Periods and PCOS

This week, I read a book and listened to a podcast that made me sad for my younger self, but hopeful that things are (mostly, maybe) changing for the better for today's young girls/people who menstruate. 

The book was Period. End of Sentence.: A New Chapter in the Fight for Menstrual Justice by Anita Diamant (if that name sounds familiar, she wrote The Red Tent so apparently she has a theme). If the title of the book sounds familiar, there was a short documentary with the same name, connected with The Pad Project, that won an Oscar in 2019 and is available on Netflix. The book was inspired and connected to the film, with a Foreward by Melissa Berton, an English teacher who is the founder of The Pad Project. 

It's a really great book. I learned SO much. It explores the stigma behind periods, indigenous rites of passage that were squelched by colonizers, how people are addressing period poverty in the U.S. (1 in FIVE girls experiences it) as well as globally. I learned about early period products: I had no idea that the first commercial menstrual cup was invented in 1937 by an actress named Leona Chalmers, so it's not a new thing (although it fell out of favor for decades). Tampons became commercially available in 1931, but with all sorts of misinformation about how they break the hymen and make you not a virgin (what?!?!) or promote promiscuity (oooh, don't you feel so sexy and turned on when you're changing tampons? RIDICULOUS). I learned that in prison, most period products are available in the commissary, which means you have to have money, and if you don't, and your makeshift TP pad leaks blood onto your uniform, you can be in violation of rules about uniforms and LOSE ACCESS TO THE COMMISSARY. WTF. There's the (completely logical) thought that if toilet paper, soap, and paper towels are provided for free in public restrooms, why on earth wouldn't period products also be provided, since they are a NECESSITY and not a luxury item? Also, that there should be no separating by gender for health discussions about puberty, because boys should learn about menstruation so they don't think it's unmentionable, and girls should learn about nocturnal emissions so it's not a mystery, and trans youth should not be put in the position of deciding which class to go to. I thought that practice wasn't happening any more, but I guess, per the book, depending on where you live it is still very much the case that boys learn about boys and girls learn about girls and everything is shrouded in mystery and shame. 

My favorite part was a blessing in the Jewish faith for your first period (menarche): 

A meditation for menarche before immersing

I welcome this stage of Womanhood with a mixture of 

emotions.

I don't know what the future will bring or how this great change 

in my body 

will bring changes to other parts of my life. May I always respect 

my body and the potential it holds. 

I would love if someone could explain "immersing" to me in this context, but apart from that, I absolutely love that this blessing does NOT assume that a period means children. I absolutely love "I don't know what the future will bring" as opposed to "every period is a potential for life and will bring children/a baby/pregnancy." How refreshing. How amazing. I love that potential is in there, but it can mean many different things. So, it's not setting you up to believe that period = fertility. Because...it doesn't. Clearly.

Which brings me to the podcast that I listened to, This Podcast Will Kill You, and the episode (181) on PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome). Entitled PCOS: Beyond the Cysts, it delves into what PCOS is, what we know about it, what (sad and shoddy) treatment there is, and longtime impacts. It is so well researched, and I absolutely loved that the intro, which is always a first-hand account, was a story told by a trans man -- not the PCOS story you often hear! The hosts are two women named Erin, who are disease ecologists and epidemiologists, and one is a family medicine practitioner. 

One of the Erins (Allmann Updyke) started by saying that she was diagnosed with PCOS, and in researching this episode found out all kinds of things that she did not know, and that she will use as a primary care physician moving forward. 

They talk about how the cysts mentioned are not necessarily the kind of giant ovarian cysts that burst, but the "cysts" that are follicles in various states of development that arrest before they are released. They also talk about how it is not an ovarian disorder, it's an ENDOCRINE disorder. Which means, it impacts so much more than fertility, which is usually when diagnosis happens. Grrrr. There are lifelong consequences: propensity for Type 2 Diabetes, higher risk for stroke, higher risk for heart attack, higher risk for obstructive sleep apnea. How interesting to find that my high cholesterol and high lipid count are likely thanks to my PCOS! How infuriating that my diagnosis didn't come with that information, and nobody seemed to give a crap about it once I wasn't trying to get pregnant! 

So, my diagnosis didn't come until my fertility workup at 33 that involved discussing how a) my period is wildly unpredictable and without birth control could happen only 2 times per week and last for EVER and be super heavy and painful, and b) my ovaries looked like "chocolate chip cookies" and had tons of follicles that had started and then paused. Which meant that IUI was difficult, because PCOS tends to respond very enthusiastically to fertility injectibles that make lots of follicles mature since some have a head start. Also, apparently that doesn't mean that egg quality is awesome, probably because of the follicles that were paused, which is probably why once we did IVF I had 20-something follicles and retrieved eggs in the high teens to 20s, but then only 3 or less were typically mature and viable, which is super confusing and disappointing when the initial news is YOU'RE AN EASTER BUNNY!, an actual statement by one reproductive endocrinologist in my journey. Sigh. I always wondered why it was a Great Whittling, from zillions of eggs to very few that would fertilize. I guess I know more now. 

