Sorry this is late. I forgot it was Saturday!
So…….you know the rules and if you don’t, here they are:
- Most topics are fair game as long as it has some decency.
- If a topic just becomes a series of personal attacks, the comments will be closed.
- This is for discussions and not wars.
- All Lemmings must behave!
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My, my this here Anakin may be Vader some day later, now he’s just a small fry…
I <3 Weird Al Yankovic.
Little known fact- I dressed up as Weird Al for a talent show in elementary school and lip synched to the song "This Is The Life" from the "Dare to be Stupid" album.
Rawk on!
what does it mean when somebody say ‘my thoughts are with you’ ?
it seems meaningless.
It’s a meaningless platitude- kind of like, “My prayers are with you.”
Rae,
You need you azz paddled
Jasper,
I don’t consider the statement “My thoughts are with you” or “my prayers are with you” meaningless statement or platitude by default. Now if the person means nothing when they say it, then it is meaningless. It is the intent of the person behind the words that give meaning.
It is no different than “I’m sorry”. Are you really sorry or are you sorry that you were caught? Same words, different intent.
And Rae, my prayers are always with you…
Stu
Jasper,
Non believers aren’t going to say “my prayers are with you” so they say my thoughts are with you. Now whether they believe or not, does not affect whether God exists are not, so if a person says “My thoughts are with you”, then in effect, that actually are praying, whether they mean to or not. Any goodness, be it acts or thoughts are received by God and taken regardless of the “senders” beliefs.
At least, that’s how I see it.
So it’s not really meaningless, to the person on the receiving end of those thoughts since the prayers are heard, nor is it meaningless on the part o the sender since they are conversing with God whether they mean to or not.
It’s all good. No?
Plus, many people are comforted, knowing that someone else is “holding/sharing” their pain…just knowing someone out there cares and is thinking of you can make a difference.
I get where you’re coming from tho. Kind of like non believers wishing…who are they expecting to answer their wish…or hoping…where do they think their help will come from…but we know
Nah, I find ‘my thoughts are with you’ meaningless..thoughts? what thoughts? what kind of thoughts? someone who go’s out of their way to avoid the word ‘prayer’ I do not want ‘thinking’ of me, they are hostile to the person’s religion. I’ve had buddists and hindus even say ‘my prayers are with you’…
Now, on to Drew Bree’s slaughtering Peyton ‘wimpy’ Manning
Don’t worry, Jasper. You won’t be in my thoughts. My thoughts don’t go to those who are “hostile” to my expressions of compassion. Well that’s actually not true, but we’ll leave it at that for simplicity’s sake.
Hindus pray as part of their religion. Some Buddhists pray as part of their religion. It is not a lie for them to say that they will pray for you, even if they don’t share the same beliefs you do.
I do not belong to any religion. I do not pray. I will not compromise, or linguistically blur, my spiritual beliefs just to express the care and concern I have for you as a fellow human being. I would consider that – the lie of it, deliberately NOT leaving out the word ‘prayer’ when the word itself is untrue – to be meaningless, and to be offensive, and to be far less desirable than a legitimate offer of whatever the person feels able to give. I cannot give prayer. I can give my heart, and my thoughts. Even if you view my thoughts as decidedly less than prayer – which you obviously do – the fact that they are all I have to give, and I give them freely regardless, should make them “enough” – in the same way that a child’s gift of awful drugstore perfume is appreciated when the same gift from a spouse would not be. In focusing on the gift rather than the giver, you miss the whole point, and I feel bad for you.
A friend of mine recently suffered the loss of a family member. I said, “My thoughts are with you.” And they are. And because they are, I saw my friend in everyone I passed that day, and the next day, and the next. I was kinder to people – who knows what losses anyone I come upon has recently suffered? My friend is out there, walking around, doing her job, aching and upset; what are the odds that no one else I encounter is? She is in my thoughts in everything I do. My thoughts translate into actions, whether intentional – calling her, sending a care package, etc – or unintentional – being a bit nicer to the guy who cuts in front of me at the deli, walking with the tourist to her destination rather than merely providing directions.
I would rather have everyone in the world keep someone in their “thoughts” like that, than be “prayed for” by a self-centered jerk who insists that he be wished well in the exact and precise linguistic manner he prefers. I am not accusing anyone here of being that jerk, of course.
If you offered to pray for me, I would thank you for it.
Jasper,
Hindus and Buddhists DO pray…they weren’t making a concession.
Honestly? I’ll take sincere thought over insincere prayer any day.
If it comes from the heart, as I said, it IS prayer.
