Category: Ties

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If You Think Nobody’s Given You A Gift, You’re Just Plain Wrong: Part 2

Skitter is like Mom: Her eyes are sensitive to light, so she tends to wear sunglasses indoors quite often. Skitter is wearing Bow Tie o’ the Day shades this morning. You’ve seen these sunglasses on Mom, on me, and now on The Skit. We share well.

All the gifts in all the universes can’t save you from a mental illness like bipolar depression. Depression doesn’t care what material gifts you have been given. It doesn’t care about the gift you’ve received of being loved and wanted. It does what it wants to your head and, therefore, to your life.

I have mentioned before that I decided to do TMS to jump start my depressed feelers and level my mood. I had been “not feeling” for a while. Simultaneous to my “not feeling,” I was in a crippling depression. It might seem like a contradiction to “not feel” while also drowning in depression, but I assure you it’s possible. I have been there more times in my life than I’d like to count. This time was significantly more debilitating and dark. I honestly believe my mental illness was getting close to being terminal, if you get my drift: Bye, bye, Helen Jr.

Anyhoo… It’s been two weeks since I completed TMS, and I want to tell you what I’ve noticed. There’s been no bigly cookie at the end of the TMS rainbow for me, but I see and “feel” a trail of crumbs which will add up to at least half a cookie when I gather them and put them all together. As I wrote yesterday, TMS has been a smallish welcome gift– despite 36 treatments that felt like a woodpecker beak knocking at my skull.

I got part of my appetite back, which is probably good cuz my weight went down to 7th-grade level. I have been unable to focus my attention enough to read for the last year, and I didn’t even care about it. Not reading is sooooo not me. But I’ve been back to reading for the last month. My moods are back to being lighter, though not as light as my usual, weird “normal.”

I can’t say my “feelers” are back to feeling, but I get little bursts of feeling, so I’m confident TMS has helped to get that coming back to me. Until feeling shows up more often, I’ll stick to knowing what I anticipate I will feel in the future. Suzanne says I am talking more, which is a bigly change back to my true self– since I am a chatter-er like Mom. I’ll let you know when/if I notice other changes I think are TMS-related. TMS wasn’t magic for me, but it helped pull me up a couple of rungs on the slippery ladder in my depression pit.

Before TMS, aside from thinking it would be best for everyone if I jumped off the planet, the worst idea I ruminated over was…. hold on to your bike helmets…. are you sitting down?…. I told Suzanne I was going to shut down TIE O’ THE DAY. Forever. No more website. No more Facebook posts. I didn’t care about it or my stoopid neckwear anymore.

And I ranted to Suzanne about how I’m too old to write these stoopid posts about my stoopid, uninteresting life. And I ranted about how this stoopid tie/bow tie thing makes me look like a stoopid fool, and I should feel embarrassed. And I ranted about how nobody cares about my stoopid ideas about living better lives. And nobody thinks my writing is funny. Blah, blah, blah. You know… all that prattle, which is kinda true.

The tragedy! The tragedy! Junking TIE O’ THE DAY might have actually thrown me off the runaway train. Sticking with writing my posts– despite not caring about the venture for a while– anchored my depressed and sunken days with a purpose. I somehow convinced myself my readers would miss TIE O’ THE DAY to the extent that their souls would lose a wee bit of joy forever. Oh, if I were to quit writing and posting, it would destroy y’all’s lives! I told myself I had to keep TIE O’ THE DAY up and running, for the good of all mankind. I’m SuperBowTieLady, patron superhero of all neckwear!

Seriously, TMS has helped. Mostly, I am still here, and here is where I want to be. I’m not positive I would be here on this blue-skied day in June if I had decided against doing TMS.

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I Really Should Do Better, But I Don’t Really Want To

Tie o’ the Day and I present more thumbs-up ice cream choices for y’all to try. You can’t go wrong with Red Button Vintage Creamery’s Raspberry Cheesecake. And Tillamook’s Oregon Dark Cherry doesn’t disappoint. Just sayin’. Tie tells me I probably have bowls/plates of salad in my dining future, and here’s why:

I was putting groceries away yesterday. I surveyed the haul, and although there were fruits and veggies and other healthy food staples, I also had “my stash.” My stash was quite typical for me: Diet Coke, ice cream, licorice, ice cream, ice cream toppings, ice cream, pretzels, ice cream, cowboy caviar, ice cream, frozen pizza, ice cream, cereal, and a little dollop or two of ice cream. The contraband is all mine, mine, mine.