Meanwhile, my entire early days of my period were a nightmare because of the unpredictability, heaviness, and length. Counting did not work. Ever. And, as I learned in the podcast, within the first 3 years of your period starting, it's typical for your period to be irregular. But after 3 years, if it's still irregular, it is a red flag (haha, red flag). For me, it was interpreted not as a medical issue, but a character flaw. I couldn't track properly. I wasn't prepared. I was lazy and inattentive. When actually, I joked about my "immaculate miscarriages" since I was absolutely a virgin until college, but if I wasn't, what a stressful time that would have been. I finally got on birth control before going off to college, and for the first time I could predict my period (although I definitely had breakthrough bleeding and horrible periods didn't end, which was likely because of the adenomyosis discovered when I excised that uterus in my 40s). 

Meanwhile, I had embarrassing leakages, ruined many a pant/short/skirt/underpant, and once bled through my shorts to the point that I left a puddle of blood in my chair while taking my Physics Regents my senior year because they wouldn't let me go to the bathroom more than once during the 3 hour test. I was punished while on a cruise vacation for my (ill advised) rage at my mom when she berated me for not bringing tampons and said it was my fault (natural consequence) that I was missing an aquatic preserve that I had so been looking forward to because my period chose THAT MOMENT to arrive. I mean, the rage was I whacked my mom with a wet swimsuit while screaming THIS ISN'T MY FAULT!!!, which could have been handled differently by 17-year-old me, but also... IT WASN'T MY FAULT. I was given very little compassion until I was on the Pill and had a pretend regularity that could be depended on. 

Pretend, because it hid my PCOS until I tried to get pregnant in my 30s. Getting put on the Pill takes care of symptoms, but it DOES NOT CURE THE DISORDER. And, in fact, it masks it, leaving you unwitting about all the health concerns and the infertility aspect. 

For instance, before the podcast I did not know that because your lining builds up and then isn't expelled thanks to the reluctant-to-release eggs, you are at higher risk for endometrial cancer because that tissue just sits stagnant and has a greater chance of changing. Well, more reasons to be grateful that I got a hysterectomy and removed that nasty uterus. Literally, NO ONE has ever mentioned the cancer risk to me. Which I would think would be important information to have. 

Also, I have been told how my BMI is too high (the Erins hate BMI, and SO DO I, it's a terrible measure, invented by a man), my cholesterol is too high, my lipids are too high, and I need to lose weight. I am not a tiny person, but I am not a large person either. I walk and do Pilates and I don't eat a lot of crap. I have ALWAYS had belly fat, even when I was a teenager running track who weighed 120 pounds. While I can influence things to a point, it is ridiculously hard to make significant change in that arena because my body just doesn't change all that much (even less now that I'm in perimenopause). Oh! Isn't it interesting that that's probably in part due to my PCOS! It makes a lady real mad.

No one has talked about the possibility of taking metformin, or that insulin resistance could be a culprit, either. It's like women's health is largely ignored and maladies are too often subscribed to personal choices. Harrumph.

This is why I love the Erins. They are trying to move that dial. They cover all kinds of topics, and speak loudly about the need for research in women's health and including trans people in the conversations as people with ovaries and people who menstruate. 

Between the two -- the book and the podcast -- I was left feeling hopeful that periods are being more frankly discussed with less shame and that more information on PCOS is being put out and discussed openly. I wish that there was more knowledge and less shame when I was growing up, but I'm so glad that things will hopefully be better for young women/menstruators today. 

A 1990s Dystopian Novel Having a Moment

A friend of mine read I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman, translated from French to English by Roz Schwartz, posted a cryptic review, and so...I read it. I love when people find books that stick, that haunt, that make you go hmmmm, and then want to share that experience. 

Without giving away too much, this book is about a group of women in a cage in a bunker underground, guarded by men. It's told by a girl who is the youngest, who was a child when the unnamed event happened, and has no memory of before the cage. She is super curious and wants to know EVERYTHING about life before and how things work. She has questions about sexuality, bodies, all kinds of things. Then one day, something happens and the women can leave the cage. What happens next is most of the book. 

It is pretty grim, and definitely leaves you with more questions than answers. What would it be like to be in a community of only women under apocalyptic, disastrous, tragic circumstances? I flew through it in about 24 hours. I couldn't put it down. 

I do have to say that the author was not pronatalist at all. Some of the women have had children, some haven't, some wanted to but it didn't happen. Motherhood isn't really a big part of the book, and the women are not centered as wives or mothers, except for some discussion about women who definitely had kids when everything happened, and have to believe for their own sanity that they are dead. Most of the book is about...what does it mean to be a human? To be alive? What is time? 

When I was in Rhinebeck earlier this week, visiting my best friend, we went to an indie bookstore (always a bookstore), and I found the book. The store had 15 of them on the shelf! That's bonkers. It's esoteric, literary, translated, and currently put out by a nonprofit publisher, Transit Books, that is usually a print-on-demand publisher. Why was it so popular again? 

It was originally published in 1995, and I feel like that is a time of lots of women-centered, dystopian, speculative novels came out (The Handmaid's Tale, The Parable of the Sower and The Parable of the Talents), and it definitely fits in. Well, maybe not definitely, I keep thinking about this book and it is not definitely anything. Very hard to classify. Apparently, this is a product of BookTok. I feel like usually BookTok is a lot of highly popular, prolific romance, romantasy, and mysteries (sort of a Court of Sexy Dragons and Housemaids by Colleen Hoover). I was happy to see that Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica had a popularity surge thanks to BookTok, too. (Hey wait, that one is ALSO translated! Fascinating! And WEIRD, like The Jungle if the cows were humans.) I am not actually on BookTok, or TikTok at all (or Instagram! GASP!). But I hear about it, because friends of mine are on it. 

