Author Archives: Christene

Oh Dear…

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I accidentally drugged myself. Not in an illegal way, mind you. And not in a terribly detrimental way, but it was nevertheless unintentional, and unpleasant.

The other day I started coming down with a cold. It was probably a combination of the heat wave we are having with different places either turning on the AC or residually leaving their heat on, going in and out, over dressed, under dressed, and the exhaustion of working 64 hours this week. The sniffles and a slight sore throat turned into a pretty thorough cold, so I decided to take some cold pills yesterday evening. I wasn’t paying attention and instead of taking 2 Dayquils, I ended up taking two night time cold pills. I must have ran out of Dayquil, and I have an abundance of night time stuff because I never take it. Even when I am terribly sick, I can only handle half a dosage of the night time stuff, and even then I feel drowsy and disoriented for half the day the next day. In short, unless I am practically dying, I prefer two Tylenol’s to any sort of night time pills.

So not only did I take unnecessary night time pills, but two of them (a full dose).  These were not Nyquils that are vivid green and clearly marked, but rather some store brand pills that looked generic and only had a slight distinguishing mark on the back that said “Night.” I am not so oblivious to not notice the difference between bright orange and bright green pills.

Thankfully I didn’t have work today! Shortly after taking the pills I felt very tired, and I slept about 14 hours, woke up discombobulated and utterly drowsy, and crawled around for most of the day. At this point I had not realized my mistake, so I thought I was getting even more sick. I slugged around on the couch while the kids were playing, almost incapacitated to the point of not being able to move. Each time I got up I felt a wave of dizziness. So I took some Tylenol, had some more coffee, trying to stay up just a little longer, after which I told the kids I wasn’t feeling well, and went to take a nap. I woke up 3 hours later even more drowsy. I was certain that I had gotten unbelievably sick, and went back to take more cold pills. That is when I realized what I had done.

Yes, it takes me *days* to recover from night time cold pills. But at least now I understood why I was feeling this way. And thankfully I am not dying. That is why I hardly ever take them, and never take even half a dose if I know I am going to work the next day. Then, since I am generally aware of having taken them, I typically double my coffee intake the next morning to balance the effect. Which is what I am doing now, in the hopes of resetting my body before tomorrow.

On the bright side, my sore throat and sniffles are gone, and aside from some left over drowsiness, I am feeling much better.

Desperate Devotion

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What makes a thirteen year old girl leave her husband on their wedding day and join a nunnery? If you read my post a few weeks ago, I stated that women join nunneries not out of devotion, but rather desperation. But what desperation, or immediate urge, could a thirteen year old girl feel? Yes, I was a thirteen year old girl at one point, but I don’t remember it well, and I certainly don’t remember any sort of desperation in the real sense of it. I am not referring to teenage drama that is abundant at that age, but rather the sense of desperation that leads a woman to self sequestration. What happened?

And what nunnery would have had and kept her? I cannot claim to know, because I was never there, nor do I have the full story. But surely someone must have argued that she should be given the benefit of the doubt until she understands what she is getting into.

Yet she stayed. And she spent her entire life at that nunnery, devoted as could be. I cannot argue against her prerogative, nor can I condemn her for her decision. How could I? What right would I have to stipulate her actions were wrong? Perhaps she was fulfilled by her beliefs, and maybe she was content with her life.

I could argue that she didn’t know any better, but do I? Nine hundred years have passed between her and I, and the lifestyle I take for granted was more than a luxury for her. Queens at that time did not enjoy the life I live today. No, I do not delight in having my every whim fulfilled, and hundreds of attendants at my beck and call. I do not live in a palace. Yet all of these things are things… titles and trinkets. I am not bound to any governing body (in the personal sense, outside of an actual political government), and I move about as I please, without the restriction of rules, duty, or any sense of obligation. My only obligation is to my children, and even that is within my control. She had none of that. Her every move, until her marriage, was controlled by another. I will not argue that they did not have her best interest in mind because that, too, is not for me to decide. But even with that interest held high, the choice of who she would marry was made between the scylla and charybdis. And when faced with their decision, she chose a nunnery.

