When I look online, I can see that some people respond to a time of overwhelming crisis with an “OKAY, IT’S BEEN 24 HOURS, CRYING’S OVER, BOOTS ON THE GROUND, HERE IS OUR 20-PART COMPREHENSIVE GLOBAL ACTION PLAN.” It is good to have those people. That is not the kind of person I am, or the kind of person I live with. Some of the things we are doing at our house:

• Removing a bunch of Personal Eating Rules, for the time being. Some of us normally eat keto, or low-calorie, or low-salt/fat or whatever, and right now we don’t have the bandwidth to handle What Just Happened AND food restrictions. I felt similarly in the early days of the pandemic.

• Resting more, when possible. Going to bed earlier and sleeping later, when possible. Lounging around more. Treating ourselves as if we’re recovering from a serious illness.

• Not Thinking About It, when possible; Thinking About It Later, when possible. Letting it sink in slowly and from a certain distance, to avoid mental devastation. Avoiding catastrophizing about What Could (and Likely Will) Happen: there are too many of those, and running around in panicked hyperventilating circles isn’t going to help. Trying to think of the future as unknown, and still including the possibility of good surprises, EVEN IN THIS TIMELINE.

• Skipping some chores, where possible. Some chores truly must be done, and some chores make life harder if they’re put off; but some chores will be fine if they wait awhile past the time they would ordinarily have been done. Imagine if you lived alone, and had the flu or broke your leg and couldn’t clean the bathroom floor for awhile: all would still be well. But you’d still have to have to figure out the litter box no matter what.

• Doing some tasks, in cases where those tasks relieve stress. Pick that empty cardboard box up off the floor and take it to the garage: the cats are done playing with it, and breaking it down and carrying it out takes 60 seconds and gets that box out of my sight/way. Place an online order for the taco powder: it feels silly because I could buy it in a store if I went out of my way to go to that one store where it’s the one thing I buy—but also I could order it online right this second and then I can cross that errand off my to-do list.

• Medicating, when possible/needed. I have a prescription for a mild sedative. I hoard them, because my doctor gives me so few tablets per year; but this is the sort of event that makes me wonder what I’m hoarding them for if not for this, so I am using them sometimes.

• Looking into other countries that might be better places to live, and might be open to accepting United States citizens (this is some of the kids, not so much Paul and me; some of my friends say their kids are doing this too).

• Replacing our large campaign flag with our large equality flag.

• Bringing treats to work. I brought a big box of doughnut holes (I ordered a box of 50, and the cashier gave me more like 65-70) and we all stood around the box for the half hour before the library opened, eating one doughnut hole after another and talking about how we could hardly cope, and it was so therapeutic. Even after the library opened, we kept visiting the box like birds at a feeder, saying “I’m just going to have one more.”

• We’d already signed up back in October to sponsor two children through our local service organization’s Christmas-supplementing program, and we were assigned those children the day after the election, which was wonderful timing and felt like a small counterbalance to the immense badness so many people just voted for. And now I can divert some of my attention to thinking about which combination of the items on the wish lists I want to fulfill, and looking through as many pages of options for each item as I feel like, and that is a pretty good thing to focus on. (We got two little girls this time, and the parent noted “GIRLY girls–pink/flowers/butterflies” on the form. I have received an enormous gift.)

• Donating money to organizations. The ACLU. NPR. Wikipedia. Etc.

• Watching calm TV. Reading calm books. I had a fiction book in my library pile about women who acquire superpowers along with menopause and use it to fight evil, and I can’t cope with books about fighting evil right now. I don’t want to feel riled by the descriptions of the types of evil I suspect these women will be fighting, which we are going to have to fight in real life without superpowers. I am reading Tom Lake by Ann Patchett instead (I have heard complaints that “nothing happens,” which sounds perfect, and I love Ann Patchett’s writing and she can write about cleaning bathroom floors for all I care); and I finally read a book I got for Christmas called Extra Helping: Recipes for Caring, Connecting, and Building Community One Dish at a Time, by Janet Reich Elsbach, and that was very much the right thing: lots of talk about using food to take care of people who are ill or grieving, along with relatable references to how the author began focusing on this in 2016.

