A Good Laugh: Peter Sellers & the Beatles

Do you just need a good laugh? Sometimes, we need to escape from the strains of illness and the work of relationship. Call your partner into the room and invite him or her to watch this clip with you. It's Peter Sellers, the brilliant actor/comedian (you may remember him from the Pink Panther movies or Being There), in the character of Shakespeare's Richard III, reciting the lyrics from the Beatles' It's Been a Hard Day's Night.

Enjoy, and feel all right. (And if this doesn't make you laugh, let me know and I'll post another crack-up clip of a chicken dancing).

Has Your Partner Made You Laugh?

Laughing together makes everything better -- if only for a few moments. But once you have a good laugh, the effect is not only while you're laughing, but also when you retell the story to others, and when you remember it later by yourself. If it's a really good laugh, it becomes part of the ongoing connection you have with your partner - a shared smile that the two of you can resurrect any time, often with only a single word or phrase.

For Richard and me, the phrase is, "They're making a break for it."

Several years ago I went through a very hard period. Bad pain. Bad attitude. I couldn't work and didn't want to leave the house. I was sunk in misery, waiting for a new medication cocktail to kick in. I was Eeyore, moping and wandering aimlessly from one room to another.

One afternoon as I was heading upstairs, I noticed 9 black socks draped randomly on several stairs. Now, Richard and I have gone mano-a-mano many times about his tendency to leave objects strewn about the house. But this was over the top and inexplicable.

I asked him to join me at the bottom of the stairs and explain the mystery of the strewn socks. He said, "They're making a break for it. Trying to join their comrades in the land of lost socks."

I cracked up. Both at his explanation and at imagining him coming up with this scene and placing the socks, one by one - purely to make me laugh. That became a good day and a shared memory that still makes us smile.

How about you? Any stories about a time when your partner made you laugh?

A Conversation Overheard in a Waiting Room

During the first year of my pain condition, Richard (my sweetie) accompanied me to most of my appointments with the army of specialists I consulted. He was my memory and my protector. When a doctor would recommend an invasive diagnostic procedure, Richard would charge in with questions like: "What are the risks?" "Would the results change your recommendations in any way?" "Is there another way to get at the same information?" He was also able to remember the more hopeful things the doctor said, while I, beaten down by pain, would mostly recall the doctor's uncertainty.

One time, as we sat together in the waiting room of a uro-gynecologist whose name really was Dr. Flesh, we overheard two young teenagers, also waiting to see the aptly named doctor, engaged in energetic conversation.

The girls were talking loudly, interrupting each other and giggling. Richard and I, not being native Bostonians, could barely penetrate their thick Charlestown pronunciation. One girl began to describe her recent experience with what sounded like “PSDS."

The other one quizzed her. “When did it happen?” “Did it hurt?” “Do your parents know?” “PSDS, I don’t ever want to have that. It hurts!”

We struggled to figure out what “PSDS” was. It sounded gynecological (especially given our location), but we couldn't be sure. We listened more closely and heard the second girl ask, “How did he do it?” “Did it bleed?”

Richard and I quietly agreed that they must be talking about either a first sexual experience or a new form of venereal disease.

At that moment, the second girl leaned over the first, pulled her hair away from her ears, and said, “Well, good for you. They do look really pretty.”

Richard and I both started laughing. “PSDS.” Charlestownian for pierced ears.

(N.B. This is actually a twist on a story told to me by my brother-in-law)

How Do You Start Your Day?

I used to start my day by doing an inventory of pain signals. When the pain began to behave itself, I would mentally rehearse how I would handle the more anxiety-ridden encounters I expected to have during the day. It was as if I believed that careful anticipation could either better prepare me, or magically prevent the feared outcome.

I think I had become so worn out by my many battles with pain, who was often the victor, that I forgot how to trust both myself and the universe. Ironically preparing for tension only made me more tense and less able to ride the curves of the day.

Over the years, as my pain grew more muted, I became more thankful and confident. As Einstein once said, "There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle." I picked a third way -- some things really suck; but even so, it's important to take time to stop and eat the roses.

