Let’s talk about body fluids.

Body fluids are liquids that are either excreted or secreted from the body.  Excreted means to shit it out, basically.  I’m just going to be perfectly frank about that because this is science and science is serious business.  Secrete means to ooze or be released, secretly, while no one is looking.  Like that one time a girl I know got so drunk in Las Vegas, when she woke up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom she secreted on another friend’s suitcase thinking it was the toilet.  I KNOW YOU ARE THINKING THIS WAS ME – because it sounds like a terrible thing I would do, I admit it – BUT IT WAS NOT ME.  Pinky swear.

I decided, after some consideration, to make this a series of posts rather than cram it all into one five million word missive on all the liquids swishing around inside us and, sometimes, spewing out of us.  Each post in the series will explore WITH GREAT HILARITY AND ACCURACY (there will be no accuracy) the form and function of two vital fluids.  Let us begin with vomit and tears.

VOMIT

In Albania there is a place called the Puke District and this has nothing to do with bodily fluids but it sure is funny based on how I snorted when I read that.

My friend Kim says vomit is like “tears of the mouth.”

Vomiting is known in medical terminology as emesis, which stems from the Greek word backwards 3, backwards 4, backwards 3, looks like a W, meaning “I vomit”  Vomiting is the forceful expulsion of stomach contents through the mouth and/or nose and if you want to know what that looks like you can come over when I feed my cat because he vomits on the carpet nearly every time he eats, even though there’s a perfectly good tile floor where he could do it and make cleaning up a million times easier DON’T GET ME STARTED. Vomiting can occur for a variety of reasons, including food poisoning and the flu.  I caught a terrible strain of flu about 10 years ago and ever since then I pee my pants when I throw up in a veritable explosion of body fluids.  It’s like a two-for-one sale except instead of paying money to get two times something awesome, life steals your dignity.

The feeling that one is about to vomit is called nausea, which comes to us from the Greek word for “motion sickness” or “wamble”, and is an uneasiness in the stomach with an urge to vomit.  An attack of nausea is called a qualm and I guess I finally get what it means when someone says they have “no qualms” about something so YAY for science.  I think we’re all a little smarter just now. You’re welcome.

When one vomits profusely it may cause tears in the esophagus which results in bleeding, a condition called a Mallory-Weiss tear, but isn’t at all about Family Ties.  I had this once in conjunction with a terrible headache and Janie had to drive me to the doctor because I thought I might die, but I also couldn’t stop laughing in the car because my retching noises were so godawful and I was sitting in the front seat puking into a paper bag and trying with every ounce of my willpower not to pee all over the place.  GOOD TIMES.

Vomiting is controlled by a part of the brain called the Area postrema located at the fourth ventricle.  I didn’t know brains had ventricles and so it took me about four hours before I realized that this is in our brain and not heart, you guys.  I ARE GOOD AT SCIENCE.  It’s surrounded by something something sciency somethings .  Just click HERE and read it for yourselves because when I tried to read it I couldn’t understand a single word.  “I don’t know, Jim. This is a big ship. I’m just a country doctor!”  Whatever.  Nothing in this is true except for all of it HAHAHA…you’ll never know, suckas!

TEARS

The production of tears is called Lacramotion or LINSEY STOP BEING SUCH A BABY.  It’s a secretomotor process which basically means that a structure has the ability to make a gland secrete a substance.  Like how when I crack mad jokes and Valerie secretes herself from laughing so hard THIS IS A REAL THING THAT HAPPENS I AM HILARIOUS.  The actual purpose and function of crying – the act of shedding tears due to FEELINGS – is somewhat unknown but back in the days when science was done by throwing rocks in the air and shouting at the sun, it was believed that tears released excess humors.  Humors aren’t jokes, you guys, but don’t worry because I thought that too and said THAT’S DUMB BECAUSE HUMORS MAKE YOU LAUGH NOT CRY. SCIENCE IS WORTHLESS!  But listen.  Humors are the four distinct body fluids that Greeks and Romans based their science on, believing that if they were all in balance then we were healthy, and that all diseases of the body and mind came about from a deficiency or excess of one or more.  NICE TRY STUPID, but let’s give them credit for trying and for getting us to believe this was a real thing for over 2000 years.  LIARS.  The four humors were thought to be black bile, yellow bile, phlegm and blood but now WHO CARES.  WRONG!