• Trying to think in terms of what we can do to help/support others. I have heard so many times, in so many contexts, that turning outward can be a huge help—particularly when turning inward is all misery. I don’t mean just the big things we may need to work on in the future, I also mean things like can I bring my co-workers some doughnut holes, can I bake my friend some brownies, can I send my friend a card/email. The Extra Helping book I mentioned in the last paragraph had a lot of good stuff about how you can find your OWN ways to help, the things that come naturally to YOU: we don’t all have to bake bread or make phone calls, we can do the things that work with our own skills and inclinations. Maybe some of us make and deliver a huge pot of soup to a grieving family, and others of us go through the grocery store and fill a basket with bakery muffins and little yogurts and a frozen Stouffer’s lasagna and drop THAT off. You don’t have to feel bad that you don’t know how to make soup and don’t want to make soup and don’t know how to transport soup and don’t have a big soup pot anyway.

• Trying to get some fresh air and exercise. Some of us are inclined toward vigorous burn-off-the-rage exercise, and some of us are inclined toward convalescent/recuperation/restorative exercise, and some of us are going back and forth depending on mood. I’ve recently started pelvic-floor therapy (more on this another day), and my homework this week involves taking huge belly breaths (and attempting at the same time to “relax the pelvic floor,” something I cannot feel AT ALL, which is one reason I am in pelvic-floor therapy), and the physical therapist said pointedly (this was the day after the election, and both of us were pale and quiet) that this was also very good for stress and anxiety.

• Spending time with other people who feel similarly about All This, and how serious and dangerous it is.

• Avoiding people who want to explain how actually this is the Democrats’ fault, and/or who seem to have no understanding of what has just happened here, and/or who want to have bad-faith discussions about it. Re-setting some boundaries.

I don’t know what we’re going to need to do to get through this, but personally I am going to consider myself in a medically-induced coma while I figure it out.

One week from today is the U.S. presidential election. Two days ago I got the campaign merchandise I ordered on September 12th. It feels too late to do anything with it. Not that I think it would have had any effect on anything, if I’d had it earlier.

Yesterday I went to work feeling normal, but as the shift progressed I felt increasingly low and tired and listless. I came home, sat down in a comfy chair, and didn’t get up again for over four hours. A couple of those hours involved sleeping, and I am not normally a napping person. I didn’t have lunch, and I am normally a person who eats all her usual meals. Either I am coming down with something (possible), or I am electionsick (likely).

Four years ago I got stress hives from Octoberish through Januaryish. Four years later I am still taking a daily Zyrtec to prevent them, but CAN THAT TINY DAM POSSIBLY HOLD.

I mailed Halloween care packages to the twins, fueled entirely by a wave of adrenaline as I realized I was about to miss the deadline to do it. Last year I included a bunch of fun things (mini black cat backpack/keychain fobs! maple leaf string lights! nail stickers!) and used up the extras sending packages to a few of their friends, but this year I was not up to any of that. I filled two boxes with candy; I mailed them.

I’ve been sending Postcards to Voters. It feels ridiculous and futile; I’m still doing it. But it looks like today is the last day for that.

It is ten days until the United States presidential election. Our household is working on our Election Mental/Physical Wellness Plans/Ideas. Our title needs work, but we have a whiteboard and everything. Here are our plans/ideas so far:

• Prepare some supplies in case there is a short time afterward in which it is uncomfortable in one way or another to go out to the store; fill up the cars with gas. We did this in 2016 and 2020 and it did not turn out to have been necessary either time in our particular area, but our feeling is that things are ramping up, and also it can make us feel better to Take Preparatory Action, even if it turns out to be Unnecessary. And the Unnecessary Acquisition of toilet paper and paper towels and ground beef and gasoline is not something we will regret, because we will use those supplies regardless.

• Include plenty of Comfort Foods. Those will not go amiss either, regardless. Ice cream; deli meat and nice soft squeezy deli rolls; saltines and applesauce and soup and ginger ale; ingredients for baked macaroni and cheese; ingredients for tacos; frozen lasagna; ingredients for cookies/cake/brownies; frankly: booze. We won’t be sorry to have them on hand, regardless.

• Maybe we should plan to get pizza for dinner on Election Night. Then maybe have brownie ice cream sundaes. Medically.

