I am sure this paragraph has touched all the internet users

I’ve started getting a lot of spam comments on this site. Of course, it’s perilous to assume—maybe I just have a lot of anonymous fans who really want to get me a deal for online casinos and Spanish real estate.

Most of these comments don’t appear on the blog itself for some reason. Blogger sends them directly to my email, though, and they’re starting to add up.

Of course, now that the election is over, I needed something to fill the extra space in my inbox.

By far the most popular post among my artificial adherents is this one I wrote in 2011 about cleaning refrigerators. I never expected my humble message to touch so many lives, but recent responses indicate that I have rendered humanity a great service.

Thank you, robots. I don’t know what to say.

But my vomit-prevention skills are not all that I have to offer. When it comes to frenzied eradication of vermin, I live to serve:

Also, my inability to function without caffeine could set me up for a major career change:

Not everyone is so congratulatory, though. For example, this fellow doesn’t find my pre-barf noises convincing because I failed to cite authoritative sources.

Despite familiarity with the concepts of spambots, internet trollery, and general sanity, every time I read this post I’m tempted to track the guy down and “unite the ideas” for him.

Intellectually I know that none of these comments, positive or negative, come from entities that have even glanced at my writing. That doesn’t keep me from reading them, though. It’s a lot like checking horoscopes—if you try hard enough, you can arrange to believe that they actually apply to you.

That’s why I keep clicking on the notifications—because of the possibility that A. Nonymous really does want to give me a shout out from Porter, Texas via his Russian blog.

It’s also why I’m applying extra vigilance to my spellcheck regimen:

Yet despite it all, jumbled in with the deceptions and false compliments, there lie a few noble spammers who still believe in straightforward honesty.

Extra Credit: http://xkcd.com/632/

In Stitches

This is a pincushion.

The items in it are very useful for sewing projects and pushing tiny reset buttons. They also belong one hundred percent outside of the human body at all times.

I neglected that vital guideline in November and fell victim to the first knitting-related stab wound to hit Albuquerque emergency facilities in 2012. If you are looking for ways to stand out from the crowd, this is not one that I would recommend.

My other recommendations include not leaving sharp things lying in the carpet. The whole adventure began with crouching over some knitting materials, soon followed by overbalancing into a nearby slurry of craft stuff that turned out not to be just yarn after all. Instead, it included a straight pin that promptly sunk so far into my shin that the head didn’t show.

As it happens, self-skewering is high on the list of Things That Can Make Me Faint Again. Since my established predisposition toward fainting is connected to a low heart rate, I spent a few minutes lying on my back doing arm calisthenics until the room stopped looking so white and floaty. Then I drove over to Urgent Care chanting energetic song lyrics very loudly in pursuit of continued consciousness.

After an x-ray, we found out that the pin had broken in half. Emergency was only able to remove the outer piece, which led to some disconcerting conversations with a specialist about the remaining one.

These discussions alternated with sheepish expository episodes every time I met someone new.

They sent me home with antibiotics and painkillers, and I spent several days waiting for further developments while feeling like a victim of the world’s most literal voodoo doll.

My parents, meanwhile, had a nifty time with the whole thing as well. They were driving cross-country during the Great Puncturing, and they did not receive the voicemail I left them from Urgent Care. Instead, they arrived in Indiana where my uncle, who had been following the saga on Facebook, greeted them at the door with, “Is Clara out of the hospital yet?”

Eventually, the doctor and I determined that it was best not to continue carrying the shrapnel from my hazardous life of yarn working. On December 27th they went in to retrieve the other piece—a process that involved many uncomfortable terms such as “anesthesia waiver” and “dissection,” but made up for it with pre-warmed blankets.

Hospital sanitary regulations wouldn’t let me keep the pin, which is too bad. I kind of wanted to make macabre jewelry now that it’s worth as much as several varieties of gemstone.

It’s not all bad, though. Primarily, I no longer have a sharp piece of metal lodged in a major moving part. As an added bonus, since stabbing myself via handicrafts, I’ve accomplished roughly five times as many needlework projects as in the entire preceding year. That means even more of my recovery time has been spent on the thing that attacked me than on NCIS reruns.

I’ve been trying to work out ways to harness this power of irony in my future injury planning. Maybe I can arrange for a concussion while doing sit-ups or something similarly productive.

Scrambled or Fried

I started drinking coffee occasionally a couple of years ago, and the habit has been picking up steam ever since. Until recently, though, I managed to stay firmly in denial about the chemical dependency aspect of regular caffeine consumption.

A few months ago we hired a new morning receptionist, and I was excited to train her on the desk and get back to my regular morning job in another part of the office. She arrived early the first day—having already drunk her own coffee—and I didn’t want to abandon her up front while I prepared my usual cup. It’s not as if it mattered. I could always pour some later in the day if I still wanted it.

About an hour into Sadie’s training, my headache started. Along with it came a cloud of foggy exhaustion that muddled my ability to explain the more involved office procedures.

I blamed Monday morning for my mental malfunctions, but the confusion only worsened as time went on.

By a quarter to one, I only had fifteen more minutes to hold it together before training was over for the day and I could address the pressing caffeine situation. I was babbling unnecessarily about some obvious reception process…

…while another part of my brain fantasized about breakfast foods.