According to Wikipedia, “strong emotion…irritation of the eyes and yawning may lead to an increased production of tears, or crying.”  I”d also like to add: holidays, epic migraines, watching tampon commercials and the first 30 minutes of the movie Return to Me.

Women cry more then men to the tune of five times per month versus once a month.  This increases during our lady times (up to 5 times more than average! IMAGINE TWO LADIES IN LOVE ON THE SAME CYCLE AND YOU WILL KNOW WHAT HELL LOOKS LIKE) because lady times are terrible times where everything bad happens to a woman all at once THE HORROR!  Men cry for up to four minutes and women up to six and only a small fraction of men’s crying turns to sobbing.  The ladies really kick ass here by turning their crying into sobbing a generous 60% of the time, handing an easy win to the emotionally fragile females. GO TEAM.

Our bodies offer us three basic varieties of tears.  How nice!  Choices! First is Basal Tears.  Basal tears are not to be confused with Basil Tears, the band I just started in my mind.  We do a sort of German-folk/Christian metal hybrid with a hint of Zydeco.  Every song ends with me crying while I cut fresh basil and make a Caprese Salad.

Basal tears lubricate and nourish the cornea in mammals.  If you wanted to make your own tears, you would need water, mucin, lipids, lysozyme, lactoferrin, lipocalin, lacritin, immunoglobulins, glucose, urea, sodium, and potassium.  But the easiest way to get fresh, free tears is to look at me and say “remember that dead crow you saw that time?” or “I broke your phone.”

The reflexive tears are controlled by the trigeminal nerve and if this is cut, there are no reflexive tears anymore but I’ll still be able to cry because this doesn’t affect tears that come from my VERY MANY FEELINGS.  Reflexive tears come to us from irritants like onion vapors, tear gas, getting poked in the eye while playing Three Stooges with your four year old niece, or when Valerie’s dog, Lucy, opens her mouth IT SMELLS LIKE GARBAGE IN THERE.  TRUE STORY: When my great-aunt passed away, my parents were charged with handling her estate.  Part of that was packing up her house and preparing to sell it.  While my sister packed items from her desk, I was looking inside the closet.  My sister pulled what looked like a pen from a drawer and said, WHAT IS THIS?  I turned around just as a small blast of tear gas shot across the room and into my armpit.  IT BURNS! My dad came running in asking WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON IN HERE and then we all had to evacuate the house and sit on the porch drying our reflexive tears for several hours while we aired out the entire upstairs.

Last but MOST IMPORTANT TO ME are psychic tears, also known as crying, weeping and weeknights at Linsey’s house.  These are tears that come as a reaction to emotional stress, anger, physical pain or when my sister said she could help me move on a Sunday but not on a Saturday.  Psychic tears are somewhat chemically different than their counterparts, as they contain more protein-based hormones, one of which is a natural pain killer.  I’m going to bottle my psychic tears and sell them on the streets!

FUN FACT: There is a genetic disorder called Cri du chat, French for call of the cat, which isn’t about construction workers whistling at the ladies, but is actually named for the fact that infants with this mutation cry like a meowing kitten. Weird!

MORE FUN FACT: The term crocodile tears stems from a symptom of Bell’s palsy – a facial nerve disorder -  and refers to a rare occurrence of the salivary gland being erroneously connected to the lacrimal gland, causing one to shed tears when smelling foods or eating.  Based on this information I think I had Bells palsy last Thursday while eating some chicken.

This episode of Uncouth Science is now concluded.  Take this information and share it with friends, family and unsuspecting strangers.  Please keep an eye out for another episode wherein we will dive into two more body fluids:  sweat and urine. Until then, science friends, here’s hoping you  vomit and cry responsibly, but not uncontrollably.

Amen.

