Cluster Flurry

So... remember when I told y'all that shit would get unreal down here when it snowed. Welp, as usual, I get an A+ for being spot on.

Because right now, the only thing that accurately depicts our state's state of being is this:

Or, this:

When I say that 2 inches of snow caused mass panic and snarled traffic in an apocalyptic way, I'm not playing, yo. Know how I know this? Compare the two pictures. One is from the actual snow storm. The other is a scene from the zombie Armageddon  drama, The Walking Dead.

Yeah. Completely impossible to tell them apart, except for that whole dude on a horse bit. That's a dead giveaway. (Dead was a pun. Get it? If not, screw you.)

So, upon seeing the first sign of snowflakes, all 7 million people in the metropolitan area of Atlanta immediately left their school, their work, their grocery shopping, their whatever and headed home. At. The. Exact. Same. Time.

Can you envision 7 million people on the road at the same time??


Well, it looks a little like this:

Or this:

People were told not to go on the roads. Oh, my, how they were told:

Do you SEE what that screen says?

"DON'T GET ON JOHNSON FERRY. SERIOUSLY. DON'T."

That's how bad the traffic was.  Basically, the message was this:

 And, honestly, it's not like the message was unwarranted. The Atlanta Police responded to nearly 1,000 accidents. Lucky children spent the night at their schools, while the less fortunate of their classmates got to sleep the night away on school buses that had ran out of gas waiting in traffic. The congestion was so bad that a woman actually delivered her baby on the Interstate. And don't think that public transportation solved anything. Somehow, during this snow storm, the local rail system, MARTA, caught fire, forcing passengers to evacuate into the snowy outdoors.

My favorite image of the whole incident, though, is this one:

Followed by this one:

Apparently the car fishtailed, hit a fire hydrant, sat there while the water poured from the pump, and a sinkhole opened right beneath the driver and his car. Epic.

So, I thought that snow in the South was going to be like this:

In reality, it's like this:

Polar Vortex, My Ass

{From Bekah}

So, despite the fact that it was sunny and 60 today, it's supposed to snow here in the South tomorrow. And I'm excited, because I haven't seen the good white fluffy stuff since I left the Midwest. 

But there's just one not-so-fun fact about Georgia that concerns me: When it rains, it pours… imbeciles. So I can't even imagine the hell I will experience when the dusting blows through.

On the sunniest of days, you see not a single turning signal. And if you spot one (in use, nonetheless), then you know it’s obviously a manufacturing flaw on the part of the automaker, because there’s no way Bubba there flipped that switch intentionally. But throw two drops of rain into the mix and shabam! Hazard lights galore. Feet stomp on brakes. Cars grovel and lollygag forward. Drivers sail into ditches, medians, concrete dividers, and other motorists. And I’d say don’t even get me started on snow storms, but WHAT FREAKING SNOWSTORMS? They don’t exist down here, people. Know how I know this? BECAUSE IT’S THE SOUTH. Yes, you may get a few inches of snow now and then, but snowflakes are harmless unless they travel in torrential packs, and they just don’t do that down here. Snow down here is more like a ladies-who-lunch affair.

But you just can’t tell poor Bubba this. I know, because Chris tried telling Bubba this, and he met with the sort of indignant resistance French people display when they try convincing we Americans that they actually saved the planet from Hitler (#Merica!).

“Yeah, you Yankees might get snow. I’m not denying that,” Chris’s boss began. “But you aren’t the only ones who suffer in the winter. We get our share of snowy hell.”

“I’d like to say I believe you,” Chris said, “but I don’t. It’s hard to take you all seriously when you shut down school for an entire week over a total snowfall of five inches over six days.”

“First off, it’s ‘y’all,’ Chris, not ‘you all.’ You just sound igneerent when you say it like that,” his boss continued. “Second off, we might not get the snow you guys get, but we have something worse. We have this thing called ice. Like, sometimes the rain turns into a kind of freezing rain, and then that ices up the roads.”

“Wait…” Chris began, genuinely puzzled. “Are you… are you talking about sleet?”

Chris’s boss sat slack-jawed, his face squeezed in a way that indicated that his thunder had clearly been burglarized. He folded his arms on the shelf that was his belly, and he worked his jaw in a way that indicated his thoughts might take awhile.

