The French Poster

If this wall could talk, it would say, “please stop watching FRIENDS over and over and over again.”

In response to The Daily Post’s weekly photo challenge: “Wall.”

Let Me Out Of This School NOW

It’s hard to imagine feeling energized or rejuvenated when it’s the morning and I have to get ready for class in 2 minutes. But why not post a half-baked prompt in the meantime? Better than working on the case I didn’t finish last night!

Okay, I won’t be snarky for once and I will actually answer the question. The last time I felt energized and rejuvenated was every time I think about the fact that I have a fresh challenge ahead of me this year. I have 2 – getting a job, and writing the CFE (hard to say which is more challenging). I can’t do anything about the job thing yet, and the CFE is still 8 months away, but it’s so much easier to get motivated to do something when it isn’t listed on some syllabus and I’m not getting emails about it from my profs about dropboxes and font size requirements.

Not being in school is my fountain of youth. The “real world” is so close, and don’t you DARE tell me the real world is not what I think it will be. I’m not unrealistic – I know life is hard, and work is work, and financial independence sucks. But if life truly peaks when you’re in university, dealing with crippling debt and anxiety and suffocating uncertainty, then that is the most depressing thing in the entire world. Bring on the mortgage payments! At least it’s not OSAP.

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Re-springing Your Step.”

I Need Better Books

Well it’s midnight, and I’m sitting around doing nothing, so why not do a daily prompt? Do you ever feel like everyone in your life is sick? I made a big pot of soup today and then didn’t eat it because it needed to cook for 6 hours and I started at 4:00. ABC systems are complex and expensive to implement, so implementing one for a brand new product is likely not worth it. Tell me again why you don’t want to try the lentils? It wasn’t that cold, I mean, unless you consider -11 to be cold. Sometimes that’s true, but other times it’s more about the shape as opposed to the colour, I think. Holding real estate in a corporation may have tax deferral benefits, but it could compromise QSBC eligibility; it may be better to hold these assets personally, or in their own corporation. Then I got really excited about buying a new binder; yeah, I was INTJ-ing all over the place for a while there. The cat is crying again, she will not shut up about this whole Ferrero Rocher thing. If, for example, the sales mix changes to 3:7, or 3 units of Do-All for every 7 units of Superword, you can see in the preceding table that the breakeven sales volume in bundles increases from 75 units to 100 units.

I think I’m going to write all my posts like this from now on.

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Connect the Dots.”

Bluffer’s Bluff

Be kind to your Bluffer-footed Bluffers For a duck may be somebody`s Bluffer, Be kind to your Bluffers in The Bluff Where the weather is always Bluffest. You may think that this is the Bluff, Well it is.

I could not have created this masterpiece without Mad:)Takes.

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Image Search.”

IE Sucks and Some Actual Things

My immediate response to this prompt was, “I have no idea. I just ramble on about minutia in my daily life and call it writing.” This is why I shouldn’t read prompts pre-coffee.

The truth is that I didn’t create this blog to change anything. I created it for myself. I like writing, and sometimes, on rare occasions, something occurs to me that I feel like I should share with an audience. This is my soapbox. Recent things that occurred to me were:

• BIRTH CONTROL. Do you have any idea what kind of discussion is happening about birth control on the internet? There is no discussion at all out there, just fear mongering (WHY I GOT OFF THE PILL AND YOU SHOULD TOO UNLESS YOU WANT TO DIIEEEE) and overdramatic customer complaints (An actual one: “Depo ruined my marriage!” K.)
• Acne, and my experience at the Dermatologist as someone who was forced to go there against her will. I got angrier and angrier about it over time; the business of exploiting people’s insecurity makes me sick.
• Writing. And being written about. There is someone out there writing about me, you see. Yes, little old me. Not directly and not by name, so they have a right to it. But it’s not a good feeling, and probably not something bloggers think about as much as they should.

I’ll probably write these posts at some point. Not definitely. But since I am motivated to think and talk about them, I will probably become motivated to write about them. My tablet is lagging this website so badly right now that I never want to write again, oh my god. Just sitting here watching my words appear on the screen 30 seconds after I typed them, don’t mind me. A word to the wise: Tablets ARE NOT COMPUTERS. Also, IE is garbage. Icedcappp has spoken.

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Be the Change.”

Cats Don’t Get Masters Degrees (or Jobs)

Were I to spend the new year as a completely different person of my choosing, I think I’d like to be a house cat.

