Typhoid Merry

I almost got to be a super-spreader. 

 

Instead, I’m isolating in my room with Bear – the first in our family to test positive for covid despite all the social distancing, masks, vaccinations, and dodged bullets. 

I got covid without even noticing it. When Bear and I got home from our usual long walk Wednesday afternoon, I had an email from someone who attended the same festive gathering in Vancouver on Sunday. After feeling a little under weather for a couple of days, he failed a home covid test. He suggested we all check our coronavirus status. Most attendees promptly reported negative results – other than an unlucky few. 

 

I’d taken so many covid tests before. This time I squeezed four drops into the plastic well, then watched the bright red line instantly light up. 

After observing so much suffering during the pandemic, my own experience with covid has been blessedly anticlimactic. I’ve had no symptoms. The kids all stayed virus-free as we finished the last week of school. 

 

However, the December schedule is a mess. And I’m still trapped in “isolation”:  staying at home except for long walks in the woods with Bear; letting the kids feed themselves as the dishes pile up; and either wearing a mask as I try to get work done at my desk, or hiding in my bedroom while Christmas music plays on an infinite loop. 

Before the covid surprise, I was planning to drive back up to Vancouver on Wednesday night to attend a holiday sing-along event hosted by friends at a club downtown. According to the CDC chatbot’s calculations, Wednesday was my most infectious day. 

 

Ironically, I’d already decided to skip the Xmas sing-along and save myself for a New Year’s trip. Instead, I told the kids I was loopy on Theraflu. I hadn’t actually taken any. I just wanted to cover up my decision to take the day off, stay home, and do edibles while pretending to be sick. Still, I’m glad I checked my email before I changed my mind about heading to the piano bar. My boisterous caroling would have contaminated numerous unsuspecting revelers with aerosolized coronavirus.

 

Instead I’m in isolation for ten days. Blame Canada.

This is what covid looks like (Xmas 2022)

Comfort Animals

Sometimes the universe speaks directly to you through music.

Vancouver’s weekly Showtune Sing-a-long Night is back, so last Wednesday after chorus rehearsal I was in my usual corner of the bar, sipping water. No alcohol – I was finishing a round of antibiotics to kill what currently looks like a mere bullet wound in my chest. 

Despite my recent plague of boils and other challenges, I’ve been in a shockingly good mood lately. My attitude seems even sunnier than would be justified by my improved mental health and my imagined career prospects. As I sat listening in the dark, I wondered what mysterious X-factor had been giving an extra lift to my spirits since the beginning of the year.

The piano player, Kerry O’Donovan, is a student of obscure musicals. Last Wednesday he introduced a song from an off-Broadway show I wasn't familiar with, Lucky Stiff. (Apparently it has a convoluted plot involving a contested will, Monte Carlo casinos, corpses with mistaken identities, and stolen diamonds.) Just as I was musing about what recent development might be boosting my cheer, Kerry began singing “Times Like This”:

Other people need
Romance, dancing, playing around
Other people need constant fun
Well I'm not one
I have my feet on the ground

Give me a quiet night
A stack of books
A tuna melt on rye
A simple walk together
Underneath the starry sky

And, suddenly, 
The night is something grand
And all because
There's someone special there
Who's gazing at the view
His head upon...your shoes

At times like this
I sure could use....
A dog

(Click here for a short version on YouTube sung by the lovely Katherine McPhee.)

Over the holidays I had to move out of my comfortable Bellingham rental house. Since then, my ex and I have been experimenting with letting the kids stay full time in one place. That means I’ve been spending alternate weeks in a ranch house with two charming Aussiedoodles. I’m loving it.

                 

As I recently wrote in “Guncle Again,” my kids are pretty useless as pet-owners. But they provide enough help to keep the dogs from feeling like a burden. More importantly, my ex and his husband are down the hill at the apartment if any real problems arise. Alternate weeks I’m away in Vancouver, or at my parents’ animal-free house. The dogs are ecstatic when I return. I feel like a fabulous gay uncle again.