Alexandra is right. You have to take people where they are. You can’t “demand” that someone believe. It’s a gift. He chooses you, you don’t choose Him. You and I were called, we were given that gift. You can’t hold it against someone if they aren’t there…yet. Patience and a few prayers from you could be all they need…
I had a weird week in the subways. On Thursday I was on the train and there was a little boy sitting next to me, reading a book. He was maybe 9 years old or so. He got up to follow his babysitter off the train at their station, and he left his backpack behind; I tried to get their attention but couldn’t before the doors closed.
Everyone in the train looked at me then, and I didn’t really know what to do. I didn’t want to go rifling through the backpack when the whole car knew it wasn’t mine, so I just picked it up and kept it with me while I waited to reach my station, where I could give it to an MTA employee rather than just leaving it on the train for untold hours. The MTA has a Lost And Found, but they’re TERRIBLE – they don’t contact you even if there’s a number in your bag, and you have to go waaaaaaay out to the end of the line in Brooklyn to retrieve your stuff. So I decided didn’t want to just give the bag to them, at least not right away – I’d try to find a number and see if anyone got back to me about it first, and if not I’d turn it in. But while I was sitting on the train holding the bag, I got more and more paranoid that the bag had, like, a bomb in it or something. And I was like, “No, it’s just a kid’s backpack,” but then I was like, “That’s the PERFECT hiding place for a bomb!! If this thing explodes, I’m the first one to die.” Back and forth and back again. So I had all these visions of the bag exploding and it being traced back to being in my lap and me going down in history as the subway bomber, or something.
Finally I decided that I don’t want to live in a world where we can’t return a kid’s backpack to him, so if it blew up in my face then at least I would die in the world I chose to live in, lol.
So I got to my stop and found a secluded corner in the station and opened the bag – no bomb, thank goodness, but I did find a phone number. I called it and the mom answered and she was SO HAPPY that I hadn’t given it to the MTA people. It turned out that her husband works 3 blocks from the theater I’m currently working in! So he met me the next day on his lunch break and got the backpack. We ended up talking a bit – he was excited to go into the theater and wanted to know about my job – and we had a very nice conversation. He said all his co-workers thought it must be a scam, because no one in this day and age would look inside a bag left on the subway; and we laughed about that but it made me kind of sad. Because it really did scare me and that makes me upset. Just that the world sucks so much sometimes.
Also on Monday I was in a subway station, getting off a train, and this guy in front of me suddenly just fell down and started saying his arm hurt. He was kind of old – like 60 or something – and I thought maybe he was having a heart attack. But cell phones don’t work in subway stations. So I ran, what felt like ages but was actually maybe 2 minutes – it was in a really confusing station, lots of stairs up and down etc – and I finally found a police officer and told him that a man was in pain and couldn’t get up. The guy said, “He’s probably drunk,” but he followed me anyway. I was pretty sure that wasn’t the case, because the old man had, like, some nice cheese from the farmer’s market, and a bouquet of flowers – not normal drunk-person accessories, basically; and he’d been normal on the train. I kept trying to hurry the police officer up but he was walking so slowly; I felt like I was tugging on the leash of a massive, reluctant dog, or something. I was getting so frustrated; I just wanted to be like, “COME ON!!”
And then I couldn’t remember which staircase the man had fallen near, so I brought him to the wrong one. And the police officer said, “He must have left,” but I KNEW that wasn’t the case, I KNEW I had just messed it up. So I said, “PLEASE,” and then I realized I had shouted it by accident so I took a deep breath and tried again, more calmly: “Please, come with me.” The police officer said, “You don’t need to cry, I’ll come with you,” and then I realized I was crying but I didn’t care. So he followed me, and we found the guy not far from there, exactly where he’d fallen. I wanted to make sure that the police officer helped him quickly but he turned to me and said, “Okay, I’ve got it from here, you can go,” so I just went back to work. It really depressed me and I hope that guy’s okay. He was so scared. I don’t understand why some people become police officers, if they have so little concern/respect for their fellow human beings.
I’m not really sure why I’m writing these things down, haha. I’m bored and sick and they both just made me so…tired with the world, kind of.
I have days like that…where humanity has just disappointed me so much, that I feel overwhelmed. I’m sad for them, sad for me, sad for my kids….in the Catholic Faith, we call that despair. It’s actually a sin. I remember once at Mass a couple of years ago, really feeling it bad, and I said, “PLEASE…isn’t there ANY good left in the world??? Isn’t anyone still decent? SHOW ME SOMETHING GOOD!”
With that, a five or six year old girl walked up to a collection basket on the altar and put a few coins in it…then she knelt down and prayed in front of the statue of the Virgin Mary that the basket was under.
I felt so humbled. This beautiful, innocent little girl had done exactly what I needed someone to do…the cloud was lifted, and I believed in goodness/good people again.