• Replace our broken exercise bike; we’ve ordered this one, which is the recumbent (? it doesn’t look particularly recumbent) version of the one we were happy with except for the resistance. It was out of stock forever, then flitted briefly into stock and I pounced, and now it seems to be out of stock again; did they have one single bike and I bought it? [Edited to add: after a month, Amazon canceled the order without explanation. So now we’re back at the beginning, and I’ve lost a month of using a bike.]

• Before we had houseguests recently, we all cleaned as a family for 30 minutes each evening. It was surprisingly effective, and also motivating and morale-boosting. Maybe we should do that again before the election, maybe just for three nights or so—not only to get things all set in case we don’t feel like cleaning for awhile, but also to burn off some extra anxious energy.

• Get caught up on laundry, bills, etc. Maybe address the Christmas cards early. Things like that. Use that nervous energy to get things done in advance, regardless.

• Brace for the idea that the election results might not be known right away, or even by morning.

• On Election Night, pick some familiar comforting lightweight half-hour-ish show to watch (Futurama, The Simpsons, Schitt’s Creek, Parks & Rec, etc.); then check in with election news on TV and/or Bluesky for, say, 5-10 minutes after each episode, using an actual timer; then another episode of the lightweight show; then another 5-10 minute timer-regulated check-in. Most of the election news is going to be newscasters filling time with improv speculation/filler based on 1% of precincts reporting, so don’t obsess/linger; find something else to do. Don’t think of Election Night as The Night We Find Out / The Night the Tension Ends—because, regardless, it’s not going to be the night the tension ends.

• I have ordered a line-a-day five-year journal. I’ve had it in my online cart for literally years, and this was my moment. I keep thinking of good milestones for starting such a thing (age 40! 2016! 2020! age 50!), and then not starting it. Now there will be one in my house already if I feel like starting it. Regardless.

• Go to bed early with a sleeping pill.

I’m not sure what point I’m going to want to make about this, but I’m counting on it coming to me as we go.

TWICE recently I have used a quick/convenience/expensive method that has turned out to be a gateway to making something in a longer and less convenient and less expensive but VERY PLEASING way. Counterintuitively, is what I am saying.

FIRST EXAMPLE: bagged salads. I love the whole concept of bagged salad mixes, and I love choosing which one I want to buy (Crunchy Thai! Spicy Chinese! Cheesy Caesar!)—but I feel foolish buying them because it’s like $3.00-$3.50 for a smallish salad I could theoretically make myself for much much less money, if I could use up all the extras of all the ingredients I would have to buy, before they went bad. And: if I ever actually DID do that, which for whatever reason I don’t. So recently I started buying the bagged salad mixes, figuring that Some Expensive Salad was better than No Salad At All, especially when what I want is for the children to be accustomed to eating salad.

(An aside: Do you remember the commercial, maybe two Olympics ago, and it was for almond milk but it managed to be extremely inspiring about the benefits of small health changes? I do not remember the almond-milk brand ((was it Silk? Silk is what comes to mind)), and I hope that will not be discouraging to those marketers, because I do still remember the commercial. One of the lines was like “There’s salad in the children!,” and then children, while eating salad, saying “We like it!” …Okay, it seems like I am now honor-bound to find the commercial that has stuck in my head for YEARS, and it IS Silk, which I hope will be very VERY pleasing to marketers, and here it is:)

(Continuing on:)

And after, say, half a dozen bagged salads, and all the joy and angst they contain, tonight it happened that I was making lasagna (Stouffer’s, and this is a cost/benefit analysis I am not going to beat by making it homemade), and I wished I had a bagged salad but I didn’t, because yesterday on my usual grocery-shopping day I was instead spending an extra ten hours in bed after getting my flu/Covid shots the day before (I did not feel BAD-bad, but I felt tired/sore at just the right level to make it feel nice to stay horizontal and blanketed); and because today Paul has my car because his is in the shop, and my commute is a 5-minute walk whereas his is a 45-minute drive; and anyway my point is that I had neither bagged salad nor car, so I was theoretically stuck, salad-wise.