This may sound hokey, but now I start my day by saying (not sure to whom): "Thank you for this beautiful day in this beautiful world and for enabling me to participate in it."

It doesn't matter if it's hailing golf balls or if my pain is beginning its insidious climb to level 7 . I now have proof that it will eventually stop hailing and that the pain spike will retreat. I find that my new morning saying points the intention for the day in a positive direction and offers me a quiet pause, one clean breath of appreciation before I greet the "miracles" of the day.

How do you start your day?

What do Presidents' Day Weekend and Science Fiction Films Have in Common?

When Richard and I first started dating, he forewarned me that he would never be available on Presidents' Day weekend. That is his one inviolate, sacred holiday. Not because he honors those particular presidents, but because that is when the annual twenty-four hour science fiction film festival takes place - from Sunday noon to Monday noon. Yes 24 hours in a dark theater watching sci-fi films from silent 1920's movies like the Russian film Aelita: Queen of Mars, to 1950's Red Menace sub-plot movies like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, to 1960's trippy movies like 2001; A Space Odyssey, to 1970's favorites like Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Star Wars; to new releases like Cloverfield.

For several years I wheedled and enticed and whined to try to shift Richard towards abandoning this silly practice and to spending a three day weekend with me in some quaint Vermont inn. He was immovable. I finally decided that the only way I could understand his devotion was to experience it for myself. That way I would be able to mock it more knowledgeably.

I got hooked. For the next fifteen years, I sat by his side amidst a crowd of antennae wearing, ray gun zapping humanoids sitting in the dark for 24 hours as the films rolled on and on. And while I don't love sci-fi films, I do enjoy the view they offer into an era's perspective on the future, on values, relationships, politics, and the enemy. And I do love the ritual of it all.

I stopped going to the festival ten years ago when I first got whacked with a chronic pain condition. This was one of many losses that stood as a marker for how much pain was taking from my life.

This year, on President's Day weekend, I went to the sci-fi film marathon and stayed for the entire twenty-four hours. In fact, I am writing this posting in the immediate dazed, achy, sleep deprived afterglow. I did have some ripples of pain during the marathon, but more importantly, I was back in the saddle (or the very uncomfortable theater seat), next to my sweetie, holding his hand, munching on carrot sticks, and happily traveling to a "galaxy far, far away."

Happy Belated Valentine's Day: The Love Hormone??

From UPI:

"U.S. researchers say the "love hormone" or oxytocin, which releases during hugs or when a mother bonds with a newborn, may help mental disorders.

Dr. Kai MacDonald of the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine says oxytocin is a brain chemical associated with pair bonding, including mother-infant and male-female bonds and increased paternal involvement with children. "

And here I thought it was chocolate.....

I'll Be Back In A Week

I'll be visiting my parents for a few days and will be back blogging in a week.


I leave you with this terrible travel pun:





A vulture boards an airplane, carrying two dead raccoons. The stewardess looks at him and says, "I'm sorry, sir, only one carrion allowed per passenger."

More New Years Gifts

This is the second installment of my New Years gifts to you. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share with you. I hope this New Year brings us all joy and health in a world that knows more peace.

1. Dancing cockatoo
   
2. Flow
3. Paintjam
4. The Jean-Paul Sartre Cookbook
5. Chris Bliss - Amazing Juggler

New Years Gifts for You

This is the first installment of my New Years gifts to you. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share with you. I hope this New Year brings us all joy and health in a world that knows more peace.

1. Herding Cats
   
2. Free Rice
3. Richard III & Peter Sellers
   
4. Ashes and Snow
5. Opera Guy

Popped but not Forgotten

The ultimate stress reliever - you must check this out.

I learned about this through the How to Cope with Pain blog.

Tagged: The Meme Challenge

Okay, I’ve been double tagged for a meme challenge -- by Terry at Counting Sheep and by Sandy at Fighting Fatigue (if you aren’t reading these blogs regularly, you should. They are treasures). I’m not sure about the origins of the meme challenge but I read somewhere that it began in 2005. Who am I to break with such an ancient tradition?

