Pincushions, Anime, Anomie

Pincushions, Anime, Anomie

Could there be a connection between pincushions, anime & anomie?  You know how my brain works by now & so stay with me as we link these seemingly unrelated ideas up.  It will be a windy road yet so is diabetes so we are used to that.

We all are pretty familiar with the pincushion whether we sew or not.  I will share that I failed sewing back in the home economics days of elementary school.  Somehow, I even dropped a sewing machine on my finger.  Being painfully shy in those days together with feeling embarrassed I made sure that my teacher was not even a little bit aware that I was in big time pain that day.  By the end of the day I remember my left index finger was the width of a sausage & throbbing like a brute.  To this day sewing is one task that I outsource & I am ok with that.  I just laugh at myself when it comes to that lack of skill & life goes on.  So what…or sew what I suppose is my attitude.  Please don’t get me wrong, I am impressed with other people who have this talent & happy for the help.  I remember some of the creative pin cushions that some of the other gals in my elementary class sewed up to hold the pins needed for that class.  I did up something that resembled an apple.  Yes, let’s say that it somewhat resembled an apple but could have been mistaken for a lop sided red ball or smushed in tomato.  I received the usual mark for that small project in sewing which was a mercy mark in the D range.  Cooking & baking is my thing & since I have the honour of helping to raise 3 sons, I think it all worked out pretty well.  If you or someone you know has diabetes, you will be able to relate to the feeling of being the pincushion.  We have the numerous glucose tests each day.  Do each of your fingers have calluses from that testing too?  There is no mistaking a person with diabetes when it comes to our finger tips.  If we are insulin dependent then we may feel like we are even bigger pincushions.  I still remember being encouraged to take my injections of insulin in my tummy & thinking that was going to hurt beyond belief.  One day not too long into my diagnoses though I gave it a try & found out that surprisingly the tummy worked out way better than the other areas of my personal pin cushion that I had been injecting into.  A couple of days ago it was time yet again to change my insulin pump infusion site.  Even after thousands of needles & 7 years into having type 1 I still find that psychologically it is counterintuitive to poke myself with a needle.  Although putting the infusion site in only takes literally a few minutes, I set the stage for it from a mindset perspective every 3 days.  I let my family know that I will be unavailable for a few minutes & to please just give me some space for 5 minutes while I deal with yet another infusion site.  Intellectually it is easy to tell ourselves that we have to put an infusion site in or give ourselves an injection to sustain life however emotionally it is a conflict I find.  It is always a relief to have the infusion set done for 3 days.  Some things we just might not get used to so we suck it up & do it anyhow because life is precious & we just have to do what we have to do when it comes to diabetes. 

Feeling like a pincushion got me somehow thinking back to first year university & a course that I took.  It was a class that was a mixture of sociology, philosophy & psychology.  The class was taught by Professor Campbell who was also the Dean of the residence.  Each semester a formal dinner was held at the residence that was mandatory & the Professor would tell us essentially that we were minions to put it politely.  He had a presence about him & the word intimidating does not quite capture how most of us felt during class those 2 times a week for a semester.  It was my demise that my maiden name was MacDonald because the battle between the Campbells & the MacDonalds seemed to be very vivid & still present centuries later for the professor.  I was not even aware of the battle between the clans however the professor ensured that we were all very familiar with it & I kind of wanted to be “beamed up Scotty” during those mini rants.  Thankfully I was no longer that painfully shy girl however just like giving ourselves injections it is no fun subjecting ourselves to confrontation don’t you find?  The students who had taken Professor Campbell’s course in previous years warned each of us newbies that if we got a C grade that we should be grateful.  Then on top of that we found out that no matter what course we were taking, all of our essays would go through the Renison English marking department & marks would be deducted from our grade further for any grammatical or spelling errors.  Our papers looked pretty marked up by the time we received them back with the scathing remarks.  When Professor Campbell assigned the essay for the semester he added that he hoped that we could achieve something greater than a fail.  He was a character & he scared the pants off me at the time.  Looking back now I realize that I felt that level of intimidation due to the point I was at in my life together with the fact that I was basically Rex the dinosaur from “Toy Story” & Dr. Campbell was the polar opposite in that he had a dominant personality that loved a big debate.  He respected people when they challenged him.  My goal however at the time was simply to get through his class as I needed the credit.  The essay topic that he assigned was on the subject of anomie.  This was back in the day of actually having to go to the library & read a handheld book.  The strange thing though was that when I arrived at the huge arts library on campus I discovered that there was only one book on that topic in the whole library & it was located in the rare books section.  Books in that location could not be taken out.  You had to read the book in the library.  Thankfully I have always been a speed reader so I was through the book quickly.  That was the up side.  The down side was that I was more confused than ever about what the heck anomie was even after reading the book.  To be brief, it is essentially a state of normlessness.  To make a long story short, somehow even after the butchery of the English marking department & my misfortune of somehow being the clan enemy of the professor, I received a B- on that paper.  When I think of anomie (which is not often), it does not take long to equate it to diabetes.  There is no norm I think with diabetes.  There is nothing normal about having to be your own bodily process engineer 24 hours a day & to give ourselves injections to stay alive.  There is nothing normal about how it feels to have profoundly high or low blood sugars either.  I do not need to tell you any of these things.  Some days I feel like diabetes is putting me through a parallel world of the loathed English marking department.  Diabetes is beyond brutal that way right? 

How does the brain get from pincushion to anomie to anime anyhow?  Part of the legacy that I want to someday leave behind is to beremembered as is a gal who laughed a lot…laughed a real lot.  There is a point I find at which it is medicinal to laugh at myself.  Sure, I could live in the land of high level academia but that is a tiny portion of who I am.  I would rather make someone laugh then wow them with what I may or may not think I know.  I would rather hug the absolute stuffing out of someone & tell them that they are a beautiful original than anything else.   I just want to keep loving out loud.  And I will keep laughing big time & without stifling my laugh or anyone else’s.  I don’t live in the land of the library so no shushing is allowed in my little corner of the world.  On Monday mornings I help out with a reading program with 4 & 5 year olds.  I get to be my rascally self & the children know that I love reading & they catch that love of reading too just all on their own.  They catch that love because we are anything but quiet when we read together.  I have gotten anything from the “hairy eye brow” to closing of doors in the general vicinity to an egging on to other responses from some adults in the environment but the kids & I just keep being rascals with a shared love of reading.  I am ok with being a rascal that way.  Anomie to anime made an unexpected connection this morning when I was talking to my husband.  I was making a fun reference to something that was driving me up the wall about diabetes as what I meant to be “anomie” but I mistakenly said it was “anime.”  Our oldest son wows me with his drawing & writing talents.  He loves anime & has described it to me with enthusiasm.  A lot like anomie though, I still kind of don’t get it & so just laugh at myself.  That is also what I did this morning when I referenced anime instead of anomie.  And then my husband laughed at my bellowing laugh at myself.  Have you caught yourself having a medicinal belly laugh lately?  I encourage you to go right out of your way to get in as many laughs in a lifetime as possible.  Let’s make that the new normal!

Smiles, Saundie :)

How about a few wee jokes... (from the book "Positive Words, Powerful Results). 

"For sale:  antique desk suitable for lady with thick legs & big drawers. "

"Now is your chance to have your ears pierced & get an extra pair to take home too."

"illiterate?  Write today for free help."

"Bear a diner/gas station in Indiana:  Eat here & get gas."

An especially dear quote to me is by W. H. Auden, "Among those whom I like or admire I can find no common denominator, burt among those whom I love, I can:  all of them make me laugh."

Have an outrageous funny week.  Next Monday's writing is in the ether :)