But I did have a partial bag of spinach. And I’ve become familiar with the way these bagged salads work: some mixed vegetation; some sauce; some add-ins; some stirring things together in a big bowl and then decanting into smaller bowls. So just impulsively I tore up some spinach into a big bowl; and I peered around in the fridge and I had some banana peppers and some black olives so I chopped those up and added them; and then I put in some Caesar dressing; and then I remembered that the salad mixes usually have something crunchy/crispy so I added some roasted salted pumpkin seeds. And I dispensed this concoction into bowls, and PEOPLE IN MY HOUSEHOLD ATE IT AND SAID IT WAS GOOD. And I probably wouldn’t have thought to bother with such a thing, except for the practice of the bagged convenience salad mixes. Doing something the easy/expensive way was like training wheels. Yes!!: THAT is the point I will try to make, I THOUGHT I’d find it midway!

SECOND EXAMPLE. Though this one is only halfway done, but I feel it processing! With lasagna, I like to have dinner rolls, and when I say “like to” I mean more like there’s no point having lasagna without them. Normally I have a bag of them in the freezer just in case I make lasagna or soup or whatever, but to my unhappy surprise there were only two rolls in a sad frosty bag. And just to review: no car.

I looked online for “fast dinner rolls” and found a recipe that took 30 minutes total for prep plus baking. Well, I have worked in a bakery, and that did not seem reasonable for yeast rolls. Glancing through the recipe, I doubled the time I thought it would take—which was fine, because the lasagna would take 45 minutes and it was still 15 minutes before I’d need to start that.

The doubled time turned out to be a bare minimum, and the rolls turned out to be flour-forward and stodgy. But!! In making them, I remembered how relatively easy bread-making is, once you’ve learned the basics and gotten some practice, BOTH OF WHICH I HAVE ALREADY ACCOMPLISHED WHILE BEING PAID TO DO SO. I was cutting the dough into lil dough rounds and tossing them hand-to-hand to shape them like a PRO, even though it’s been over 25 years.

The main thing about making rolls from scratch is you need TIME: you have to start lonnnnng before you want bread. But now I have remembered that hot tip! The flour-stodgy rolls were a shortcut, but now I remember it’s not more difficult to make them the good way, you just have to plan ahead, which I am perfectly able to do! (And on the nights I am not able to plan ahead, I will make cornbread or I will microwave some sandwich rolls, I will not try any ridiculous “30 minute” yeast recipe.)

Well, but that doesn’t really work with the training-wheels analogy I was going for. To make this one work for you, you would need to go back in time and work in a bakery for awhile in your 20s, and then discover you still had that muscle memory in your 50s. FOR ME this silly quick recipe worked to REMIND me of something I can do more easily the long-form and less-convenient way. There: let’s say that fits the theme.

Awhile back I read and reviewed Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine, because there were a lot of things about that book that made me not want to read it, but then I loved it. Many people did NOT love it. If you are one of the ones who loved it, may I recommend the remarkably similar book Lenny Marks Gets Away With Murder (Target link) (Amazon link), by Kerryn Mayne? (*Searches “Is ‘with’ capitalized in a title” for the thousandth time.*)

(image from Target.com)

Whimsical title! Collage-art cover, with a woman’s full name in a larger/different font than the rest of the title! Cover flap description that dials up the quirkiness while hinting that bad things happened to children! A main character with unthinkable suppressed childhood horror/trauma, who is therefore an unreliable narrator to herself and to us—but we start figuring it out a little before she does, making us feel smart! A main character who starts out hard-to-like, and has considerable difficulty navigating social situations, but gradually we warm to her and are glad to see her finding her way into a happier life!

It is not the exact same book, but it is close enough that I think you can accurately predict whether you’ll like one based on whether you liked the other. I liked both. I was more enchanted by the Eleanor Oliphant book, but it got an unfair advantage by being the first time I’d encountered the plot. I also think the Lenny Marks book spent more time flashing back to the childhood trauma, though I could be misremembering. If you were only going to read one of the two, I’d say Eleanor Oliphant; but if you liked Eleanor Oliphant and want more books like that, then I recommend Lenny Marks.

I ordered official Harris/Walz merch on September 12th, and it is still not here. I knew the friendship bracelets were a pre-order, but even those were going to be available September 24th, and the email confirmation said things might ship separately if anything was a pre-order. It is ONE MONTH until the election, and I would think the campaign would want me to be wearing my t-shirt and pins and so forth NOW!! And the friendship bracelets have updated to say they’re expected to be available October 15th!! I still want them, they’ll be a nice souvenir, but this is getting silly.

