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).

I read this book on the recommendation of a co-worker whose book choices overlap mine by only the very slimmest of crescent moons (she likes thrillers that don’t necessarily have to tie up the loose ends or make sense as long as they’re page-turners, and cute gimmick romances with cute titles and cute bright-pastel covers):

(image from Target.com)

Also, this co-worker tends to recommend a book and then summarize it by recounting THE ENTIRE PLOT, COMPLETE WITH HUGE IMPORTANT SPOILERS, so that I end up feeling there is no point at all in me reading the book for myself. I checked it out only because I was about to head out on an overnight trip to pick up a kid from college, and I needed a book to read, and I was having one of those slumps where it feels as if nothing in the library is interesting or worth reading. I figured even if it wasn’t my thing AT ALL, it would still be good enough for reading while eating lunch at rest stops.

And it turned out it was EXTREMELY MY THING, and now I have read all three of the author’s other books which were also extremely my thing, and I don’t understand why I have never heard of this author before when she is so extremely my thing.

I suggest putting yourself on the wait list for this book at your library, and in the meantime seeing if your library has any of her other books. I don’t say “OH BUY THIS BOOK RIGHT NOW!,” because who knows how much OUR book choices overlap?? And because each of the books has what I would consider Distressing Themes: like, if the book were described to me, I might very well opt out (but I was glad I had not opted out). And because I get anxious at the idea of you spending money based on something I liked, when it would be completely understandable if you didn’t like it.

Also because the longer I work at a library, the clearer it is to me that (1) having a library card and (2) using your library, are two of the neatest things you can do for your community and yourself. If you haven’t been using your library and you feel shy about it, don’t! We get people all the time who say “Um…..I’ve never been here before…..” and we are SO HAPPY to see them! I can literally get little tears in the corners of my eyes about it. GO GET A LIBRARY CARD. And then try a Rufi Thorpe book and see if we overlap.

I FINALLY saw a knee doctor—and in fact, let me pause to say what specifically I mean by “finally,” here. (TLDR: After roughly 10 years. You can skip to the next paragraph.) I don’t know exactly when my knee issues began, but I know it was more than seven years ago, because it was more than seven years ago that I was having enough trouble walking that I was willing to try the keto diet to help with inflammation, in case that was the issue and in case keto could help with that. I had already mentioned the problem to my doctor at AT LEAST one annual visit and had her brush it off (yes, yes, it has occurred to me to switch doctors, and I am working on it, for this as well as other reasons) (I do love her, which makes it difficult), and my assumption is it was more than one annual visit of mentioning, because I had gotten to the point that I was willing to take a fairly drastic experimental measure on my own. It was just over one year ago that she finally did an x-ray (and only after saying for the second year in a row “Well, we COULD do an x-ray, but I don’t think that’s necessary”—but that second time I was ready for her, and cut her off after the word x-ray and said “Yes, let’s do that! That sounds good! Yes!”), and she added that I could try turmeric, or maybe glucosamine & chondroitin, or a periodic regimen of ibuprofen. It was two months or so ago that she did a second x-ray and said it was time to see an orthopedic doctor. It was only today that I saw an orthopedic doctor. That is what I mean when I say finally. It has been some time. My guess is that it has been roughly a decade of knee issues.

I was stressed about the visit, in part because I thought there might be a long path ahead, or a lot of treatment options. That he might say, “Well, we could do THIS with THIS percent chance of success, or we could try physical therapy and then maybe cortisone shots, or I could give you a referral to this OTHER specialist, or we could…” etc. Or I thought he might say, “You are only 50! It is far too early to do anything about this. Come back in another decade.” Or I thought he might say “If only you had come in ten years ago, we could have done something, but unfortunately now….” Instead he said, “You have Very Bad arthritis in that knee: it’s bone-on-bone at this point. You’re like a car with a tire that’s riding on its rim. We COULD do cortisone shots, but those will fix nothing: they will add no ‘tire’ to your ‘rim,’ they will only give you some pain relief from the rim hitting the road. The only real option is knee replacement.”