But the cloud comes back every now and then. I have to fight it. Makes me think of the Bell Jar.
I like Alexandra’s explanation better…
Ok, Ok. I know Alexandra is honest and I believe her- I wasn ‘t referring to her per-say, but it reminded me of some others who said ‘my thoughts are with you’ also..
No problem, point taken.
“He chooses you, you don’t choose Him. You and I were called, we were given that gift.”
I’m not sure about that MK. I think we choose Him. I thought He wanted us to choose Him.
Jasper,
He asks us, and we either accept or don’t. But “faith” is a gift. It’s a theological virtue.
142 By his Revelation, “the invisible God, from the fullness of his love, addresses men as his friends, and moves among them, in order to invite and receive them into his own company.”1 The adequate response to this invitation is faith.
143 By faith, man completely submits his intellect and his will to God.2 With his whole being man gives his assent to God the revealer. Sacred Scripture calls this human response to God, the author of revelation, “the obedience of faith”.3
153 When St. Peter confessed that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, Jesus declared to him that this revelation did not come “from flesh and blood”, but from “my Father who is in heaven”.24 Faith is a gift of God, a supernatural virtue infused by him. “Before this faith can be exercised, man must have the grace of God to move and assist him; he must have the interior helps of the Holy Spirit, who moves the heart and converts it to God, who opens the eyes of the mind and ‘makes it easy for all to accept and believe the truth.’”25
These are from the Catechism
155 In faith, the human intellect and will cooperate with divine grace: “Believing is an act of the intellect assenting to the divine truth by command of the will moved by God through grace.”27
Faith and understanding
156 What moves us to believe is not the fact that revealed truths appear as true and intelligible in the light of our natural reason: we believe “because of the authority of God himself who reveals them, who can neither deceive nor be deceived”.28 So “that the submission of our faith might nevertheless be in accordance with reason, God willed that external proofs of his Revelation should be joined to the internal helps of the Holy Spirit.”29 Thus the miracles of Christ and the saints, prophecies, the Church’s growth and holiness, and her fruitfulness and stability “are the most certain signs of divine Revelation, adapted to the intelligence of all”; they are “motives of credibility” (motiva credibilitatis), which show that the assent of faith is “by no means a blind impulse of the mind”.30
Alexandra –
I feel so bad for everyone living in NYC. I really do. You were actually afraid to look inside that bag when everyone saw you try to give the bag back to the right person? Seriously? If that had happened here on one of the buses in Indianapolis (we don’t have subways) and the person didn’t look in the bag to get ID…. well…people wouldn’t be too happy. We are supposed to take care of each other, not be so worried what people think when we do the right thing. And what about that older guy…..what happened to him between the time you left him to get the cop, go to the wrong stairs and then find him? Did no one else try to help him? Didn’t anyone else try to find him some help? If that was the norm where you live, then you wouldn’t have been so upset when the Officer was being such an a$$ about the whole thing. NYC is lucky to have you. I just wish I could get you to move here for a couple years. We aren’t perfect or anything like that and we are beginning to act more like the “big” cities but the majority of us still do the right thing and treat each other according to the Golden Rule.
This is why I drifted back to my Faith in God, if you can believe that. One day I looked around me and noticed something peculiar. Everytime my life went into chaos the majority of my friends walked away. The biggest example was when my son was born early. I had “friends” that actually told me that they couldn’t handle it. The friends that stayed with me through thick and thin had a strong faith in God. The ones that didn’t have faith were the ones that left. I’m talking Faith – not church goers. One of my friends that has stood by me through some very rough times refuses to step foot into a Church but her Faith in God is very strong. There were some that did go to Church, but their Faith wasn’tt there and they walked away too.
Your story reminded me of a time when someone came into our Church office when I was working and said to call 911. One of the parishioners had passed out – he isn’t s senior citizen….but he is old enough to be a Grandfather so passing out could be major. Our biggest problem was that we had to many people trying to help. That is the difference between people of Faith (this was ‘daily’ Mass..not the mandatory weekend Mass) and people without. At least, that’s the way I see it.
I went through the majority of my life with people “in my thoughts”. It wasn’t until later that I realized that is a form of praying. Thinking of others before you think of yourself is actually praying. You are saying to God “I will treat others as I would want to be treated”. Your actions are the actions of someone of Faith. If you wanted to “just be good for goodness sakes” what compelled you to find a phone number of the person who owned the bag instead of turning the bag into lost and found? What compelled you to insist that the officer help you? This is going above and beyond of “being good”.