Not much of a choice, but perhaps her best. It is hard to conceptualize because in modern times she is no more than a child, hardly a few years older than my daughter, while then, in the twelfth century, she was a woman, ready to be married and to breed.

She was not high born, but high enough to where her family would gain from her nuptials. I can’t help but wonder what her dowry was. According to her diary, and the one surviving manuscript of her time at the abby, she died a virgin, and a most pious woman. She begat an entire following of female devotees, and founded one of the largest convents in England. It is still there… not what it once was.

As I ask, “is that the answer?” I forget to take into account the time differences. While that would never be my answer, it may have been the only she had. Perhaps a woman does join a nunnery out of desperation, and not devotion, but considering the options, her desperation may just turn to devotion, and her devotion may just save her from nothingness. Maybe they are both the same thing. And maybe it is not so bad.

The Things We Do

Why do we do the things we do? What drives and motivates someone to complete tasks, each day, knowing that in the end it doesn’t really matter? Why do we go to work, work excruciatingly long  hours, devastate ourselves in pursuit of something or other for an intangible, or even worse, empty sense of accomplishment? You fought unimaginable traffic this morning and made it to work on time, just like everyone else. Congratulations. And now you are at work, doing what you are told, working as hard and fast as you can because there is some sort of prize at the end at some undefinable time in the future. Do you even want that prize? Is it somehow going to affix meaning to and alleviate the fact that you have dedicated numerous of your very much numbered years to hollow work?

I have no answers to these questions. In fact, just asking creates more inquires. Why? Why do we do these things? What do we hope to gain? And even if we do gain, who cares? Some sort of notoriety, or fortune is meaningless once you die. And even if you manage to seemingly immortalize yourself through deeds or accomplishments, those too fade.

Sure we remember Plato and Sophocles, and Homer, and Euripides but how many others were there who were erased from history? And even for those whose names remain, with time, will they matter? Will anyone care? Ten thousand years from now, who will remember or give a damn about Plato?

Some created art, others fought for justice, others still simply wanted to be remembered, while even more were working for wealth or power. And now they are dead, their ancestry for the most part is muddled at best, and even as we speak of them, they reap no benefits.

What does Napoleon get for his ambition? He spend his youth and young adult life rising to power, in the hopes to get noticed. He was, but that wasn’t enough. He wasn’t content with admiration from his peers and immediate superiors. He wanted the throne, and through more labor, obtained that too. His self coronation was the epitome of his power, and his palaces his demonstration of wealth. He had more power than some kings before him (French or otherwise), but that too was not enough. France was not enough. Several more countries were not enough. We can assume that is not what he was thinking when he found himself at Elba, at which point a patch in Burgundy would have probably been preferable. But Elba was figurative death. What if Elba hadn’t happened? What if he had succeeded in usurping power over all of Europe? Surely then he would have moved his empire to other continents as well. He would have been emperor of the world, most likely by an advanced age. He would have had a lifetime of battles, wars, stress even more unimaginable than the 405 freeway at seven in the morning, more than likely a slew of chronic illnesses associated with said anxiety and stress, and instead of at Elba, he would have died on his massive throne. His hunger for more would have relegated him to the same history books where we find him now, given no more space than perhaps lesser kings before him, with school children reciting the palindromic “able was I, ere I saw Elba.”

Camus provided a very good answer to the meaninglessness of life in that he advised on coping with it by finding happiness in the here and now. Napoleon could have added twenty years to his life if he had perhaps just enjoyed the crown of France. Because in the end, regardless of how his story unfolded, he ended up in the same place. For each time anyone strives for more, they are striving for a moment closer to their own death. So as Camus points out, everything is futile, might as well enjoy your accomplishments, real or not, it in the moment.

Except we don’t. We never do. Everything we do is constantly in search for something more. Some sort of reward for our endeavors. Everyone seems to forget that the only reward we are given after a lengthy bout of hard work is death. So… why do we do the things we do?