The Queen Mary & Jennifer Lawrence (unrelated topics)

Hi! I'm back! With pictures and stories! But I'll do one at a time.

I am obsessed with the Queen Mary. It's an obsession that I carried over from my early childhood obsession with the Titanic. I think the primary reason I loved that movie (or the eyes-covered during certain parts version that I saw) was the elegance of it all. Rose had the prettiest clothes, the dining room was so fancy... it's an obsession that started early and hasn't yet ended. I LOVE pretty things.

Anyway, when I was about eight, we went to Long Beach for a feis (an Irish dance competition). It has been known as the "messy feis" ever since because the feis was held on a tennis court so our beautiful white socks got filthy. Everything got filthy, actually. There was dirt everywhere. But that's beside the point. The real point is that when we were there, I got to go on the Queen Mary, which is docked in Long Beach. I had the time of my life. It was just like the Titanic, but a little bit smaller and not at the bottom of the Atlantic ocean. As I walked along the promenade, I kept thinking about all of the people like Rose who used to walk on that same floor. It gave me goosebumps.

Not quite Rose, but Fred Astaire is pretty exciting in his own right.

This past Friday, I got to relive that adventure. A few things had changed. First, there was an egregiously high price of admission, unlike fourteen years ago when you could just walk on and explore. Second, it was much more like a museum than before. They had tours (for an additional fee), exhibits (for an additional fee), and very expensive stores. What hadn't changed was that you could still pretty much go wherever you wanted to go.

And it was amazing. I was like a kid in a candy store. I was so, so, sooooo excited.

Probably as close to royalty as I'll ever get.

During my adventures, I observed that they didn't have enough lifeboats for all of the passengers. I guess that's a lesson that the Titanic failed to teach...? (Nevermind that they're docked. They should have lifeboats for everyone. It's a rule that has been engrained in me by watching Jack die.)

Even though there weren't enough lifeboats, I was still thrilled that I got to touch one. Like, super thrilled. My enthusiasm knows no bounds.

Anyway, that was day one of our adventure. If I feel like it/remember, I'll tell you about the other days later.

P.S. - I want to take this moment to congratulate Jennifer Lawrence on her Oscar win last night. I also want to thank her for falling over. It made me love her even more. She's a real human being. Watching the below video, I realized that not only is she my age, but she is JUST LIKE ME. She has an Oscar, which I do not, but we could be the same person. It's ridiculous. And I love her. (That sounds terribly narcissistic, but it's not. Really. I don't love her because she's like me. I just love her. And it cracks me up that she's just like me. I think we could be friends.)

"What do you mean what happened?... I tried to walk up stairs in this dress, that's what happened." BAHAHAHA!

Going on an Adventure

Mum and I are off to Long Beach for the weekend. The real purpose of the weekend is to watch a baby while his parents work the TED2013 conference. The secondary purpose is to enjoy a bit of LA. I have this weird infatuation with LA. Being such a people-watcher, I appreciate the unusual... kinda strange... behavior of the... kinda strange people who inhabit LA.

We'll be heading up to Santa Monica for Mass on Sunday. I haven't been to St. Monica's church for years, so I'm excited and intrigued. It's a Catholic Church full of members of the performance industry. It certainly won't be boring.

I hope I'll be back with some stories for you!

Doctors: Aiming to Scare

(Some may feel that I am just whining in this post. If you do, well... that's too bad. I rarely get in a complaining mood about my multitudinous medical problems, so when I'm in one, just deal. Or don't read this post. Your choice.)

I went to the rheumatologist yesterday at the advice of my PCP to get a "life plan" for my joints. She was concerned with the amount of daily pain and inconvenience that I experience, so she referred me to the rheumatologist to see if there was a solution.

I wasn't terribly thrilled at the prospect. I've been to many doctors and they all tell me more or less the same thing: I have Ehlers-Danlos, type three (or benign hyper-mobility). It isn't dangerous, even if it is painful and inconvenient. They can't really do anything except prescribe physical therapy to strengthen the muscles around my inadequate tendons and ligaments. Oh, and I'll have an early onset of severe arthritis. Yay.