After a period of uncomfortable silence, the man finally sputtered, “You mean, you have a word for that?”

Chris guffawed.

“Of course we have a word for it. Because it’s a THING! That we experience. UP NORTH. ALL. THE. TIME.”

“Oh. I thought it was just us.”

Then Chris’s boss pivoted on his tidy lady feet and left Chris alone to his laughter.

My Perfect Fat Face

My esthetician bent over my face, gave a pinch, and said what I'm sure she thought was perfectly pleasant praise:

"You have such fat skin."

Um... the hell you say?

I'd understand if she were pinching my belly or my third chin, but my forehead? That's the one part of my body I thought had escaped the effects of my cookie addiction. 

But no.

Instead, I had the pleasure of hearing this: 

"My grandma always said, you can either have a pretty face or a rocking body. But you can't have both. And you have such a pretty face."

Um... thanks? For the compliment? I think?

I think she was trying to be nice. After all, I was paying her lots of my husband's hard-earned cash to squeeze gunk out of my pores, and her tip was on the line.  And apparently plump skin is all the rage. In fact, she even went so far as to say, "You just have so much great collagen!" (Fun fact: Collagen = fat.) So, I'm going to take it as the "you're-kick-ass" statement that she intended it to be.

I'll even go one further and let YOU in on the secret of how I keep my skin so... corpulent.

1) LeafSeedBerry Face Toner

I love this shit. Like, I totally want to marry it. Like, if I were 10, and this goodness was named Justin Bieber, I'd totally have it's poster over my bed... so I could fall asleep licking it.

That being said, disclaimer: A good friend  (Jessica Kennedy) makes this. But if you think I'm biased, you're just wrong, wronger, wrongest. I don't play. If I don't like something, I'm not using it. I don't do what I don't wanna do, because I'm an adult, and that's one of the perks. Anyway, Jessica and I met on the Internet when she bought a vintage wiener dog-shaped vase from me. (No joke.) We each owned Etsy stores (her's is Dooley&FritzVintage, and it's really rad), and we both go estate sale-ing for a (sort of) living. When I jokingly said that she was my "kindred spirit" (a throwback comment to Anne of Green Gables), she knew what I was talking about, and thus my statement became fact. 

When she started her second Etsy store, LeafSeedBerry, she sent me one sample of this stuff, and I became ADDICTED! Like a puppy on crack. Wait. Do puppies ever do crack? Just a second. I'm Googling it, and woah!! Found something, bitchuz! *

Anyhooooo.... Key pluses to this facial toner are:  It's totally all-natural. It's made by hand by someone I trust. It smells like rose heaven (and comes in a variety of scents if you're not into florals). And I can't emphasize this enough, but it works. Like, seriously. I've experienced diminished redness, reduced pore size, and zero negative side effects. 

My Point: 5 out of 5 Bekah Stars

Buy it here: LeafSeedBerry

2) Mary Kay TimeWise Microdermabrasion Refine 

This past Christmas, I acted upon my right as an older cousin and stole my younger cousin, Rachel's, facial cleanser. Why? Because I wanted to. Please see previous paragraph on how being an adult means doing what you want.

And. Holy. Crap. She's lucky I didn't shove that bottle in my bag and cross state borders with it. Because I totally thought about doing just that. Instead, I opted for the nice route, just stole it for use throughout the duration of our family gathering, and I ordered it from her, because she also just happens to be a Mary Kay consultant.

Now, normally I would buy a little bit of something (i.e. cheap whore-colored lip gloss)  to appease my guilt-driven need to support a family member's side business. But, um, no, not after my little theft. Instead, I bought a lot of something. Because this advanced exfoliater removes dead skin cells like nobody's business, and it does so both inside and around the edge of your pores. In other words, it cleans out your face holes, and if you have a fat face like me, then there's plenty of that hole space to clean. 

My Point: 5 out of 5 Bekah Stars

Buy it here: Exfoliating Refining Wash

3) Water

Fun fact: My cheapest and favorite facial product is aqua, H20, Adam's ale.**

No matter what you call it, water is the bomb. And here's another fun fact: This is the only product I'm promoting that you don't have to buy from one of my friends/family members!