Hear me out. A cat’s biggest problem in the day is deciding where next to sleep. Food and water are provided, there’s a warm place by the fire to sleep, and birds outside to watch. Not a bad life, I would argue.

Obviously, this is assuming I’d be a healthy cat living with a family who properly cares for its animals. If only that were the life all cats could lead. I can’t wait to adopt my next cat; bring another little life into my protection where I know they will be comfortable and happy. Soon.

It is the first day of the year, so it is time for New Year’s Resolutions. The thing is, I have so much stuff I have to accomplish this year, whether I want to or not. I don’t have time to resolve extra things. So I will amend this to, New Year’s To Do List Whether I Like It Or Not.

1. Get a Masters Degree
2. Get a Job
3. Write a Big Scary Test

Let’s get started.

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “New Skin.”

I’m Still a Robot

When was the last time I shed tears of joy?

Never. I don’t cry easily, so when I do, it’s usually because I’m having a panic attack or watching the Appa-theft episode of Avatar.

I know this prompt is a duplicate but I didn’t do it the last time it cropped up. I think that’s because the answer is, as usual, “I am a robot.” Sigh. Maybe when I have my firstborn child or something. Although, I don’t want kids, so. My wedding day? But that would ruin my face. No thanks!

Can’t a girl just not cry tears of joy and carry on with her day? Seriously.

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Happy Happy Joy Joy.”

All Groan Up: The Story of My Toaster Oven

This Christmas, I wrote the most boring wish list of all time, and found it deeply exciting. This was the moment when I felt grown up.

On this wish list, I included the following things: A shelf for my bedroom, a new backpack for Masters, a new straightener, and a toaster oven. This toaster oven is amazing. It toasts like a normal toaster (i.e., it is top-loading), in addition to being an oven. It is a Toaster Toaster Oven.

Because Santa was kind to me, I got my toaster oven! It is currently waiting on my bed in my apartment, because where else should I put a toaster oven but on my bed?

My good followers, I must point out that I have not posted in about 6 months. And now here I am, rambling on about a toaster oven. Take comfort in that I have not changed.

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “All Grown Up.”

Sicko: The Emetophobia Story

Well, it finally happened: I’m getting sick.

GETTING SICK WITH EMETOPHOBIA

Emetophobia lends itself to hypochondria quite nicely. Hypochondria, according to Google, is “abnormal anxiety about one’s health, especially with an unwarranted fear that one has a serious disease.” It’s an anxiety order which many can relate to – I’m sure most of us have given in to the temptation of WebMD, and subsequently diagnosed ourselves with cancer, or some rare terminal disease. Or even hypochondria.

When I develop a sore throat, my first thought is, “I hope this is a cold”. Colds don’t involve vomiting, you see, and once the cold hits me I settle down and stop worrying, because I know I can handle it. But for a while there, it’s pretty scary. I start to think of where I’ve been, who I’ve been around, and if anyone I know had a stomach bug. If someone I know has a stomach bug, I usually develop symptoms instantly. It never amounts to anything, obviously, but I can create the beginnings of an illness using only my mind. It’s the worst superpower ever.

Colds, then, are no problem. But what about the others, the grey-area illnesses? I struggle with coughs, because I know it’s possible for a really bad cough to make you vomit. Worse still was Strep, which I’ve been exposed to a hundred times but only ever experienced when I was on vacation, conveniently. The swelling in the throat, and the violent cough, and the inability to swallow left me in a constant state of near-panic.

Then there’s the flu, and this merits its own section.

STOP CALLING YOUR STOMACH BUG “THE FLU”

Influenza is a virus (I think) that famously causes a fever, aches and pains, fatigue, chills, and sometimes cold-like symptoms such as congestion and cough. We all know this. We get shots for it (not me. Those can make you vomit).

And then there’s the “stomach flu”, or the “24-hour flu”, which is not the flu at all, so PLEASE stop calling it that.

When people say they have the flu, you never know if they mean the actual flu, or the vomiting-every-20-minutes “flu”. This really really bothers me. If anyone ever uses the word flu, I ask for clarification, and then correct them that they are not talking about the flu. It is the difference between a terrible virus that gets you down for a week or more, and the actual end of the world.

On the other hand, I can’t really expect other people to act differently simply to make it easier for me to obsess about vomiting.

WHAT IF IT ACTUALLY IS A STOMACH THING?

This has come up twice in the past couple of weeks – two people close to me ended up with legitimate stomach-related problems, and weren’t able to hide it from me properly.