As I sat on the table, slightly chilly in my straight-from-Paris, one-size-fits-all gown, I listened to the same diagnosis and (more or less) the same solution that I have heard countless times. I wasn't terribly upset by any of this. I was, however, pleasantly surprised by this doctor's suggestion of a quick, easy, more comprehensive physical therapy program that I could easily do every day. As it is, I have had about three years of physical therapy. All of my therapists have been kind, professional, competent individuals, but they have all treated a different joint. Consequently, if I were to do all of their programs back-to-back on a daily basis, I would spent almost two hours on PT. And that's not going to happen.

So far, so good.

Then it got exciting (read: not so pleasant).

We started talking pain maintenance and the use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. I told him that I used them consistently for about ten years... and that I stopped when my stomach basically erupted into a bleeding ulcer. Well, I had kinda stopped. I have been taking them as part of my hormone regulating regimen (more on that later) and when I got the flu a few weeks back, the only fever-reducer we had on hand was ibuprofen (a NSAID), which I took for the duration of my flu (about 10 days). Ever since then, my stomach has been bothering me.

Needless to say, the doctor freaked out. Don't get me wrong, he was very professional. His face registered "panic" for a moment, and then he calmly started to try to put some fear into me. I kid you not. He was trying to scare me. I think this may be because I don't usually take my medical problems very *ahem* seriously. He told me that I need to see a gastroenterologist and will probably need an upper GI endoscopy. Yay. A tube down my throat so they can look around the inside of my stomach.

I sorta had figured that this was the next step, which is why I have been avoiding the issue. The doctor assured me that if he had my history and knew what he knew, he would be in a big hurry to get one done. Because... and this is where he really got into the scaring me bit... I could bleed to death. Oh, joy.

To make matters worse, I have been (inadvertently) taking things that I should not have been taking together given my history of bleeding ulcers. The anti-inflammatory medication that my previous PCP gave me to help reduce some PMS symptoms irritates the stomach. The fluoxetine he gave me for the hormone imbalances prevents blood from clotting as effectively as it normally does. Given my history of bleeding ulcers, my stomach is sorta a time bomb. Double yay.

The rheumatologist ended the appointment with, "I hope I've scared you." It takes a lot to do that, but I think he managed. 

So with the promise of future PT and a GI appointment, my outlook on life took a turn for the less-optimistic in the past 24 hours. I'm sure I shall regain my bubbly, exuberant spirit again soon, but at the moment, I'm wallowing. Hehe.

(note: I really, really liked this doctor. This post is not intended to give the impression that I was unhappy with the treatment I received. He was kind, well-dressed, and listened very attentively, even to the benign things. I will have no qualms going to him again if... probably when... necessary.)

What is going on??

The theme of my life seems to be RANDOM. So very random. It's approximately eleven o'clock and this is what I've done so far:

Read an undergraduate thesis draft on my phone without even getting out of bed... or putting on my glasses. Ha!

Came downstairs to discover that my sister had somehow caused a knife to dematerialize after she dropped it. After a thorough investigation conducted while sliding across the floor on my stomach, I retrieved the knife from underneath the refrigerator with a yardstick. It somehow ended up in the very back corner. This surprised me even more since the floor under the fridge isn't terribly... clean. I'm surprised it got past all of the dog hair, cracker bits, and chocolate chips that were in between it and me.

Drank coffee and ate a bagel. I always manage to over-toast my bagels. This is what happens: I stand there watching it, waiting for it to get brown. It doesn't change color at all. I decide that I have a minute to go do something else. I leave a white bagel in the oven and by the time I come back (and it's always less than 30 seconds later), the bagel is dark, dark brown. It's sorta like the marshmallows on the sweet potatoes at Thanksgiving. I have some sort of problem with broilers.

Finished reading and editing another undergraduate thesis. This one wasn't on my phone, it was actually printed and red penned profusely.

Discussed the level of Shawn Hatosy's education and what his probable reaction to the phrase "quieting concupiscence" would be. It's a toss-up between mystification and derision.