There were a few quotes that made me think, and ruminate, and I thought I'd share them with you. 

"What are we, without a future, without children? The last links in a broken chain." 

Okay, ouch. I think this is less a commentary on not having children and more a commentary on not having children as a society ever again. But that "last links in a broken chain" image stuck with me. I think all the time about how so many things end with me. A lot of them are perfectly fine (um, my knees, my autoimmune disorders, my anxiety/depression/ADHD, all that genetic soup of doom). But other things make me feel like the end of a chain. 

"I think that time must have something to do with the duration of pregnancies, the growth of children, all those things that I haven't experienced. If someone spoke to me, there would be time, the beginning and end of what they said to me, the moment when I answered, their response. The briefest conversation creates time." 

The first part of that stands out to me. Less the duration of pregnancies (I mean, 40 weeks is not a terribly long time in the scheme of things), but the growth of children. Time works differently for my friends with children than it does for me. I think one reason that it doesn't get mushy is because I live my life in school years, so there are milestones at different times each year. Otherwise, we have our birthdays, our anniversaries (which is why I celebrate so many of them), and milestones like PhDs and things like that, but there aren't things every year. 

The second part is fascinating -- if you never talk to anyone, if you are alone in a cabin in the woods forever, would it seem like there was no time? Is time measured in conversations if there is no other way to tally it? 

Lots to think about. Have you read it? Does it sound like something you'd want to read? I'd love to know what you think. 

18 Years of Teaching

And just like that... my 18th year of teaching is complete! That is bonkers to me. I feel like my life is divided into Before Teaching and After Teaching, because that shift also coincided with the end of my first marriage and the beginning of my relationship with Bryce. LOTS of change, all at once. It was terrifying back when everything was a jumble of uncertainty and upheaval, but wow am I glad at how everything turned out. 

I met Bryce while I was finishing up my field work, and we were seriously dating while I was student teaching. We got married the year I had my first probationary position, and started infertility treatments that same year. 

I spent a lot of my early teaching days wondering what it would look like if I did get pregnant, and being a little nervous about it. How much leave could I take while not tenured? How could I balance motherhood and my burgeoning teaching career? That quickly turned to questions of how I could balance teaching and IVF treatments -- scheduling around the school calendar to try to minimize how much time I took off, knowing that I'd need sick time to get full pay during a 6 week maternity leave. 

All of this proved moot, of course.

I remember my first year split between my current middle school and the 9th grade building, and having to start a week into the year due to my ectopic pregnancy and surgical recovery (and boatloads of grief). I remember being nervous about that falling on my tenure year, until my principal at the middle school shared that he and his wife had endured an ectopic pregnancy as well once upon a time, and he understood. 

I remember years and years of painful beginning-of-the-year slideshows with everyone's family pictures and baby pictures and the feeling that we had a big hole where that should be for us. 

I also remember starting to make sure that my slideshow picture was silly, funny, and otherwise ridiculous to make up for that feeling of being less-than. 

One of my favorites

Thankfully, current administration doesn't do that godawful slideshow. Although, I feel like I no longer feel like there's a hole in my existence. Progress! 

I remember my school baby shower. I remember getting phone calls about adoption opportunities and being declined at school, and trying real hard to pretend to be a normal humanlike substance while feeling like this process was a vampire, sucking the life from me and leaving me a husk of myself. 

I remember telling everyone we were done. 

And now, I work with a whole lot of people who have NO IDEA that this was so entwined with my teaching existence. There are so many newer teachers (or new to our building) who don't at all know that I survived all that while being a new teacher, and as my teaching experience grew, so did my infertility and adoption trauma. 

I am immensely proud of my teaching career. I love my students, and I love finding ways to make learning challenging AND fun. I enjoy very much being the weird teacher. 

T-shirt to prove it!

I love that I can put my mothering energy into helping young humans become critical thinkers and better humans than when they first came through my door (most of the time). I also love that I can come home and recuperate from the stresses of the day, from the vicarious trauma that is a solid part of teaching (special education in particular), from the exhaustion of being "on" all day long. I have no one who depends on me for homework help, or who needs me to drive them to sports or dance. I also don't have the positives of raising my own children, but good gracious I am grateful that I can give everything in my school day and then come home to the couch, a book, a glass of wine, and decompress. 

I love that every school year is a little microcosm and I get to start over and do it again year after year after year. 

I love summers and having time to wind down and then gear up for that new year (and that, since I don't have children, summers are entirely for me and Bryce).

I have 12 more years of teaching ahead of me. I have more years in than I have left, which is a weird feeling. But also, I love that I've grown along with my teaching career. 18 years is a long time, and my life has changed significantly since the beginning. I love what I do. I love where my life has taken me so far, even if it is completely different than what I thought it was going to be at the very beginning of all the change.

Vacation Anxiety

Bryce and I were late planning our vacation this year. As in, we booked our August trip this past weekend. 

We are such creatures of habit. We are going to Maine, but this time we were like, "let's try something different!" 

We searched tiny houses and cottages. We looked at cabins on lakes. The things we saw that we liked were mostly, so shocking, booked up. The cabins looked fun but the words "family friendly" came up A LOT and that isn't really what we want out of a vacation. 

Then Bryce found a cottage that's on its own tiny island in a lake. The cottage looked lovely and it definitely hit the "rustic" and "quiet" buttons. However...
   - you have to paddle your things in on a canoe for 5 minutes to get there

   - there is no electricity, just a small generator to run a small refrigerator

   - you are on an island in the middle of the lake with no electricity and YOU HAVE TO PADDLE IN ON A CANOE. 

