Life Off The Hill

Six friends navigating through our quarter life crises, separate but together.

[lifeoffthehill]

The first one is normal, the second is me. 

By which I mean, I finally got my answer. 

Apparently I have a retroflexed odontoid, so the top vertebra on my cervical spine is at the wrong angle. As a result, it is poking forward, putting pressure on my spinal cord and brainstem (which is also in the wrong position). 

This probably explains the fainting and lightheadedness I’ve been dealing with all my life, and now the dull stabbing sensations, neck pain, pins-and-needles in my limbs, and other weird symptoms I’ve had for the past year.

I’m currently on a course of anti-inflammatories and stuck in a giant collar 24/7 for the next few weeks, and am following up with spinal and neurosurgeons. All of this has been overwhelming and has thrown my plans way off. I’m sorry for falling off the face of the planet, hopefully I’ll be back in action soon!

[lifeoffthehill]

Back in December I signed off my Christmas cards for these five “See you in Gambier!” When I received on back from Vivian expressing some doubt about attending out five year college reunion, I panicked. I couldn’t bear the thought of going back to campus for this event without all of them by my side.

I engineered our bi-weekly Google Hangout partly to persuade everyone to say yes to the reunion and, more importantly, to start the process of reconnecting where our communications had been so hit or miss during the five years since graduation. As we hammered out the details, it turned out just four of the six of us would make it back to Gambier for Memorial Day weekend.

Making logistical arrangements, I started to have my doubts. Why was it so expensive to book a weekend trip to rural Ohio? Between registration fees, the room charge, the meals there was also coordinating the flight times and how to get everyone from airport to campus without help of a shuttle. I started to think that Vivian was right: we should have met up in Thailand.

My dread also started to grow during the week leading up to and during our drive to campus on Friday morning. Via the Facebook group, I started to remember people I hadn’t thought of once since we left campus five years before. I could think of so few people I would want to see.

Standing on the sidewalk in front of the bookstore, then eating lunch on the patio at the deli, and then sitting on a swing in the first year quad, it struck me how easy we fell into old patterns with most people—walk past, wave or smile, move on. Of course there were folks worth making small talk with, acquaintances we have too much history with not to catch up, acquaintances we were more fond of who we wanted to share updates with.

Overall, it seems that everyone came there with the same agenda: to spend quality time with their very best friends. So that’s what we did - we settled into long walks down Middle Path, raucous conversations around the table in the bright room, long chats that don’t wrap up until the wee hours of morning. Despite our bi-weekly Google hangouts, the constant buzz of our group text, and the intermittent paper coming through our mailboxes, being in the same room after all this time, I’m still in awe about how much life happens to each of us, day in and day out, year after year.

I also leave campus inspired, hoping that this event will encourage us to have more in-person reunions. Maybe we can organize to visit each other all at the same time—see each other’s cities, homes, day-to-day. Maybe we can skip the reunions in Gambier and meet up for the 10 year commemoration in some international destination. A small Ohio town brought us together from all over the nation, and over the past few years we’ve gone many separate ways, now maybe we can shift from “separate but together” to seeing the world together. I’d like that.

[lifeoffthehill]

This week, we celebrate HELEN! 

One of my earliest, and perhaps one of my fondest, memories is from fall 2008. It was our first semester at Kenyon. Discovering early on that we were both FilAms, and being trapped among savages on our co-ed floor in the first year dorm, we were fast friends, but we still barely knew each other. One weekend Helen went on a Cedar Point trip (for those unfamiliar, it is rumored to be “American’s Roller Coast”). And Helen suffered a great misfortune: her glasses flew off her face while on a rollercoaster! 

Upon return, Helen asked me to drive her to the Wal-mart so she could get an exam and order new glasses the next day. Even though she had a plan of action, I couldn’t bare the thought of poor Helen having to navigate the campus in a huge blur for upwards of a week to two without any glasses. They don’t make emergency glasses for this kind of thing?? No, not really. 

I wore glasses too, but I also wore contacts. So I had Helen try on my glasses. I have no idea the disparity between our prescriptions, but Helen said they helped and I felt assured that she would be able to see more clearly, even if not at the very best, until her new glasses would come in. 

I don’t have any real moral or insightful thoughts on friendship to draw from that particular story, it’s just one of my favorites. 