Well. Well. Well. Well. Well. Okay. Okay. Yes, okay.

HERE ARE MY PRIMARY CONCERNS:

• I feel I should have a better primary concern, but actually the “no showering for two weeks” after surgery is pretty paramount. But, Edward once couldn’t shower for a few weeks after surgery, and we figured it out. We got some “body wipes”—bigger/clothier than diaper wipes. In Edward’s case, because of the surgical location, we couldn’t use dry shampoo, but I will be able to use dry shampoo. Maybe I can even wash my hair in the sink, once I can stand up long enough. This could be the incentive I need to cut my hair. (It is getting overlong, but as it gets longer and longer I get more and more reluctant to cut it. Plus, I’ve had recent success forming an artfully messy bun.)

• The set-up of our house. Beds and shower are all upstairs. Couch and recliner and TV and half-bath and kitchen (including nice big sink for hair-washing) are downstairs. Would I…somehow get myself up the stairs right after surgery, then not come down for a couple weeks? Or would I set up a sleeping location downstairs, since I can’t take a shower for two weeks (!!) anyway?

• “Someone coming to my house to do physical therapy for the first two weeks” also gives me considerable stress, but I think I will calm down about that as soon I’ve had time to adjust. In fact, I think I am already calming down. I know they don’t care what my house looks like. I know they travel from house to house on purpose, and that I am not inconveniencing them by needing them to come to my house. I am already feeling better, and like this shouldn’t go on the list of primary concerns. I am leaving it here because it was initially a big source of surprise and adrenaline.

• “Missing work for who knows how long” is stressful. I like my job and my co-workers; I know it’s pretty difficult when I’m out. I know they can figure this out, especially with advanced notice, AND that it’s not my job to figure it out—but it still makes me feel stressed. I asked the doctor how long I’d be out and he said it really varies, but certainly I’d be back…wait, what DID he say? Four weeks? Six weeks? Three months? My brain did not record the information. I know he said that after two weeks I would be able to leave the house and go to the physical therapy location, instead of having someone come to my house. But that doesn’t sound like I’d be anywhere NEAR back to work. He digressed into things I wouldn’t be able to do for awhile, such as kneeling, and said things that didn’t apply (like that I’d be able to sit at a desk), and I’m not sure we ever got to a time estimate. My lingering impression was that it would be around six weeks, but that it varies.

• The TIMING. He said it takes about three months to recover. When should I…schedule that? Certainly not over Thanksgiving/Christmas. January through March, maybe? Although then my parents mentioned it might be better to do it while the kids were home over winter break, to have more people to do my bidding. Also, Elizabeth is qualified to cover my library shifts, if she’s willing. I wonder if I would get a cortisone shot in the meantime? I have heard from more than one person that the cortisone shot was one of the most painful things they’d ever experienced (one friend said she was braced for the pain and still literally screamed, but that was in her shoulder), but maybe it wouldn’t be, or maybe it would be worth it? Or maybe I could just continue on as I have been.

• The timing with THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION AND INAUGURATION AND ALL THAT POTENTIAL CHAOS.

• I have never had physical therapy but William had it, so it doesn’t seem TOO scary to me—but I have had repeated trouble in the past following in-person verbal instructions for physical things. Like, if I KNOW what they’re going to ask me to do (“scoot down a bit, to the edge of the table”), I have no trouble; but if I don’t know ahead of time, it’s harder for me to understand/do it. I’m a little worried about this. But presumably I can SAY SO to them. Also, presumably they will get used to me, and I will get used to what they are going to ask me to do.

• Of course all the long-odds things. Infection. Blood clot. Repeat surgeries. Losing the leg. Unexpected death on the table. Etc.

Other thoughts:

He said I will need an assistive device at first, like a walker or a cane. This is interesting to consider, and something I have never shopped for before.