Even the most adorable pet is not the same thing as a comfort animal. Moreover, neither a pet nor a comfort animal qualifies as a service animal. Here's a free legal primer:

The narrow definition of “service animal” includes

any dog that is individually trained to do work or perform tasks for the benefit of an individual with a disability, including a physical, sensory, psychiatric, intellectual, or other mental disability. Other species of animals, whether wild or domestic, trained or untrained, are not service animals for the purposes of this definition. The work or tasks performed by a service animal must be directly related to the individual's disability…. The crime deterrent effects of an animal's presence and the provision of emotional support, well-being, comfort, or companionship do not constitute work or tasks for the purposes of this definition.¹

            ¹If you relish raw legalese, you can read the full federal regulation itself at 28 CFR § 35.136. Or, if you prefer, here’s a handy FAQ published by the US Department of Justice – back when it was into justice. 

Under both the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Washington Law Against Discrimination, every government agency and every place of public accommodation must welcome service animals. If it isn't already “obvious that the dog is a service animal,” proprietors may ask “only two specific questions”:

(1) Is the dog a service animal required because of a disability?  

(2) What work or task has the dog been trained to perform?

Service dogs do not need to be specially registered or certified as trained. However, Washington now imposes a $500 fine for falsely identifying Fluffy as a service animal. 

As a separate matter, employers must consider any disabled employee’s request to bring a service animal to work under the same legal framework that requires a “reasonable accommodation” of the employee's disability, based on the circumstances of the particular employment situation. 

There’s exactly one exception to the rules limiting service animals to dogs:  miniature horses. Apparently they’re a thing.

The definition of a “comfort animal,” also known as an “emotional support animal” or “assistance animal,” covers much more than service dogs:

An assistance animal works, provides assistance, or performs tasks for the benefit of a person with a disability, or provides emotional support that alleviates one or more identified symptoms or effects of a person's disability. For purposes of reasonable accommodation requests, federal law does not require an assistance animal to be individually trained or certified. While dogs are the most common type of assistance animal, other animals can also be assistance animals.

Recently we’ve seen an increasing variety of comfort animals in two contexts covered by different federal laws. The first is transportation. According to an article in Forbes, US airlines carried a million animals in their passenger cabins in 2017, mostly supposed comfort animals – representing species from peacocks, to monkeys, to snakes. The airlines and Congress have been pushing back at passenger abuses, and the Department of Transportation is working on new regulations that are likely to impose significant new restrictions.

The second area is housing, where comfort animals are here to stay. Landlords from college dormitories to public housing projects to fancy apartment complexes are busy developing policies that override anti-pet rules. They must accommodate a wide variety of comfort animals, while attempting to balance the rights of nondisabled residents.

Outside of the transportation and housing contexts, individual businesses are generally free to make their own decision whether to welcome comfort animals. Or plain old pets.

Although I’ve never been a pet person myself, I’ve observed how pets brighten many other people’s lives. Just like country music, and knitting.

However, I learned the power of comfort animals on the night I hosted the worst dinner party ever. I’ll save the details for some occasion when I’m in a sufficiently safe place – i.e., after I find a job, an apartment, and a boyfriend. As a preview, no host should have to explain to a guest’s date that just because you're from the South doesn't mean you're allowed to use the n-word in the hot tub. 

I suppose the fiasco was partly my fault. I’m a big believer in the Greek concept of “xenia” or gracious hospitality, so I try to accommodate everyone. Moreover, as a codependent person I acquired a stable of needy friends and acquaintances whose dysfunctions I (formerly) could not resist enabling. Nevertheless, even codependent hosts do not anticipate having two separate dinner guests bring small yappy dogs without prior notice or permission. 

For now, I'll limit myself to explaining how one of the dogs showed up on Whidbey Island. Let’s call the non-Southern dog-bringer “Hot Mess.” He’s a longtime Seattle friend who comes from a similar religious and mental health background as mine, but with bonus substance abuse issues. Still, he’s a nice guy, and in the past he’d enjoyed fun visits to the island. I’d told him he was welcome to come back for another weekend if he could make his way up to the Mukilteo ferry himself. However, as Hot Mess went through yet another difficult period, I was confident that he was incapable of the complex organizational tasks involved in coordinating various buses, boats, and trains.

I did not realize that Hot Mess had acquired a small comfort dog. Apparently it fits inside his leather jacket, and soothes him when he has an episode. After alarming numerous public servants and fellow travelers along the way, Hot Mess and his dog arrived on the island just in time for dinner and the ensuing chaos.

Recently I went over to the other house to help my daughter with homework, even though it was my week staying across town with my parents. Afterwards I took the dogs for a long walk through the arboretum. For a little pick-me-up.