I’m not opposed to sharing with others. For the last three or so years, Suzanne has followed a diet which has successfully helped her lose the equivalent of a 5th-grader from her mortal coil. (That’s how Suzanne, the educator, describes the amount of weight she lost.) The stash is completely mine because Suzanne likes to maintain her svelte-ness, so she stays away from my not-so-healthy foods. I maintain my usual unusual diet. We call it The Crap Diet. I have a crappy diet. But to be fair, I eat as little junk as possible when Suzanne is around. I think it’s rude to eat the crap stuff in front of her. Suzanne says it’s okay for me to eat whatever goodies I want when I’m around her, but I don’t like how it makes me feel.

Anyhoo… As I was dealing with the groceries, I said to Suzanne, “I think I should start eating better. What do you think?” Suzanne gave me the are-you-kidding-me? look and said, “I’ve thought that for a long time.” She’s never said anything to me about it before, and I shouldn’t have asked her about it. By both of us saying OUT LOUD that it would be a good idea for me to change my eating habits, it became a real thing. I now have to un-junk-food my ways. It makes sense. I told her that when this grocery-trip stash of my wrong food is gone, that’s it– except for ice cream and Diet Coke. They’re not going anywhere. She laughed at the idea I think I will come home from my next grocery store outing without buying the entirety o’ The Crap Food Group. But I am seriously gonna cease the regular buying of that stuff. Oh, it can still be a sometimes-thing, but it shouldn’t be my norm. Because I said to Suzanne I will clean up my menu, now I have to do it. It’s how I be. If I tell her I’ll do something, I do it.

I will cut down on ice cream. I will cut back on Diet Coke. But I hereby declare, for both of us, eating out will always be a decadent free-for-all.

I hope we start eating out more.

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Oops! I Got A Little Beer On My Tie

Tie o’ the Day o’ Many Beers reminds me that beer still exists, whether or not I choose to imbibe. If you really think about the ingredients in beer, beer is pretty much liquid bread. Whenever I buy a loaf of bread, I can’t help thinking that I’m purchasing solid beer.

It’s the tiny twists in the way we look at things, along with the dabs of truth within them, which make humor. And humor gets us through the tough spots.

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Absurd Happens

Hey! Look what I rescued. It’s my ties-themed 100 oz. mini-keg, which was my go-to sip cup for a couple of years after I bought it. Although it cracked inside last year, I never had the heart to throw it out. Its flex straw had a slight crack in it too, and the lid doesn’t fit tightly either, but its tie graphics are too perfect for me. 7-11 doesn’t sell the tie design anymore, so I can’t go buy another one. What’s a girl to do with a cracked 100 oz. ties mini-keg? For the last year it’s been mocking me by sitting in the garage whining out its jealousy of my new, differently designed. I was about to finally toss the battered, cracked mini-keg over the weekend. And then I had a genius idea I can’t believe I didn’t think of last year: DUCT TAPE. I’ll tape the inside cracks and let you know how it works out.

As I searched for the duct tape, Tie o’ the Day and I were contemplating the weirdities of my life. I don’t care who you are or how straight-laced and “normal” your life has been, you’ve found yourself in surreal situations here and there, when you wonder how you got in the predicament, and how you’ll ever get out of it. You didn’t set out to be in the situation. The scenario is so outlandish you couldn’t have purposely concocted it if you had wanted to. And you’re positive no one will believe you when you tell them the story.

Because I am I, I have a zillion of ’em. Because I am I, everyone knows my improbable tales really occurred. I call these odd goings-on My Greatest Hits. One of My Greatest Hits is courtesy of the 7-11 in Takoma Park, MD, in the mid-90’s. It doesn’t star a 7-11 mini keg, just a 7-11 Super Big Gulp cup.

Interstate 95 is the main N-S route on the East Coast. The traffic usually runs at a pretty good clip. I used to drive it every school day morning from Washington, D.C. to Baltimore’s inner city where I taught middle school. My drive to work usually took about 35 minutes.