Meanwhile, a woman headed toward the lobby doors from outside. I couldn’t tell at first if she was a new visitor or someone who had already checked in, and this dilemma was enough to overload the circuitry. Instead of offering Sadie advice for either situation, I pointed toward the entrance and shrieked the first thing that came out.

By the time the woman reached the desk, I was desperately feigning normalcy.

I was impressed that Sadie showed up the next morning for another day of working in a confined space with me. She did take precautions to avoid a repeat performance, though.
 

**********
P.S. To anyone looking for the story of how I got a sewing pin lodged in my leg: It’s coming. I have to sharpen it up a little—improve a few points, sew up the gaps, take another stab at one or two things.

Gimme Five

High fives work best if you focus on the other person’s elbow.

I learned this bit of wisdom a couple of years ago, and just a few weeks later it proved to be spectacularly true. A friend and I achieved, thanks to elbow sighting, a perfectly formed forearm arc culminating in a flawless thwack that rang out around us.

I stood back for a moment to reflect on the beautiful thing we had created.

Just then, someone else bounded across the room to congratulate us on our technique, which had impressed him from twenty feet away.

The Elbow Trick: It can’t lose!

Of course, solid fives also require situational awareness.

A few weeks ago, a client called my office with a problem that eventually took me, a department manager, two off-site staff, and half a dozen phone calls across three cities to solve. Later in the day, I was upstairs delivering mail when that manager spotted me.

Then she extended her hand at an angle right between “handshake” and “low five.”

I assessed the interpersonal factors involved as quickly as possible…

…and opted for the five. We made contact with a satisfying, elbow-targeted smack.

Then the person standing behind me placed the cell phone that the manager had been waiting for into her still-outstretched hand.

The Elbow Trick: It can still lose.

For the Faint of Heart

You know what is really a good move? Pumping enough blood to your brain. I recommend doing it as often as possible. If you can’t manage that, though, the next best option is failing at this activity as dramatically as possible.

The first plan fell through for me last month, but I made good progress on the second one by passing out backstage during a performance of Pride & Prejudice. Conveniently for the show but less so for achieving maximum attention, I didn’t have any more lines or appearances for the night.

Instead, I woke up to the ministrations of Mr. Darcy’s housekeeper from the great Pemberley estate, who also happened to be a retired nurse. We were shortly joined by a collection of extremely quiet paramedics, while the other actors balanced between concern and not missing their entrances for the last half hour of the play. The ambulance team seemed a little disappointed that they didn’t get to remove me directly from the stage, so there’s room to improve for next time.

Shortly after we arrived at the hospital I remembered that no one knew I had come straight from Regency England without a chance to change, so I began introducing myself to every approaching staff member.

One of the techs had already taken it all in stride.

The wardrobe situation also resulted in a sheepish call from the stage manager to my parents, who arrived at the hospital shortly after I did.

In the end they diagnosed me with “high vagal tone,” which basically means that various situations can set off an involuntary nervous response that slows down my heart rate and limits blood flow to my brain. Several of the triggers are related to neglectful self-care, leading back to the whole “stop doing dumb things and you’ll be fine” principle that gives me so much trouble.

It turns out that my central nervous system is a lot like one of those kids who hold their breath when they throw tantrums. Its motivations don’t match the average toddler’s, though.

Now I have a list of potential triggers to watch for, including overexertion, dehydration, emotional stress, and my favorite item as explained by one of the ER personnel, “prolonged standing, sitting, or lying down.”

Thanks to this experience, I can begin giving more credence to my body’s signals and the advice of medical professionals and make the healthy choices of a responsible adult. Or there’s emotional manipulation.

Painted Lady

Until very recently, all of the makeup I owned was purchased for my high school prom, Class of 2004. I take that back—there was one set of eye shadow that my grandmother gave me after cleaning out her bathroom drawers.

As you may have gathered, I hardly ever wear makeup. It’s not that I have naturally radiant skin or a point to make about the true nature of beauty; I just really enjoy waking up about thirty minutes before I leave for work.

I’m also a little too unrefined for cosmetics, in the same way that my hands are not a safe place for nail polish for longer than an hour. Occasions for wearing makeup—weddings, graduations, etc.—typically start out as a lot of fun. The preparation is fun. Arriving and being pretty and excited is fun for about ten minutes. But then life continues to happen, and I remember that thanks to beauty I can’t scratch my chin or blink too much or eat or drink or cry or sweat or touch anything.

You can only run away for so long, though. Last month I was in a play, and live theater requires cosmetic enhancement unless your role is “very pale and somewhat flat person.” Small community theater also requires doing your own makeup, which is where the real problems start.

The other major factor in my cosmeticsless existence is a practically nonexistent understanding of how the stuff works. In a desperate attempt to learn what I missed in middle school, I threw myself on the mercy of the people at the Clinique counter in the mall.

I started by forgetting the common-sense rule of picking an associate whose look you would like to match. It’s like remembering to take cooking lessons only from people whose recipes you actually enjoy. This error made it difficult to explain what I wanted.

After using up my weekly allotment of the word “subtle,” I risked trying some other descriptions…

…but the terminology was too much for me.

In the end, though, Ms. Clinique did figure out some things to sell me that worked for the theater and also made me feel extremely fancy.

The best part is, with a few simple tools, I can recreate the look myself anytime I want.