The Unseen Gray Hair

This blog is about aging. But as I was thinking about a title, I realized I wanted to shy away from using a boring or typical title like “The Signs of Aging,” or “You Know You’re Old When” (seriously, that’s the best I could come up with so far). But then I decided that I actually wanted you to read today’s blog, especially since I haven’t made a guest appearance on my own site since May.

Let me start off with this interesting anecdote so that you will know where I’m going with this (or at least follow along my rabbit-hole journey). A few weeks ago, I received a cryptic text as I was sitting in my car during lunch: “Hey! I’m depressed.” This was completed with a smiley face emoticon, so I knew it was serious, especially since this person rarely ever initiates texts with me; we now relegate our communication to friendly ribbing on Facebook.

Out of bemused concern, I replied to his text. Then impatient person that I am, when my depressed pal didn’t reply quickly enough, I called, only to repeat my text: “Hey! Whassa matter?”

His reply: “I found a gray hair—down there.”

I was as sensitive as I could be as I guffawed loudly in my car—at least the windows were up. But even through my laughter, I was now bemused and weirdly flattered, although I’m not entirely certain that I shouldn’t be insulted…but that’s another topic for another entry in the wonderfully distant future. It’s easy enough to guess the reason for my bemusement: who does that!? Hence, the flattery that even after all these years, this man would feel comfortable enough to relate that story to me...well, I won’t dwell on that either.

But I will say that I did promise him that he would be included in my next blog which, as you see, is a few weeks from its intended deadline. To add to his private admission, he nicely posted another sign of aging very publicly on Facebook, so I perhaps don’t have to feel flattered because this man has no real issue with full disclosure. The subject of his Facebook post: the prostate exam. To paraphrase, he lamented that he wasn’t even offered a movie and some popcorn by the doctor who…well, I hope you what goes on in prostate exams.

But our ridiculous conversations via text and Facebook spurred me to pursue a topic I’d been meaning to discuss for time anyway, and you guessed it: I mean some obscure signs that old age is creeping up.

My grandma always said that we adults once and children twice. Here’s the way I see it: I figure that the average biological age of adulthood starts at around 15 and ends somewhere around the mid-40s, give or take a few years on either end. How did I come up with this answer? The beginning of adulthood has to be somewhere around a post-puberty age, when voices change, hair starts growing in place other than the head, and when there’s a general idea about the height of a person. True, many boys tend to still be growing by this age, but this would only support my theory in terms of saying that men have a shorter span of adulthood than women (guys, please limit your disagreement posts to 100 words or less). Regardless of the actual age, in adulthood, people enjoy relative freedom: the future is just some vague distance away. We’re in control of our own destiny and for the most part, barring any over imbibing, all of over bodily functions.

But after 40, or even more accurately, approaching 40, things start to unravel. Muscles start to weaken, joints and cartilage both expand and get less pliable, and fluids start to dry up. All of this works in conjunction to turn that once virile adult body into a non-coordinated mass of skeleton and loose tissue. And depending on how much or little a person exercises, the process progresses either slowly or at a rapid clip.

The first signs are gentle. Maybe you notice that you can’t read words as closely as you once could, and you find yourself extending your arm back a little. But the sign that gets me is the change in bathroom habits. Once upon a time in adulthood, you find you could hold in your urine a little longer before you got to the destination (yes, it all comes back to the bathroom with me) and when you got there, you knew that you were in there for number 1 and number 1 only. However, what I’ve discovered is that muscles weaken around your bladder (in men it’s around the prostate and in women the Kegels) and that when you do get to your destination, you can sometimes be surprised about the bodily function that occurs. In the past year, I’ve noticed that my bathroom trips are most like Forrest Gump’s description of chocolates, or at the risk of being totally vulgar, you just never know when you’re going to get a chocolate-colored surprise. This is especially mollifying to me as a person who is skeptical at best about frequenting public bathrooms (those who’ve read my “Potty People In the House” know that I have my own particular bathroom issues and they’ve only exacerbated over the years). I’m confronting with the fact that foods that I used to be able to easily digest now send my system on a Rebel Yell roller coaster ride that results in a quick unanticipated disappearance.

It is not at all a comforting thought to know that I am once again entering my childhood state, although this time in reverse chronological order. One day, I’ll delve into a more serious adaptation of what this state is, but for now I’ll just leave you with this.

That same guy referenced at the beginning of this entry posted a pic with a two-year gap, and had on the same shoes, and possibly the same hat. Talk about a sign of getting old. Maybe he’s turning into that Texas gym teacher who wore practically the same outfit every year for picture day for forty years.

The Reinvention of Porn

Caught your attention, didn’t it? Yes, this is me making a racy entry…about the word porn. So for those of you who clicked on this entry in the hopes that I would be talking about the latest and greatest out in the valley, you have come to wrong place. This is merely a word nerd’s blog.