Don’t you ever wonder why you care when others don’t? It’s obviously not a natural thing. It’s not the way people are raised that make them care like you, because most people aren’t raised by wolves. Actually, my friend who refused to go to Church was raised by a mother who thought playing mind games, pitting her kids against each other and beating them to the point of breaking their bones was the way to raise children.
“Faith is a gift of God, a supernatural virtue infused by him. “Before this faith can be exercised, man must have the grace of God to move and assist him; he must have the interior helps of the Holy Spirit”
I didn’t know that MK , Thanks! I have to read up on my catechism more…
” would rather have everyone in the world keep someone in their “thoughts” like that, than be “prayed for” by a self-centered jerk who insists that he be wished well in the exact and precise linguistic manner he prefers. I am not accusing anyone here of being that jerk, of course.”
LOL! Yes, I was being a jerk – sorry.
Alexandra is much more diplomatic and better spoken than I.
“I feel so bad for everyone living in NYC. I really do.”
Oh please don’t! People here are really lovely – it’s just a “mind your own business unless you’re asked to interfere” kind of lovely. Sometimes the frequency with which you see just about EVERYTHING happen makes it all mundane – even some kid leaving a backpack on a subway. It’s also bystander syndrome – the more people there are, the less responsible each person feels to “do something.” I am kind of hyper-aware of people around me, and that includes their reactions to me (remember the priest with the shoes, lol) – so when everyone is just sitting there looking at me because I was the one to say, “Hey, your bag!!” I get shy about rifling through it on the crowded subway. Also I have to admit that some small part of me was worried that it had, like, a bomb that would get triggered when opened, and I was like, “I can’t open this in front of these people.” hahahaha I sound so dumb in retrospect but I can’t lie, it did cross my mind – that if I triggered an explosion by opening it, I’d be effectively killing everyone around me. I was more comfortable getting it off the crowded train as quickly as possible. oh goodness I sound dramatic!
And also I think that living in a city where people are so on top of each other, little demarcations of intimacy can take on significant importance. We have smaller bubbles of personal space than people who grow up elsewhere – I get really annoyed at the amount of “me” space out-of-towners seem to need on subways or sidewalks, etc – and I think in some ways that makes crossing the few boundaries that DO exist (like going through someone’s backpack) even more taboo than it would be elsewhere. I felt like I might have just walked into someone’s home because the front door was open, lol.
With the old guy there were actually a couple other people who ‘helped’ – one woman stayed with him while I ran to find the police officer, and when I got back there was a small crowd but of course no one really knew what to do. Really in that situation the police officer was the major jerk. I don’t really know what his deal was but it really ticked me off. The way he assumed the guy was drunk, the way he acted like I was overreacting, etc. I actually wrote down his last name because I wanted to complain to someone but I got too distracted and I don’t really know if you can write an “informal” complaint about an NYPD officer anyway, the way you can at a retail chain or whatever.
I think most people do care, naturally. I mean I think that if people are instilled with a consciousness about others during their formative years, then they are naturally aware of the humanity of everyone around them. I think it’s easier to forget, the more frequently you encounter “abnormal” situations like a lost bag or something. I get stopped about four times a day for directions, for example, and sometimes I really do need to take a breath and remind myself that for each person who’s stopping me in the middle of an errand or whatever, it’s the first time for them. Sometimes there are so many people that you can forget to see any of them, that’s all. I don’t really think there’s anything different about me, than most people. What compelled me to go “above and beyond,” if that’s what I did (not sure about that) – aside from “for goodness sake” – is that people have gone above and beyond for me in the past. Found my wallet, and tracked me down via the address on the driver’s license. Let me into a store after it had closed to use the restroom when I was on my way home from a bar (haha). etc.
I don’t really know about faith. I have faith in the world, I guess. Or in people.
Alexandra,
Hate to challenge you on this, but if you had faith in people you wouldn’t have been concerned about their opinion of you opening the bag. People fail and fail often. The world fails us often, because it is filled with people. Don’t confuse that with people are bad, but that they are human.
There is only one thing that is consistent and does not fail us. You just have to listen…
Val and Alexandra,
I imagine the “bomb” part of the story IS peculiar to New York, because of 911. The rest could happen anywhere. You also need to take into consideration that people will react differently on different days. That cop might have had six situations that week where a drunk was exposing himself, another passed out in someones garden, another puked on the subway…or maybe he was up all night with a colicky baby, or had been reemed out by his boss that morning. I can’t even imagine being a cop in New York. 99% of his calls are probably cats in trees, or old ladies complaining about loud music, or domestic violence…or drunks.