We’re coming up on nine years since we met at Kenyon, and there are so many fond memories to enumerate - from drunken nights at campus parties to meeting the Filipino slam poet The Asia Project; from trekking across Chicago from the Bean to Navy Pier on foot on a cold December night (2010) to cheering on Manny Pacquio at Helen’s family party in the suburbs (2012); from eating cupcakes in Lincoln Park (2014, pictured above) to exchanging postcards from our Philippines trips in 2016. 

I’m sad that Helen won’t be joining us in Gambier this week/end for the reunion, but with Chicago only a stone’s throw from Cincinnati, I look forward to reuniting again very soon. 

Happy Birthday week, Helen! 

[lifeoffthehill]

Hair

This was definitely not something I planned on sharing/talking about but it is definitely new and at the forefront of my mind recently.

I’ve noticed that my hair has been falling out at an abnormal rate. I’ve been told that I am just being paranoid. But as someone who is completely obsessed with my hair, I can, most assuredly, tell you that I am not being paranoid.

If you’re someone with long hair, you might be able to relate. In the shower I often hand-comb through my hair when I condition it and any fallen strands I gather on my shower wall. At the end of this ritual, I usually ball it all up in my hand -- it’s a soothing process and makes it easier to toss (reminds me of the childhood experiment of dropping bread in the ocean – ball it up and it’ll sink). Anyway, what used to be marble-sized hairballs or smaller/no ball, I now regularly get 2/3rds of a golf ball. 

I also run my hands through my hair constantly throughout the day. Occasionally one or two strands will come out. Now it’s not uncommon for 10+ to come out at once. Also I’m constantly finding significant piles of hair on my hardwood floors. While finding hair on the floor isn’t uncommon, finding said piles a day or two after you’ve just swept is extremely disconcerting.

There’s also the ponytail grip – overall circumference of my ponytail is smaller, I’m sure of it!

And if that wasn’t enough, because hair and nail health go hand in hand (keratin), my nails have been weak as fuck recently too. In the beginning I just thought I was washing dishes too often, causing them to peel (not break, PEEL!) more easily. I’ve always had strong nails and didn’t wash dishes that often. But this is just obscene.

Anyway, while I’m too lazy to cite sources, it is, apparently, normal on any given day for people to lose 50 – 100 strands (while washing, on average, 250 strands).

I googled and googled and have concluded that my increased loss of hair and nail fragility can be attributed to one of three reasons:

Going on/off birth control

Too much vitamin A

Body stress/trauma – for example, rapid weight loss.

Birth Control

General imbalance of hormones or a sudden introduction or cessation of birth control (pill or implant) can cause hair loss, apparently.

Vitamin A

Too little Vitamin A is bad for you but so is too much. It’s more complex to determine if I am ingesting too much Vitamin A because what is “too much” differs between what types I’m ingesting (plant/animal/supplements). Apparently 700 IU (international unit) for females my age is the recommended daily amount (again differs between what type is ingested). I have also seen 5,000 IU thrown around. The multivitamin I take has 2,500 IU and is apparently 50% DV. Each Hardboiled Egg is around 797 IU and 100g of Bok Choy supposedly contains 4468 IU.

I’ve been regularly taking one NatureMade multivitamin, consume at least 2 hardboiled eggs and have been consuming at least 100g of Bok Choy as part of my vegetable portion, each day. Potentially eating too much vitamin A and a conclusion can be made via a blood test.

There are many other foods that contain more Vitamin A (like carrots and sweet potatoes) but I do not consume them.

Stress/Rapid Weight Loss

My first inclination when I realized that this loss rate might more than a passing concern, I assumed it was due to stress. But was I stressed at work? Not really. Home? I’ve been SUPER busy, busier than I’ve ever been but wasn’t necessarily sure if I was stressed about it. More like an extreme excitement to do everything at once and not being able to and therefore barely sleeping but still managing to function anyway, somehow.

What is rapid weight loss? Google returned some numbers –

Over 2 lbs a week

10% in 6 months

More than 1/3 pound a day

More than 1% of your body weight a week

I guess I have had rapid weight loss, due to keto. That is actually, of the three reasons, what I’m hoping is the cause, because my body will eventually re-balance itself (in 6 months, apparently). It also fits the timeline of when I first started noticing the change (couple of weeks to three months). Hair loss due to birth control should also subside after a few months, should.

So that’s what’s new with me. Being paranoid/stressed/petrified that one of my most treasured features is literally slipping through my fingers and going down the drain. I’ve also started taking 5000 mg Biotin supplements as a temporary buffer to help slow down the loss rate. – Except that’s not really how hair works.