That being said, water and a washcloth can do wonders, compared to doing nothing.

My Point: 5 out of 5 Bekah Stars

Buy it here: Facial Water ***

Summation:

 I know I'm doing something right, because after calling my face fat, my facial person went ahead and gave me a truly nice compliment.

"Your skin is perfect. Keep doing what you're doing."

Oh, I plan to, lady. I plan to. Because I love my perfect fat face too much not to.


* Apparently the Internet doesn't know if dogs abuse crack. BUT, it does know that reindeer apparently go ape shit over 'shrooms (proper name: Amanita muscaria mushrooms.) Apparently, the reindeer eat the fungi, start tripping, go off to pee somewhere, and then local shamans follow the stoned reindeer, collect Rudolph's urine, and then... THEY DRINK IT! Google provided me with a whole load of scientific articles about how humans can't digest these mushrooms, so they have to consume them second-hand, but I wasn't paying much attention to the biological and anatomical aspects, because I was more like: HOLY HELL, Y'ALL! PEOPLE GET BUZZED OFF OF REINDEER PISS! 

**Yes, people actually call water this. I know, because a waiter asked me if I wanted Adam's ale, and I was all polite and like, "No, thanks, I can't drink alcohol," and he was like, "Oh, it's just another name for water, but congrats! How far along are you?" and then I had to be all like, "I'm not growing a baby; I'm growing a tumor, but thanks for that." And then things were just all awkward.

*** If you honestly clicked on this link because you wanted to buy special water for your face, then you deserved the website you got. 

9 Truths and A Lie

{From Bekah} 

Ready for a riddle?

Yeah, well, I am, too, but they are hard to write, so you don't get one.

Instead, what I will do is give you an opportunity to read a bunch of nonsense I just mashed out, because I think it's time that we get to know each other better. 

Nine of the 10 following declarations are completely legit things about my life. One is complete malarkey.

1) I kissed President Georgie Bush and then voted Democratic in the next election.

Hey, there!

2) I grew up in a four-story brick school complete with a gym, baseball diamond, and play ground with a curlicue slide. My father never really followed up on safety standards, so it's a miracle I'm still alive and living without tetanus. 

My curl went flat...

3) My grandparents owned a Siamese cat named "Gook," and I thought it was the funniest thing in the world, until I realized that it wasn't.

We are Siamese, if you don't please!

4) One time, on assignment as a journalist, a buffalo named Norman wouldn't let me get out of my car.

I'm Norman. What's your name??

5) I don't like shrimp. And I've been told that everybody likes shrimp.

I'll give you a hint. This is a truth. I hate shrimp. And crawfish. And most anything else that belongs in the sea.

6) French men once mistook me and my friends for Parisian hookers.

Paint me like one of your French whores! (Seriously, that's hilarious if you are both into art AND the movie The Titanic.) 

7) My first pet owner experience as an adult was a rottweiler puppy who was diagnosed with dwarfism and mental retardation as a result of a medical mistake. She never grew bigger than a puppy, ended up going blind, and would chase squirrels by scent into trees.

My dog developed cat-aracts. Hee hee. I know. That was baaaaad.

8) An entire group of nuns grew angered by an article I wrote about an immigration protest and organized a hate mail "letter to the editor" campaign against me.

Obviously, this is exactly how it went down when Nunzilla decided to ruin me...

9) My husband proposed to me after the episode of Battlestar Galactica where you find out that Sharon is actually a Cylon and that she's being mind-controlled to create a plan to assassinate the admiral. Ooops. Guess I should've said, "spoiler alert."

Not quite as bad as him proposing on Twitter, but... still... sheeeeeeeeeeeeesh

10) One time, in the jail yard, my shirt buttons popped, and I flashed an entire compound of sex offenders.

A photo taken at the time of the incident...

Whichever statement is guessed most as being the incorrect statement will have its own follow-up blog post in the next week. And let me tell you, a lot of these deserve their own post.

