Father Time takes an Ambien

At least three people today asked me what I was doing  on New Year’s Eve. They all looked at me with excited anticipation — thinking that for sure  Linshaolin would  be a party gal.  Oh, and rest assured that I am. In fact I beat my all-time party going record this  year, chalking up four (and a half) parties. My husband says that the two held by my shrink’s secretarial staff don’t count since I was  forced to go to those or get booked for a year’s worth of appointments at 6:45 AM. I count the half party — I did get dressed and show up. It was the wrong day and Bob and Marion were having a screeching fight which ended abruptly when I  rang the doorbell. Marion snorfed  up a trembling sigh as I  handed her the hostess gift: a funny book about married couples having affairs. Bob was not his usual witty self so after a few drinks I said I had a headache and needed to go home.

But I am getting far away from New Year’s Eve. When I was a kid my brother and I loved New Year’s Eve. My folks always had huge drunken parties during which all of the party goers  passed out leaving sweet pickens for the kids. We did a first pass collecting all the cigarettes and then a second pass in which we drank the remnants of the cocktails, especially savoring the olives. We had a contest to see who could collect the most toothpicks. Brother and I would get raging drunk and throw up. Those were the days.

As a teen New Year’s Eve continued to be  marked by drinking. However, since every night was marked by drinking, this was nothing  special. What made the night special was the annual Boyfriend Shuffle. The girls, generally in pajama party mode, would gossip about their rotten  boyfriends while downing rum and coke (I still gag when thinking about rum and coke). After thoroughly trashing the guys, we would write their names on little torn bits of paper and put them in a  bag. Each girl had to draw a name — and whoever she drew was her boyfriend  for the entire month of January. This lead, by around January 3rd, to intense jealous fighting, name calling, and slanderous accusations amongst the girls. We loved it. There is not  much to do in rural New York State.

My early marriage sealed things for me. Hubby is about as much a gadabout as Gandhi. His idea of a great New Year’s Eve is to watch  Johnny Carson reruns and watch the ball drop in Times Square from the comfort of his recliner. After trying for many years to get him to at least uncork a bottle of bubbly I gave up. Now I am asleep by 10:30. I tell my spouse to wake me at midnight  to celebrate  and he does. I roll over with a  “wha? haum…gnight.”  However, once (and I am not making this up) we were invited to a newly divorced friend’s house for a party and Hubby actually accepted the invitation. I was so delirious with joy at our new found social adventure that I bought a new bra. We got decked out and fully supported. Then we agreed that it would not do to arrive early so we should just lie down for a few minutes so we would arrive well rested. We awoke the next morning.

I don’t expect much to be different this year. My husband and I will dissect the past year over dinner (an elegant meal of salami and cheese on rye), toast the New Year with Diet Dr. Pepper around eight o’clock. We will retire to our separate home offices to write for a bit and then hit the hay by eleven. No doubt I will be overstimulated by all this excitement and will have to take an Ambien.

Facebook

Facebook found me. It took them 59 1/2 years but with their mighty Friend Finder they found me. All this time I thought Facebook was for kids — kids have jillions of free hours to waste. They are young. They are Web savvy. They know no fear. Perfect targets for social networking. I am old and crabby. I value my precious time. I still can’t navigate a simple Web site. And yet I must check in at least twice a day to see what my ranking in “Best Person on the Web” is or how many virtual cocktails my friends have sent me. I thought that I had invented virtual drinking  but clearly some twenty-three year old entrepreneur found the money train before I did.

My friend Judy sent me an email saying that I could view her recent family photos if I went to Facebook — she sent the URL to her album. I clicked and was taken to a log-in page. I learned long ago that registering for anything would mean that the volume of my junk mail would grow exponentially. However since I already received more junk mail in one week than was delivered by the USPS in all of 1997 I figured “what the  hell!”

It took me a good long while to get familiar with the interface. And before I really had it nailed down I discovered Beta Bingo. And Scrabble. And Super Slot Machines. All my lifelong hard work and spartan living went out the door in one frenzied evening trying to find ways to con Facebook into giving me more free credits for Bingo. While my family gathered for our traditional family hours I was absent. When my brother, who I have not seen in six months, dropped by I excused myself. I was hooked on Facebook. If I received fewer than eleven virtual hugs, beers, flair, or Tibetan Buddhist images then I felt like a failure. My worth as a human being was directly correlated with how many Friends I had. Anyone, no matter how remote the connection got friended. When I saw that my friend Mary had over 500 friends I shook my head in disgust with myself. I was a Facebook loser.