So I should have been more prepared for my epiphany at Showtune Night, when Kerry sang about what a couple of Aussiedoodle comfort animals can do for your mental health:

My idea of company would be
A friendly face
The kind of face
That melts you with a grin
The kind of eyes that welcome you
The minute you walk in
A tender glance
You simply can't refuse

Times like this, a guy could use...another dog

He listens when you tell him things
There's nothing you can't say
And unlike certain people
You can teach him how to stay

And if the world
is giving you the blues
He cheers you up 
by chewing up the news

It's things like that
That make you choose...a dog

But.

When I arrived home from Showtune Night in Canada, I discovered my favorite jammies were missing. It turns out worn flannel is just as irresistible to chewy dogs as bad news and holey underwear.

So I sighed, and temporarily banished Bear and Buster from my bedroom. Facing codependency is all about establishing healthy boundaries. With dogs, it’s good to be a Guncle.

More Showtune Night Stories:

"Missing Marie's Crisis" (5/6/17)

"Get Out and Stay Out" (10/18/17)

"Six Degrees of Kristin Chenoweth" (10/31/18)

"I am Third" (5/29/19)

"Spongeworthy" (6/13/19)

"Maybe I Love Showtunes Too Much"  (9/17/19)

"Artificial Emotional Intelligence" (2/25/20)

"Do Gay Androids Dream of Electric Brunch?" (2/26/20)

"A New Brain"  (5/5/20)

“Can I order the frogs instead?”

After surviving Spring Break with the kids, last weekend I drove back up to Canada for Retreat with Vancouver Men’s Chorus. Since 1990, the men of VMC have spent an annual weekend together at an environmental education center halfway between Vancouver and Whistler. (If you watched the television show Legion on FX, you’ll recognize our cafeteria as the good guys’ hideout.) 

In addition to fifteen grueling hours of singing, Retreat is filled with numerous traditional bonding experiences. This year the Friday evening rehearsal segued to a welcome social, drag contest, disco dance, and mega-Twister game. Each night we stay up till the wee hours for s’mores, alcohol, and sing-a-longs at the fire pit. Eventually it will be late enough to burst into our conductor Willi’s cabin and serenade him with his least favourite song, “Amazing Grace.” Ah, Tradition.

On Saturday night we have “Skits.” We bring our own custom-made theatrical curtains and lighting equipment. Each of the four musical sections prepares a skit using themes based on our current concert season. The trophy for the winning section looks like the Stanley Cup, and is more coveted. Because our June concert is all music from the 1970s, the theme this year was “The Carol Burnett Show.” All four skits featured at least one outfit with a curtain rod, as well as multiple be-wigged Carols.

This year the Basses edged out the ever-deserving Second Tenors for the Skits trophy. Then I went straight to bed.

The first couple of times I attended VMC Retreat, I was still in a state of shock from my PTSD diagnosis and the horrific treatment by my incompetent and bigoted former employers. One of the worst of my new symptoms was a crippling increase in social anxiety, particularly around other gay men. As a result, at Retreat I mostly sat in corners and avoided making eye contact with anyone. 

As I’ve attempted to document through my writing, my mental health has greatly improved in the last couple of years. So I was particularly looking forward to Retreat this year. I signed up to stay in the cabin with the fun Second Tenors. I brought a couple of bottles of Barrister red wine from Trader Joe’s. I talked to strangers. I even started a mental Top 10 list for the category “If I were buzzed enough to finally kiss someone from the Chorus, who would it be?” (As I’ve previously mentioned, at my parents’ insistence no one under age 30 is allowed in the top five slots.)

Sadly, it turned out to be yet another thoroughly anti-social weekend in the woods.

As with Seattle Men’s Chorus and Windy City Gay Chorus, VMC’s annual mantra is “what happens at Retreat stays at Retreat.” After reading this essay, or at least after seeing a couple of the pictures, you may agree that’s a good rule.

What happened at Retreat this year was on Friday evening I noticed a tender red bump on my chest. I couldn’t find evidence of an ingrown hair or anything, so I assumed it was the kind of random allergic over-reaction to a spider bite that occasionally happens to me. (One time I needed a Benadryl shot because I reacted to a seafood stew by turning red as a lobster, but only from the waist up.) This time I felt like you do when you wake up with a sore nipple because some guy insisted on kneading it for hours – “he wasn’t that hot, this is totally not worth it.”