If you’re still reading…

Life of your hair has 4 stages anagen, catagen, telogen and exogen. Growing phase (2 – 8 years), Transition phase (2 - 3 weeks), Resting phase (2 – 4 months), Shedding phase. Things like change in hormonal balance or body stressors can cause your hair growth cycle to accelerate causing excessive fallout (due to follicles all entering the exogen phase).  Process is also called telogen effluvium.

There are many other causes of thinning hair and some are much more frightening than body changes -- like autoimmune diseases, genetics and ringworm. One way to tell if it’s telogen effluvium (versus a scarier reason) is to check the follicle. If you see “club-shaped bulbs” at the end, then that signifies that hair strand has reached the end of its cycle, albeit more quickly than normal.

As a reward for scrolling all the way through this post, I will leave you with a picture of my hair, at its longest. Beautiful, isn’t it?

[lifeoffthehill]

I met a guy. 

I met him through Tinder back in March and we’re now coming up on two months later. I’m still mystified by how quickly Tinder worked ( it’s relative to say that Tinder “worked,” but you know what I mean). I guess a good man isn’t as hard to find as I initially assumed. 

As I’ve mentioned in other posts, this is my first adventure in dating strangers. So, for the most part, I’m making this up as I go. We’ve had traditional and easily recognizable milestones: first date, second date, first kiss. We’ve had some completely made up milestones, too: when we followed each other on Instagram after our second date, when we learned each other’s last names on date three, when we had that conversation about deleting our dating apps last weekend, the first selfie we took this past Friday (it was on Snapchat, but it’s disappeared now). Last night, we hit our next level: we talked on the phone.

Up until now we have been communicating primarily through text messages, and having really great conversations when we see each other (approximately once a week). We’ll text all day from a “good morning” text to a “goodnight”—sometimes our texts flow like conversations and sometimes they dilly dally in the mundane. In both cases, I’ve moved passed worrying about the intervals between messages or the potential miscommunications. In person, there’s chemistry and flow and comfortable silence and a lot of laughter and we’ll linger for hours. But Sunday night, I wanted to tell him about my day, but I decided it was too complex to boil it down in text messages, so I asked him if we could call.

We’ve been charming, flirty, exciting, entertaining. When the “deeper” things have come up, it’s fairly organic and nothing has been “uncomfortable.” But that’s partly where our conversation on the phone led (in a good way). We actually used FaceTime, so it’s one of those places where you can’t hide much. There was something in his eyes, so I said “You look you want to tell me bad news.” The “bad news” was that he is going on vacation and had to cancel on me for a wine tasting next weekend. (To be clear, this is not bad news. There will be other wine tastings to attend. He had mentioned he was planning a trip but was still hammering out details, and it turns out the details fell into place.)

More than that he had to cancel a plan and I won’t see him this week/end, he had been wanting to tell me about things that make him feel anxious and a history with depression. These things spilled out along with an “escape” option and “what do you think?”

Clearly, this phone call had a lot of levels.

I took a minute to gather my thoughts and told him something like this: That this is the reality of dating and getting to know someone; this is the part where things “get real.” We’ve had a lot of fun and games so far, during which we’ve established we have chemistry, attraction, interest. That isn’t ever the whole picture, though, when we get involved in the lives of someone new. 

And, the point where things “get real” never has good timing and it’s always terrifying because we have no idea how another person will react when they begin to see what we look like when we’re “not at our best,” when we aren’t that charming, when we aren’t smiling and laughing, when we’re not flirting over a gourmet dinner. There is never a good time to show someone that our lives are dark and twisty and complex and that our scars are deep.

But, to me, it’s not okay to take the escape route and offer a platitude like “I really like you, but you turned out to be dark and twisty, so bye.” But, equally important, it’s also not okay to say “I like you and I can fix what’s dark and twisty about you,” because we can never “fix” each other. We aren’t meant to be solutions to each other’s problems, but we also have to realize that our pasts, our issues, the things that haunt us are not inherently burdens for others and that we all have them. If we go through our lives, on either end, thinking that our issues are burdens and/or that no one else has issues, we’ll never be ready to open our minds, our hearts, our present, our future lives to another person.

None of us are shiny and new; we all come into this with some scars. But scars don’t make us “damaged.” Ultimately, what we are looking for are people who can accept us, support us, let us know we are not alone. And that’s not about the chemistry, attraction, interest. That’s about trust--can we trust another person with what makes us feel vulnerable? Can we have faith that when we are not at our best we are still worth their time, their energy, their patience? Will they give when we need and will they ask of us when they need?