But not really. None of my friends is friends with a statue. I am. None of my friends has developed an application on Facebook. I have. None of my friends receives a daily email from the Dali Lama. I do. I received so many virtual Christmas ornaments that my virtual tree fell over. I have been sent so many Facebook hugs that I have had to take out a restraining order. And I get to use on my Profile page that one nice photo of me that makes me look pleasant.

My husband joined Facebook out of self-defense. But he won’t click on anything so he never receives the virtual philosophy texts I send him nor the virtual . . . well, anyway, he is friends with me and his old tennis teacher. That’s it. I tried to set up a Scrabble game with him but he could not figure out when it was his turn to play. I even “nudged” him from time to time but no triple words scores were forthcoming. He just is not with it. With all those hip young guys out there trying to friend me you think he would invest just a little bit more effort.

The one Facebook thing that I still don’t understand is “poking”. Every once in awhile I get poked. Along with the poking comes an invitation to “poke back”. So if I poke back what happens? Does the original poker poke again? Does it become a mindless and endless poke, poke back nightmare? Death by Facebook poking? Or at minimum serious injury. I can just picture House looking at the poked patient. “Bruising consistent with systematic virtual pugalism. This is a case of machinamalpocia. Call the CDC.”

I am happy to report that I have been getting closer to conquring my addiction. After winning all the prizes in Level One of Super Scratch Cards my interest wained. How many virtual sets of ginzo knives does a girl need?

More Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

My shrink is having me keep a spreadsheet record of thirty one behavioral factors that are contributors to my psychological state — things like “general mood” and “level of exercise”.  When I have my weekly session we will go over my chart to look for trends. I am supposed  to use a scale of one through ten with ten being good and one being lousey. So if I am feeling depressed we can look at the chart and my therapist will say ”Wow, you scored only a three on “impact of your adolescent child on your mood” for five consequtive days! What has been going on?” Hello, we do not need a doctorate here. Do the words “adolescent child” have meaning to you? Of course I am depressed.

I have some personal favorites among the thirty-one factors: Irritability is one. Since I am using Excel for my chart I have pre-filled out this factor for the week by typing a zero in the first cell and dragging it across the cells for a week. In fact, I did this for Self-Control and Bad Attitude and if truth be told, for several others as well. I admit that some days I might get up to a 1.25 in Self-Control but it is not worth the effort to type into a cell.

Now I am close to my therapist and I tell him lots of stuff I don’t tell anyone else but I am not about to reveal my day to day feeling with regard to sex. Lets see, on Monday I attacked my husband and dragged him my what is left of his hair into the bedroom. Hmmm. Tuesday I informed my husband that I had taken a vow of celibacy. Wednesday I received my NetFlix rental of “The Chipendale Dancers: a Retrospective”. Thursday I could not get the words “Close your eyes and think of England” out of my head. Friday I rented from pay TV a movie called Pirates of Thong Island — I swear I thought it was an old Linda Darnell movie. So for row seventeen of my spreadsheet I have put in five in every cell. I figured I am supposed to be following The Middle Way in any case.

After the sex question the next most obnoxiously probing is the food question. Neutrally stated as Appetite for Food, this is a trick question. Since I am Queen Sized I am not sure if answering with a nine is a good thing. “Oh yes, my appetite was just fine last week.” “No kidding, Lin, I have had to reinforce my client chair three times since you started therapy. If I answer with a three (which I interpret to mean I was not interested in food), my therapist will say “Lin, why do you persist in having these unrealistic images of yourself?” So five across the board it is.

Reviewing my chart for the week I see that I have answered five to all but four questions. The row for Concentration is only partially filled out. The row for Anxiety has some holes in it where I repeatedly poked my pencil through the paper. And the last row on the spreadsheet, Level of Burnout, is empty. I guess I must have burned out on the chart before I got to it.

Are you entitled?

I am a considerate person. I like to help others. I obey the law. Even misdemeanors are repugnant to me. If people are waiting to park and the lot is jammed I will try to be quick about leaving. But when I am sitting in my car in Macy’s parking lot eating a cup of low fat frozen yogurt I will not “speed it up” and wolf down my treat just because you want my parking space. And if you repeatedly honk at me, when I am finished with my cup of frozen yogurt I will get out of my car, slowly walk to the trash bin, toss my cup, amble back to my car, get in, grab my ever ready novel and have a nice afternoon read until you go away. If you decide to engage me with verbal abuse and digital gesturing, I will ignore you. You are not entitled to this parking space. There is one just two cars down that will do you nicely.