Janie is currently car-less and she lives a ways away so it was harder for her to make it over to clean all the things.  I spent night after night coming home from work and doing things.  So many things.  I did so many things in those weeks that there shouldn’t have been more things to do BUT THERE STILL ARE.  I could still do things if I gave a shit anymore which I don’t.  I’ve done too many things to care about doing more things.  I THINK YOU UNDERSTAND ME.  NO MORE THINGS!

One of my final THINGS before listing photos were taken was to clean up the yard.  It was still winter and cold and there was a lot of rain and snow and other reasons I didn’t want to be outside, but those things don’t matter or care about your deadlines and dreams. And by your deadlines and dreams, I mean mine.  Obviously.  I met with one of our agents after work and then set out to pull weeds, scoop poop, trim some bush (heh heh), mow the lawn, etc.  You know what I’m getting at…yard work!  It’s all the same!  The only hitch was that is was now 7pm and pitch black out.  The patio lights, though functional and bright, only illuminated the patio, not the yard beyond.  So I had to get a construction light, plug it in and carry it around with me as I scooped dog crap into a baggie and pulled weeds and cut a bush back with scissors from Ikea because WHERE THE HELL ARE THE CLIPPERS!?  Up until then I don’t think any neighbors noticed the creeper wandering the yard with a construction light but then it was time to mow.  And weed whack.  And I couldn’t do those with the light in my hand so I did them under the cloak of night.  If anyone looked out they would have seen a shadowy figure running an electric mower over the two sprigs of grass  and were probably thinking – SHE HAS FINALLY LOST HER MARBLES.  To which I say – HA!  THAT WAS SO 2010.  When I gave the condo keys to the agent the following morning so they could get in for photos, I warned him…If it looks like I weed whacked that grass in the dark it’s because YES I DID.  They only used one outdoor photo in the listing and in it was not one stitch of yard.  Whoopsie!

The good news is that after only a weekend we got an offer, and then we negotiated a counter offer because we are adults doing business.  This is exactly what I thought being an adult would feel like when I was growing up…talking with people and saying no not that BUT HOW ABOUT THIS?  And then we win and everyone gets ice cream.  I guess the only difference is that selling a home is lose-lose and I ate that ice cream out of the container while sitting in my bed and crying.  You lose your home and then you lose all your money because the market is crap and people lied when they told you that you can’t go wrong with investing in real estate!  People lie a lot more in adult real life than they did in my vision of adult life.  Also, not as much stamping papers and I don’t have a briefcase.  This is all to say that we have potentially sold our condo, and I say potentially because we need to make it through the appraisal process and an inspection.  I feel less worried about the inspection than the appraisal, not because I think it isn’t worth it, but because how can a stranger know what makes this condo worth it?  Yeah, sure, put a price on property and upgrades, on landscaping and location – but what about my heart and soul, spilled out in every room?  The tears I’ve left in that bedroom the last two years should be worth at least $10,000 to some black magic voodoo wizard.

On my last night of cleaning, I had a minor meltdown.  I was keeping Ducati locked in the back bedroom, away from our freshly and expensively cleaned carpet.  It was late and since I’d been up until two every night for a couple weeks and my foot was killing me because I have developed a case of plantar fasciitis (which is probably one of the worst things ever to have happen to you physically INCLUDING DYING) I was reduced to limping around and dragging my disabled foot behind me.  I imagine myself to have looked somewhat like a zombie, with the glazed eyes, the non-functioning limbs, the tired, mindless wandering into and out of rooms because I forgot what I was supposed to be doing.  Now that I think of it, in those weeks I was either in this slow-moving zombie-like state or else running around like a crazed squirrel, trying to do a skrillion different things and feeling o overwhelmed by the enormity of the task list that I would run from room to room half-finishing one thing before moving to another, then later coming back to do more work until everything was, not even nearly finished.  SO MANY THINGS.  But I digress.  I was keeping Ducati away from the carpet because he has a habit of throwing up on wherever is most difficult to clean.  Carpets, rugs, upholstered dining room chairs, my shoes, etc.  He doesn’t like being locked away like a ghoul, but we are all suffering, Ducati. We all have to make sacrifices.  I opened the door to get in so I could change some light-bulbs and as I did he CAME AT ME LIKE A WILD ANIMAL and purred and brushed up against my arm, and in the middle of this melee I dropped a fluorescent light-bulb that shattered all over the floor and the new area rug, leaving tiny shards of glass all over.  He ran out of the room and Gus, knowing something dangerous had happened and needing to play with his toys in the middle of it, came trotting in.  I locked them both out so I could sweep up the mess, because the vacuum was out of bags and the one I have is apparently so RARE that they don’t sell the proper replacements in the store.  FANTASTIC.  I swept up the shards and sat on the bed for a good cry.  Gus was scratching at the door and I called out to him – Please come back later! – because my dog is fully capable of comprehending my complex emotional state.  After I gathered myself and invited Ducati to come back to be locked away again, I decided that I couldn’t take another minute of consciousness so I went to sleep.  And when I woke up the next morning, feeling fresh and new and full of hope for a better day, I discovered that Ducati had thrown up all over the new rug.  ALL OVER THE NEW RUG.  I will be honest with you.  I considered, in that very moment, whether or not the roughly three-months worth of anti-depressants I had stored away for “just in case” would be enough for me to handle ALL THE FEELINGS I WAS HAVING RIGHT THEN.

