Habits

I am awash in bad habits. Sometimes I eat too much. This can elevate my blood-sugar. High blood-sugar makes me sleepy. I’ve been sleeping too much lately. Not tomorrow though. Tomorrow I refill another prescription for long-acting Vyvanse (12-hour speed). I have gone without these pills for more than a week. Withdrawl symptoms reinforce bad habits, it’s true. I have read a lot this past week. (Reading is a bad habit sometimes.) I finished Moby-Dick, along with two books of non-fiction (Methland and The Curve of Binding Energy). I’ve been growing a beard. A spider lives in the downstairs bathroom. We’ve finally replaced the van: now we own a 2008 Chevy Malibu. It’s a good car. Why have I read so much non-fiction this summer? Look at my list: Five books of non-fiction, one book of philosophy, two story collections, and but a single novel (albeit a goddamn great big novel). On a lighter note, one of the nestling robins I mentioned in a recent post did survive the opossum attack. I found the nestling at the bottom of one of the basement window wells and scooped it out. The parents were dive-bombing at the time. Baby birds are so ugly. It pooped when I tried to pick it up.

Attention! Achtung!

Almost seven years ago I was placed on academic suspension at SIUC. My grade point average had fallen below the (sub-) standard 2.0 mark. I had to petition the university for readmittance. This process included writing a formal letter of explanation as to the cause of my deficiencies and how I proposed to correct them.

The university gave me another chance.

I was required, however, to lift my GPA to at least 2.0 within one semester; to enroll in a one-credit-hour class called University Studies; to attend counseling sessions through the university’s counseling service; and to be tested for learning disabilities. I succeeded on all fronts but received a diagnosis of Attention Deficit Disorder (Inattentive Type). At that time the psychiatrist said I could try medication to help my focus. I said no thanks. And for about two years or so, I avoided medication, and I did okay.

But eventually, various classes began to feel overwhelming. They weren’t interesting, or they were interesting but not enough to keep my attention, given their difficulty (Core-Curriculum classes, by and large). Here I must go back a step and tell you a bit about my experiences from about third grade on, through high school: struggle, stagger, resist, struggle some more, fail, procrastinate, stagger about, sneer, struggle, fail, and so forth. High school was a joke, and I still don’t quite understand why we submit so many teenagers to the horrific boredom of it. But now, off digression . . . So finally I decided to give the artificial stimulants the clichéd college try.

Ritalin. I still remember how it felt the first time I took Ritalin: Good. On came the buzz, and the room, the table, the book, my arms and legs, the light fixtures, they energized. Particles lent their gravitational chirp to focusing my effort. Around my head I felt a gentle tightening sensation, as though my brain were being squeezed in a plush vise. I don’t remember what I was trying to read. I only remember how it felt. This did not last; soon after I started Ritalin, I began to experience odd pains in my legs, deep-tissue soreness, aching. The pharmacist and the psychiatrist were baffled by this. They both said that they had never heard of such a side-effect arising from Ritalin. Maybe I should try something else. Well, sure. Why not try something else? I liked Ritalin’s effect, leg-pain be damned. I’ll try something else then. What is there that I can try?

[Coming Next Time: Adderall.]

Introverts

This article with two follow-up pieces by Jonathan Rauch, at the Atlantic Monthly, clearly and definitively describes those of my ilk: introverts.

"Caring for your Introvert"
"Introverts of the World, Unite!"
"The Introversy Continues"

Spikes and Crashes

Blood sugar is an economy like the commodities market. But unlike the commodities market, blood sugar trades only in two commodities: glucose and insulin.

Spikes make you sick. Your face flushes and burns red. Ears especially. So can your fingers, hands, toes, and soles. There are headaches sometimes. Your eyes might scratch as though dried out, dessicated. These symptoms combine and exacerbate each other. Ride them for too long, they are destructive.

Crashes don’t necessarily make you sick. Rather, they threaten your life. After you experience crashes too many times, the symptoms lose some of their effect. What a crash at first causes is shakiness. The shakes, the jitters. This is your brain telling you that your blood is not providing it enough glucose. (The brain feeds on glucose alone. The brain dies without glucose.) Other symptoms can alert you to a blood sugar crash: cold sweat; seeing shapeless electric-blue spots and lines; mental confusion; distraction. But experiencing these symptoms too often leads to a sort of tolerance of them, fatigue. Blood sugar crashes without the usual symptoms, or crashes to a lower level before symptoms manifest.

