m0nkey

I don't really cry much. What usually happens when I "cry" is that I'll feel upset, my breathing gets shallow and speeds up, my face take on a pained mask and tears well up in the corner of my eyes. I very rarely ever have tears leave my eyes and will usually act pretty quickly to clamp down on the expression of emotion by taking some deep breaths and squeezing my torso muscles.

I really dislike the entire experience, it seems so controlled and contrived. I do occasionally really cry but it takes a pretty strong emotional stimulus. When my mother in law died and again a few years later when my dad died I completely unfolded into the experience. Tears streaming down my face, raking sobs, moaning and possibly wailing (was not really paying attention) for several minutes. No consciousness of control or compulsion, fully in the moment of the thing. But even there I had some pseudo control. I didn't break down until I had gone into a grief room at the hospice with my MiL or until I had stepped outside the house with my family and fathers corpse.

The last time I remember really crying was when I saw Marley & Me. I didn't completely loose it like the times I mentioned above but there were full on tears running down my face and some quiet sobbing. I can think of a few other media inspired tear sessions like that, though it's pretty rare.

Crying is a good thing, but I was raised by people who believed on some level that men shouldn't cry. My parents or at least my mom told me several times that it really was ok for men to cry and my dad would (rarely) cry in front of me but it was also very clear that they were not comfortable with or approve of people who cry easily. I wish it were easier for me to cry and I am not ashamed of my tears, but I suspect I might be if I cried more easily.

When I "tear up" I have a confusing welter of emotions and perceptions. I can tell I am not "really" crying and I immediately suspect I am faking it and trying to pretend to hurt more than I really am. That impression is followed almost immediately by anger at myself for trying to squelch & raise doubt about myself. I give myself an internal sort of "there, there, let it all out" and then the skeptic me tosses my head and wanders off snorting "pansy" under his breath. By then I have objectified and removed myself so much from my emotions that if I tried to cry I really would be faking it so there is nothing to do but to try to get hold of myself and try to figure out something to do about the situation.

Writing this, and thinking about when I cry and when I just tear up, I think I've come up with something. When I cry I just feel sad. When I tear up I am usually experience a mix of sad and scared (often more scared than sad). Which makes a lot of sense when I think about it, crying because you are scared isn't really useful (unless you are scared of a fire or something when lubricating the eyes would be good). Optimal response to being scared is to take action alleviate the fear. Crying and experiencing the emotion really don't contribute much to that and could definitely get in the way.

But what about when there's nothing constructive I can do about the fear, at least not immediately. I believe the accumulated fear and sadness banked up from all the times I tear up and control myself causes me issues, it becomes a sort of emotional inertia that makes it hard for me to do the long term things I need to do to constructively address the things that are scaring me. It also gets in the way of experiencing joy and happiness. Kind of hard to dance in the worldwood under the shining sun when you have a katamari damacy of misery on your shoulders.

I am not even sure crying is the right response to fear. Certainly I have a lot of sadness attached to that fear that crying is an appropriate response. But the classic evolutionary derived response to fear is fight/flight/fuck. Flying away into the dark places of my head isn't doing much to improve the situation (though flying away to oregon might). Fighting the oppressive uncompassionate modern world (probably the root of what I am scared of with a healthy dose of deathhungerlonlinessfailure) seems pretty futile and unwinnable. And lets just say that long term fear does not have a salubrious effect upon the libido, eith physically or metaphorically.

My emotions are not in good shape. I am incredibly sad and scared, suffering panic attacks on a daily basis, prone to bouts of weeping. My self-confidence is shot, I know my friends are sick of putting up with me, and I am full of dark dread about what new terror tomorrow will bring. This is the worst my life has ever been.

( good news everyone )

girlfriend took me to see sherlock holmes today. I was quite prepared to dislike it or at least watch it as a victorian adventure flick with only the most glancing connection to the detectve but to my surprise I really enjoyed it, even more it didn't offend my conception of the character. It is different that the typical homes but there is enough of his fundamental nature to still be recognizable.

I positively loved the costumes and the entire victoriana gaslight romance feel was delightfully satisfying. The story was good and the interplay of watson and holmes felt right.

Want to know what's scary? A getting a toothache on christmas eve when you are broke.

Last summer I broke one of my teeth. I sheared a good quarter off the rear most lower right molar. Couldn't afford to fix it and I thought it might have had a root canal (since it didn't hurt) so I just left it and hoped I'd be able to get it fixed once I found a job. Unfortunately decay exceeded industry and last week I started having twinges in my mouth. I've got lousy teeth so a twinge isn't too exceptional. I thought it might just be an irritated gum, especially because at first it felt like it was in the upper half.

Christmas eve it became apparent something was going on with that tooth. I think it's cracked enough that air is getting to the nerve because I've found that if I keep some cool water in my mouth it quits hurting. It's not a bad temporary solution, other than that I have to pee a whole lot from all the water I am drinking. Except for one thing, you can't go to sleep holding water in your mouth. I found after some trial and (a lot of error) if I brushed the tooth vigorously with baking soda toothpaste sometimes it will stop hurting long enough for me to get to sleep. Once I get to sleep it seems to stop hurting and it doesn't start hurting again in the morning unless I drink or eat something.

So after 4 days it's become apparent I need to do something about it. The problem is that this is the worst time of the year to try to do anything with a medical professional, everyone is away or busy. Not that I could afford to pay a dentist for the visit, xrays and extraction. I've been looking into charity care. There is a dental school in san antonio that does work for 25% off but the cost of getting there would probably eat that.

Travis county hospital district has something called the "Medical Assistance Program" that includes dental care. I've scheduled an appointment to apply for it but the next intake interview I could find isn't until the 13th. I need to do that anyway to try and get some other stuff as well. The trick is going to figure out how to prove my income, it's only open to people meeting the federal poverty income guideline and while I do make less than that $10,830 limit I'm not sure how to show it. Maybe I'll be able to get my 2009 taxes filled out by then and they'll accept that.

In the mean time I am going to try clove oil and see if that helps.

So I tried making bread again yesterday. Decided to try the ratio thing and put in 5 cups of flour and 3 cups of water, mixed it up and decided that this pudding couldn't possibly be right. I checked on line and realized I shoulda done weight, not volume and needed more like 8 cups of flour. Consistency was still wet but looked better, but then I added the yeast and it got soupy again. Poked around online and saw a couple places that had soupy dough recipes. The idea is you let it sit over night than spoon it into a dutch over and bake covered. The steam crusts up the bread then you uncover halfway through and finish baking.

Gave that a shot, and it did give me a lovely little crust but the yeast evidently died horribly and din't leave much in the way of bubbles so it was another flour brick. Chewed on the crust (it really does leave a lovely crust) and this afternoon I proofed some more yeast (lotsa bubbles so I know this was live) but by the time I mixed it in was just way too liquid for me to trust so I dumped all the flour I had left in. I let it rise for a while and cut it in half and formed a sort of loaf, let it rise some more and then baked it.

It's actually bread! I should have let it cook a bit more as it's still a touch doughy inside, but still very edible. Punched down the remaining dough again and gave it a light layer of oil and stuck it in the fridge over night. I am going to try baking it in the skillet in the morning.

I read Coyote Blue yesterday. It's one of Christopher Moore's magical realism novels about a guy who gets a little Coyote in his life. It's really good, better than Practical Demonkeeping. It strongly reminded me of Another Roadside Attraction, one of my favorite books of all time.

A number of thumbs up.