While selling the condo is exactly what I’d hoped for, it’s also a really difficult experience for me.  This condo is the first place that I ever really considered my home…a place I had made my own and felt a kind of safety and belonging I didn’t ever have anywhere else.  In some ways, this condo is also a large reason for my being alive.  I know that sounds dramatic, but in the darkest days of my depression, when I couldn’t get out of bed or off the floor, when I couldn’t stop the tears from falling, when I could only tell myself I was the worlds biggest disappointment and failure as a human being, when all I felt was like there was a huge black hole in my chest sucking my life away, when I was hoarding and hiding pills to take and end it all, it was my obligation to Janie and this condo that kept me from letting go.  I didn’t want to make things harder for her by leaving before it was sold.  It was probably the only rational decision I was capable of making in that moment and so I feel grateful for the burden of this building, of the rooms and halls that housed me in that moment and the years before.  Letting go of that is scary both because I’m not sure where I go from here and because the one thing that kept me here in a time when I wanted to badly to leave isn’t going to be there to keep me from doing it again if I ever get back to that place.  It’s ridiculous, I know.  I’m not in that place anymore and I’m healthier and better able to recognize the signs before I get there. And I know there are other things and people who are aware and savvy enough to keep me from finding that place again, but there is still a certain sadness in letting go of this place.  I will miss the walls and the safety it provided for the six years I’ve lived here.  I will miss the memories, some more than others, and I will miss how much I loved having a home I owned and how proud I was to invite people into it.  Some of my life’s biggest lessons happened here and I will always be grateful for those.

If all goes well, I have to move all my belongings out by April 16h.  I don’t have a place to go yet so I’m going to put everything into my car and live on the streets.  Gus, Ducati and I are going to form an inter-species gang and if you want to join us there is a rather brutal initiation involving an ostrich, a potato and a lighter.  We don’t have an official name yet but we’re thinking about FUCK YOU THIS IS OURS or SHANK YOU.  Anyone not involved in our gang is forewarned that the area between my car’s trunk and  front bumper belong to US and any breach of our perimeter will be met with cat scratches, dog kisses and hysterical crying.  Friends will be treated to the smooth sounds of Celine Dion, a Diet Pepsi from 7-11 and a bag of Skittles.  WELCOME TO OUR GANGLAND.

]]> http://uncouthheathen.com/2012/03/27/night-mower/feed/ 2 http://uncouthheathen.com/2012/03/07/moving-on/ http://uncouthheathen.com/2012/03/07/moving-on/#comments Wed, 07 Mar 2012 18:22:04 +0000 heathen http://uncouthheathen.com/?p=5625 I have divorce on the brain.

On the 24th, Janie and I had a court date to finalize the dissolution of our partnership.  Three months ago I finally got around to filing the papers to get this process rolling, postponing the inevitable out of laziness or disinterest, and I am proud to say that we have crossed the finish line.  DIVORCED.

You should have been there the day I told Valerie I was, technically, still married.  AWKWARD!