I wonder if this means that inflammation was/wasn’t an issue? I guess I don’t know how any of this works. It DID seem that when I was taking days off of keto, my knees (and other joints) hurt more—and not, like, I wondered if they would hurt more and I paid attention and it seemed that they did, but more like it happened repeatedly that I thought “JEEPERS, my KNEES today, and also my KNUCKLES and ANKLES, what is WITH this??”—and then remembered I’d had two days in a row off keto.

Does this mean the Osteo Bi-flex (glucosamine chondroitin) I’ve been taking for a couple months is USELESS? I guess, again, I don’t know how any of this works.

He said the fake knee will last 20-30 years. I am 50. My grandparents lived to be 80-87ish. Well, that is going to have to be a worry for another day.

He said that after the knee replacement, I should not plan on doing much running or jumping. He said if a bear is chasing me, sure, but otherwise, don’t start either of them as new hobbies. I wasn’t planning to, and yet I feel anxious about this. When I used to walk more vigorously for exercise (currently I have to limit it to shortish strolls), I used to do little 30-60 second intervals of jogging, just to increase the intensity/challenge; can I do that little amount of running, or no? Can I do 30 seconds of jumping jacks and 30 seconds of running-in-place as part of a strength-building/keeping routine? Is he maybe just saying, don’t get so excited about your new knee that you start training for marathons? I will need to ask more questions of the doctors and physical therapists, I guess.

He said I will have a little CLICK in my knee, always, after the replacement. This is interesting.

I hope it goes without saying that if you have any knee-replacement information, I am hanging on your every word.

I don’t know if you are aware, but there is a whole THING about “breathing correctly.” I have read one (1) book on the topic, so now I am ready to tell you. (Also, I can tell you that if you read such a book, you will feel the entire time as if you can’t quite catch your breath.)

1. Breathe ONLY through your nose. ONLY THE NOSE. NOT THE MOUTH. THE MOUTH IS THE POISON BREATH. YOU WILL DIE IF YOU BREATHE THROUGH YOUR MOUTH. EVEN WHILE VIGOROUSLY EXERCISING. HOW ARE YOU NOT ALREADY DEAD, WHEN I’VE TOLD YOU IT WAS POISON AND YET YOU HAVE BEEN DOING IT FOR DECADES.

2. Except if breathing out. You can breathe OUT through your mouth if you want. That’s fine.

3. Breathe slow and shallow, or possibly slow and deep, or maybe it was slow and shallow on inhale and slow and deep on exhale. There were some mixed messages. Approximately five in/out breath-sets per minute is pretty ideal, all the ancient religions say so.

4. You know how you think you breathe for oxygen? Actually what you want is the carbon dioxide, which you may remember is the stuff you think of yourself as breathing OUT. Or I guess you want both? I was a little unclear.

5. You breathe TOO MUCH. All Americans do!! It’s like how you EAT TOO MUCH. You just BINGE on that air. You FEAST on it. You OVERINDULGE. You’re DISGUSTING AND GREEDY, and it makes you FLABBY WITH AIR. Things that are vital to your existence are things you should be depriving yourself of. Depriving yourself will feel bad, which is how it is SUPPOSED to feel.

6. You can tape your mouth closed at night, so that you won’t accidentally breathe through your mouth. This is the best tape. Yes, I have ordered the tape. No, I have not yet tried it, because the idea of taping my mouth shut at night freaks me right out. Yes, yes, I did order it though. (Paul tried it last night, and said it worked perfectly with just a one-inch strip on the center of his mouth.)

7. I skipped the second half of the book, where he was like “These are the REAL good breathing methods, but also be careful because if you do them wrong you might accidentally give yourself brain damage and/or die.” Just, skipped right past all that.

Why did I take this book out of the library, you may be asking yourself/me. It’s because I am noticing that my heart is doing the weird thing it did last election, where it kind of flippers around, especially if I’ve had any caffeine. I’d thought a book on breathing might be helpful/soothing.