(image from store.KamalaHarris.com)

I was going to order some Harris/Walz yard signs (in our area, there has been a sudden depressing surge of Tr*mp signs), but I don’t have confidence they’ll arrive soon enough, so instead we ordered a 3’x5′ flag from Amazon, and it will be here Monday. I know, but on the other hand: Amazon also got me my Harris/Walz t-shirt within days. There are times when I avoid Amazon, for the greater good, and there are times I calculate the greater good differently.

(image from Amazon.com)

When last we spoke on the topic of exercise bikes, I mentioned that we have been very happy with this one, which I see we ordered four years ago this month.

(image from Amazon.com)

I like how quiet it is, how little space it takes up, and also that it was only $150 (it is now around $200-225, but I’ll bet the $150 was a sale price). My one issue is that the highest-resistance setting is not very resistant at all. Commenter Kelly mentioned that she has that same bike and so does her brother, and the highest-resistance setting is VERY RESISTANT INDEED. So I asked Paul to take a look at it, and without casting any blame or telling any unkind stories, I am going to skip ahead to the part where I ask for recommendations for an exercise bike, because mine now has no resistance on any setting. I tried to use it anyway last night and felt like a right fool, my legs flailing in fast silly circles. Some of the options:

1. Get the exact same bike again. We’ve been happy with it! It’s quiet and small! It’s only $200ish! Most likely the replacement would have a working resistance dial! I wouldn’t have to think any more about this rather boring purchase! I am leaning toward this option.

2. Get a recumbent bike instead. My friend P has one, and I am looking for the way to say “and she loves it” without implying she actually enjoys riding it, because whomst among us. But she has been satisfied with its performance, and she says it is comfier on the buns than a regular bike. Downsides: she got it from a physical store; a recumbent takes up more floor space. Upsides: a recumbent is what the physical therapist had William use before and after his knee surgery (an injury, not a knee replacement), so it feels PT-recommended/approved.

I would be very happy to hear your opinions and/or recommendations. Particularly if you have a one-click-order recommendation for a recumbent bike that I can lean against a wall or something and don’t have to find permanent floor space for.

Throughout this post, I have CONSISTENTLY spelled resistance “resistence” and recumbent “recumbant.” Every single time. “Resistence” doesn’t even look right to me when I type it, and it just now occurred to me that I’m getting it wrong because my name is Kristen and I am accustomed to typing “isten.” “Recumbant” DOES look right to me, while recumbent looks like cucumbers.

Two years ago I had my very first “Why don’t you come back so we can take another look?” mammogram call-back, and in that case it was some microcalcifications, and they had me come back a third time and did a needle biopsy and said everything seemed fine. That was on the left side.

This year, another call-back, this time for “an asymmetrical area of density” on the right side. They said I would probably just have another mammogram to get some more views of that spot, but that if that wasn’t enough for the radiologist, they had scheduled me for an ultrasound right afterward, just in case. First I had the mammogram, and the technician warned me it would be “pinchier” than usual, because she was going to insert a little extra piece (about the size of a retainer case) to let her “really get up in there.” It was, yes, pinchier. She said “Sorry, sorry, breathe, sorry, sorry, hold your breath….okay, done, breathe!” for two images using the little retainer-case-sized prop, and then we did one more overall sideways view with no little prop.

She sent me back to the waiting room, and said to give the radiologist about ten minutes to look at the scans and then I’d probably be free. After about ten minutes, instead the ultrasound technician came to get me. She had me lie on my back with my right arm behind my head, and then twist my body somewhat to the left; it was more comfortable than it sounds. She spent much longer gliding the little paddle around than I’d expected; I wish I’d actually looked at a clock, since Medical Time can feel different than it is; but I was expecting, like, two minutes of paddle-gliding, and it was more like…eight? Long enough to start seeming awkwardly quiet and weird in the room, and for me to wonder how long it was SUPPOSED to take.