The Rules:
1-Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog
2-Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird
3-Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs
4- Let them know they are TAGGED by leaving a comment on their blog

7 facts about me:

1. I was one of five people who was at the Woodstock music festival who didn’t get stoned.
2. My father and I said, "I love you" to each other for the first time at my wedding.
3. I once rode up in an elevator for 25 floors with George Harrison (of the Beatles, remember?).
4. I climbed to the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro and dove a wall off Grand Cayman island. I learned that I am happiest on top of mountains or 100 feet under water. It's in between where I have the most trouble.
   
5. I have been going to an annual 24 hour science fiction film festival for over 20 years where 300 people sit in a dark theater for 24 hours watching sci-fi films from the 20's like Aelita Queen of Mars ( a silent Russian film about the workers' revolution on Mars); red menace films from the 50's like Invasion of the Body Snatchers (for all of us kids who believed we were adopted into the wrong family), and The Day the Earth Stood Still (the best sci fi movie ever); films from the 60's onward like Dr. Strangelove; 2001 A Space Odyssey; Blade Runner, Buckaroo Banzai, Donnie Darko and on and on and on.......
   
6. My favorite book is Don Quijote by Miguel de Cervantes (which, for literary trivia buffs, is the first novel ever written).
7. I know the words to most of the songs from Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein musicals, but only the walls of my shower will ever hear me sing them out loud.
   

Here are the blogs I am tagging:

Own Your Health

Dave DeBronkart My Story

Everyone Needs Therapy

Trick Cycling For Beginners

A Chronic Dose

How To Cope With Pain

Nurse Ratched's Place

Everybody Has to Have a Holiday List

Here's mine:

THINGS TO AVOID AND EMBRACE OVER THE HOLIDAY SEASON

AVOID:

1. Watching the movie It’s a Wonderful Life, again
2. Eating the third piece of pumpkin pie
3. Sloppy, wet kisses from people you only see once a year (it’s flu season, after all)
4. Egg Nog (what’s a nog, really?)
5. Listening to radio stations that only play Christmas music, and start on November 1
6. Articles that tell you how to have stress-free holidays
   

EMBRACE

1. Great big hugs from people you’re happy to see, even if it’s only once a year
2. That second piece of pumpkin pie
3. Snow – especially while it’s still white and fluffy
4. Reading your favorite book, again
5. Listening to Nat King Cole sing, “The Christmas Song” as often as you like
6. Sitting in silence and feeling part of something bigger than yourself

This list is also posted on the website But You Don't Look Sick

Floating Island: A Day Without Pain

Richard, my sweetie, and I spent the weekend visiting old friends we haven't seen for over a year. They moved to a new home that has its own name carved on a stone post by the driveway and a pond with a floating island. They're not rich folks. The house was a mess when they bought it. In fact the first rain storm that hit after they moved in cascaded like a waterfall through the roof onto the dining room floor. They worked very hard for two years to uncover, discover, and recover the beauty they saw beneath the mildew and grime in their new home.

During our visit, I had a moment. Richard and I were sitting in a couple of deck chairs by the pond. The early morning New England sunlight glanced off the swirl of fierce red, yellow, and brown autumn leaves, as the wind blew them onto the silent water. I was acutely aware of being here, in this cocoon of beauty, without pain. Without pain was, for a moment, as powerful a sensation as pain had been. To be so sweetly aware of the absence of my enemy, to praise my body for being bigger than pain, to take Richard's hand and know that he was thinking the same thing.......this was a moment.

Our friends will have years of joy in their new home. But my joy, in that one moment, was a life time.

The Lighter Side of Chronic Illness: Dominoes??

I found another interesting website about chronic illness. But You Don't Look Sick is an online magazine about living life to the fullest with any disability, invisible disease, or chronic pain and hopes to provide answers to the endless questions of: "But you don't look sick?" It contains book reviews, personal essays, and tips about hobbies and activities that are easier to do for people with chronic illness.

Please check out my recent article in this magazine:
Dominoes: It's Not Just for Kids Anymore