I think one of the reasons I was distressed by recent photos of myself is that the photos made it clear how silly I’m being with some of my little potions and rituals. Here I am, using a nice anti-aging face cleanser, and then carefully applying toner, and then the anti-aging daily moisturizer—and making sure with each product to put the extra onto the backs of my hands. Using a special acid formula once a week before bed. Making all these tiny, possibly imaginary differences, that from three feet away are utterly invisible, if they even exist at all. No one is going to even be able to TELL if my eye wrinkles have decreased by 5%. Meanwhile here I am fussing away, spending both the time and the money.

Well. I have soothed myself by realizing that Everyone Already Knows What I Look Like. These photos are surprising to ME, but not to ANYONE ELSE. Because EVERYONE ELSE can already SEE ME—and from more angles than I’d want to explore. To them I look absolutely normal and Like Myself, just as they all look absolutely normal and Exactly Like Themselves to me. Their dear faces and forms! I would not notice if their wrinkles or stomachs had decreased by 5%, nor would I care!

Noticing how we’re all aging during the menopause transition has caused me to notice What’s Next for us: it doesn’t stop at the wider tummy and the greying frizzing hair. My sister-in-law and I were discussing how we’ve both recently even found ourselves doing some distressing Age Math. Like: how many more years can we reasonably expect to live, even if all goes extremely well—that kind of math. And I wonder what we will lose on the way! Teeth, mobility, sight, hearing, breathing, THINKING. People who live to the “if all goes extremely well” point are not typically still living with all their original functions. I have also been having those sudden “I am actually going to die, and the only question is HOW WILL IT GO DOWN” thoughts. Not like I didn’t have them before, but now they feel realer/nearer. Several of my former friends/classmates have already died. I feel like we’re gradually filling in a dark little spreadsheet: this one got pneumonia and the hospital couldn’t stop it; this one had a heart attack; this one, cancer. There’s my little empty spreadsheet cell, waiting.

I WONDER IF WE COULD FIND A MORE CHEERFUL TOPIC. Oh, hey, have you bought any U.S. presidential election MERCH yet? I wanted to buy an official (i.e., sold by the campaign) t-shirt, but found all the choices boring—and almost entirely men’s cut, even the cat-lady ones. Inspired by local friends who are at this point curating little COLLECTIONS of campaign t-shirts, I finally chose this one as my first:

(image from Amazon.com)

It has the happy, cheerful vibe I was looking for. It looks black in the photo, but I ordered it in navy. (If you click through, it’ll revert to the men’s cut and the black color, which I find annoying.) I found one I liked even better, with daisies, but it said KAMALA/WALZ and I don’t like the mismatch. I don’t mind using first names, but we are not going to use first names for woman and surnames for men, not on my t-shirt.

An amusing number of the shirts on Amazon say Harris/Waltz. The one I bought has Walz on the shirt, but the listing title says Waltz: I was very alarmed when I got my purchase confirmation!

Also, I have filled out my calendar with the election countdown. I don’t want to be thinking about it constantly, but I do want to easily know how many days are left. I put a tiny number in the top corner of each day. Sixty-six days left, if I didn’t mess up the numbers. (Do say so if I’ve messed up the numbers.)

We are bringing the twins back to college, and I am not WORSE than I was their freshman year, but it’s close. For one thing, when we dropped them off freshman year, it’s not as if I didn’t already appreciate them as Beloved Household Members, but I didn’t appreciate them as much as I appreciated them after they were gone and then I had them back home again. And now they are leaving again, and I already know how much I will miss them. And also because I have seen how Rob, now age 25, was a member of our household and then he went to college and now he is gone and living elsewhere and we hear from him only very infrequently, and only when he feels like it and not when we feel like it, so I am thinking of that as well. It is difficult to avoid becoming a GRASPING sort of person, when they keep just SLIPPING AWAY like LITTLE FISH.