I never cease to be amazed by people who feel entitled — some of the worst are those who drive down the breakdown lane so that they don’t have to stand in bumper-to-bumper traffic leading up to the exit then edge their way into the front of the line. I am quite sure they think that those who wait their turn are saps. Then there are the older ladies who chat with you pleasantly at the bus stop but as soon as the bus pulls up they stampede to get on first, brandishing lethal canes and walkers like they were G-force nunchukus. No matter that you were just exchanging recipes, you are now the obstacle to be overpowered, overcome. If they get on board and there are no vacant seats they will glare at some poor stooge at the front of the bus and start nudging him with the cane, muttering “make way for the elderly! Give me that seat!” I have even seen skinheads blush under the shaming eyes of grandma. 

I was at Whole Foods market recently where the upper crust of metropolitan Boston goes on Saturday mornings to stuff themselves with food samples thus saving themselves the humiliation of going to get an egg mcsandwich. One fellow, carrying a Tumi man purse, was standing in front of a plate of cheese samples eating one after the other. I watched as he then went over to the fig jam on crackers sample station and took the entire plate of samples and brought it back to the cheese station. Now fully stocked with the making for fig and cheese on crackers he proceeded to eat everything. A small crowd formed around him watching. There was a hostile murmur of “tut-tutting”. He was  unfazed and as he left the crowd dispersed, many of them placing jars of fig jam in their carts.

And, of course, there is my favorite act of entitlement, the single person driving the eco-poisonous mother SUV to the convenience store to get a pack of ciggies. What possible justification is there for that scenario? I have heard the “because it is safer” argument. Yeah, sure it is safer for you but if you hit  me you will turn my Corolla into an accordian and me into a corpse. I have heard the “I have to haul a lot of stuff” argument. That’s right, you can really load those babies up at Costco once a month.

I leave to last the litterer in all his/her manifestations. There is the “toss it out the car window” litterer, may you rot in hell. The species of Starbucks drinker who empties the overflow coffee into the trash receptacle to make room for milk. This makes a stinky, soggy, profound mess when it comes time to change the trash liner. Have they never learned the lingo — “half caf decaf with a shot and two rooms”? Then the spit out the gum on the ground litterer — these people have personality disorders — I hope they are in treatment. And finally, the family members who leave a trail of used napkins, Popsicle sicks, cans of diet coke, overflowing ash trays, socks, and unopened mail throughout the living room. For some strange reason there is a persistent belief that there is a maid employed in the house.

What’s in your stocking?

One of the nice things about being a Buddhist is that you can still celebrate Christmas. I checked this out very thoroughly and it is A-OK to wish Jesus a Happy Birthday and to rake in some goodies while you are at it.  As far as goodies are concerned, it is tradition in my family to hang three Christmas stocking from the fireplace mantle and stuff them full of wonderful things.

I made the stockings a couple of years ago. I had taken a one-day class at the quilt shop in which we learned how to make stockings out of strips of holiday themed cotton fabric. As is typical of me and did not stop at making just one. No. In fact, after making about two dozen, my husband had to wrest me from the sewing machine with promises of a trip to someplace warm and sunny (we went to the tanning booth at Glow ‘n the Dark).

Once my manic episode calmed down we each selected our favorite stocking and hung it from the little knob that opens and closes the flue. We then built a roaring fire. As smoke filled the house we realized that the weight of the stockings had closed the flue — hubby braved the eye-burning inferno and opened the flue and all the windows. Meanwhile I stood on the curb explaining to the fire officials that all was well. The fire captain was looking at me with that “I’ve seen that woman before” look. I felt no need to remind him that we had met at my previous home after he had retrieved the charred Stouffers Lean Cuisine from what had been my oven.

When we were allowed back in to the house we settled down to begin our tradition. We stuffed each stocking with little presents and festive candies. We are allowed to open the gifts in the stockings on Christmas Eve. This is what I received last year: a candy cane, an IOU for bringing me coffee in bed from my daughter, an IOU for fixing the dishwasher from my husband, a can of Friskies Whitefish Medley from Nero Wolf Kitty.

My husband received: a Sopresata Salami log, a CD of Scottish fiddle music, an IOU for holding the level while my husband hangs pictures from our daughter, and a laser-pointer cat toy from Nero Wolf Kitty. Alli, who had been a very good girl that year, received: a twenty-four thousand dollar gift certificate to Anthropologie so she could buy one outfit, the book entitled Life after an Art Degree: Confessions of a Barrista, and a hairball from Nero Wolf Kitty.

We were all thrilled and had a lovely evening savouring our family closeness. Each year since then we have happily stuffed the stockings, always trying to outdo the gift from the year before. This year my husband is getting “C” batteries and a packet of picture hangers and Alli is getting a set of flavored lip balms tasting like durian. Nero Wolf Kitty is getting the empty roll of Christmas ribbon.

What are you getting in your stocking?