Comments on: mary’zine #40: September 2009 http://editorite.com/2009/09/24/mary%e2%80%99zine-40-september-2009/ It all started when I deluded myself into thinking my opinions mattered--Dilbert Fri, 09 Jul 2010 16:24:12 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: Girija Now http://editorite.com/2009/09/24/mary%e2%80%99zine-40-september-2009/#comment-145 Girija Now Fri, 02 Oct 2009 02:58:35 +0000 http://editorite.com/?p=484#comment-145 Your blog makes fascinating reading, but in MY family we didn't talk about gross bodily functions. That was a mark of being "low class," also known as "lower class," and after Vance Packard's book, as "Tom Wretch," e.g., "He's a real Tom Wretch." But that wasn't as versatile. Who appreciates talking about up and down "classes" in the U.S. today? In California we newborns of the '40s and '50s could also hear an uppity parent talk about "Okies," but those glorious days of cultural superiority, in that way, are gone. Anyway, I was visited by a similar paramedical emergency---as you describe so, er, minutely---after a mid-level car accident. I was fine and characteristically inappropriately chirppy immediately after the accident but after a few minutes of getting used to the idea our car was probably totaled, my people left to find a phone and I stayed back in the car with our doglet. At that point the whole shock of what had happened caught up with me and I realized I was about to lose "it." (This is how my mother would approve of describing it, classwise, or perhaps, "She was scared excrementless). Unfortunately, being out in the Indian countryside, the nearest villagers came flocking to the scene, despite it's being late at night, and since there are no compunctions about staring into cars in India, stared. This cramped, if you will, my game plan of slipping a plastic bag under my clothing to fully capture the evacuation (this description shows my "breeding"; I don't think anyone is bred anymore in the U.S., nes pa?), but it had to be done. My prior dance and stage experience became invaluable, and I always carry a roll of paper towels in the car; however, fumbling with the later mucked up the choreography considerably. The real problem was what to do with the extracted plastic bag since it had to go, being the opposite of a (lower class) car air freshner and a unacceptable advertisement for my gutless, or gut-contentless. reaction to what everyone else seemed to take in stride. The villagers stared in rapt lower-classness. I sat motionless while the doglet continued to bark its head off, conflicted between her interest in the villagers and the contents of the bag. After an hour or so, they started wandering off, but when all were gone I still didn't know where to depose of the bag in the dark so it wouldn't be stepped on by returning rescuers or opened by the curious, which just wasn't acceptable. Finally, I threw it as far as I could, dislocating my shoulder, which was the only injury I suffered. Your blog makes fascinating reading, but in MY family we didn’t talk about gross bodily functions. That was a mark of being “low class,” also known as “lower class,” and after Vance Packard’s book, as “Tom Wretch,” e.g., “He’s a real Tom Wretch.” But that wasn’t as versatile. Who appreciates talking about up and down “classes” in the U.S. today? In California we newborns of the ’40s and ’50s could also hear an uppity parent talk about “Okies,” but those glorious days of cultural superiority, in that way, are gone. Anyway, I was visited by a similar paramedical emergency—as you describe so, er, minutely—after a mid-level car accident. I was fine and characteristically inappropriately chirppy immediately after the accident but after a few minutes of getting used to the idea our car was probably totaled, my people left to find a phone and I stayed back in the car with our doglet. At that point the whole shock of what had happened caught up with me and I realized I was about to lose “it.” (This is how my mother would approve of describing it, classwise, or perhaps, “She was scared excrementless). Unfortunately, being out in the Indian countryside, the nearest villagers came flocking to the scene, despite it’s being late at night, and since there are no compunctions about staring into cars in India, stared. This cramped, if you will, my game plan of slipping a plastic bag under my clothing to fully capture the evacuation (this description shows my “breeding”; I don’t think anyone is bred anymore in the U.S., nes pa?), but it had to be done. My prior dance and stage experience became invaluable, and I always carry a roll of paper towels in the car; however, fumbling with the later mucked up the choreography considerably. The real problem was what to do with the extracted plastic bag since it had to go, being the opposite of a (lower class) car air freshner and a unacceptable advertisement for my gutless, or gut-contentless. reaction to what everyone else seemed to take in stride. The villagers stared in rapt lower-classness. I sat motionless while the doglet continued to bark its head off, conflicted between her interest in the villagers and the contents of the bag. After an hour or so, they started wandering off, but when all were gone I still didn’t know where to depose of the bag in the dark so it wouldn’t be stepped on by returning rescuers or opened by the curious, which just wasn’t acceptable. Finally, I threw it as far as I could, dislocating my shoulder, which was the only injury I suffered.

]]> By: Susan Lockary http://editorite.com/2009/09/24/mary%e2%80%99zine-40-september-2009/#comment-144 Susan Lockary Sun, 27 Sep 2009 15:25:08 +0000 http://editorite.com/?p=484#comment-144 About 5 minutes after reading your new entry I came across this in a book written by a brain surgeon: "My husband & I can waste inordinate amounts of time in arguing over which one of us came up with a certain brilliant idea, exchanging accusations of faulty memory...Neither of us gives in. This makes me think that the memory network must also be tied strongly to whatever cortical regions control ego, but I haven't seen any studies on this." Now I'm not sure exactly how this relates to what you were saying about memory...but it seemed important when I marked the page....I guess your image of a clean part of one’s mind standing outside the rest of it to monitor and assist one’s own memory could then include standing outside one’s own ego, monitoring and assisting defensive responses. Looking myself in the eye, “Hey, you don’t have to be right all day, and that probably wasn’t even an attack. Chill out.” I like that. Record it, hit repeat as needed. But fear of dementia is real. I'm dealing with parent (or in-law) #2 fading into oblivion, scrambling past with present (she's my sister, she's my daughter), stuck in the ancient same thought loop for seven re-tellings within one breath. My own "strategy to avoid all this" is to acquire a nice bottle of pills and hope I can discern when the moment of permanently diminished returns has arrived, thereby sparing everyone around me a lot of heartache and diaper changes. It's probably as doomed a strategy as yours, but what the heck. Keeps me going. About 5 minutes after reading your new entry I came across this in a book written by a brain surgeon: “My husband & I can waste inordinate amounts of time in arguing over which one of us came up with a certain brilliant idea, exchanging accusations of faulty memory…Neither of us gives in. This makes me think that the memory network must also be tied strongly to whatever cortical regions control ego, but I haven’t seen any studies on this.” Now I’m not sure exactly how this relates to what you were saying about memory…but it seemed important when I marked the page….I guess your image of a clean part of one’s mind standing outside the rest of it to monitor and assist one’s own memory could then include standing outside one’s own ego, monitoring and assisting defensive responses. Looking myself in the eye, “Hey, you don’t have to be right all day, and that probably wasn’t even an attack. Chill out.” I like that. Record it, hit repeat as needed.

But fear of dementia is real. I’m dealing with parent (or in-law) #2 fading into oblivion, scrambling past with present (she’s my sister, she’s my daughter), stuck in the ancient same thought loop for seven re-tellings within one breath. My own “strategy to avoid all this” is to acquire a nice bottle of pills and hope I can discern when the moment of permanently diminished returns has arrived, thereby sparing everyone around me a lot of heartache and diaper changes. It’s probably as doomed a strategy as yours, but what the heck. Keeps me going.

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