So, yesterday was a gorgeous day, and I don’t know what it is…well, scratch that, I do know what it is about a hot day that automatically makes me think of good food. First of all, I am a self-proclaimed foodie. If you were to look at my Pinterest page, you will see at least five or six boards dedicated to food, and one lowly board dedicated to fitness--it only has about six pins in it, as opposed to the 30+ pins I have in each of the food boards (30 being my conservative number: it’s probably double that). I even have one whole board dedicated to only desserts!

We’ll talk more about Pinterest at a later date. What I have is a typical case of what psychologists call association. Association is a learned behavior, and at a young age, growing up down the country with a large extended family that liked to gather at major holidays, one of my main associations is that on warm days that started to signify the start of summer, my grandfather would fire up his hand-made pit barbecue (it was a small brick structure). So to me warm weather has always been synonymous with a good grilled burger, or as I’ve grown up, a great steak.

Usually at work, I’m stuck back here in my windowless hovel, blissfully or painfully unaware of what the weather is outside. But yesterday, I made it out of doors (only because I had to go get an incomplete form filled out for final grading (BTW classes are over so I can dedicate my life to more mundane busyness, the topic of the next blog entry). But I made it out into the sunshine and it was a gorgeous day—the ones that only appear at the beginning and end of summer. The trees are freshly green, the sun was shining with nary a cloud to mar its imperfection, the humidity was low and there was a slight breeze wafting gently and making the trees whisper: It was the poetry of nature.

Amazingly, I am able to recall all this beauty retrospectively because at the time, I was merely bustling between buildings trying to get that paperwork completed in the 11th hour. The warmth of the weather seeped into my consciousness though, because when I returned back to my office, I found myself thinking about a nice juicy steak or burger.

And here’s where the original topic of this blog comes in. In my thoughts of that nice juicy steak or burger led me to the internet, where I just started typing in the URLs to various local restaurants and checking out their menus, drooling over the succulent pictures. Soon I had engaged in conversations with a few of my co-workers and realized I was watching food porn!

And today, as I look back at my activity yesterday, I contemplated how the word porn has been co-opted from its seedy, taboo, negative connotation into a whole new category that describes anything done to an extreme. I’m constantly telling my students about the mutability of the English language, and this word is a prime example of what I mean.

So as a word nerd, I looked the word up. The actual definition now, according to dictionary.com, is any type of media (“television shows, articles, photographs, etc.,”) “thought to create or satisfy an excessive desire for something, especially something luxurious.” And the sample definition was, “the irresistible appeal of food porn.” Look at how this word has morphed into something totally different than its original intent. Everyone pretty much knows that the word “porn” is the shortened version of “porno,” which in and of itself is a shortened version of “pornography.” The word and the practice of pornography are both pretty old, the word being coined around 1840, somewhere around the Renaissance era. Most people are familiar with the suffix –graphy which just refers to something that is recorded, either with words or pictures (think of other words like biography [literally the recorded account of a life] or photography). Porno- comes from the Greek word for harlot. Amazingly enough though, the shortened version of the word didn’t gain real recognition until the 1960s. No surprise there: in the era of free love, why not co-opt and expand those taboo definitions. The words “nigger” and “queer” underwent similar metamorphoses. The dictionary points out two very distinct characteristics, the first of which is perhaps a bit archaic and the second which has been transmuted (sort of). The first characteristic is the phrase “especially those having little or no artistic merit.” Not only would those in the porn industry object to this definition, but those who now have those expanded the definition beyond the second characteristic, “designed to stimulate sexual excitement,” and translate it into any stimulated excitement (ie. drooling over a web picture of a burger) could also say that what they experience isn’t looking at something vulgar and grotesque, but lavishing upon the beauty of something they love.

And even though that love of beauty is acknowledged, tacking the word porn onto anything gives it a pseudo-negative connotation. While we most of the time are rather open about our obsession, we also carry a small corner of secret shame or even guilt that maybe we shouldn’t like this thing quite so much. Words like obsession or addiction are peppered into our porn language. Even the word foodie was morphed from the drug addicted equivalent, “junkie.”

None of this truer than in the food porn industry that has popped up. Media have taken over the idea that food is a passion for many people. It’s not just Julia Child anymore, but food competition shows and entire networks dedicated to food, with shows ranging from meals to economize time or money to hedonistic Dionysian treks across the globe for “The best, biggest, or unique [insert food here].” I daresay the food porn industry has grown larger than its sexual counterpart, bringing new meaning to the colloquialism “do fries go with that shake?”

To coin a lyric of George Michael, “What do you call pornography?”