The real issue here isn’t that I was forced to handle anxiety about being helpless to stop myself from following suit. The issue is that people in my life actually have to consider my feelings when they are sick. Anyone who knows me well enough to understand this phobia, which is not actually a lot of people, has demonstrated in the past that they have gone out of their way to stop me from noticing the fact that they are sick.

The thing is, I am obviously aware of how bad these kinds of sicknesses can be. I am also aware that when I get sick, or I think I’m getting sick which always ends up being the case, people are sympathetic. I don’t know if this is cultural, or a humanity thing, but in general, people will help out sick people, do them favours, give them advice, listen to them talk about their symptoms and offer their sympathies. People have a lot of patience when it comes to sick talk.

And then there’s me – unable to support anyone who’s sick, crippled by the fear that I might get sick too.

EMETO-CATION OF THE WEEK

Gravol is my feature this week, even though I’ve boycotted it since childhood. The weird thing about liquid gravol is that, back when I last took it, it would actually numb the back of your throat, to physically prevent you from vomiting. Is there a permanent version of this?

EMETO-CABULARY OF THE WEEK

Side Effects: The list of things, always including nausea, which ABSOLUTELY WILL HAPPEN if you take this medication.

Control Freak – The Emetophobia Story

This week, I’ve been nauseous every morning. Again. It tends to come back every time I eat, and then fades away for the afternoon and evening. It has been exhausting, but not as exhausting as my latest challenge to myself: To stop trying to control something I can’t control.

CONTROL AND VOMITING

There are 2 words that don’t belong in the same phrase. Why? Because you simply can’t control your body’s instincts. It doesn’t matter if I never drink pink wine again, or if I swear off Gravol because it failed once when I was little, or if I wash my hands every ten minutes with bleach. I still can’t control it.

This is the thing that makes emetophobia and other health phobias stand out from the other phobias. It’s not worse, but it is unique. If you’re afraid of heights, or water, or airplanes, there is always a chance for avoidance. It may destroy your life, when you go to such lengths to avoid something, but at least you know that you’re not going to die in a plane crash if you never take a plane for your entire life. But vomiting? I can never know for sure. But trust me when I say that I’ve gotten as close as one can get.

This week, I challenged myself to let go of a couple of my controls, even though I half-believe that it’s not a good idea. Technically, anything I do to avoid vomiting is also improving my health, and comfort. But I’m doing it anyway, despite my lack of conviction.

THIS WEEK’S CHALLENGE

If I let myself continue to plan my day around the Number 1 item on my to do list (“1. Don’t Vomit”), I enable obsessive controlling behaviour that feeds into my fear. These are the controls I have decided to start with this week:

• Sitting forwards on the train
• Not eating fast food

I know it seems like simple little things, but they make up the framework of an unhealthy attitude towards vomiting. My goal is to walk onto the train and seek out a seat that looks roomy, clean, and ideally, alone. I do not need to look for a forward-facing seat because “some people” (read: not me) get motion sickness from sitting backwards. My other goal is to eat fast food when I want something unhealthy, quick, and cheap, and regret it because it was gross, not because I’m afraid of how my stomach will react to it, or because I’m afraid of food-borne illness.

RESULTS

My days of letting go of controls have coincided with my days of being nauseous all the time, and that hasn’t made it easy. But there is something empowering in knowing that I made my decision for normal reasons, not for emeto reasons. There’s also something empowering in knowing that I have made it through almost a full week of nausea without having a full panic attack. I want to be hard on myself, because this morning I was hit with violent nausea suddenly, and I had to sit down and stop everything I was doing, and I could have been late for work. But the fact is that I talked myself down, I got back up, and I kept fighting. I may have let it stop me, but I didn’t let it stop me for very long.

EMETO-CATION OF THE WEEK

Pepto Bismol! An old favourite, tried and… almost true. It’s failed me twice, in my entire life. I used to take it almost daily. When I got older, I realized that taking too much medication can make you vomit, so… I stopped taking Pepto every day. Huh. Anyway, it’s great for placebo-ing you out of a tough spot.

EMETO-CABULARY OF THE WEEK

“Sick”. It has two meanings, not unlike “I love you” and “I’m in love with you”:

“I feel like I’m getting sick” = I feel slightly feverish, or have a sore throat, or fatigue. This might lead to future nausea and I’m freaking out about it.

“I feel sick” = I am already nauseous and I am FREAKING OUT ABOUT IT.