Downloaded last night's episode of Bones off of iTunes. I somehow lost track of the fact that it was Monday yesterday and missed it while blithely watching episodes of Say Yes to the Dress on Netflix. Time well spent, no? ;)

Happy Tuesday! I hope your day has fewer rheumatologists in it than mine :)

Creating

Here's a little update on what's been going on in my scrappy corner room.

Grandma and Mum

Baby Andrea

D&B&J

Better Together

Section Love

Lenten Valentine?

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(A reflection written for tonight's Bible Study)

Think about Lent. Ashes. Sackcloth. Penance. Fasting. Suffering. Think about Valentine’s Day. Pink hearts. Declarations of love. Hallmark cards. Roses. Chocolate. So what happens when you combine the images of the latter with the images of the former? Chaos, commotion, and contradiction, right? Well, it doesn’t have to be. In fact, it shouldn’t be.

“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” John 15: 9-13 (emphasis added)

Here Christ unites two ideas that modern culture would have us believe are mutually exclusive: love and suffering. Valentine’s Day and Lent. Given our basic understandings of each of these things, this fusion of events is impossible. Our understanding of love emphasizes happiness. Our understanding of Lent emphasizes sorrow. This is a problem, but only as long as we misunderstand Lent and Love.

What is Lent?

If you ask your average Catholic why Lent is observed, the answer will likely be something to the effect of, “repentance and penance.” While true, this only gets at the way we achieve the purpose of the season. Lent is observed for one reason: to bring us closer to God. Given the common understanding that God is love, how can we hope to be united with Him if we are estranged from love? One essential thing we must learn during this season is how to love and to be loved.  

This doesn’t mean that Lent shouldn’t be penitential. We are sinners who must repent of our sins. But why do we repent? The act of contrition summarizes it nicely: “I detest my sins because of your just punishment, but most of all because they offend thee, O God, who are all good and deserving of all of my love.” We strive to achieve closer union with God by acts of self-sacrifice, such as fasting and abstinence. We do not do these things for their own sakes, however. We do these things so that we might become less attached to ourselves and more attached to God. It’s about the other Person. It’s for the other Person. As soon as our Lent is separated from love (and therefore joy), we have missed the point.

I’m not saying that we should all be skipping and singing about the wonders of repentance for its own sake. No, no, no. Repentance is not something we should do just for the sake of repenting. It is a tool. We, as humans, have a tendency to get stuck on ourselves. Our thoughts and actions center around “me, myself, and I.” Sacrifice and penance are to help us reprioritize. We remove or make uncomfortable the things that take God’s place in our lives so that we will have the opportunity to fill that space in our lives with God. We repent to be rid of the bad thing and to grasp the good thing. That approach to and grasping of the good thing is what should make us joyful.

We have difficulty seeing past what we’re doing and forget to focus on why we are doing it. This is due to our animal natures. A dog does not discern why it eats, only that it eats. We share this tendency with the dogs, but we don’t have to get stuck there. We eat because we enjoy food, sure, but the real reason is to be nourished so that we will continue to live. We can know that, unlike the dog, who simply experiences it. Our rationality – the part of us that is created in the image and likeness of God – allows us to grasp a bigger picture. We can, in a very limited way, step outside of time and see the whole.

This ability allows us to ask “why?” about suffering and sacrifice. The reason I put aside my own good now is for my own good later, or for another’s good. I can know and understand that Lent is not all there is to life. Lent is for Easter. It’s like planting a seed in the empty soil, in hope of a flower blooming. There is suffering and emptiness so that there might be a celebration of real joy and fulfillment. 

This joy comes from union with God, who is love. How do we reach this union with Love? We don’t reach Love by hate, despair, or selfishness. Love comes from love. So if the goal of Lent is love, shouldn’t we be focusing on love all the way through? Pope Benedict XVI wrote, “As the objects of God's love, men and women become subjects of charity, they are called to make themselves instruments of grace, so as to pour forth God's charity and to weave networks of charity.” (Caritas in Veritate)

We have been given love. Grace, simply put, is God’s love. Our movement to repentance is, in itself, a gift of grace. By loving us, God helps us to come to love Him. Since we have this love, we are called to give it back, not only to God, but to each other.

What is love?