To Bryce, this sounded amazing. To me, it sounded absolutely BONKERS. I wanted to be adventurous, really I did. But this, given that I am accident prone and tend to be in the worst kind of 1 percent, sounded like a very, very bad idea. 

I tried to imagine it. All I saw was blood poisoning and serial killers. I tried to say why it was scary, but it sounded so silly as the words left my mouth. I was getting more and more worked up and started crying and then said/yelled "I NEED AN INTERMEDIARY STEP BEFORE THIS LEVEL OF ADVENTURE! THIS IS LIKE ME SAYING 'LET'S GO CAMPING IN THE SUBWAY IN BROOKLYN' TO YOU!" (Bryce grew up in the wilds of Maine, I grew up with streetlights and public transit and sidewalks. Our comfort levels tend to be...different.)

So, needless to say, we didn't book that one. Instead, we are going back to the inn in Boothbay Harbor that we have thoroughly enjoyed, and stayed at last summer for a few nights. It is familiar. There are no kids in the inn. We can avoid "family friendly" places and find a deserted spot on the rocks at Ocean Point to read and sit and enjoy. We know where the gluten free options are (and there are a zillion!). We can walk into town. We can walk to a park with a little cove that we found on our last day last year. 

It is familiar. It feels safe. Maybe it's the way the world is right now, or the stress of figuring out safe food (even if a cabin has cookware, I have to bring my own, thank you Celiac), or the need for some things to be predictable because so much in our life has been so uncertain. I feel so lame saying that I would love to do an adventure (albeit with plumbing and at least some electricity and the ability to be in civilization if needed), but I would need time to plan it properly. Which sort of takes "adventure" out of it. 

Or, we can just embrace that we love to find cozy home-away-from-homes and once we find a spot we like, we go back and explore but ultimately feel like we're in a familiar place, with familiar faces, and a certain level of predictability. I guess I'm more of a "dip my toes into adventure" person.

What do you like? Adventure, or familiarity? 

Urgent Care vs Specialist

Early in May, I had that "severely abnormal" mole and surrounding area cut out with a dermatological excision. Next to and sort of in my bellybutton. Why my body is making these crazy, homicidal cells is beyond me, but what my body did with the wound is really annoying. 

My bellybutton is not an area where I care about cosmetic concerns. It is, however, always in the dark. Always a bit of a cave situation. And so, it's not an ideal place to have a wound with internal and external stitches (ouch). 

Week before last, I decided to put a hydrocolloid Band-Aid on the wound because a) it was just NOT healing and I thought it would help, and b) I needed a barrier because wearing adulting clothes was irritating it. Going back to work has been challenging from a comfort perspective! 

Well, that was a mistake. You leave hydrocolloid bandages on for a couple of days, because they are supposed to be breathable. I took the Band-Aid off after school on Tuesday. I was assaulted with an absolutely HORRIFIC stench. Like, demons from hell were streaming out from my navel. It looked gross. It smelled gross. It hurt. I went to Urgent Care. 

They were like, "oh yeah, that's definitely infected. And it looks like a stitch popped at some point, it's a little open. (ew) You need to go on antibiotics, and we're doing a wound culture. Keep it covered but change the bandage frequently to keep it dry and keep an eye on it." I left, started the antibiotics that night, and the next day called my dermatologist's office to let them know it was funky. They could see me later that day, so I went to get checked out. 

My derm said, "nope, that's not infected. It's regular pus. Regular pus doesn't smell so good either. You have a spitting/spinning (not sure which) stitch, and your internal stitches are trying to come out. Don't cover it, and stop those antibiotics. They're a rough one that kills your gut biome and leaves you with horrible diarrhea. You're good." 

Bryce was like, "WHO DO WE TRUST?" And my answer was, the specialist. The person who sees excisions all day long. 

Whelp, I should have said URGENT CARE. 

We went on an impromptu overnight to Vermont weekend before last, and it was lovely. We went to a kickass bookstore (The Northshire), we ate yummy food, and we walked around. We read in our room. It was a good reset after our loss of Lucky. Sunday morning though, I got a call from "HEALTHCARE." I answered. 

IT WAS A DOCTOR FROM URGENT CARE. He was like, "your wound culture came back positive for staph lugdenensis." WHAT THE FUCK? He said I could stop the other antibiotic because it WASN'T STRONG ENOUGH, and go on a 7 day course of doxycycline. 

Of course. My body is tricksy, and often not in a good way. I took the antibiotics, and it's no longer tender or goopy (although to me, it still looks gross), but HOW FRUSTRATING? I called my dermatologist on Monday to tell her all about this development, and her office was a bit concerningly blasé about the whole thing. Said, "everyone has a tiny amount of staph on their skin, it's probably not a big deal." Argh. I just wanted them to say they were wrong (famously not a strength of most doctors). 

So, the lesson is... the specialist is not always right. The thing that doesn't make a mistake? DATA. Microscope slides full of goo revealing gross infections that could also turn homicidal (but thankfully didn't). 

On a good note, while in Vermont my new knee walked 8.5 miles IN ONE DAY! I hiked! I walked on hard sidewalks! It was amazing. So, at least one part of my body was doing right by me. 

Hiking at the Equinox Preserve

Not gonna lie, I'm a little nervous about having the second excision done where the other dangerous mole was on my back done in June. Although that area is not a cave of doom, so maybe it will be okay? 