It’s sad that cops become jaded. But I guess that’s the nature of the game. My cousin is a cop, and to hear him talk, you’d wonder if he cared about anything. But he does. He’s just seen so much, dealt with so much, that he can appear callous. It’s that tough skin that keeps him calm in real situations tho. Where you and I would freeze like a deer in headlights, he just marches in.
I’m not trying to excuse his behavior. He sounds like he acted like a jerk, just sayin’ that everyone has a story. Even rude police officers.
Not really Jasper. I hear where you’re comin’ from. It can seem “empty” to say “my thoughts are with you”. You and I know it from a different perspective, so it sounds hollow. But “LOVE” is at the core of it, and we all know “Who” Love is.
Stu -
“Hate to challenge you on this, but if you had faith in people you wouldn’t have been concerned about their opinion of you opening the bag. People fail and fail often. The world fails us often, because it is filled with people. Don’t confuse that with people are bad, but that they are human.”
MK, you’re right about the bomb – not just 9/11 but honestly, I think it’s mostly due to the goodness of people that there hasn’t been a bomb on a subway already. (actually I think there was one, back in the early 90’s, but it didn’t kill anyone or something.) In 2008, 1.6 billion people or something rode the subway – all you need is $2 and you’re on. There are police in many stations, but usually only the major ones, and even then there is a steady stream of hundreds of people walking past them at rapid pace. You can bring almost anything you can carry on the subway; I’ve seen people with Christmas trees, furniture, pipes, etc. Because of the morning-to-midnight nature of NYC life (most people don’t go home to change or get things, you bring it all with you) just about EVERYONE has a bag large enough to carry a bomb. Backpacks, messenger bags, tote bags, oversize purses, etc.
I think about it sometimes, when my train sometimes gets stopped under the river between Queens and Manhattan. Just, like, what the likelihood is that NO ONE will ever “successfully” bomb the subway. Sometimes it just seems like a matter of time. Sometimes it seems like, if anyone wanted to, they would have already. Sometimes I get a grip and figure, what is SO DIFFERENT about the subway than other places – a crowded theater on a sold-out night, a school, etc. And you can’t live like that so why worry, you know?
MK I know what you mean about the police officers. I honestly can’t really imagine doing that job, especially in a big city like this. I just get so frustrated when THEY are the problem because I feel like…they’re supposed to fix the problems, and when they ARE the problem they have an exponential effect. Like maybe one jerk is a jerk, and two jerks raise it to two jerks. But a rude or uncaring police officer is, like, a jerk squared, or something – he amplifies all the rest of the suckiness of the situation rather than just adding to it like “normal people” would.
I’m leaving to see my two follow-up specialists soon, and then I’ll call the infectious disease people, so I’ll let you guys know if I find anything out on that front.
Alexandra –
it’s just a “mind your own business unless you’re asked to interfere”
It’s also bystander syndrome – the more people there are, the less responsible each person feels to “do something.”
living in a city where people are so on top of each other
We have smaller bubbles of personal space
but of course no one really knew what to do
Sometimes there are so many people that you can forget to see any of them,
First thought – I feel so bad for everyone living in NYC. I really do.
Second thought – you can make as many excuses as you want – and all those above are excuses – the behavior of ignoring people is a very bad thing. Here is just one example:
http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/predators/kitty_genovese/1.html
It took over 1/2 an hour to kill her – people admitted to seeing some of the attack, one man turned up his radio so he didn’t hear her screams, all because they minded their own business and didn’t interfere. That happened in 1964. Then there was the murder of Sandra Zahler 10 years after Kitty Genovese’s death. People heard the screams and did nothing.
Those two examples are the extremes of what happens with the – wait until your asked to help mentality. But they happened over 30 years ago and nothing has changed much, has it?
“What compelled me to go “above and beyond,” if that’s what I did (not sure about that) – aside from “for goodness sake” – is that people have gone above and beyond for me in the past”.
Who defines “goodness”? I really want to know this. Wasn’t the cop being good because he followed you until you found the man? Weren’t the people on the subway being for ‘minding their own business’ when it came to the backpack? Weren’t you the intruder for going through the bag? Which is goodness and which isn’t? And why?
You said: “He said all his co-workers thought it must be a scam, because no one in this day and age would look inside a bag left on the subway.
Your definition of “goodness” is vastly different if the first thing people thought was that the guy was being scammed because no one does this. Why is your ‘goodness’ different from all the others? Why isn’t their ‘goodness’ defined like yours is?
And what the heck is this about? I’m leaving to see my two follow-up specialists soon, and then I’ll call the infectious disease people, so I’ll let you guys know if I find anything out on that front
What did I miss? What’s going on? Now you got me worried!