“I love you.” These three words can mean so much. Hallmark sells them for a couple of dollars, but real love cannot be bought or expressed in a greeting card. Real love must be lived. Real love is hard.

Nothing can bring us greater joy than the love of another person. The funny thing about joy, however, is that the greater joy you have, the more suffering you can have. It may seem like an obvious statement, but the higher you climb, the harder you’ll fall. And we’ll fall. Because of our human condition, love always, always involves suffering. A human being cannot consistently love another person. Inevitably, someone we love will hurt us or we will hurt those we love. It may be a lasting estrangement. It may only be for a moment. But it will happen.

We can react a couple of ways to this fact. We can live our lives fearing love because of the pain that is inevitable. Or we can love anyway, accepting that we will occasionally fail. To do this, we must be willing to forgive and ask forgiveness. In order that we might avoid failures, we must be willing to sacrifice. No two people are always going to agree on every single thing. Sometimes we will have to give up our own opinions or preferences for the good of another person. We must die to ourselves – put another’s wants and needs before our own – in order to really love another person. There is no room for selfishness in love. Your sacrifice may not involve a matter of life or death, but every sacrifice can be a gift of self. We do not sacrifice for the sake of sacrificing, but to achieve a greater good. We sacrifice so that we may have the joy that comes with love. Sacrifice is for Love.

Love doesn’t calculate or complain. It simply loves. As Shakespeare says, “[Love] looks on tempests and is never shaken.” (Sonnet 116) This is something that is beyond our natural, human capacity. Our human nature calculates and complains. Our human nature fears pain, whether it is emotional or physical. We need to let go of our human weaknesses if we are going to be able to love and to be loved, without question or qualification. This requires grace. We need to accept grace. We need to accept God’s love.

Lenten Love

With these things in mind, Valentine’s Day in Lent is not a contradiction, but a fitting combination. This Lent, we can focus on love and sacrifice and the mystery of their union. As St. Gianna said, "Love and sacrifice are closely linked, like the sun and the light. We cannot love without suffering and we cannot suffer without love."

We have to die to ourselves this Lent. We have to lay down our lives for our friends. This does not have to be literal, bloody martyrdom. This can be “white martyrdom” – dying to our desires and our wishes daily. We do this so we can practice loving. Our love won’t be perfect. Nothing about human beings is perfect. Only God can love us perfectly. If we try to love others as Christ loves us, we can try to reach that same perfection. We will fail. We will fall. We will repent. Over and over again. But we have to try.

Lent is for Easter. Sacrifice is for Love. Lent is for Love.

A Fast-Free Lent

I am Catholic.

I am twenty-two years old.

And I am not fasting or abstaining this Lent.

And you know what? It's harder than fasting and abstaining.

I wish I were fasting and abstaining. Really. But two conditions prevent me from doing so: hypoglycemia & anemia. Under doctor's and chaplain's orders, I am not allowed to fast or abstain. By doing those things, I am willfully endangering my well-being. Passing out might not do permanent damage, but an eighth concussion very well could.

Some people envy me. They think I'm taking the easy way out or I got lucky. I did, in a way, but not the way they think.

I got lucky, because not being able to fast and abstain with my fellow Catholics is ten times harder than actually fasting and abstaining would be. For someone who is very people-oriented, not moving with the crowd is very, very difficult for me to do. I fear people judging me. By being forced to eat normally during Lent, it refocuses me on the reason that we're supposed to fast and abstain in the first place: to turn our minds and hearts toward God.

The only One who knows my intentions is the One to whom it actually matters. It doesn't matter what everyone else thinks or says about me and my dietary peculiarities. It only matters if I take the opportunity for humility and gratitude and allow it to help me grow closer to the Person who suffered so much on my account.

It's easy for me to do things for the unimportant people that I can see. It's much harder for me to do things for the Three Important Persons that I can't see.

It's a message given fairly directly in today's gospel from Matthew 6:

	"Beware of practicing your piety before men in order to be seen by them; for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.
	Thus, when you give alms, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by men. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.
	But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing,
	so that your alms may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
	And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by men. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.
	But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
	And when you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by men. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.
	But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face,
	that your fasting may not be seen by men but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you."