Saying Goodbye to Our Lucky Buddy

On Friday, we said goodbye to our cat, Lucky. Lucky was just shy of 19, so he was definitely elderly, and he'd been struggling a bit more in the past month. We noticed some muscle atrophy, boniness, but he was still eating, jumping up on things, playing, and coming to sit on our blanketed laps. We figured if he couldn't do those things anymore, we'd take him in, because if it was more than old age chances are there wasn't much we could do. 

It was more than old age. He had liver cancer, and the day before we took him in to the vet he went to jump up on a stool in the kitchen, and missed entirely. He stopped eating his food (but we bought a rotisserie chicken and chopped it up for him, which he gobbled right up). He started finding places to hide. I was terrified I was going to come down to go to school and find him, curled up and cold, in an odd hiding place. 

But Friday I was at school, in the library for a social studies research project, and the librarian brought me the phone. Bryce had called the office to let me know that he was taking Lucky in at 11:30, that he was completely lethargic and acting weird and it was time. I left to meet him, thinking maybe it would be okay, but more realistically thinking I HAD to be there because it could be the end. 

The vet was amazing. She did a full exam, even an ultrasound (which he didn't need to be sedated for since he was so lethargic), and let us know that he had cancer in his liver and possibly elsewhere in his belly, that that kind of cancer accelerates like mad, and that if we weren't ready they could push fluids but it would gain us maybe a few days. That didn't seem fair to Lucky, to pump him full of things so we could spend more time with him even though he was miserable and things were shutting down. So, we made the decision. 

He was already mostly asleep when the process began, and we pet him and told him how much we loved him and thanked him for being a part of our lives for 13-14 years. And he fell asleep, and then he was gone. It was the most peaceful passing I've ever been a part of. 

We are a mess. He was so special, and there is such a hole where he was. I keep thinking I hear him meowing. People on meetings with Bryce used to think he was a baby because he was so loud. It was sad to open the fridge and see the chopped chicken, and to open the freezer and see the cubes of "jiggly" Bryce made for him (seriously reduced onion-free chicken stock that he'd microwave for him). Having just one station for cat food for Eggi. Having a lap that is bereft, as he was the ultimate lap cat and now I put a blanket on me and...that cozy weight on my thighs just doesn't come. Giving treats to Eggi and realizing I don't have to turn in a different direction to throw Lucky his so he didn't pig out and knock Eggi out of the way (he was kind of an asshole about food). 

Lucky was the last of our Infertility/Adoption Cats. We got him after my buddy Rocky passed in the least peaceful way ever (never went back to THAT vet again), in the 2 week wait for a frozen cycle after our ectopic, right around Christmas. I cried so hard when I lost Rocky that I was sure I dislodged our little embryos (I know better now). It didn't work, so there was extra sadness. We went relatively quickly to the ASPCA shelter and looked at a few cats, but none seemed right. Then they brought us Lucky, a five year old black cat they'd gotten around Halloween with a shortened tail who they'd kept in a different room with other cats and we hadn't seen. They told us he was their favorite. He immediately climbed into Bryce's lap and fell asleep. We were the lucky ones, so we kept his name. 

The shelter gave us a picture of Lucky with Santa, which was our first picture of him: 

He really was so special. He let me hold him like a baby. He let me smother him with love when our world was falling spectacularly apart: cycle after cycle not working, our summer miscarriage, deciding to stop treatment, starting the adoption process, time after time of not being chosen...and the end of our pursuit of parenthood in general. He lay on the floor next to me. He was my only baby to ever grace our crib: 

He loved sitting on top of whatever it was we were doing: 

On coloring books.

On books (guess which is Bryce's)

On grading.

On puzzles.

On things being assembled.

On prep for September.

On me trying to do schoolwork.

On professional development reading.

On my desk, asleep.

On my lap as I read a really good book days before surgery.

He also loved to be ON things:

On the stairs

On my office bookshelf

ON TOP OF THE FRIDGE, totally busted eating cornsilk, his weird favorite

On an herb planter

On the kitchen stools (which are counter height), with Miss Eggi

ON ME

On a giant box of mailorder bamboo toilet paper, living up to the slogan

He wanted to be wherever his people were. He wasn't shy around new people. He let you know when he wanted pets. He made sure to roll belly-up and make his front paws all cute if you had the audacity to ignore him (or just not snap to it right away). He would eat literally anything that fell on the floor, like a dog. Most recent weird item: a chickpea. Bryce's lap was his special lap. Until his last couple of weeks, given the choice between my blanketed lap and Bryce's crossed 4 legs, he picked the hole in Bryce's leg bend. Lucky is the cat who made Bryce a cat person. 

We didn't want to ever say goodbye, but we knew we'd have to, someday. 19 years is pretty old for a cat, but we were hoping for a crazy 20 or 22. 25! We loved Lucky so much, and he loved us back just as much. He was snuggly, and playful, and nimble up until maybe two weeks before he passed. He could jump 4 feet to the top of a tall bookcase. He regularly jumped up on the 3 foot stools. He was naughty with food and we had to make sure everything was put away before eating in another room, because he'd get up there and eat or lick just about anything that was in the kitchen where he could reach it. 

I had to take a break from writing this post because it made me so sad. But also, it makes me happy to remember him. Lucky was a hugely special part of our life. He was there for most of our marriage to date. To find that I had 526 photos of Lucky in my Google Photos made me happy. 