But one morning, when I was just about to exit the freeway and head into West Baltimore, all lanes of the I-95 traffic going my way came to a halt. That was rare for that particular area of the freeway. Rarer still, an hour later no vehicle had moved a centimeter. Something bigly was surely shutting down the road. (It ended up being a many-car accident.) By that time, I had been sitting in the car for more than an hour. For me, that’s venturing into MUST PEE NOW territory. I had finished my Super Big Gulp of Diet Coke, and I needed to get rid of it. I don’t mean I needed to throw away the cup. A half-hour later, all drivers were still sitting in the precise same place we first were stopped. I was beyond desperation. I had no choice except to do what I had to do.

As a middle school teacher, I learned to always have back-up clean clothing in the car. Out of nowhere, middle schoolers can create unheard of messes, and it’s not uncommon for those messes to end up on the teacher– whether you were anywhere near ground zero or not. It’s nice to have clean clothes to step into. Anyhoo… In an attempt to make myself invisible in my car for a minute, I used my spare clothes to cover my front, side windows. I pulled down the visors. With my empty Super Big Gulp cup, I strategically did what had to be done. The contortionist skills I learned as a teenage mooner came in quite handy. Mission accomplished. Almost.

I extremely carefully got my pants back where they belonged. I opened my door and emptied the cup, which I didn’t want to keep in the car, but I don’t litter. I “baby wiped” my hands. (It was the pre- hand sanitizer era.) Although we had all been stuck going nowhere on I-95 for almost two hours, I felt much better.

As I took my back-up clothes down from the windows, I heard a knock. I was sure it was a cop who would soon give me a ticket for Public Urination or Public Indecency or some such charge that would put me on the Sex Offender Registry. But it wasn’t a cop. It was a soccer mom from the van behind me. She asked, “Can I borrow that cup? I gotta go too.” I said, “No, you may not borrow it. You must keep it. Please, for the love of all that’s holy, keep it. Take these Wet Wipes too.”

I kid you not. Soccer Mom was not the last person to use my cup. I watched my Super Big Gulp cup and the wipes travel up, down, and across a handful of the halted lane,s as we sat parked on I-95 whittling away our time in the pre- affordable cell phone era. The cup that almost ranneth over had a somewhat bonding effect on those who were there that day. That cup was the founder of a different kind of Relief Society. Those of us who got relief became friends for life, even though we didn’t talk to each other and we would never see each other again. We shared a similar moment.

I do not know who ended up with the Super Big Gulp cup and baby wipes.

BTW Speaking of my Delta, teenage mooning career, I once mooned a worker at the Taco Time drive-up window while driving and wearing overalls. Now that is a true and rare skill set. (Yes, young-un’s, Delta once had a Taco Time. And an A & W and an Arctic Circle.)

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In Ancient Times

I cleared out more files yesterday and found these two gems. I figured I could combine them for a two-fer: Bow Tie o’ the Day and Tie o’ the Day. I must say I have no clue why I was attempting to climb into DHS through a classroom window. Nor do I have a clue who was there to take a photo of me doing it. But seriously, who breaks IN to high school? And look at the minuscule amount of weight I was lifting in P.E. How in the world could lifting that not-heavy amount of weight make my armpit sweaty? It’s a mystery.

The neckwear thing was merely a sometimes passion during my years at DHS, but that can be explained by the fact that teenagers are, by definition, not so bright. Teenagers’ brains haven’t caught up with their growing bodies. I was too stoopid to know I was in love with neckwear. I remember I usually wore clip-on bow ties on my baseball shirts to play church softball, but other than that, the wearin’ o’ the neckwear at events was sporadic for me. Still, it’s obvious the whim-seed was there and maturing right along with the rest of me.

Most people mature. They grow up. They learn to think beyond the next two hours. Some people do not. I remember there was a time I was young enough to know all the answers. I’m glad I grew out of being confident I was right all the time, before I did irreparable damage to my life. People who know everything haven’t matured, and often their knowing everything causes them to screw up their lives– and sometimes others’ lives. (Add examples from your own life here.) Successful, content human beings can admit to being wrong and making mistakes. They can admit they will always have much to learn from others and from continuing to participate in new experiences.