Then of course there is the additional layer of worry about Edward and that situation. My primary worry is not that the semester will result in another batch of D’s; that would be fine, and then we’d know, and then we could then figure out what the options were from there—and there are plenty of options left. I have mentioned that I am lucky enough to have had several friends and co-workers go through this situation with their kids before I had to go through it with my kid; and each time, with each kid, each friend/co-worker chose the “one more semester Just To Be Clear” plan and, each time, as the friend/co-worker of the parent in question, with no skin in the game, I felt that was Right, and Good, and I was glad they’d chosen that plan. And I feel right/good/glad about that plan for Edward, too, whether it ends in A’s or F’s or somewhere in between: the plan is to TRY THIS AND SEE WHAT HAPPENS AND THEN WE CAN GO FROM THERE, if you see what I mean, and I know from the comments section that many of you don’t, which likely means some of the people in my daily life also don’t. I am cringing already, imagining the semester not going well and how many people might think “SEE?? WE KNEW IT WOULDN’T WORK!!!,” without realizing what the plan was, or that it DID work.

But my REAL concern is that Edward will not see this plan the same way we do, and that Edward will see this as some sort of IF YOU FAIL, THAT WAS YOUR LAST CHANCE AT SUCCESS gladiatorial arena, and that Edward will see the D’s/F’s coming in and will resort to Acts of Despair—rather than seeing this semester as one more scientific input for our spreadsheet, helping us to see what the next plan should be. That is my real fear. Oh OF COURSE I have said so to Edward, EXPLICITLY, but do you remember being 19? Me neither, but I remember just enough about being 19 to be worried. I remember adults saying a lot of things that seemed oblivious/stupid/clueless. Hey, do you remember adults telling you to Be Yourself, and to not change who you were just to impress someone you wanted to date, because then even if you succeeded in your ruse, the person wouldn’t be dating The Real You? And back then I was like, “Um, yes, thank you, CRAZY CLUELESS WEIRDO, but THIS GUY doesn’t WANT to date The Real Me, so clearly?!?! this is my only chance at success!!!” And I would have looked them right in the eye and been absolutely confident that they were the stupid one.

Anyway. Last year I was buying the extra-long sheets and the mattress pads and the desk lamps and the towels and the shower caddies and the shower shoes; this year it’s more just replenishing the trail mix and the body wash and the deodorant and the floss picks and so forth. There is less to do but just as much to worry about.

I have been having some lil self-esteem issues recently, almost entirely due to seeing some candid photos of myself.

I have a friend who says she thinks she has whatever is the opposite of body dysmorphia: instead of looking in the mirror and seeing herself as exaggeratedly ugly/fat/etc., she looks in the mirror and thinks “Damn!!” Then she sees herself in photos and thinks “…Oh.”

I don’t look in the mirror and think “Damn!!,” but my mental image of myself is of someone much cuter than I am. And if I see a photo of myself taken head-on and when I’m ready for it, I am not generally inordinately displeased: I have the usual critical thoughts (ug, my chin! ug, I’m so squinty!) but I’ve become accustomed to combating those, and also I know from experience I will like the picture much more in about ten years, so I can make myself okay with it. But then I see an action shot of myself from the side, or of course an unexpected front-facing camera view, and I feel bad about absolutely everything. I am OLD AND DISFIGURED AND NO ONE WOULD EVER THINK I WAS CUTE IN ANY WAY.

It does help, though, that when I look at the OTHER people in candid photos, I often think “Wow, that is not a good photo of them”/”Wow, that is really unflattering”/”Wow, they don’t look like that at all,” and that this includes, for example, people I know to be very, very cute.

Hello, I feel like I can hardly stand to talk about the HUGE POLITICAL SHIFT that happened a week and a half ago. On, pleasingly, National Ice Cream Day. Our dear old Uncle Joe and his ice cream cones!

Earlier this week I got together with a relatively new friend I see only every month or so, and she said, “…Soooooo…there’s been a HUGE POLITICAL SHIFT since we last met…,” and I said “YES…”—but with some hesitation because although she and I have discussed politics enough for me to be certain she could not tolerate the president-before-this-one, we have not yet discussed politics in enough detail for me to feel entirely confident that I knew how she would feel about This Particular Political Shift—and then she said, “I was sure I would never have Hope again, but as it turns out…” and I said “I know, right: I am totally 100% not getting my hopes up again this time, but also I want MERCH!!! I want to THROW MONEY AT THIS FEELING!!,” and she said “YES ME TOO” and we looked at each other with brimming eyes. Friendship level-up.