Rest in peace, Lucky. We miss you so much. 

Sunshine was his favorite. Sunpuddles, the deck, and here...in a raised planter like a wild beastie

Just Another Day

Yesterday was the first Mother's Day where I really didn't think about it. I stayed off social media. I had dinner with my mom, sister, and assorted husbands on Saturday. We went to see a movie at noon, Sinners. If you haven't seen it, and you can handle supernatural horror (and historical horror), it is well worth it! No one at the movies wished me a Happy Mother's Day, which was lovely. I was wearing my Mother Of Cats shirt, but I didn't hear it offered to anyone. I did leave the movies with a raging migraine, which put a damper on the rest of the day. I still managed to suit up against the blackflies and plant some Snow In Summer and put half of a border fence up in my birdbath/Jizo garden. Always feels good to nurture the nature on this particular day. 

No blackflies shall pass!!!

Two more arches to go... MAYBE it will deter the deer from what I plant next?

The upper part of the garden, through the screen of my office window. Bluebells, lungwort, daffodils, Japanese Forest Grass, and other fun things

Bleeding heart and brunnera (different garden but so pretty)

Same different garden, creeping phlox

It is delightful to have this day be...just another day. Admittedly, we stacked the deck -- celebrations on another day, no restaurants, and the like. Just blueberry pancakes, movie, gardening, and quality time with my migraine ice hat. 

I hope your Mother's Day was what you needed it to be. 

Magical Mystery Birthday Bookshop Tour

Today, I am 49. A perfect square. I'm out for the gold in these here hills -- I'm a 49er! It's the last year of my 40s... and I'm okay with that. My birthday used to be such a difficult day because it was tied to my biological expiration date, and then my attractiveness as an adoptive parent. Now, it's tied to none of that, and it's celebrating another trip around the sun, without strings. 

Bryce did an AMAZING job with my birthday this year. He asked me what I wanted, and I said, "I don't really want any things, I would love something related to an experience." 

Oh no. I set myself up for surprises! I hate surprises, they stress me out. But, Bryce knows this, and so he made sure that I knew I wasn't going to suddenly be suited up for skydiving. 

On Thursday, we did Part One: 

A few birthdays ago, he got me this Thule bike rack and a trailer hitch for my beautiful pumpkin orange car. Thankfully, the bike rack wasn't attached when I was rearended and my pretty pumpkin was totaled. When I got the new bluebird (which is okay but I loved the orange SO MUCH MORE), I had the trailer hitch installed from the get-go. Our bikes have languished in the garage though. Because... knees. 

BUT, we installed the rack and then loaded our cobwebby bikes up onto it (weirdly because mine is a "girl bike" and so the cross bar is lower, and it didn't fit right, but flipped it was fine). Then we drove to a pro bike shop nearby, and both bikes have an extended stay for service and tune-up, and then we will be able to go for bike rides! And bring our bikes to Vermont! And take interesting trails we drive to! So amazing. 

Saturday was a magical mystery tour. Bryce originally said we'd want to leave at 9 or 10, and we wouldn't be back until 9 or 10. We probably would have made one more destination had we actually left the house "on time," but we had a very lazy morning with delicious cheesy waffle breakfast sandwiches, and left at 11ish. Whoops. 

I am so sad that I forgot to take a picture at our first stop, The Dog Eared Book in Palmyra, NY. Bryce had to use GPS to get there, which threw me off (I could get there in my sleep, but also I go a LOT more frequently than he does!). Then we went in, and he got me three books that he'd ordered ahead, and I got one book that was highly recommended by the bookseller. 

All 3 of Bryce's books have red (all spines are red too), and mine was a tomato orange-red. weird!

Bryce handed me a $20 bill that I could spend at the store, but alas, hardcovers are closer to $25-30, so I used a card and pocketed the cash, ha. 

We hopped in the car and headed further east, landing in the picturesque town of Clifton Springs. Fun fact: we walked a little first, and went over a creek/culvert/aqueduct thing of running water, and immediately our noses were assaulted with the smell of sewage, of rotting eggs, of sulfur. GOOD GOD WHAT IS THAT SMELL??? We said, and then realized upon reading the sign by the old sanitarium that this was a well-marketed boon as a doctor advertised a "sulfur cure" using the sulfur water from the spring to help people somehow. The spa/sanitarium is now apartments and parts of a hospital. 

But, we ended up here: 

 I really wish I had taken a photo of the inside. It had recently moved and was GORGEOUS, with floating shelves (the bookseller built them with her husband, she hated the shelves that went to the floor because you basically had to be on your hands and knees to look through things) and a mix of new and used books. Actually, all three bookshops had a mix of new and used, which was lovely. Bryce handed me another $20, and I got these three: 

Kid Activists is for school, and that was the new one. The other two are used -- All the Little Liars I'd never heard of before but it looked fun and twisty, and Migrations came highly recommended from the bookseller. It's by the same author as Wild Dark Shore, which was amazing. That one took place on a fictional island called Shearwater, between Australia and Antarctica, and Migrations takes place in Greenland. So exciting! 

We then headed further east, to have our picnic lunch. Bryce's original plan was to go to a park in Geneva at the top of Seneca Lake, but GPS did us dirty and sent us on a wild goose chase that ended with us partway down the lake and parking on the side of the driveway to a church camp. It was raining, so we ate in the car, but we were right by the lake, it was quiet, and an oriole ate his lunch on the tree next to our car! 