The truth is that I felt not-married the moment I sat on the couch in the living room late on a Sunday night in May of 2010 and told Janie I couldn’t do it anymore.  That makes it sound so much simpler than it was at the time.  There was a lot of sobbing and heaving and saying I’m sorry again and again while Janie tried to console me.  I remember not really being able to stop saying THIS IS SO WEIRD.  Then there was this moment where it almost seemed like nothing had happened.  We drove to McDonald’s and got milkshakes and french fries.  We went to sleep in the same bed, like we always had, but in the morning when I woke up she was not there and things were very, very different.  Quiet. And then angry.

So much time has passed since then, and so many strange and difficult milestones have come and gone.  I have talked so very little about it here, beyond the depression and medication and sadness, because I didn’t know where to start or where to end.  I wanted to respect privacy, I wanted to respect feelings, I wanted to give space and time to some things that seemed delicate.  Sometimes the things that are going on aren’t the kinds of things that can be written about.  I guess that is to say I’m learning when I need to just keep my head down and do the work that needs to be done.  It doesn’t make it easy, especially considering that writing is something incredibly therapeutic for me, allowing me a way to express what is going on inside when it is otherwise hard to figure it out.  Sometimes the only way to understand what I feel is to put it down on paper or type it into a computer, to let it pour out so that I can make sense of it that way.  The last several months have been hard, because I’ve not been doing a lot of that kind of writing and I’ve been keeping many things to myself and then ranting wildly about them to my therapist.

Last spring when I went to visit Leah, I got a tattoo on my foot of a dandelion being blown by the wind.  I wanted to stamp on myself a reminder to let go of the things that I didn’t need to hang on to anymore. As a friend of mine recently and so beautifully put it,  “I am closing the door to what doesn’t support, respect, love, nourish, and care for me.”  And what better reminder to let go than having a permanent mark on your body that looks like a third grader drew it.  You guys, IT WAS SO BAD.  THAT TATTOO WAS HORRIFYING.  But I had it covered expertly once I got home, with a phoenix.  This phoenix is not only a reminder of letting go, but of how something ugly can turn into something beautiful and then, ultimately, how I can rise up and soar.  With this beautiful reminder in place, it was time to do the work.  Medication.  Therapy.  Therapy. Therapy.  I have never worked so hard and been so proud of who I am and how far I’ve come to heal.

In therapy I’m still learning that one big lesson of letting go.  I’m not to the actual letting go part yet, but I’m working hard on not reacting and building up some immunity to certain situations and experiences.  I’m being thoughtful and I’m being emotionally healthy.  In that way I’m better than I have ever been.  Stronger.

As for what life is right is all about right now – the condo is going up for sale, again.  It’s the last of the things that tie Janie and I together and it’s time to cut that and move on.  I’m praying for a quick and easy sale because I am so ready for what comes after, the life that will open up beyond this moment.  It feels like that second just before the Kentucky Derby starts, the horses all lined up behind the gate, so ready to burst out and run full speed.  I’m there, in that moment, and any minute that gate is going to open and the finish line isn’t even the point.  I just want to run.

Gay on gay violence is real and it’s not okay.

It was really sad.  We hadn’t been apart for more than a week since the weekend after we met and even though I knew this was probably going to happen at some point, I was hoping it wouldn’t because it’s dumb, stupid and ugly.

I miss my lady and it makes me lash out.

I’m trying to take moments like these and appreciate them for what they are – appreciate the sadness on not being together because, in all reality, several years from now we really will be sitting in bed at night saying REMEMBER WHEN YOU USED TO LOVE ME SO MUCH YOU WANTED TO DIE BECAUSE WE COULDN’T BE TOGETHER THAT ONE WEEKEND!?  And then she’ll say *snore* because she falls asleep sometimes when I’m talking to her about how many feelings I have, and since I have a lot of feelings, Valerie sleeps a lot.

We’ve finally moved into that space just beyond the bliss of a new relationship and what that means is now we’re free to stop being so nice and pretty and perfect all the time.  Now we’re free to talk about our morning breath and all the annoying shit we do and maybe occasional farting.  I think this is where the real work starts, because now we’re hooked and we have to figure out how we’re going to live together for the next 50 years without killing one another.