This happened last night around 3:30. I had been reading Faulkner, and was now trying to sleep. I could not. So I got up and took my glucometer out to the living room and tested my blood sugar. The glucometer read: 22.

The blood sugar low that is considered imminently life-threatening is <21.

What happened? I accidentally overdosed on insulin. Recovery was swift: I ate a vanilla caramel Drumstick and an apple. I was fine by 4:00. I went back to bed.

Good night.

Point of View Violations

The headline alone has an intimidating quality to it, but I wonder: perhaps this is the way to demonstrate point of view and perspective to undergrad writers.

Denken um denken

Think about thinking about this: research suggests that rats are capable of metacognition. I'd put money on cats having this ability too, but they're so calculating I'd probably lose.

Process II

From a Joy Williams story: "Once I dreamed of baking a bat in the oven."

(The rest is not from Joy Williams stories.)

(!) He made a throne. His friend said it was supposed to be uncomfortable. They argued. They cited historical examples. (!) He wanted to be a brigand when he grew up. (!) Point of order. Restraint! Restraint! Handcuffs!
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Dare, chance, gamble, risk. . . . . How do we ARC? What is arc? Trajectory? Something -- someone -- must set an arc/trajectory in motion. Up & away OR down & away. What sets trajectory moving backward? How would this happen/work: UNDERTRAJECTORY? . . . . fire into the ground? Digging? Underground. Diving? Underwater. Descending movement. Descending but moving forward. Underway. Unterweg. Back and forth? Hin und her? How much is hidden among what is shown? How much is presented and how much is overlooked?
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Considered thus far or soon-to-be considered:
Process.
Revision.
Rewrite.
Heart.
Spine.
Truth.
Tension.
Arc.
Trajectory.
Pace: of narrative, of writing.
Pace: of emotion, of logic.
Can we know the process of another?
Limits.
Limitations.

Update (11/18/08):
I apologize for this post. It makes no sense. I don't know what I was thinking but I wrote it during a class. That was wrong of me. Perhaps I was distracted or off fighting evil in another universe. I don't rightly remember. Sorry.

No, I take it back. Some of it makes sense, with tweaking:
He made a throne. The throne was made of scrap lumber and carpet samples. His friend said it was supposed to be uncomfortable. "It's plenty uncomfortable," he said. They argued. They cited historical examples. The friend said, "Genghis Khan rode a horse all day. That gets uncomfortable." His rebuttal was, "This isn't a horse. What the hell are you talking about?" The friend stared at him in disbelief that they were arguing about this in the first place. Then the friend said, "I can't believe you made a throne. You're no king. How presumptious." He said, "Get the hell out of my garage."

Morning Unliveliness and a Chance Encounter with an Arachnid

Why does getting older come with diminished capacity to wake up in the morning? I don't suffer from "bright-eyed bushy-tailed" syndrome like I once did. A good shower will take care of this problem. Yesterday I saw Al Franken walk through the Student Union. In person, he looks like . . . Al Franken. He's that guy I watched on "Saturday Night Live" when I was a kid: "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me." That guy. Richard Ford today. I plan to have autograph the copy of Rock Springs that he already autographed some time in the distant past. As soon as events set in motion that cannot be undone (shower, take a shot, eat). Yes that was a sentence fragment. A few minutes ago a wolf spider got tangled in the hair on my back. The legs tickled. Was the spider mountaineering on my office chair? Or did the spider fall from the ceiling with the misfortune of landing in the jungle? I have no problem with wolf spiders living in my office. I'm rather fond of them. But if it had been one of those goddamn Minnesota centipedes that look like a mustache, I would be wide awake at this point.

Introversion

I know that people think I'm a bit odd. Strange. Intimidating sometimes. Okay with me, I suppose. Introverted people are like that. I don't know how many times someone has said to my wife, "You and your husband are so different, like complete opposites." (No one has ever said anything like this to me.) She loves people. I love people in small doses. I'm not unhappy, angry, irritated, depressed, annoyed, outraged, or anything else. If I were angry, you would know it instantly. Anyway, that's it.

Incurable Itch, Phantom Limbs, and Mirror Therapy

If you have not read this article, The Itch, from the New Yorker online, give it a read. It's all about perspective and how much our brains actually perceive versus how much our brains reconstruct from experience. I like the idea that the human brain can have a malfunctioning safety switch, like a "check engine" light that leads to $$$$$$$ repair work when the only thing wrong is the check engine function itself.