We went to the actual park at the top of the lake, and unfortunately missed the bookstore in Geneva because it closed at 3:00, on a Saturday. Bryce was worried we wouldn't make the next store, but he called and the bookseller there said she'd stay open if we got there close to 5, so we took a quick walk at the park. 

From there, we headed a bit north and east, and landed in the small town of Marcellus. There we visited That's What She Read, a delightfully shabby chic new and used bookshop in a Victorian house. Each room was a different genre. It was FLOOR TO CEILING books, very overwhelming! But great for the hunt. 

She also let us use her bathroom to change for dinner. I got quite a lot of books for a very reasonable price, however I did exceed my $20 bill. BUT, what bargains! Also, she gave me a discount for my birthday and wrapped up my books, which she does for every first timer: 

I bought 6 books there, one of which I'd had before and put on my Special Shelf, but then it was a casualty of lending it out. Tell the Wolves I'm Home is a beautiful book and super nostalgic for me because it's set where I grew up, at around the same time. The rest are new to me:

They range from hilarious (oddly, I'm Glad My Mom Died is that one) to books I've meant to read/pick up but haven't, to two nonfiction books to aide in happiness and badassery. 

We headed out for dinner, which was 15 minutes away in Skaneateles, pronounced bizarrely close to "skinny atlas", another finger lake. We went to Mirbeau, a spa, hotel, and bistro that I have never been to before, but is VERY fancypants. They have a very Monet courtyard, very "you are not in Central New York, non! You are in FRRRAAHNCE!": 

They were, however, EXCELLENT with celiac. I had insanely good, hot, gluten free bread (almost like a flaky, soft biscuit!), and when I couldn't have the steak frites with the truffle parmesan fries (shared fryer, boooo), they made me fingerling potatoes with the truffle parmesan treatment! It was very yummy. 

Why oh why do we keep forgetting to take pictures of us, TOGETHER? 

It was a lovely, lovely day. Adventure, a little bit of surprise (I really didn't know where we were going), tons of books, new places, and delicious food and wine. It was absolutely delightful. 

Sunday I got my hair done, blending the silver and making it work a little less two-tone as I grow it out with the purple (there will always be purple): 

Before haha

After!

            

Then today, my actual birthday, I opened my presents in the afternoon (from others, not Bryce, as he outdid himself in experiences), and we had pizza and cupcakes with my dad. I am beat, fighting a migraine and allergies all at once. 

But, I am also happy. And loved. And grateful. I absolutely love my life. Here's to the last 364 days of my 40s! 

Because I'm NOT a Parent

I had a realization the other day. 

I was talking with my sub, who was venting about a particularly difficult case. The student has many mental health difficulties, and is on the autism spectrum. The student's mom loves her child very much but can be an, um, aggressive and blunt communicator. 

My sub was upset because this student is doing nothing, pretty much refusing to turn in any work. Their grades are slipping. He'd contacted the student's mom with his concerns, and was very frustrated with the response. She basically said she wasn't going to force the student to do anything, that when she talked with the student at home, the explanation was that so far their grades were good enough that the student felt they could just "coast" for a while. The mom was like, "well, the grades are good right now, and maybe they need to see the grades dip. We'll revisit when that happens." 

My sub was beside himself. Why would she not care about motivating her child? Why would she let him fail like this? He was gobsmacked by the mom's response when he (the sub) clarified that he spends extra time with all his students to help them succeed, she said: "that's nice, but I only care about my child." 

Then he said to me... "As a parent, I just don't understand how she can do this to her child." 

Ah. 

I explained my thoughts on the situation:  

• Natural consequences, a real life if...then, are actually probably the best way to show this student what happens when you just quit the game. It's concrete. 
  
  
• It is actually pretty impossible to "make" someone do something that they are determined not to do. Sometimes they have to eff around and find out, for themselves. 
  
  
• What better time to learn the lesson of failing due to inaction than in middle school, when there's no credit? Better now than next year when it goes on a transcript.
  
  
• Most parents only care about their own children's success when it comes down to it. She's just being brutally honest and saying it out loud. 
  
  
• She has known her child the longest. She is the parent. It is not our job to tell her how to parent (unless it is something harmful/illegal). We can disagree, we can offer alternate thoughts, but ultimately you'll drive yourself crazy thinking you can "fix" someone else's parenting, because a) you can't and b) it's not up to you, as a teacher. 

Then, I had an epiphany -- maybe one reason why I am somewhat of a "tough parent whisperer" is because I am not a parent myself. I do not have my own frame of reference to put on someone else, for better or for worse. I am not thinking through the lens of what would work (or not) for MY child. I am a fairly neutral player in this game. I mean, I like to think I know what I would have done, if I'd had kids, but I'll never really know what that would have looked like, so I can't speculate TOO much.

Of course, I have opinions, but I feel very strongly that in most situations, abuse aside, parents want what's best for their kids. There are different ways of handling different situations. I can offer facts, such as: We cannot grade what we do not receive. We can give the opportunities, we can extend deadlines to a point, but there is a line where it is what it is. Students get the grade they earn. If they do nothing, they earn...nothing. That's sort of how life works. We can encourage, parents can encourage, but ultimately there is no "making" the child do something they don't want to do. My job, as an educator, is to work with the parent and partner home and school together to help a student be as successful as possible. 

I would imagine, as a teacher who IS a parent, that it would be hard not to see through your own lens (at least at first). That it might be harder not to judge based on what you would do in the situation, even though likely your situation is very different from their situation. 