As I grow older, I can admit I know less and less about everything. And it’s a tremendous blessing. The pressure is off. I can roll with the world as it is, and I can also try to make it a more loving place in ways I believe in– knowing I don’t have to be right. “Right” lives next door to “perfect,” and I am not perfect.

Being intelligent is one thing. But deluding yourself that you, and only you, know all the right answers for every problem and every human being on the planet is a bigly, arrogant burden for a person to bear. Knowing the right questions to ask oneself and others– and to be content to wrestle with those unanswerable questions– is one of the secrets of living in joy.

Of course, I don’t know all the answers, so I could be wrong about everything I just wrote.

End of Sabbath sermon.

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I Declare A Reading Day

I’m just sittin’ around this afternoon with my round-style, wood glasses Bow Tie o’ the Day. When I can’t find my reading glasses, these John Lennon-esque round-frame glasses come to the rescue.

As you can probably see behind me, them’s books on them thar stairs. We ran out of shelves and space for shelves for our books a long time ago, so we improvise. This is one of my contributions to what we call around here “decorating with books.” I decided the stairs looked plain, so I piled up books on each step. I left plenty of room for us to safely travel up and down the stairs.

One of the great things about the stair library is it’s one of the first things you see as you walk in the front door. I have heard many a delighted, curious gasp from our visitors when they see it for the first time. So far, almost everyone has remarked on its cool-osity.

One fussbudget fuddy, however, showed enormous distaste and disgust and disapproval and dislike and dismay and dis- and dis-….. At least that ill-tempered person did not say anything out loud about my speshul book creation. I could just sense the disgruntlement they felt. I must be honest, though, and admit I have not asked that fool back for another visit. I mean– you have a right to your opinion about anything in my house, and elsewhere. But books can’t ever look unappetizing to the intellectual palate. They can’t look incorrect. It is existentially impossible for books to be in the wrong place. Where there is a book, there is a library from Heaven.

The bigly thing that worries me about our stair bookshelf decor is that when I get too old and rickety to walk up and down the stairs, and we have to get a stair lift chair, we’ll probably have to move the literary tomes to another location. I can handle change, but the books seem so at home in their new community. They act as if they’re in their long-lost homeland. I hate to displace them.

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Done, Done, Done

Wood, magnetic Bow Tie o’ the Day and I just walked in the house after my last TMS treatment. I’m going to make a t-shirt which will say, “I had a course of 36 Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation treatments, and all I got was this stoopid beanie.” A “map” of my brain had to be drawn on it. Also, the technician had to write on it the specifications of the electromagnetic zaps my personal brain was supposed to endure during each session.

The reason I’m still wearing my treatment beanie is cuz of Suzanne and my new hairs cut. We both hated my raggedy hairs by the time I got them chopped off. Everybody did. I didn’t mind her hatred towards my hairdon’t. I was equally appalled whenever I looked at it. My newly cut hairs are more of a shaping trim– except for the back hairs which have been mowed to the length of a blade of grass on a perfectly manicured golf green. The entire cut is an improvement beyond measure.

However, the cut has not passed the Suzanne test. I know this because she hasn’t made one comment about it. She’s been pestering me for months to just get the damn mop cut, or at least trimmed. When I finally let Miss Tiffany cut it, what do I hear Suzanne say about it? Nothing. Nada. I hear crickets. She did actually try to get rid of my sideburns by moving them behind my ear. I put them back where Miss Tiffany put them. And still, no words from Suzanne. Just the sound of crickets and nothingness.

This is a thing I have learned over the years about Suzanne’s mode of operation: no comment, no answer, no response to a text, a symphony of crickets– all of these silences mean Suzanne doesn’t want to answer my questions. She would rather not say what she thinks. I have become a pro at deciphering her non-responses. I get it right 98 percent of the time. She might as well just say it– the good, the bad, the ugly– cuz her non-answers tell me the answers anyway.

FYI I’ll give you the rundown about my TMS experience and any results in a coming post.