Then she said she would be right back, and when she returned she had the doctor with her. You should imagine Elizabeth Warren as a radiologist: that was her vibe. “Hello! Sorry!,” she said cheerfully/intensely. “I needed to see for myself!” The doctor took a turn gliding the little paddle around. She explained that there were some lymph nodes in the breast tissue, where she wouldn’t expect to see them, and that they were the mass she’d seen on the mammogram. She further explained that normal lymph nodes have a thinner outer portion, while scary lymph nodes have a thicker outer portion, and MYSTERY lymph nodes have a medium outer portion; mine are medium. The ones in my armpit are normal, but the ones in the breast, where she would not expect to see them, are medium: “plump.”

This made her want to solve the mystery, which is a drive I like to see in a doctor. She got real pointed about it, looking at them from many angles and saying to them “What are you DOING here? What do you WANT?” She asked if I’d had any sort of ANYTHING recently on my right side/arm: eczema? poison ivy? a vaccination? No/no/no.

She asked to check the other breast, saying if she found symmetry she would feel better. She did not find symmetry.

She thought aloud for a few minutes. She said “We could poke them with a needle? Take a sample? Well, but it’s not…. Or we could keep an eye on you, maybe have you come back in six months? But if…?” The technician and I, both aware we were not needed for this internal conversation, abided. The doctor wrapped it up and returned to us. She said, “Well. I can tell you it is NOT breast cancer. And of course when you hear lymph nodes you think lymphoma, but it would be very unusual, VERY UNUSUAL, to have lymphoma show up for the first time as a few rogue lymph nodes in the breast tissue, with the ones in the armpit completely normal! So I don’t know what is going on. My instinct, my INSTINCT, is to have you come back in six weeks and see what those lymph nodes are up to. We can always poke them with a needle THEN!”

And that sounded good to me, so I will go back in six weeks. I will be on Team Poke Them with a Needle, if given the option.

My library does passport processing, and we had someone there the other day getting a passport, and I wanted so badly to ask her what perfume she was wearing because it was delightful and I would want to buy a bottle (or at least try a sample). But I could not think of one single good way to ask—PARTICULARLY since I was not the one waiting on her, which adds a layer of awkwardness, but also because the whole thing seems so fraught: someone’s scent feels personal and it feels odd/personal to comment on it; if I were her, I might worry that this meant my perfume was much too strong; maybe it would turn out not to be perfume but the scent of her shampoo or lotion or something and there would be confusion over my question; etc.

I tried to think how I would feel okay being asked. A coworker did actually ask, once, and she said something like “Who is wearing that gorgeous perfume??” and then asked me the name of it and wrote it down, and that worked pretty well, though I did then think my perfume must be too strong and I cut back on it. And also, that technique doesn’t work as well between two strangers, or when you KNOW who it is who smells great. If it were a stranger asking me, I guess I’d be good with something like: “I LOVE that perfume—would you be willing to tell me what it is? I collect them.” Or maybe just “I LOVE your perfume!”—but that again makes me feel as if it must be way too strong.

Well! Nothing like getting all worked up over nothing! I wish I had just brazened it out: how bad could it be, really, even if it was awkward? Now I will never get to know what that perfume was! This is how Lifelong Swistle Quests get started!

I have scheduled my knee replacement surgery for January. When I called, I was worried they would offer, like, next week, which is not enough time for me to get used to the idea, and not enough time for my workplace to make coverage plans; plus my ideal would be to have it done after the holidays. Their first offer was Christmas Eve, which feels like the worst possible day to do it! The scheduler seemed surprised when I turned it down. Save that date for emergency surgery, my good woman!

I am following commenter Kathy’s advice to use an exercise bicycle to develop the muscles around the knees. We already had an exercise bike in the house from the first year of Covid (it’s this one, and we’ve been really happy with how quiet it is and what a small amount of space it takes up). I started with 10 minutes as Kathy suggested, and that was two weeks ago, and now I am up to 30 minutes. I could go longer, I think, but my butt gets sore and also I get very bored of riding the bike, even if I am reading a book. I may want to buy a new exercise bike, only because the highest-resistance setting is not very resistant at all (I don’t know if it doesn’t work properly or if this is truly the highest setting it’s supposed to have; I have just now asked Paul to take a look at it and see if he sees anything obvious—but we’re both pretty sure he already went through this process when we first got the bike).