Then we talked a bit about Last Time. Both of us got through 2016 with shock and dismay and permanent crushing/disfiguring disillusionment, but nothing medical. Both of us were then surprised to find ourselves in 2020/2021 having scary medical issues that turned out to be related to stress—even though our guy WON, but somehow…? For both of us, things started in late summer or early fall, near the 2020 election, then got worse in early January 2021 with the insurrection, and then gradually improved in the ensuing months after that. Feeling like a foolish oversharing/overreacting/TMI fool, I’d mentioned I’d had stress hives and general GI/GERD/esophageal/intestinal issues: had to stop drinking coffee, had esophageal spasms that made me think I was having a heart attack, etc. But she was nodding: it turns out she’d had GI issues as well, leading in her case to severe weight loss and many medical tests to make sure she wasn’t dying. We talked a little here about Edward and Crohn’s disease (Edward is dramatically underweight), and about the various other relatives/pets we’d had whose weight loss had been an indicator of severe illness and/or impending death, and how these things had permanently changed our societally-imposed views of “Weight loss is always wonderful and always to be desired!!” and had made us realize that weight loss can be quickly/truly precipitous and scary and deadly. You can put on weight and society will SCOLD you about your increased risk of dying—but it is nothing like the CERTAINTY of your risk of dying if you keep LOSING weight. It was a satisfying discussion.

Then it shifted to: So…what are we going to do to protect our mental health this time? Both of us have run the gamut of psychiatric medications, and neither of us have found sufficient benefit from any of the daily-dose options/combinations; both of us have found sufficient benefit from short-acting options (i.e., various tranquilizers) but have also found that doctors are reluctant to prescribe them (my doctor, for example, will prescribe me ten of the smallest tablets of l0razepam per year; I need 1.5 of those tablets to feel any effect at all, 2 tablets to reach the low end of what the psychiatrist prescribed many years ago for me to take up to three times a day). We both get some relief from the “drinking and talking with friends” option, but of course do not want to overuse it. I am not kidding when I say I am considering experimenting extensively with p0t. (The children tell me I am supposed to say “w33d.”)

I have discussed this with William, too. He’s been doing things I find concerning (too much time monitoring polls, for example, which is something I learned in 2016 not to do), and I said to him that I thought he and I should compare notes about how we were planning to protect our mental health during this election season. He agreed. The ensuing discussion involved us saying things like, “…I’ve heard meditation can be helpful,” with both of us saying “Uh huh, uh huh, yes, I guess.” I’ve found Vigorous Exercise useful for emotional stress, but (1) my knee is a problem right now and indefinitely, and (2) it’s hard enough to get myself to do vigorous exercise when I’m NOT mentally shaky. William said he has some settings on his apps, so that it’ll only let him check certain things once a week—but then he said if he wants to check them on other days, it just makes him sit through a one- to three-minute timer, which he says is sometimes enough to make him reconsider his plan, but not usually.

My problem is more with Twitter-like apps (I now use Bluesky), and the doom-scrolling, but I FEEL like I do a pretty good job now of getting to the point where I think “This is no longer serving me” and I get up and do something else. But…do I do it soon/often enough? And also: this still means I pretty often get all caught up in a huge panic about some huge impending thing…which then ends up fizzling out naturally before it ever gets significant, so what good did it do for me to panic about it? Oh, sure, maybe, yes, maybe it WOULD HAVE gotten significant without all that buzz and commotion!! …But also: maybe not, and maybe it’s a good example of how Being Online isn’t useful, and only gets us all worked up over things we didn’t even NEED to be thinking about. It isn’t as if My Personal Panic Contribution did anything to prevent the thing from getting significant.

Well. What I am still wondering is: What are we going to do to protect our mental health this time? WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO??