Feb 22 2012

nomophobia: why I’m tired of hearing about it

Yesterday I came across an article on Mashable about nomophobia and I rolled my eyes. It wasn’t the first time I’d heard of it nor was it the first time I rolled my eyes. For those of you who aren’t well-versed in made-up words, nomophobia(1) is the fear of other losing your mobile phone or being out of mobile-phone contact.

Let’s forget for a minute how ridiculous this is, that some people genuinely feel their lives have come to a halt because they have forgotten their phones. Of all the more ridiculous aspects of modern culture, such as that both Renee Zellweger and Reese Witherspoon have won Oscars, this one takes the proverbial cake. It’s on par having nothing to do because your television is broken or not being able to walk because you can’t find your shoes. It’s that ridiculous. Don’t get me wrong, I love my iPhone just as much as anyone, but the few times I’ve been without it it wasn’t like the orchestra started playing over my acceptance speech.

But I don’t want to talk about the phenomenon.(2) I want to talk about the word itself.

According to Wikipedia and about half-a-dozen other equally unreliable sources from the internet,(3) nomophobia combines the word phobia (meaning ‘fear of’) with nomo, which is a portmanteau of no mobile. I don’t have a problem with portmanteaus in general. There are some really great words created by combining two other words, such as squish, squawk, motel, escalator, gerrymander, pixel, emoticon, and best of all, brunch.(4)

The problem is that, unlike all of those examples, nomo is already a root-word. The Greeks gave us the word nomos, which means the principles that govern human conduct, esp. as defined by culture or custom.(5) The root-word nomo is used to form words relating to laws or legislation. Hence we have nomocracy, a system of government based on a legal code. We have nomogenesis, a theory which regards evolutionary change as resulting from laws inherent in the nature of living organisms, rather than from external factors. There are nomism and nomotheism, which are both Christian approaches that bind everything – even God – to the strict adherence of universal laws.

So if anything, nomophobia would be a fear of law, a fear of strict code, or perhaps a fear of strict enforcement of the law. It would not be a fear of losing one’s mobile phone.

I’m not against making up words. I’m against making up words that make zero sense given the history of our language. Perhaps a better word would be perdiphonophobia, which is not only somewhat more etymologically accurate but also nicely hints at the purported perdition these without-their-phones people seem to be caught in. And it also has the advantage of not tromping over root-words that already exist.

I know this is a losing battle. I know that the seven people who read this blog(6) won’t be enough to actually change this nonsense word nomophobia. And frankly it’d probably be better that we rail against the phenomenon itself. But for right now I’m sticking with perdiphonophobia. If the two worst actresses of our time can win Academy Awards, there’s a least a chance that one man with one blog can eradicate a stupid word.

  1. Which autocorrect keeps changing to homophobia.
  2. Other than to talk about how ridiculous it is, obviously.
  3. My thinking here is that the unlikely probability of six sources having the same wrong information increases the probability that the information is correct. This thinking, by the way, is probably why I don’t work at the reference desk.
  4. Kinda wish staycation would just go, though.
  5. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, my friend and companion for many years now.
  6. Readership’s up a bit!
Feb 18 2012

here at the end of week one of what i can only call a neurological wonderland

I can say that I feel better. The pain is way less intense than it’s been in years. Sometimes it’s barely even pain, more like just a bit of awkward tension no worse than watching Napoleon Dynamite.

I also feel more awake, generally speaking. This despite having consumed way less coffee than usual – less than half my normal amount, not because caffeine is bad for us fibromyalgics but simply because after about a cup-and-a-half I’m no longer interested. Coffee thinks I’m cheating on it with Cymbalta. I tried to tell it we’re just friends, that my relationship with coffee is too time-tested and too much a sure thing for me to ever even think about seeing someone else…but I suspect it’s right anyway.

Feeling awake is probably somewhat due to sleeping a bit more, but I think it’s more about just sleeping better. The only thing that woke me up these last few night was our cat, Gaz, who needs pet about once every two hours or so. The first couple of days were bad, sleep-wise. I kept waking up about once every hour or so, which gets old fast. But Tuesday night I started to feel like I was really sleeping during each 1.5-hour increment. And Wednesday night I slept better than I have since I was probably like four.

It’s a little easier to focus on things, too. That is an expected result of Cymbalta but it’s also a function of not hurting all the time. When you don’t have to focus on ignoring massive quantities of pain in your torso it frees your mind up for other tasks. Which is nice.

I also generally feel…not happier, exactly, but more satisfied. I suppose that should be expected from taking an anti-depressant, but it’s unfamiliar to me. The hardest part of this part week was taking it easy. Not that I’m an active person by any stretch, but I do like to keep myself busy. I’m not one to sit and watch TV for hours on end. I like to read and write and make music and clean the house and work on any of the numerous projects I always have going on. But this week I made myself chill out. Ashley and I watched a lot of TV, thanks to Hulu, and while I was somewhat disturbed to spend so much time in such a pointless pursuit, I also was satisfied to just relax and hang out with my lovely fiancée.

But there have been oddities as well. Nothing bad, and thankfully nothing really bad, just oddities. Much of time I feel as though I’m…suspended…within my own body, as though the real me begins, say, .25-inch below my skin. Consequently my skin often feels a bit numb, a bit far away. Even touching my tongue to the roof of my mouth is a surprise, because I forget that both my tongue and my palate exist. I’ve always been incredibly aware of my body – which might be a factor behind or resulting from the fibromyalgia – so this disconnect is surprising, though I’ll admit it’s welcome.

There are times in which I space out. Outwardly I know I look like I’m not even home but I’m thinking intensely about something. Maybe that’s part of being able to focus more, but it’s not generally acceptable to take a mental vacation whilst sitting at your desk.

The weirdest thing is that sometimes I can smell things. I’ve been anosmic my entire life, meaning that I’d never smelled anything ever. Until this week. It’s very odd that it happens and I wonder if anyone’s done any sort of research on SSNRIs and anosmia, but what’s even more odd is suddenly having a sense at 36 that I didn’t grow up with. I don’t have words for what I’m smelling. I don’t know what it is. I haven’t learned how to ignore it. I’ve never considered how important it is to grow up with a sense, how we learn to deal with it, and what it means if that process is skipped. It is certainly an unexpected result.

But despite the oddities, I feel better. So far, it’s worth it. It’ll take more time to assess the long-term benefits of course, but so far thing seem positive. Thanks to all of you who voiced concern, who offered comfort and prayers. I appreciate it all very much.

Feb 14 2012

for ashley: lost for words

I may not always talk much, but I am a man of many words. Rarely do I have trouble stating clearly what I mean to say. Though of course sometimes I bury it in a footnote. But whatever.

The point is that I know how to say what it is that I want to say.

Which is why I’m so surprised today as I try to sum up how I feel about you. How I feel about my life since you’ve been in it. How I feel about our future, together. This is, after all, our last Valentine’s Day as an unmarried couple. As I’m sure you’re aware.

I’ve tried a dozen times to say it.

I’ve started and stopped.

I’ve done whatever is the blog equivalent of balled-up pages in the trash bin.

I’ve given up.

And tried again.

And all day there’s been one thing my mind keeps turning to, and it’s something that happened long before we met.

Back when I was 17 I helped deliver for a local floral shop one Valentine’s Day. All day I went from place to place with a car filled with flowers, arrangements and cards. I’d pull up to stoplights and drivers in the next lane would rubber-neck at my flora-filled Chrysler LeBaron. Each place I went to, the person who opened the door greeted me with curiosity that quickly broke into a lovely smile. Some people squealed with delight. Others gave me hugs. Most thanked me profusely, though I was not the cause for the flowers. I was merely the messenger. It was a really great day, collecting all those smiles and hugs and squeals. That sort of thing just stays with you and, over time, alters how you feel about just about everything.

And I guess the reason that keeps coming to my mind today is that’s how I feel every day. Every time you smile at me; every time you laugh. Every time you put an arm around me. Every time you tell me you love me. For the past few years these things have collected in my heart and have altered how I feel about just about everything. Except Journey. But whatever.

It’s not simply that my life is better with you in it. It’s that how I feel about my life – even everything that came before you – is better with you in it.

I love you, Ashley.

Feb 12 2012

doing okay

Yesterday was about the most neurologically strange day I’ve ever experienced. Yet everything was fine. The Cymbalta is reducing the amount of pain already, and hopefully it will continue to work.

But there were a few things that were odd. I couldn’t stop spacing out. Or, not exactly spacing out, more like spacing in. During lunch, for example, I sort-of checked-out of the conversation Ashley and her friend were having and instead paid attention to a lot of the details of the people around us. How people chewed. How they gripped their food. What kind of socks they wore. I noticed that two guys who seemed to have nothing to do with each other were wearing precisely the same pair of sweatpants and shoes.

There was about a minute-and-a-half during which I think I smelled stuff. My sandwich. Fries with vinegar. Lemonade. It’s hard to know for certain because when you’ve never smelled anything you don’t know what the sensation is. At first I just thought it was a taste leftover in my mount, but then I realized that that pretty much never happens while you’re eating. And as I brought my sandwich in for a bite I realized the sensation intensified. So I suppose maybe this was smell. But it’s gone now anyway.

I also noticed I just didn’t care about some things. Like being hungry. I was aware that I was hungry but the sensation held no real urgency. And later we were in a pretty crowded place and normally I don’t do very well in crowds. But I just didn’t care. It was odd…but also kinda nice. I probably worry too much about little things anyway.

Today so far time seems to just be moving slowly, at about half its usual speed. Other than that, though, I feel just fine except for being a bit tired and possibly coming down with a cold. No bad thoughts. In fact, my thoughts seems a bit more positive. So that’s good.

It’ll take a good month to six weeks to know how well the Cymbalta is working and how it’s affecting me. So far things are going fairly well, and I hope they continue to.

Feb 11 2012

regarding this thing that’s supposed to help me but of which i’ll flatly admit i’m more than a little terrified

Name: Cymbalta (Duloxetine Hydrochloride)

Indications: Diabetic peripheral neuropathy; fibromyalgia; generalized anxiety disorder; major depressive disorder; musculoskeletal pain, chronic

Dosing: For fibromyalgia: 30 mg orally once daily for one week; increase to recommended dose of 60 mg once daily based on tolerability.(1)

Black Box Warning:(2) Increased risk of suicidal thinking and behavior in children, adolescents and young adults(3) taking antidepressants for major depressive disorder and other psychiatric disorders.(4) Short term(5) studies did not show an increase in the risk of suicidality with antidepressants compared to placebo in adults beyond age 24.(6) This risk must be balanced with the clinical need. Monitor patients closely for clinical worsening, suicidality, or unusual changes in behavior.

Contraindications: Concomitant use of MAOIs;(7) narrow-angle glaucoma, uncontrolled – increased risk of mydriasis.(8)

Adverse effects: (Common) – Diaphoresis;(9) Constipation; Decrease in appetite; Diarrhea; Nausea; Xerostomia;(10) Dizziness; Headache; Insomnia;(11) Somnolence.(12) (Serious) – Hypertensive crisis;(13) Myocardial infarction;(14) Stevens-Johnson syndrome;(15) Gastrointestinal bleeding; Abnormal bleeding; Liver failure; Suicidal thoughts.(16)

Drug-Type: SSNRI: Selective Serotonin/Norepinephrine Reuptake Inhibitor

Mechanism of Action:(17)

  1. My doc’s started me on 30 mg twice daily. I’ll be calling his office on Monday to find out if this is a mistake.
  2. Which that phrase is terrifying itself and we haven’t even gotten to the actual warning.
  3. I am none of these, which provides a little comfort.
  4. This one’s tricky. Cymbalta hasn’t been prescribed for me for these particular conditions. But I have in the past dealt with major depressive disorder (and even saying in the past is tricky because depression never really just has its way with you and lets you go) but have chosen to deal with it through something called Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, which I can sum up with the following scenario: (1) Your wife is well into her third trimester; (2) In fact you could be go-for-baby any day now; (3) It’s January; (4) You live in a climate prone to snow and ice during the month of January; (5) You in fact hear, as you’re drifting off to sleep one night with your very pregnant wife already beautifully snoring beside you, the weatherman say there’s a fair amount of snow heading your way not tomorrow but the next day and for probably two days after that; (6) The next day is a Saturday and you have a lot of things you wanted to get done; (7) But you can’t because you have to prepare to take her to the hospital in the middle of what may become a blizzard; (8) Or you have to prepare to deliver a baby at home; (9) Either way, you spend Saturday preparing, probably for both; And then of course (10) the first night, mid-whiteout, her water breaks; (11) Which you were hoping at best that she’d just start contractions because then maybe the contractions would outlast the storm , but having her water break pretty much makes you decide right now; (12) You recognize that you’re more prepared to brave the weather than you are to deliver a baby at home; (13) But you’d feel safer staying at home; and, finally, (14) You have to choose. Both decisions offer a measure of safety and a measure of danger. You cannot prevaricate. You have to weigh safety v. danger of each choice. Oh, and, (15) once you choose, there’s no changing your mind. So that’s ACT, as it’s known. The point here is that I don’t know if I have to worry about this Black Box Warning since this wasn’t why I was prescribed Cymbalta or if I have to worry about it because it’s part of my neurological past. The result of course is that I’m going to worry about it anyway.
  5. sic
  6. Well at least there’s that.
  7. Monoamine oxidase inhibitor, another class of anti-depressant.
  8. The dilation of the pupil, in this case referring to a pupil that does not contract in light, kind of like David Bowie’s left eye.
  9. Excessive sweating. Though how anyone will even know I’m sweating excessively as compared to my pre SSNRI-state I can’t even guess.
  10. Dry-mouth
  11. Yeah, because I need less sleep.
  12. Wait. It can cause both insomnia and excessive sleep? That’s a bit counter-intuitive, isn’t it? And come to think of it, what about the constipation and diarrhea back there? What the hell what that? These researchers at Eli Lilly were just phoning it in at this point, weren’t they.
  13. Radically high blood pressure.
  14. If you’ve watched any hospital show ever, from Quincy to House, you’ll know that this is a fancy term for a heart attack.
  15. A life-threatening skin disease in which cell death causes the epidermis to separate from the dermis. Whatever you do right now do not do an image search for it unless you’re the kind of person who really likes watching The Fly and the fourth Alien movie. Seriously. Don’t do it.
  16. There it is. At least they consider it a serious side-effect.
  17. Just gonna summarize this for you. Essentially, serotonin and norepinephrine are neurotransmitters – chemicals that help signals jump from one nerve to another over gaps called synapses. These are naturally produced by the central nervous system (the neurotransmitters are, not the synapses, which aren’t produced but are simply a structure of the nervous system) and basically help things function correctly. The brain releases, say, serotonin so that some electricity can jump the synapse and carry whatever signal it’s carrying to wherever it’s going. (Think of serotonin and norepinephrine as the little moving platforms at like The Haunted Mansion that help you walk alongside your designated car. In this allegory, think of the queue you’re in as one nerve and the car of the ride as another. You, then, are the signal. The moving platform affects your transition from queue to ride, just like a neurotransmitter affects one signal’s move from one nerve to the other.) Once the serotonin has done its job, there’s a chemical process that helps the brain reuptake the serotonin because having too much of it running around in your brain would be dangerous. Basically you’d feel really awesome all the time, even when you’re like on fire or something. (That’s probably an exaggeration but you get the idea.) Well what happens in some people who suffer from depression (and apparently fibromyalgia) is that these little uptake-processes work too well, meaning that there’s just not enough serotonin and norepinephrine to go around because the brain is reuptaking more than it needs to and so then various never signals can’t get to where they’re going, and in this case of course it’s the feel-good signals. Cybmalta works by preventing these uptake-process from working too well, effectively raising the amount of available feel-good neurotransmitters in your system. So there you go. And, sorry: I guess that as a summary this was rather lengthy and I apologize for that. But trust me that it makes way more sense than what’s described in the otherwise handy and informative Micromedex Drug Information app for iPad. I had to look a lot of things up in a lot of places to work this all out for you (and me) and I honestly lost track of my sources even though I very much wanted to be responsible and list them all for you. Trust, though, that I work at a library and have some graduate course-work until my belt and I understand the difference between reliable and unreliable resources and that the information I’ve provided is about as good as it gets, though of course my own little scenarios and allegories are subject to your own opinions w/r/t efficacy. Suffice it to say that I now fairly well understand what’s going on at a neurochemical level in my body and while that understanding may not help guard against suicidal thoughts I just happen to be the sort of person who very firmly believes that a little understanding goes a long way and knowing what’s going on just makes me feel better about it, which is always nice when you’re somewhat terrified not of the problem but of the proposed solution. Because for the last few years I’ve been working really, really hard to change my belief that my life would end by my own hand and I’ve done this sans medication not out of any real sense of pride or anything like that but simply because I believed I could do it. And I have. So while I understand that fibromyalgia can get pretty bad – the word crippling has come up and I really don’t like the image that calls to mind – it will at least be me staying alive by my own choice. So I care far less about the disease than I do about the solution, which may tip the balance I’ve worked so hard to build over the last few years. Actually, I don’t even care about the Cymbalta – if it works. If it works, great. But if it doesn’t, if I start having bad thoughts or whatever, the process of dosage-adjustment begins. And that’s basically like sprinkling water on an already dangerous bundle of crossed wires. If the dosage-adjustment doesn’t work, there’s the possibility of weaning me from the SSNRI, and the problem with anti-depressants is the CNS can get kinda used to them, even if they’re not entirely effective, and so when they’re taken away the brain freaks out and then even if you bring the drug back, the brain essentially doesn’t know itself well enough anymore to know that that’s what it wanted and so reintroducing the drug can be ineffective and the brain just continues a downward spiral that all-too-often ends in a place I’ve tried really, really hard to seal up. Which is why I’m really afraid, not of the disease and not of the solution, but of the solution not working. Some have asked why I haven’t tried some of the alternate methods, exercise being an obvious example. The truth is that I’ve been trying alternate methods for years, I just didn’t know I was trying to treat fibromyalgia. I’ve been living in more and more pain every day for at least the last four years and I’ve tried chiropractors and exercise and I’ve had all kinds of tests done. I decided to try the Cymbalta route because nothing I’ve done over the last four years has made my body feel any better and the only thing I haven’t tried is to address it chemically. And so now, faced with the diagnosis and the prospect of ineffectual alternative solutions, it seems like the time to try it. And plus let’s not undersell how important it is that I love and trust Ashley enough to help me with this. That’s a big deal. Huge. There’s love, and then there’s life. And then there’s the love that holds life. Without that, I would simply go on living in pain rather than taking this risk.
Feb 10 2012

and so then just like that you learn that you have fibromyalgia

Fibromyalgia is a common syndrome in which a person has long-term, body-wide pain and tenderness in the joints, muscles, tendons, and other soft tissues.

Fibromyalgia has also been linked to fatigue, sleep problems, headaches, depression, and anxiety.(1)

The cause is unknown.(2) Possible causes or triggers of fibromyalgia include:

  • Physical or emotional trauma
  • Abnormal pain response – areas in the brain that are responsible for pain may react differently in fibromyalgia patients
  • Sleep disturbances
  • Infection, such as a virus, although none has been identified

Fibromyalgia is most common among women aged 20 to 50.(3)

Pain in the main symptom of fibromyalgia. It may be mild to severe.

  • Painful areas are called tender points. Tender points are found in the soft tissue on the back of the neck, shoulders, chest, lower back, hips, shins, elbows, and knees. The pain then spreads out from these areas.
  • The pain may feel like a deep ache, or a shooting, burning pain.(4)
  • The joints are not affected, although the pain may feel like it is coming from the joints.

People with fibromyalgia tend to wake up with body aches and stiffness.(5) For some patients, pain improves during the day and gets worse at night.(6) Some patients have pain all day long.(7)

Pain may get worse with activity, cold or damp weather, anxiety, and stress.(8)

Fatigue, depressed mood, and sleep problems are seen in almost all patients with fibromyalgia. Many say that they can’t get to sleep or stay asleep, and they feel tired when they wake up.(9)

Other symptoms of fibromyalgia may include:

  • Irritable bowel syndrome
  • Memory and concentration problems
  • Numbness and tingling in hands and feet(10)
  • Palpitations(11)
  • Reduced ability to exercise(12)
  • Tension or migraine headaches(13)

The goal of treatment is to help relieve pain and other symptoms, and to help a person cope with the symptoms.

Drugs are also used to treat the condition, including:

  • Anti-seizure drugs
  • Other antidepressants(14)
  • Muscle relaxants
  • Pain relievers
  • Sleeping aids

Cognitive-behavioral therapy is an important part of treatment. This therapy helps you learn how to:

  • Deal with negative thoughts(15)
  • Keep a diary of pain and symptoms(16)
  • Recognize what makes your symptoms worse
  • Seek out enjoyable activities
  • Set limits

Support groups may also be helpful.

Other recommendations include:

  • Eat a well-balanced diet
  • Avoid caffeine(17)
  • Practice good sleep routines to improve quality of sleep(18)

(19)

  1. Which I absolutely deal one or the other – or several – of these on a daily basis.
  2. Isn’t that fun?
  3. Tough obviously of course it can also affect men at the age of 36.
  4. See yesterday’s pain-chart.
  5. This is true for me.
  6. So is this.
  7. And also this.
  8. My best option then is to become a kept-man to some rich woman who lives in the desert. As it happens though I am very much in love with Ashley and also enjoy living in Ohio. So that option’s out.
  9. It gets to a point at which it’s just a way of life. You understand that you’re simply not capable of sleeping more than 6.5 hours and you can either futz about it or you can get up and get shit done. Plus the cats get fed so they stop driving you crazy.
  10. Yep.
  11. Yep.
  12. Well, it’s hard to say reduced when you have zero context against which to compare it. It’s like dividing by zero.
  13. I get a headache every Monday. It’s been happening for years.
  14. And there it is. That’s what I was afraid of. I knew going in that fibromyalgia was a  possible cause for all of my pain. I was prepared for the doctor to say, “I think it’s fibromyalgia.” I’m not prepared to take anti-depressants. Or, more appropriately, I’m terrified to take anti-depressants. To take anything which has a possible side-effect of suicidal thoughts. Because no thank you I do that well enough on my own. And plus also there’s the what happens if it doesn’t work factor, in which I have to stop one anti-depressant and start on another and the whole process can really whack-out a person’s central wiring, really make things pretty janky up there, gum-up the processes, and, once again, thank you very much but I do that well enough on my own.
  15. Could use that anyway.
  16. If by diary you mean blog, then check that one off the list.
  17. Son of a bitch. Really? But it’s my friend…
  18. My sleep routine is solid. I just can’t sleep more than 6.5 hours no matter how tired I am.
  19. And so there it is. The diagnosis I feared coupled with a prescription I’m terrified of. All in all, not a good day.
Feb 9 2012

owww

I would love to blog about something interesting but all I can think of today is how much I hurt. The pain in my torso is near-constant and on some days only hurts less. Days like today, though…try as I might I just can’t not think about how much my body hurts.

So since I can’t think of anything else I though I’d show you where and to what degree I hurt.

Wait. That doesn’t look like me at all. Here:

That’s better. The areas around my knees and hips are the result of yogging. The knee-pain is constant but not bad. The hip-pain mostly rears its ugly head when I use the stairs. Luckily you don’t get to be the kind of person who can use the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man as a body-double by taking the stairs all the time. So the hip-pain, while worse, is far less occasional.

But that red sea around my dextral rib-cage? That’s the part that always hurts. Some days, like today, when I wake up I feel as though I spent the night plastered to the front of a Mack truck doing 80 mph on the interstate. The pain is beginning to interfere with my sleep, and I don’t get much sleep to begin with. Luckily I’d already made a doctor’s appointment for tomorrow. Now I just have to focus on not begging for pain medication too hard or obviously. No one likes a Stay Puft Marshmallow Junkie.

Feb 8 2012

reading’s rainbow

LeVar Burton wants to bring back Reading Rainbow. There’s a story over at Mashable about his plans to create an app, and about how he and his Twitter followers rallied to get the @readingrainbow handle from a squatter.

Forget the nostalgia(1) and the Lieutenant Geordi jokes. This is great news. Anything that teaches kids that reading is awesome is itself awesome. Because, as the Mashable article points out, Reading Rainbow wasn’t about teaching kids how to read; it was about teaching kids why to read.

And it occurs to me that that’s a really great question: why do you read?

I don’t mean particular books. I can tell you I read Infinite Jest because my friend Justin loved it so much and I was curious how someone could be that level of passionate about a book.(2) I can tell you I read Perfume: The Story of a Murderer because a rather insensitive person suggested that I wouldn’t ‘get it’ since I have no sense of smell.(3) I can tell you I just finished Why We Broke Up because the indomitable k all but shoved it my face one day and she and I have a history w/r/t Daniel Handler,(4) and plus she’s about as close to a literary soul-mate as I have.

I can tell you I read It because it was the biggest damn book in the elementary school library and I went straight for it. I can tell you I read The Sorrows of Young Werther for a class but loved it anyway. I can tell you I read On the Road because there was no way I was not going to meet up with Sal Paradise on my own road. And I can tell you I read Jitterbug Perfume because some guy I met exactly once talked about it one night at a diner and months later when I saw the book in the store I thought about how cool that guy was(5) and that anything he spoke so highly of had to be cool.(6)

But I can’t tell you why I read. At least, not so succinctly. I can’t even tell you how I started. Neither of my parents are big readers – they read occasionally but aren’t like me who always has a book. I imagine they allowed me to read because I didn’t like to sleep and at least if I were reading I wasn’t jumping on the bed. But they did encourage me, that’s what matters. Though it still doesn’t explain why I read.

And the truth is that I don’t have much of an answer. Like anything really worth putting a substantial amount of time into, I can’t really sort out why it’s worth putting a substantial amount of time into. Try quantifying why you’re with your spouse or significant other. Try quantifying any of your hobbies. It’s kinda like that.

What I know is this: reading affects me in ways that no other media does. Or can. And that is why I read. It awakens my sense of wonder. It makes me hungry to know more. To read more.

And there’s one more thing. I’m proud that I read. That of everything else about me, I am most proud that I am totally content to be alone with a book. I’m proud that there’s always a book in my backpack. That, in fact, I carry a backpack because I want to keep books with me.(7) Never in my life have I met someone who was proud that they just spent four hours watching television. But I know people who look forward to spending the day with a book with almost the same trembling voice one might use to describe spending the day with a well-trained call-girl from Singapore.

And that is also why I read. Reading carries with it a sense of accomplishment. And that’s what I want kids to feel, which is why I’m excited that Reading Rainbow might be back. I want them to feel that accomplishment. I want them to feel something other than the glazed indifference of television and movies.(8) That even if they didn’t like the story, they at least had to work to get through it. That finishing it means something more than having sat relatively still for 30 minutes. That is the real reward of reading.

So yes, even though I never watched it, I sincerely hope Mr. Burton can bring Reading Rainbow back. And I hope that kids love it…slightly less than they love reading.

  1. Which I can’t really myself get into because, outside of the catchy theme song, I never really had much to do with the show. By the time it went on air I was both a little too old for kids’ shows and already way into reading. Plus I’d already been burned by PBS, but that’s a story for another day.
  2. So passionate, for example, that Justin quit writing his blog – one of my favorite blogs of all time – a few days after David Foster Wallace died. We’re left with just this.
  3. She was wrong. And I try really hard to fart every time I walk past her office just to prove my evolutionary advantage.
  4. Adverbs-4-Life yo.
  5. He’s a jazz drummer so when I say cool I mean cool.
  6. He was right, and if I ever run into him again I’ll thank him.
  7. Plus I keep all sorts of purported emergency supplies, everything from USB adaptors to cutlery. You just never know.
  8. Not that there isn’t some great stuff on tv and in theaters. But everyone at least secretly knows it’s mostly pablum.
Feb 6 2012

for katharine: sickness and health

My friend Katharine got engaged yesterday. Today she posted this:

This reminded me of the Monday after Ashley and I got engaged.

This is that post.

I proposed to Ashley early in the morning on April 24, Easter Sunday. By early in the morning I really mean shortly after midnight because I wanted to do it on Easter Sunday yet I could hardly wait to actually do it. So like 12:01 AM. We stayed up late that night. She called her family and she and I talked about a lot of things before we finally passed out. The rest of that Sunday was pretty standard…except for her staring at her new ring all the time. We went to bed early because we had work and school the next day.

But at 4AM the morning after we got engaged, we were in the hospital.

Ashley’d woken me up a few times that night getting sick. Finally, she said she thought maybe she should go to the ER. And if Ashley thinks she needs to go to the hospital, it’s bad. We hastily got ourselves around and a short time later were in the ER. They hooked her up to an IV almost right away – they knew she was dehydrated before they knew why.

Like many nurses before her, the ER nurse had trouble finding a good vein in Ashley’s hand. One of the attempts caused a little bit of blood to trickle slowly down her hand until it covered part of her new engagement ring. Later on, Ashley would come to for a few minutes and apologize to me for that, for having gotten blood on what she said was such a pretty ring. But it didn’t matter, I said. It could be cleaned.

As she drifted back to sleep, her body finally calm and rehydrating, I pushed a couple of stools together, made a blanket of my coat, and slept a little bit. Around 6AM they sent us home. Turns out it was a virus making her sick. The doctor gave her a prescription to help control the vomiting and diarrhea, but the pharmacy didn’t open until eight.

We spent another miserable two hours at home. She was so sick that she was afraid to leave the toilet. But she was so tired she could barely keep herself sitting up. And so our engagement began with me kneeling in front of the toilet and giving her a shoulder to rest her head on while she was sick. She said it was really awkward and it sure as hell was. But it was also just what you do.

I called off work that day and Ashley didn’t go to class. I ran to the pharmacy when it opened and eventually her nausea settled. We both slept for a while and eventually were able to kind of joke about it: ‘Hey. Remember that time I proposed to you and you got sick?’ Hahaha. Hilarious to this day, right? So pardon me, Katharine, if I disagree with your statement.

But, seriously: Congratulations. I wish you and yer fella many, many happy years.

And that he never has to hold you up while you’re on the toilet.

But that if he does, you have the good sense to let him.

And again, congrats.