“First thought – I feel so bad for everyone living in NYC. I really do. ”
Like I said, please don’t. I am comfortable like this – with this vibe. I get claustrophobic and exhausted by the overly involved vibe of some other places, even to some extent the suburb of NYC where my parents live. I like how I can choose to be invisible or seen in NYC, based on how I behave and what my body language is. If I ask for help I get it; if I look like I need help I almost always am asked if I’m okay. Last week I was just vaguely depressed and exhausted, and I cried on the subway ride home, not loud but just kind of defeated. The train wasn’t crowded but it wasn’t empty, and everyone could see. I just felt like being alone and so I kept my headphones on and refused to make eye contact, and people left me alone. I LIKE that. Had I made myself approachable in some way, made eye contact with one of the people who were looking at me, they most likely would have asked if I was okay or at least if I needed a tissue. I like the freedom to be left alone – it’s important, in a city where you don’t get to just go sit alone in your car or whatever, to be able to erect little invisible walls that people recognize and respect.
I know about Kitty Genovese. I don’t think it’s a mentality, really – I think it’s a syndrome, a fact/flaw of human nature. It’s the bystander effect, like I mentioned earlier. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect People are less likely to help, the more there are of them – almost like the more people there are, the less responsible each person feels. That’s not unique to a specific city, or the denizens of a specific city – it’s a widely discussed, though controversial, phenomenon of human nature. That doesn’t absolve people of their responsibility to each other, it’s an explanation and not a justification – but I think the situation is more complex than just, “People don’t care about each other anymore,” or “People in X City don’t care about each other.”
I think that on an INDIVIDUAL basis, what is seen as “goodness” is often relative. That doesn’t mean that Good is relative, but that each person’s preference of what is ‘best’ for them is. I view it kind of like how I view etiquette – on an individual basis, as long as no one is being hurt, “good” is what makes the other person most comfortable. Some people would be very uncomfortable with the idea of me going through their child’s backpack to find a phone number; others would be upset at having it just turned in to the MTA. In some people’s eyes I WOULD be an intruder for going through their bag; in other people’s eyes I’d be self-absorbed for just wanting to drop the bag off and be done with it. I thought for a while about which was more likely, and which was more amenable to change, and I figured that I would call and offer to either meet the person or turn the backpack in to MTA officials, whichever they preferred (or, if I got voicemail, to say that if I hadn’t heard back in 12 hours then I would just leave the bag with the MTA – to give the person the option of not talking to me at all). I thought about it for the four minutes or so that it took to get to my train station, just to make sure that I was taking the path most likely to be considered “good” by the hypothetical person I was dealing with.
That guy’s co-workers joked that it must be a scam not because they thought I wasn’t being “good” but because they thought it was “too good.” As in “too good to be true.” Because people are scared of bombs and of intruding and of all sorts of other things, these days.
The cop was being “good,” or at least better than “bad,” by following me. He could have been “better,” by following me with a greater sense of urgency or at least by respecting my own emotions a little bit. Because that would have helped the man more, which is his job.
Sorry I thought you knew about my health issue! I explained a little bit in the Museum Picture thread. I went to 2 doctors already today and am going to a third in five minutes; I have a recommendation to see a hematologist/oncologist on Thursday. I’m not really very worried; it’s mostly just really annoying. They took tons of blood on Saturday, like 5 vials, and then a bunch more today. I have band-aids and bruises and marks all over me from the different drawing sites and I’m not even done yet. And I HATE missing work like this. I found a replacement for my boss, so that he didn’t have to worry about finding someone qualified; and I have been in contact with my already-in-process vendors throughout the day but I feel like I’m letting everyone down.
Alexandra –
We’ll just leave it as I feel bad for the people of NYC and you think I shouldn’t. I still think you need to come live here for awhile. If you want to be left alone, you go to a room with no people in it…..or a bus that is usually empty. It’s that simple here. And if you want to be around people…..well, that’s easy too…..
Ah…but we aren’t alive 24 hours a day like NYC. I can see the befits of that every now and again.
Funny story – The couple that we hired to take our wedding pictures had moved here from Boston. The couldn’t get over the land space around here. They couldn’t believe how much space there was in between houses and how much yard each house had. The wife said she couldn’t sleep at night because it was too quiet. The first time she heard a bullfrog croak she had no clue what it was! They were also impressed that most of us can tell you if the weather predictions are right or not. We just look outside, see what the sky’s and trees look like and we can tell if it is going to rain, snow, hail, tornado…etc. Dopler – who needs that! They also couldn’t get over how welcoming we all are. It drove them nuts though.
They eventually moved back to Boston. They said they liked it here and were happy they lived here for awhile, but it wasn’t for them. I can see you being a lot like that!