It gave me a little bit of a flip side to the dreaded "as a parent..." comments that get thrown around school (and life) all the time -- maybe it's actually an asset to be an educational, developmental expert and NOT a parent. 

An ADHD Book Recommendation

It's been such an adventure being a late-diagnosed woman with ADHD. I get to learn new skills and discover that I, in fact, am less a hot mess than I thought (or at least there are reasons for it), and I get to look back on my ENTIRE life and realize just how much this neurodivergence has impacted me. I was always weird. Mostly lovably so, but there were and are definitely periods where "annoyingly" would be a better adverb. I was always a mess. But now I can see it through a different lens. 

I love when there's a good book about ADHD. I am still reading How to ADHD by Jessica McCabe (whose YouTube channel is absolutely amazing), because it is...rather large. And I lent it to my dad. Before I finished it for some reason. I did just get it back and I am making my way through it. It's great stuff...but very long.  

I read Kat Brown's It's Not a Bloody Trend: Understanding Life as an ADHD Adult and loved it. It was her story, combined with stories of lots of other people living with ADHD as adults, many late-diagnosed like her (and like me). She is so witty, and engaging, and I can't help but feel that we could be friends when I read her work.

I started reading a book recommended by a coworker, but I didn't finish that book, which shall remain nameless, on purpose. This is because it filled me with the fury of a thousand murder hornets (remember murder hornets?). It was just so...clinical. Pathological. Negative. Deficit-based. It did not speak to me, AT ALL. Or rather, it said "You are defective and it is hard to be around you, and look at these cool images of brains and where they don't fire as much in these areas, but yeah, your life is going to be difficult." So I chose not to listen so much to what it had to say. Maybe it gets better. It made me feel shitty enough while reading it that I didn't care to find out.

But, I did find this one, which is the exact opposite of that Negative Nancy book: ADHD Is Awesome: A Guide to (mostly) Thriving With ADHD by Penn and Kim Holderness. Yes, the couple of the crazy videos and songs and current series on Perry, Perimenopause. I felt like, OK, it's a celebrity book, but I'll give it a try. I am SO glad I did. It is so much more than a "celebrity book." 

The book is mostly written by Penn, who has ADHD. He was diagnosed in college, so relatively late for a boy. It also features "Notes from Kim" that are peppered throughout -- she does not have ADHD, but gives excellent perspective as someone who lives with a person with ADHD, for better and for worse. 

The text is nicely broken up, it's not too long, the pacing is swift, and the formatting of the pages...it's the most ADHD-friendly setup ever: 

Each chapter is assigned its own color, so you can set mini-goals while reading. "I'm going to finish this orange section! Oh look, I'm in the green, I may as well finish that too..." It is VERY motivating. I do not need motivation to read most fiction books, or memoirs. But nonfiction books? It can feel a bit like a slog. Even when it's very, very useful information. Nonfiction books are the ones I most frequently do not finish. THIS format? I flew through it. It was beautifully, visually chunked. 

What I love about this book is that it's practical. It focuses on not just "this is how your brain works" but also "this is how your brain is an asset, and this is how you can manage the dingdong things your brain does to get in your way, and by the way, just because you do dingdong things doesn't mean YOU are a dingdong." I felt very, very seen. 

I also felt very, very sad for the young me who was not given a whole lot of grace for ADHD-related behaviors that no one recognized as ADHD. Because I was a girl, because I did well in school (although if you look at my transcripts you can totally see where it was motivation-driven), because there was a lot going on in my family and I felt an insane pressure to "be normal, be good." This book actually prompted me to make a list of things throughout my life, starting in childhood, that I thought were me just being a weird, irresponsible hot mess, but are actually part of my differently-wired brain. Not an excuse, but wow is it freeing to realize that there are things that ARE definitely harder for me, but it's not a character flaw. I can develop skills to manage them. My list became so numerous that it quickly turned into its own dedicated post. 

I love ADHD Is Awesome so much for that grace, and for the information both on ADHD and living with someone with ADHD, and looking at challenges through a positive lens. I love it so much I want to do a professional development on Neurodivergence, and the novel idea that not all brains are wired in the same way and that's actually a GOOD thing. That even though there are challenges and difficulties, there are strengths -- creativity, thinking outside the box, being good in constantly changing/high-stress situations, having lots of energy (until you don't), and hyperfocus. Apparently teaching is a common profession for female ADHDers, go figure, which makes sense because everything is chunked in increments, you're constantly solving the puzzle of how to get students to "get it" and think critically, and it is NEVER the same. On the flip side, I see students with ADHD get labeled as noncompliant, lazy, unmotivated, blurty, and distracting. And while they (and me) can be all of those things, imagine what would happen if there was grace given. If deficits were looked at as "skills not developed yet" and not willful disobedience or sluggery. 

Imagine if there was a greater understanding of different brains, and it led to working on skills while celebrating successes, and above all, giving people the benefit of the doubt. I did not enjoy feeling like I was inherently a hot mess express. I do not enjoy when I feel like a failure or do something real dumb. It is amazingly freeing to realize that there are reasons why some things are particularly difficult, and I am not a lost cause -- I can learn strategies to help me capitalize on my strengths and accommodate my areas of need. Which obviously goes for students, too. 

I really think this book can help, as so many books do, build some empathy and be a toolbox for helping people of all ages strive to be their best selves, despite and maybe even because of the challenges.