{P.S. For those of you playing at home, if you do happen to know which one is fake, please do not spoil the surprise. Just guess which one of the remainder seems most like complete bull shit.}

Survivors Anonymous

{From Bekah}

"When cancer sufferers fight, recover, and go into remission, we laud their bravery. We call them survivors. Because they are. When depression sufferers fight, recover, and go into remission, we seldom even know, simply because so many suffer in the dark, ashamed to admit something they see as a personal weakness, afraid that people will worry and more afraid that they won't." ~ Jenny Lawson

1) Where I am

I'm *this* close to remission. And I'm as keen as a peach to be done with this tumor-on-my-throat shit. Finally, I can fall asleep without contemplating big picture cancer questions like, "Will I die from this?," "What song do I want played at my funeral?," and "What if Chris moves on from the splendiforous experience that was me and finds somebody better?"*

But the closer I come to being cancer-free, the more challenging it is to grasp at sanity. The closer I get to being "better," the nearer I am to admitting my secret: I am scared to death of being OK. I am scared of being well. I am scared of not having a big, gnarly disease behind which I can cower and crouch and at which I can point my finger whenever something goes wrong.

Cancer is not my real problem. Depression goblins are. And they are evil wee fuckers who long ago burrowed into my brain and set up shop and have been whiling away like mini mind Nazis.

Don't get me wrong. I don't want to keep cancer. But, damn, I'd like to be able to keep throwing around the word. Because when I am cowering in my bed, shrinking from everything around me, vomiting into a bucket, and shivering from the anxiety that skitters across my skin and consumes my every thought, I want an excuse that doesn't sound weak.

"I have cancer," I can say. "I am too sick to make it out," I can say. "Maybe when I'm better," I can say.

That sounds so much more bold than saying, "I have depression," or saying, "I am too sad to make it out," or saying, "I don't know when I'll be better."

With non-terminal cancer, remission is the promise of that "better," a day when things will be right again. And that anticipation is such a visceral, raw elation.

But with depression, there is no gleeful light at the end of that bleak tunnel. There's only that dark passage, and you have to just keep walking, shining the flashlight that is hope, and praying that the light's beam will get you just that much farther toward the end. But there is no end. Or at least, it never feels like there is.

Depression is essentially a grown up version of building a blanket fort, except that in this case, your fort is you pulling your covers over your head and refusing to leave your bed. There's a hole in your very being. Sometimes that hole is lacking and sucking and sinking and in need of more from life. Other times, it is overstuffed, overtaxed, and overwhelmed. It is, as Charles Darwin once said, a "bitter mortification," that makes you choke on the apathy that forbids you from accomplishing the life you once thought you were meant to live.

2) Where it all started

Just like I didn't know I had cancer, I didn't know I had depression. I wasn't feeling depressed, just like I wasn't feeling like a giant tumor had a stranglehold on my thyroid.

Shortly after my wedding to my best friend, my soul sank. It dropped from my daily existence, and I only mimicked the spirit that I once had. As I've said in a previous post, the whole experience was, well, depressing. I stayed in bed all day with my cats, rarely showered, and looked like the Trash Heap from Fraggle Rock.

Chris tried to fix me, as best he could. He assumed all the chores. He earned the sole salary in our family. He rubbed my back, held me when I sobbed, bought me a kitten, told me I was his beautiful everything, and worked every second he could to make me feel worthwhile.

It wasn't enough, and that wasn't his fault.

So, one day, he sat across from me on the couch and said five words that changed my life. Just as Chris saved me by asking me to marry him, he saved me by threatening to leave me.

"I will get a divorce."

He didn't say this because he's a dick. He said this because he's a saint. For two full years, he tried to convince me to see a psychiatrist. I promised and then procrastinated. I begged and balked. I resisted and refused. And after enduring my pain right alongside me for 24+ months, my husband told me that he loved me too much to watch me suffer any longer, and that the only way he would stay by my side is if I considered myself worthy of how much he loved me. While it may sound like he was being a little bitch, I swear that he saved my life. He loved me enough to metaphorically drag me kicking and screaming away from my distorted view of reality.

And, oh, dear reader, how distorted it had become.

One day, while driving, this thought popped into mind: "It would be so easy to pull out in front of this semi." And then I thought, "Wow, that's cliche." And it is. But it isn't. Because in that moment, you're not thinking: "Let's run into a semi because all the cool kids want to." You're just sitting there, listening to NPR, and then you think about dying (and NO, that is NOT a normal reaction, all you public broadcasting haters, unless, of course, it's pledge week.)  