You better hope a cop doesn’t pull you over or anything – they would think you are a drug addict! I hope everything is okay.
I think I would be like your Boston friends, probably. I grew up in the NYC suburbs so I grew up accustomed to yards, huge houses, etc, but I just don’t LIKE that vibe. I get uncomfortable with what I see as excessive use of physical space, kind of – and I’m not saying it is actually excessive, just that I like things being small and on top of each other and intimate. I LOVE small living spaces, small neighborhoods (and NYC neighborhoods are like little towns unto themselves, each with its own groceries and drugstores and restaurants and “regulars,” etc).
I like other ways of living, in small doses, and I love the outdoors – love camping, even in the winter; hiking, kayaking. One of my favorite vacations, I slept under a rock overhang for shelter! But for my daily life I like having everything be compact – my home, my neighborhood, my “daily triangle” between work and play and sleep. Being my own little unit on my own, in my sphere of life – no car, nothing physical separating me from the people around me in my “between places” moments, just me and whatever I can carry. I like being able to be alone without needing to be ALONE. I like the efficiency and the sense of community that sharing such vast amounts of space/life can create – it’s different than the sense of community in a smaller town, where community is primarily about sharing conversations/activities/etc rather than space/resources. (Of course people share activities etc in NYC too – but I’m speaking very generally.) Quieter and more passive, I guess. Not better, just different.
I don’t feel bad for people who don’t live like me. I certainly understand the appeal! I just like my life and my city.
I’m back from the ENT doctor. I have to go back next week and have a biopsy done on a gland in my neck! ACK! I see the hematology/oncology doctors on Thursday so I’ll update people then, or when I hear something back from the infectious disease doctor).
CHANGE OF TOPIC this is a new band whose first album came out a couple weeks ago and is available for free download. I’ve been listening to it virtually non-stop: http://magicman.bandcamp.com/ If you don’t know where to start, I recommend Monster, South Dakota, Daughter, and Polygons. It’s like an electropop sunrise.
Probably not the style of people here but I figured, it’s free so it’s worth a shot. Too happy for Rae, to electric and pop-y for MK, not sure about Val and Stu…
@Alexandra: Oh dear! I hope everything turns out okay health-wise! I would be sh***ing bricks if I were you and I had to go see a hematology/oncology doctor! Hey- if you’ve got a really weird case they may send you to the Mayo Clinic and you can stay with me (that’s probably not a happy situation and probably shouldn’t warrant a smiley face).
I’m listening to that “South Dakota” song and I’m LOVING what I hear so far! I love electropop! I was a huge Freezepop fan my freshman year of college.
Thanks for linking that, Alexandra!
@Val: Do you still listen to that Within Temptation stuff I recommended to you a few years back…?
YES! I’m so glad you like it! I love how….almost, like, atmospheric the sound is.
It sounds like wide open skies and yellowblue, or something.
Oddly I’m not really worried about the hematology/oncology thing. I figure it’s just to rule it out so that I don’t spend my whole life wondering “OMG IS IT LYMPHOMA” if we don’t ever find a solid cause for any of this. I’m less chill about the neck gland biopsy even though there’s no cutting involved – “just discomfort,” he assured me. SHUDDER.
AND OF COURSE I WILL NEED TO MISS MORE WORK FOR THIS CRAP. ugh. I have missed precisely one day of work in three years before this. I feel so uncool and unreliable.
@Alexandra: Hahahaha- I wish I could be so chill about that sort of stuff. I had a swollen lymph node in my neck for a few months and I freaked the hell out because I have a cousin who had lymphoma and my uncle died of cancer several years back- so I’m always freaking out about cancer. Turns out it was just a swollen lymph node from the ridiculous inflammation on my scalp from my under-treated psoriasis.
A neck gland biopsy? Ew ew ew ew ew. Needle biopsies are so freaking gross.
Which gland is it, if you don’t mind me asking? Is it a thyroid biopsy? Or a salivary gland like that one dude from the Beastie Boys?
And I hear you about missing work. When I was working +/- fulltime over the summer I never missed a day except for a brief vacation in July. But I felt guilty the entire time even though my boss told me to GTFO and go take a break.
Oh yeah, I’m always freaking out about cancer prevention. Sunscreen, diet, etc. But when it comes to cancer itself I figure, why worry about what you can’t control, haha. I’m kind of a mellow person. I like to take things one step at a time, and only freak out when I know I need to.
It’s a lymph node on the right side of my neck. It actually first swelled up five years ago, during an infection that was quickly treated with antibiotics. It stayed mildly swollen after that, though not painful – never went back to normal size – and I always figured that was an after-effect of it having gotten SO swollen. Apparently that’s not normal and it should have gone back to its original size – I lost my insurance for a few years soon after that so I never told anyone about it until right now, when it got REALLY swollen again as part of this latest…whatever it is. All my lymph nodes got swollen but that one was really bad, like visibly swollen. I’m really worried that this will count as a pre-existing condition or something, and that none of this will be covered.
