt, activity, games, adventure, and just about everything else that makes a childhood a childhood. I was a delusional six-year-old who thought she was an interior designer. I was a stupid sixth-grader who thought she was an event planner. I kind of hated fun. It wasn't orderly, you couldn't rearrange it, and you had to be spontanious. I wasn't a trouble-maker who started food fights or a pre-teen who had strings of prepubescent boyfriends. As long as I can remember, even in my pre-Kindergarten days, I cannot remember ever wanting to do what my peers were doing. I was always "too mature" or "too good". As result, I became a ridiculously dull child. To this day, I wonder why I ever had friends.

That is why I hate plastic band-aids.