I don’t have answers to these questions yet, not solid ones anyway. I do know that I like him and he likes me, and in order to figure out if we still like each other from week to week and as weeks turn into months, we have to stick around long enough to start seeing parts of the whole picture. 

That, I think is the new level we reached.

[lifeoffthehill]

how much a dollar cost

Sort of a new thing: the way I view money is changing again. I say again because it’s fluctuated quite a bit since graduation. For a long while, I was extremely frugal, stressed over my loans, and counted literally every dollar I spent. Then I paid off my loans, and my spending habits flipped. I stopped looking at my receipts. I didn’t keep track of my spending because I didn’t have to.

Thing is, how I view money is largely dependent on how I’m paid. When I was paid hourly, and at an energy-draining job I was ill-suited for, it was easy to make direct connections between the work I was doing and the money I earned. e.g. “Wow, in order to buy this overpriced sandwich, I had to put in a whole hour of work at this job that I don’t even like. That sucks.”

When I had an annual salary, I stopped making those direct connections because it didn’t feel like my time was being monetized to the same extent as it was before. (Also that job sucked less and paid more, so you know.)

With commission-based work, it’s easier than ever to think of money in a way that is completely demoralizing. e.g. “Wow, this thing I just bought on Amazon costs the same as that piece I spent three days writing. Was that all it was worth? I guess so.”

/capitalism

[lifeoffthehill]

The thing that gets to me is rigid thinking and judgment.

Rigid thinking: My way is the only right way.

Judgment: And you’re a bad person for being different.

When confronted with a new point of view, the healthy reaction is to be curious about it and investigate. It’s how we grow as people and as a society. The instinct to retreat into the echo chamber of one’s own beliefs and demonize all others is regressive and prevents us from benefiting by working together. 

TRIVIA TIME! This sounds general, but it’s actually the biggest issue in my current relationship. So much fun!!!

[lifeoffthehill]

Stop Grinding My Gears

pet peeve

noun informal

something that a particular person finds especially annoying.

Someone from Kenyon once used the expression “grind my gears” when discussing her pet peeves and I have adopted the same ever since. I just really like the imagery it creates.

Picture this 

I hate when people are tardy.

Versus

Habitually tardy people really grind my gears!

Amirite or amirite?

I have a lot of pet peeves. A ton.  People annoy me all the time. My biggest source of annoyances stem from inefficiency or traditionalists for the sake of order. I constantly iterate myself, my thoughts and my processes as part of my life journey towards self-realization. Once I am made aware that something can be done better, I do my best to pivot towards it.

Those that do not, bug the heck outta me. Like, why?! Don’t you want to be the best version of yourself? A lot of times this boils down to wastefulness. Like energy, money and natural resources are not infinite. Do/make more with less.

Example 1 – Not following the rules / being selfish

Car tries to get to Point B faster (right turn lane) by driving down the center lane and squeezing into the right at the last second. Car blocks all lanes causing unnecessary traffic backup.

…. You know, I was going through all these different examples in my head, there seems to be a common theme. It really grinds my gears when I observe what I interpret as a lack of empathy. Like, why don’t you care?! If only everyone cared a little more, the world might not be such a fucked up place.

I guess it all boils down to my own issues about caring too much. I know I care too much, about everything and it bugs me when other people do not care as much as I. Over-caring is a compulsion and its draining.

[lifeoffthehill]

Throat.

This isn’t a pet peeve so much as it is a weird neurotic thing that I’ve developed the past few years. It only flares up in very specific situations, primarily when I’m sitting in a movie theater.

It has something to do with leaning my head back in a darkened room, but something about the whole situation makes me hyperaware of how vulnerable my throat is in that moment. Especially if I’m close to the screen and I’m forced to crane my neck upwards. I usually end up covering my throat with my hand so that it feels a little less exposed.

I’ve also noticed that my usual desensitization to onscreen violence doesn’t apply to throat stuff. Throat stuff still gives me goosebumps.

So yeah. Psychoanalyze that shit.

[lifeoffthehill]

Drive faster, bitch!

I’ve been thinking about my pet peeve nearly all day: when people drive Jeeps but don’t drive the speed limit (and, also the customary 5mph above it). 

I’ve been on the road the past two days - four hours each way to attend a wedding in Cleveland. 

When we were 16 and starting to get drivers licenses, our high school history who was from from the Detroit area, insisted that in Michigan people drive fast, but in Northwest Ohio, we drive aggressive. I never believed him until I moved to Southwest Ohio, where the people tend to drive the speed limit. Or 5mph below it. It reminds me of how the accents in Cincinnati are tinged with the slow southern drawl of Kentucky. 