The Setback that Became a Setup

I was unintentionally inspired by one my students to scribble up this post. She was hoping for some writing assignments from me and I suggested, as I so often do to students (that reminds me of yet another task I need to complete), that she start a journal. One of these days, I will even pre-purchase little mini-journals for my class. I even gave her the link to my blog so that she could see an example of an online journal. Sadly, I had to give her the caveat not to laugh since I didn’t have a recent entry. And as there were supposed to be weekly entries, not justly monthly so that I can get back on my goal of writing and completing my novel this year, I figured I should give it the ol’ college try once again.

If you’ve read the April 15 entry “The Unsatirical Me,” you essentially know what I’ve been dealing with for the past few months. The good news is that since that health care plan meeting, my father has rapidly improved and returned to the land of lucidity. In addition, I adapted some organizational techniques that have helped me feel like I have some measure of control over things (which as we know is merely a cognitive illusion, but allow me to delude myself). The organizational techniques are lists: a list of the various costs associated with my father’s everyday recovering functions and of those items that I need to apply for various programs, from veterans’ benefits to cemetery plots; and a list of all the different tasks that I’ve accomplished to give me an idea of items that I need to follow up on. Managing my dad’s life has become a bit of a full-time job for me, where I wake up almost every morning asking myself, “What do I have to do for Dad today?” I have become a fulltime caregiver, and as I say to others, it is a role I was born to inhabit.

Why say this? Long story short, my grandmother was a missionary in church, and she always talked about service to others. She kept me well-informed and frankly, grounded. It is due to her guidance that I can sit here and type this today with barely any resentment or malice toward the hand I was dealt. I accept it and embrace it. Recently, my mother-in-law gave me a gem of knowledge: “instead of asking to be removed from a situation, ask for the capacity to handle more.” And more we shall receive.

Inevitably, we as children become caregivers sooner or later. Our parents get older, and as my grandmother said, “We are adults once and children twice.” I’ve faced some of my sooner in having to deal with my mother’s illness as a young child and having to confront a solution as an early adult, regardless of how temporary that solution became. I’ve watched my aunt struggle and ultimately succumb to an illness, and I’ve seen my grandmother, who’s lived to 100 and outlived 7 of her kids, slowly whittle away. But she’s still here.

Now, in my soon-to-be forties, I am confronting a much different issue with my father, watching him decline rather rapidly for a man who’s less than 70. This is with a full-time job, a part-time job, a husband, a house, and a 2-year-old son. And with thoughts of my mother and grandmother never far from my mind, not to mention a sibling, sister-in-law, mother-in-law, brother-in-law, and nieces to think about, there’s always a lot on my mind. Mind you, these six folks that I mentioned are not really my direct responsibility, but the physical, mental, and financial health of any and all of them directly impacts me. One niece, the one by blood is graduating from high school this year, and as my only niece, she is part of my responsibility. I‘ll admit, I feel like one of those lairds of old, where the head of family held that responsibility for their entire clan. As this branch of Floyd and Cooper, it is a responsibility my husband and I bear, because he is the eldest of his siblings, and because I am the more stable of mine.

I will happily admit that Sunday, I took a day off from being care giver. I was at my grandmother’s house, and had a good time just kind of relaxing and not worrying about what I have to do for Dad, or anyone else, save my son, who was with me. The relaxing part is that my mom takes it upon herself to do almost the entire side entrees and the desserts, asking only that one person provide the main meat and another person a secondary meat. I usually get saddled with the (not-so-great) burden of providing drinks. So essentially, it’s a day of relaxation until cleanup, and since there are usually a number of hands on hand, cleanup doesn’t take long.

Shaking It Up

Now that I’ve gained some clarity by writing about my problem (see my last post), I now feel I can return (at least partially) back to me. For the past month, almost all those healthy habits I have talked about have been thrown out the window. I sporadically still sprinkle food with flaxseed, and try to remember to drink copious amounts of water, but the truth of the matter is that it’s enough to remember to iron my clothes some days, much less keep healthy habits. Luckily, this lapse in habits has not caused me to regain those five pounds I worked so hard to lose, so I am encouraged to least try to get back on track.

My latest ally in the War on Weight is the smoothie/shake option. At the beginning of the year, two people in my office invested into the Nutri-Bullet shake maker, replete with the booklet. And while I struggled to remove five pounds, in about a month, they had managed to lose twice as much apiece.

In theory, this shake idea seems great, and at times, I’m almost tempted to give and try it out. But in practice, I know that the fifty-dollar investment will be a fad, because I have neither the time nor the inclination (mostly the latter), to go to the store every week or two days to buy all the fresh ingredients, toss them in a blender and take them out of the house each morning. To put it plainly, I suffer from an acute bout of kitchen laziness. After I get home from work, my closest aspiration to vegetation is to become a vegetable, preferably the couch-potato sort, or if you want a green leafy, to “lie like broccoli” ala Pretty Woman. Maybe this will change as the semester ends and I am no longer going to work six days a week and coming home after ten on Mondays and Wednesdays, but for right now, making a shake from scratch is not my idea of fun.