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But We’re Not Completely Done With My Hairs Journey

Kids’ Tie o’ the Day drove over to Miss Tiffany’s hairs chair with me last evening, and I’m quite pleased with what Miss Tiffany did. Bikini Bow Tie o’ the Day is hanging with me today as I show off my new cut.

I told Miss Tiffany she could cut my hairs any way she wanted, but she would have to keep in mind two things: 1. When we’re done with my hairs theme, I’m gonna want my drastic asymmetrical style back– complete with half-head shave. That’s where I want my hairs to end up. 2. I want her to give me a couple of different cuts over the next few weeks, BEFORE we get to my usual style. That way, I can try out some new variations on a more symmetrical theme. Who knows?! Maybe I’ll find something I like better than my standard ‘do.

Miss Tiffany followed my requests, and here I am with my temporary, new ‘do. This is me right after I woke up this morning. In these photos, I’m exaggerating my asymmetrical sideburns. My hair will look better in coming photos. I didn’t know asymmetrical sideburns are an actual hairstyle-approved thing, but Miss Tiffany says they are “hot.” I believe her.

I know you’re thinking my left sideburn looks like when I was Hugh Jackman from X-MEN, on a Hairs Thursday. I think that too, but I love them.

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A Hairsy Disappointment: They Still Ain’t Cut

Sometimes I become impatient with being patient, to the point that I become impatient with myself for being impatient. Even with a kids’ Tie o’ the Day to pal around with, my patience with my head fur has worn deli-sliced thin.

I trust only Miss Tiffany with my hairs, but I am not pleased that Great Clips does not take appointments. On Saturday, June 1st, I called Great Clips to find out if Miss Tiffany was working. She was not, and the manager told me she’d be working today from 2 to 9. This afternoon, I put on my glee and made sure my butt was sitting in the Great Clips reception area by 1:50 PM. NO MISS TIFFANY! Alas, her schedule had been changed. She worked from 9-1 today, and then she works from 6-9 this evening. I coulda been sittin’ in that hairs chair at 9 this morning, if I had been able to read Great Clip’s mind. Frustrating, I tell you!

I was already on an impatience overload. I am soooo hankering to wear some head hairs that make sense. It was all I could do to survive from Saturday until this afternoon. It’s killing me. After months of being ready for the hairs to be cut, you’d think a couple of days more– and then a few more hours– wouldn’t matter. It does. It’s driving me nuts, which means I’m driving myself nuts. It’s not Miss Tiffany who’s making me impatient. I am choosing to drive myself batty over a minor thing.

We are an impatient species, and I don’t know why. There is so much for our brains to appreciate and take stalk of right where we are– no matter where we find ourselves. But no, we gotta have something more, something different, something bigly-er than whoever it is we think we’re in competition with. Life can be fun, but it is not a game. There is no “winning.” Getting there first (wherever “there” is) is not the point. We should spend less time worrying about “winning” and more time helping others get where they’re headed.

I deeply believe we are here to be happy. And I also believe our happiness is individual to us. Mine doesn’t look like yours. In fact, it doesn’t look exactly like anyone else’s. You’re unique, so your happiness will be unique to you. I also believe our happiness is our own responsibility. You’ll get what you create. So you better be careful exactly what it is you’re creating for yourself.

HINT: Never, ever hide your “happy.” Share your happy, even with those who don’t understand it. Happy longs to be shared, spread, and even spilled. Sharing is the finest way to get your own happy to grow.

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Today Is The Big, Fat, Hairsy Day

Wood Tie o’ the Day joins me in celebration of a speshul, speshul, speshul day. It is currently 10:06 AM, and Miss Tiffany will be holding her scissors at her work station at Great Clips at 2 PM. I hope I’m first in line. Even my hairs are counting down the minutes. The hairs that will be chopped off are actually looking forward to laying down their hairsy lives for the greater good of all the hairs which will remain, and for all of us who have witnessed my skid row head fur grow for the past twelve months.

Suzanne is at work with her fingers crossed that I will truly go get the hairs gone and/or shaped up for public viewing. Skitter is vibrating out of sheer excitement at the prospect of once again seeing my head with “real” hairs. She’s not just vibrating because it’s her normal mode. Today, we’re all about the hairs.

TMS treatment #35 down, 1 to go.