I don’t deny that I’m aggressive driver. “Drive faster, bitch!” is one of my favorite driving expressions. 

I also have a lot of irrational beliefs about how other people should drive based mainly on the type of car they drive. And if you shelled out the money for a goddamn Jeep -- any of them, but especially the Wrangler or the Grand Cherokee -- you better drive the goddamn speed limit, and really, you should be keeping pace at 5 above. 

[lifeoffthehill]

The three question quiz, explained

On Date #2 with the (Tinder) man we’ve been calling Dimples, he asked me the “three question quiz.” 

According to his sources, your favorite animal will reflect some of your personality characteristics. Like if your favorite animal is an old dog, we could call you loyal. Your favorite color reflects your general temprament, so red might indicate that you are a little hot-headed. What you see at the end of the pier--and most people name some body of water--reflects how you see god(s) or think spiritually. 

We’ve given some pretty interesting answers this week, and all I can say for certain is that we sure know how to think outside the box. The best word for how our personalities are reflected by our answers: inconclusive

[lifeoffthehill]

The three question quiz:

What is your favorite animal? Tamagotchi because it can fit in your pocket and it doesn’t smell.

What is your favorite color? Midnight Blue

What is at the end of the pier? A smashed violin and a pair of used hearing aids. 

[lifeoffthehill]

The three question quiz:

1.       What is your favorite animal?

Leila, seen above. She’s the only thing I’m sure of right now.

2.       What is your favorite color?

Black holo (if it exists as nail polish, it is a color)

3.       What is at the end of the pier?

Nothing.

[lifeoffthehill]

The three question quiz:

1.       What is your favorite animal?

A Tiger

2.       What is your favorite color?

Green, more specifically Emerald Green (I used to tell people I loved Kelly Green or Grass Green), even more specifically hex no. 028A0F OR Pantone 2258 C.

Although, if you see me everyday you’d think my favorite color is bright medium blue … or red. I’ve been loving the blue/red color palette (+ black/shades of grey) for years now.  My outfits pair really well with a bold blue-red lip. Wow, that might be why. My superhero-esque preference started around the when I almost exclusively started rocking the bold blue-red lipstick. Prior to that, I was very much into the blue-pink lip.

3.       What is at the end of the pier?

The ocean. Waves endlessly crashing (yet gently) against the jagged rocks below.

[lifeoffthehill]

GRE questions

What is your favorite animal?

The blobfish because it looks like an unloved freak of nature.

What is your favorite color?

Some mild shade of green.

What is at the end of the pier?

A black briefcase with metal clasps, the one that the pale man delivered at noon. You know nothing of its contents, but when you lean in close, you can hear a faint hum.

[lifeoffthehill]

The three question quiz:

What is your favorite animal? Pigs. Because here in Cincinnati, pigs fly. 

What is your favorite color? Yellow. The shade of sunflowers. 

What is at the end of the pier? The river. Rivers have been important bodies of water in the places I’ve lived and they frequently appear in fond memories of my travels--from my childhood on the Maumee to my first time getting west of the Mississippi to my present-day on the Ohio. 

[lifeoffthehill]

The funny thing about treasure and loot in video games is that most of it is actually trash. You usually end up with some crap that you end up selling to the nearest merchant or equipment that’s only temporarily useful. The actually important items—objects that are vital to the storyline or that have some sentimental value—are inventoried under a separate category from the supposed treasure that you collect throughout the game. Naturally, the important items are the ones you’re not allowed to sell. 

I think video game developers have inadvertently created a pretty apt analogy for how most people relate to their possessions. Personally, I inhabit a fairly extreme end of the spectrum: I think almost everything I own is ultimately crap. Sure, my cellphone might be glued to my palm, but I only value this thing for its utility. It is my robot slave, and the moment that it ceases to function is the moment that it loses all worth.

Even with the stuff that I’ve imbued with some personal significance, I’m a little overly-aware of the fact that it’s not the thing itself that I value, but rather the memory of some experience or person or phase of my life that the thing evokes. Photographs do this naturally as they are fossilized images from our past, moments that should have been lost to time had we not elected to preserve them.

This isn’t to say that I don’t enjoy owning things for the sake of owning them or that I’ll sit and fingerwag about consumerism or that I’m planning to go off the grid and live like a hermit for the rest of my days. But this is to say that, for most people, I’m willing to bet that it’s not the stuff that we value so much as it is the experiences and people that the stuff remind us of.