So anyway my WBC count was 21,000 on Saturday, with mostly high neutrophils or something. They checked it again today after 2 days on antibiotics but I don’t know what it came out to because I moved on to other doctors quickly in my schedule today. I think it’s probably just an infection. I just want to get this all over with already! UGH I have like no blood left to give.
Rae –
“@Val: Do you still listen to that Within Temptation stuff I recommended to you a few years back…?”
Yes!! I don’t have much time to listen to music anymore – but the CD “The Silent Force” is in the CD player in my car right now.
Alexandra –
I listened to a sampling of the music……It’s kinda cool but I just kept thinking how much it sounded like the Disco of the late ’70’s and early ’80’s with a “Tommy” (The Who) feel to it. I kept laughing at what the music was making me think of!
Of course, I do have that time period of music stuck in my head because of The Who playing at half time in the super bowl…….
It’s really sad when I look at how old they are now and can remember when they were young. ACK! I’m old. I’m thinking I might have to get a tattoo for my mid life crises…….
Don’t say the “C” word. Just don’t. I don’t like it. At all.
That’s good that it’s mostly neutrophils with a high WBC (good being relative- if it was mostly lymphocytes or other rarer cells, you’d have reason to be more concerned).
Hope everything turns out gouda and that it’s just an infection and not capricorn (since MK hates the other “c” word).
@Val: Get a tattoo! I have 2 of ‘em and they’re lovely. Get something nerdy- that way you can appreciate it forevar. I have a strand of DNA on my ankle and it’s probably the best thing about me. :-p
LOL MK allllllll day after I was given the card for the hematology/oncology specialist, I kept trying to get someone to actually say “it.” SOMETHING besides a euphemism. The guy who referred me to the specialist said, “He’ll look at the gland.” I said, “Oh, the ER already had me set up an appointment with an ENT doctor to look at the gland, is that the same kind of thing? Because I’m doing that this afternoon, just with someone else.” And he was like, “No, it’s different,” and then he changed the subject to the chest x-rays I had to get.
So when I was at the ENT doctor I asked him the same thing – showed him the card etc – and said, “You might not know this, but I’m just trying to avoid making redundant appointments so I’m going to ask. When I see these other people, is it going to be more of what you’re doing right now?” And he said, “No, they’re going to look at the gland. In a different way.” And I was like, “…..so how is that different, then. I mean than what you’re doing.” And he said, “Oh they’ll do some bloodwork.” And I was like, “You guys don’t do bloodwork, that’s the difference?” And finally he was like, “Well they’ll be focusing more on lymphoma.” I was like THANK YOU. I just want to be told stuff.
But don’t worry! You need to look for something to be confident it’s not there. And you know how I am – can’t stand NOT exhausting every avenue of possibility before getting comfortable in any one place…
I am really pretty sure that it’s just a bad infection of some sort, but of course I can’t stand NOT checking this out just to be safe.
Val I didn’t see The Who’s performance yesterday but I saw a flurry of FB updates about it, haha. Depressing.
Rae –
I’ve always wanted to get a dove flying through a hoop of fire for a tattoo, or some sort of exotic looking Celtic cross. I just don’t know where on my body to put it. I like to wear skirts and dresses so on the ankle wouldn’t work because I would need to be able to hide it for work (Sometimes working at a Catholic Church can be a bummer). I have too much cellulite on my thighs and stomach so that won’t work. No way am I getting a Tramp Stamp because that would give Stu one more thing to annoy me with. I want to be able to see it, so on the back of the shoulder wouldn’t work either. ARG! I’ll figure something out.
I already know where to go to a tattoo – a friend of mine (who is older than me) recently got two tattoo’s and I know he would only go to a place that is clean and professional. Of course he had to endure his son lecturing him about it. His son is a Priest! Oh, well….I figure if the Father’s Father can get a tattoo then I can to, right?
Alexandra –
I hate it when Doctor’s aren’t forthcoming when it comes to things like that. It is annoying. However I do understand why they do it. Some people would freak out. ug……
Keep us up to date. Ya know MK and I are now worried about you!
I’ve wanted to get a tattoo for awhile now. I know what I want and where to get it, but I just don’t have the money to get it done, heh.
Dan –
Details please. What do you want to get?
Val,
You get a tattoo and Stu won’t be the only one razzin’ you…
Everyone,
How many of you guys are being inundated with snow/rain????