But I still like the idea of the shake and the whole liquid diet formula. The end result of the smoothie is a portable convenience for the busy lifestyle, which I undoubtedly have in spades this semester. It is for this reason that I keep six-packs of V-8, both veggie and fruit, in my self-made pantry at work, and the reason that I have invested both in Special K protein shakes and Naked Fruit Juices. I can grab and go, still get my nutrients, and not feel quite as run-down during the course of the day.

For instance, I am trying the Naked Green Machine; it was $4.99 for a 32-ounce bottle. Of course, you do not drink the full bottle in one sitting but I have drunk it throughout the course of the day, and I have to tell you, man I feel full! I did actually eat today as well, but not enough to explain feeling stuffed. I can tell that the juice had a lot to do with it. And while I still feel slightly sleepy from the beatdown the allergy season has been giving me, along with the nightly torture of not sleeping that my son has been giving me, I have every confidence that I’ll make it through the rest of the evening relatively well.

The Unsatirical Me

Writing is more than entertaining to me: it’s cathartic. I usually use this blog as way to just share funny experiences, but today I’m going a different route and just allowing myself to unburden what’s been distracting me for the past month or so. Unfortunately for you, my readers, this story may not have the satirical wit that you’re used to reading from me.

Where to start? I guess with just the plain truth. I am, by all accounts, one of the luckiest and unluckiest progeny there is. Both my parents suffer from psychological problems. This is of course, the unlucky part. The lucky part is that I personally have not suffered from any psychological disorder. This is not to say that I have not been affected by it at all. I believe that many aspects of my personality are a result of my upbringing with my mom and her condition. There are other lucky parts as well. Even though both had different mental disorders (my mom is diagnosed as schizophrenic and my dad is considered bipolar), neither are harmful to others, and neither are suicidal. Having researched this as much as I have, I have seen cases where the people who suffer from these diseases are much worse. The other lucky part is that for the most part, both of my parents are functional. I say for the most part, because each should be dependent on medication. What I’ve found out is that my mother can function without it, but that my father cannot.

This leads me to one of the major reasons I have felt like I was in some kind of heavy fog for the past month and a half. My father lapsed into one of his “spells” at the end of February. This is of course disturbing because it is the second such spell in the span of a year. Prior to this, my father had not had an episode in over ten years, thanks to a strict routine, and due diligence on the part of both his psychiatrist and me. What I’ve learned in the past two years is that rapid change is not conducive to my father’s health. To explain it simply, rapid change causes anxiety, and anxiety causes a chemical imbalance. And let’s face it: my dad, like me, has undergone a rapid change in the past three years.

You know my changes: kid, house, husband. Dad’s changes have been going from being my bestie to just my dad. In addition, he moved from his apartment to essentially a room in a basement. While he is no longer responsible for paying that many bills, he is also no longer head of household, and moreso a tenant in our home than he ever was in the apartment. He lost his job, partly because the new owner of the station was putting him through rapid unnecessary changes in the hopes that he would quit or trip up and get fired. The latter ended up happening, and it triggered his first episode at the end of 2011 and into the next year, causing him to miss the first Christmas in the house and Ayden’s first birthday party.

As is and was always the case after Dad’s return, it takes me a bit of time to rewarm up to him. I find myself looking at him strangely, wondering if he’s fully recovered. This was the case when he returned in 2012 after such a long time without a bout, especially since it took an extraordinarily long time for him to recover. But he did, and our relationship improved.

Enter this year: a week after attending my grandma’s 100th birthday party, he started to decline. By Friday, I was packing him in a car and trucking him off to the hospital for another stay. I thought that this would be another semi-routine stay. I could not have been more wrong. My dad had a medical scare while he was there. Whether it was due to the hospital’s neglect, I cannot say, but my father was transferred from the psych ward to the 9th floor because of a kidney infection, then down to the 4th floor cardiac unit after coding due to low blood pressure, then to the fifth floor before being released to a nursing home for rehabilitation. After all this, the original problem he went in for was not resolved, and on top of that, my dad had to start dialysis treatment, something we knew was going to happen in the distant future, but that brought into immediate relief with his last hospital stay.

He is currently still in this rehabilitation center, and they have not done anything to help his psychological state, other than to give him an incorrect diagnosis. This of course is pissing me off because first of all, I feel like my hands are tied since his psychiatrist won’t come out there and since he is not fully medically stable, and since no one from the psych team seems willing to talk to me. I feel that if I don’t keep rolling and pushing and needling and showing my face (and sometimes my ass) to these folks that what I need to happen will not get done and that my dad will end up rotting away in this facility.

I have a Care Plan Meeting with a team of professionals from the hospital. I have every intention of showing up with my own Care Management Team: my aunt and uncles, who have been instrumental by being my ears and eyes when I don’t make it over there.