Wanting to die is not as dramatic as I expected. In my mind, being suicidal meant some charged emotional ordeal that involved staring into death's eyes and using every ounce of will power to restrain yourself from giving in. It's not like that at all, or at least, it wasn't for me. I was living my life, and then, suddenly, without warning, I thought about ending it. There was no big build up or mental debate. There was just a moment where I knew that, if it came right down to it, I could yank the wheel and that'd be it. Obviously, I didn't. But that's not the point. The point is that I could have.

3) Where I'm headed

I don't talk about depression often. It's uncomfortable. Not for me, though.

Instead, it's uncomfortable for you, for them, for whoever is listening. Nobody wants to hear about mental illness. It's too undefined, too incommodious. If I've learned anything this past year, it's that people would literally rather talk to you about your potential death than they would discuss your dark feelings.

"What stage are you?" "How are you feeling?" "What can I do to help?" "Will you lose your hair?" "Is it terminal?" 

I've heard these questions more times than I can count. When people learn about my cancer, they practically trip over themselves to know more, help more, empathize more. But when I mention that my tumor and subsequent treatments are relatively manageable and that instead I am struggling more with the depression that is a hormonal side effect, they politely nod and say something generic before they get back to probing about my tumor. I've even had people insinuate that while cancer is just an unlucky break, depression is a personal defect.

Anybody who implies, indicates, or flat-out tells you that depression is your fault needs to be kicked, and swiftly, in the ass. They are not your friend. They are a barrier to happiness. Nobody should devalue one disease and claim another as more valid. Depression is not a lack of character. It is a lack of serotonin.

If I've come to any one big realization, it's that just because you are not happy doesn't mean that you are deficient. Of love. Of kindness. Of compassion. Of joy. Of heart. Of that great essence that is you. You are not deficient. I am not deficient. That we are anything other than enough is just one of many lies depression whispers. 

And it pisses me off when other people listen to depression's lies instead of listening to me tell them what depression entails. It doesn't entail snapping my fingers and watching it evaporate in the face of diet, exercise, prayer, pills, or cats. All those things can help (especially the cats), but they are not guaranteed solutions.

Just like chemo or radiation only offer a (hopefully long-lasting) reprieve from cancer, so, too, do the "cures" from depression only offer a remission. Cancer might retreat into a hole, but we still monitor the hell out of it, waiting for it to peek its head out. So, too, does depression dissipate and re-emerge. But when your cancer retreats, you're a survivor, while you're merely "normal" when your mental illness withdraws.

4) Where I wish we all were

We're all stuck with our own share of shit. Some just don't have the right hormones to make it through undamaged. And make no mistake: Depression is medical, hormonal, and just as real of an affliction as a tumor.

I know. Because I've had both. And each rose to a level of pain and unpleasantness that left me gasping for air and hoping for just one moment without a mental or physical struggle. And just when I needed I reprieve the most, Chris made me see a doctor. As cliche as it sounds, it made all the difference. At the end of each session, my psychiatrist somehow manages to convince me that I am okay. That I am not alone. Which, I guess, is what I'm trying to tell you.

Whether it's cancer or depression, others know your agony. One in 10 people are diagnosed with depression, and the number of people who experience this particular mental illness in their lifetime is thought to be several times higher, as an estimated 80% of people with depression never seek treatment. With these estimations, it means that just as many people -- 1 in 3 -- are as likely to get depression as they are cancer. So, yes, others understand what it is like to combat 24/7 to keep your crap somewhat together. But these same others know that this war is win-able. No battle comes and goes without its scars. I'm dinged. I'm dented. But I've endured.

Because, no matter what society says, both cancer and depression are a battle, and both wars produce survivors. I'm ashamed of neither, and I'm damn proud that I'm beating both.

Now, enough of that sad stuff. A Study of Stuff will return to its regular ridiculous programming later this week. Maybe a post on mustaches? 



 *(Nope. "Places I Remember" by the Beatles. Not possible. I'm too damn awesome-sauce.)