Relationships are challenging but the beauty  is that you get to work hard every day with someone you love.  Sometimes you want to scratch their eyes out and others you want to stare at them endlessly until they get so creeped out they lock themselves in the bathroom for hours and when their mom calls you tell her Valerie can’t talk right now because she has been  shitting for the last three hours, should I be concerned? I think the realization that relationships aren’t these neat little packages where two people never fight and disagree – that they’re dirty and messy and involve occasional knife fights in the garage over who gets the last Diet Dr. Pepper – will be important for me to remember so I don’t get caught up in the notion that I shouldn’t express myself for fear it makes too many waves.  So when I want to tell Valerie that I hate it when she doesn’t tuck in the top-sheet when we make the bed, I won’t worry.  And I know that Valerie won’t hesitate to tell me to go to hell because THAT’S THE WAY SHE LIKES IT.

We are going to grow so old and angry together and it’s going to be awesome.

Back in August, I purchased the e-book of my friend Jane Devin – a memoir titled Elephant Girl.

I was introduced to Jane’s blog by a friend and easily became entranced by the way she wrote.  Lyrical, gorgeous, emotional and heartbreaking.  Thoughtful…thought-provoking.  Over several months, we became online friends via Twitter and Facebook and would have good discussions about beauty and life’s purpose.  I was excited as I followed her progress through writing and self-publishing her memoir.  I didn’t know exactly what was coming but I knew it would be beautifully written.  I was not disappointed.

I’ve been lucky, I thought to myself again and again as I read this book.  I’ve been lucky to have a family to love me,  a community that supported me and friends that listened and judged very little.  I’m very lucky because this book was a heavy reminder that not all people are afforded such luxuries.  Some people don’t have loving parents and are failed by their community again and again and again.

Elephant Girl is about one woman’s struggle in a world often dominated by the idea that women are meant to be small and quiet, where strength of character is seen as a flaw, fighting back means you get hit harder and love is not offered easily, if at all.  But Elephant Girl isn’t just a story about a hard life, bad luck, unfortunate circumstances and cruel treatment at the hands of strangers and family.  It isn’t just the story of one person, but about each of us together – about the challenges we face in growing up.  Not becoming an adult, but that constant, life-long growing up that is oftentimes confusing, painful and overwhelmingly difficult.  There is no manual and there is no how-to.  We’re just out here, walking a path, sometimes struggling to make it one step further, sometimes bounding along, sometimes alone and later, crowded by others.  It’s about how we’re all here, trying our best, and succeeding and failing all at the same time.

Elephant Girl is as much a memoir as it is a conversation about what it means to be human.  Jane Devin shares one belief, one perspective, and offers a road-map of how she arrived at her own truth.  She doesn’t force us to believe it ourselves, but offers herself up as an example.  Here is one human life, precious and perfect even in its imperfections.  It’s about how life can leave us feeling like there is no road left to travel, no more heart left to break, no more will to propel us forward and when we’re at the bottom of the deepest and darkest hole we have ever known, we can reach to a place deeper inside us than we knew existed and find a sliver of hope that compels us to grab on to the walls and start our climb again.

As I read Elephant Girl I found myself becoming overwhelmed with feelings of deep sadness.  My heart ached for a little girl, a teenager and then a grown women, for society, for each of us.  I was devastated that people could behave so cruelly toward another human being.  It read like a tidal wave crashing again and again in the same place, and it left me wondering…how much is too much?  How is this even possible that one person could survive all life’s cruelties and still have the strength to relive it?

I am still stunned that for as emotionally difficult and raw as this book is, it was a fast and fantastic read.  I devoured the words at every spare moment – lunch breaks, stop lights, in waiting rooms and before bed.  I cried myself to sleep several times because the sadness was palpable and overwhelming.  When finished, I felt a sense of relief because a life so filled with moments of destruction and despair coupled with the beautiful and complicated love between a mother and daughter and moments of resurrection led Jane Devin, this beautiful Elephant Girl, to one of life’s simplest and greatest truths: we are who we are – and the relationships worth our energy and effort are with those who accept us just as we are, sharp bits and all.  If I found one piece of my own truth in this book, it was just that.