When I woke up Saturday morning, there was a swollen red area covering a quarter of my chest. It felt like aliens had heated a strand of barbed wire and implanted it under my left nipple. I understand there are guys in the Chorus who think that sounds sexy, but they’re confusing my situation with nipple piercings on the outside of your skin.

All day long the blotch got bigger and hotter. I tracked down some Benadryl and Voltaren, which seemed to slow down the red expansion. But I still had to spend most of my non-singing time hiding in my sleeping bag, shaking with pain and chills. All weekend long I lived in terror that Fabyo, our personal-space-disregarding Second Tenor, would hug me and provoke a piercing Banshee scream.

On Saturday night I didn’t want to miss the Skits. But the pain was excruciating. So I roofied myself with a cocktail of herbs, spices, Benadryl, red wine, Allegra, etc. I made it through all four skits, although one friend accused me of closing my eyes during the Baritones’ performance. I do remember seeing the evening’s obvious highlight – David as Humphrey as Marie Kondo – before passing out in my sleeping bag. In any event, I managed to undo months of progress with my social anxiety. Once again, everyone in the Chorus must think I’m some kind of zombie.

On Sunday evening I limped home to Bellingham. I collapsed in a heap at my parents’ house, as I have invariably done in times of crisis for almost forty years.

Ever since my daughter Eleanor was diagnosed at birth as a Drama Queen, I've been seeking a suitable antonym for “hypochondriac.” Currently I favor “la belle indifference.” Mosby’s Medical Dictionary defines this term as: “an air of unconcern displayed by some patients toward their physical symptoms.” Despite my daughter’s hypochondriac example, I’ve never been to a hospital or an emergency room on my own behalf. Interacting with my parents this week reminded me exactly where I get my belle indifference.

My parents expressed sympathy and horror at my throbbing breast. But their advice was completely predictable:  “Get some sleep and we’ll see where things are in the morning.” Frankly that’s the same thing I would tell my kids, or anyone else. (Best Heuristic Ever.) It’s good to know where I get my excellent judgment from.

I also realized that as long as I retain any voluntary muscle function, I’m never going to be sick enough to go to an emergency room. Fortunately, being surrounding by loving family means that if really need medical assistance, someone will take me to the ER as soon as I lose consciousness. Then the emergency room stops being an indefensibly profligate expense. That’s another irrationally frugal rule I inherited from my parents, along with our prohibitions on long-distance telephone calls, buying food at movie theatre concessions, and paying for parking when you can walk a couple of blocks or miles instead.

I’ve come to accept that Divine Providence has a Purpose for all the various plagues besetting me over the last few years:   they were meant to bring me home to live with my parents so I can explain technology in terms they will understand, since apparently no one else speaks their language. 

Confidentiality obligations prevent me from revealing any details about this week’s Wi-Fi and cable TV consultations. But let me tell you about my parents’ thermometers.

Before going to bed on Sunday, I wanted to confirm that I didn’t have a serious fever. Even I know there’s such a thing as Too Darn Hot. So my mother sent me up to the medicine cabinet in what is still referred to as “the boys’ bathroom.” I found two primitive glass mercury thermometers that were obviously purchased in a previous millennium.

Roger:             I was expecting something that beeps.

Grandma:        Ooh, they’re much too expensive.

Roger:             They cost less than a candy bar at Walgreens.

Grandpa:         When I donate blood, they have a thermometer that doesn’t even touch you.

Roger:             Those ones are much too expensive.

I tried to take my temperature with these archaic instruments, but neither worked. In an amusing role reversal, my parents made fun of my lack of technological prowess. (“Have you tried turning it off and on?”) However, on closer examination, we discovered there wasn’t any mercury left in either thermometer. So we all went to bed.

I want to know where the mercury went, and when.

On Monday morning I went to the walk-in clinic that’s included with our insurance. The first time I visited was a couple of years ago, when my daughter Eleanor “absolutely” needed an updated school sports physical exam “that day.” 

By now it felt like the aliens had implanted a radioactive Easter egg under my left nipple, with a barbed-wire garnish on top. I’ve been trying to figure out what the shiny little lump looks like – a scorpion? Ruth Bader Ginsberg? A penis? You tell me.   

The doctor prescribed a round of industrial-strength antibiotics. She warned me that the infection was still progressing, and there was a 50/50 chance I’d eventually have to come back and have fluid drained. In the meantime the alien intrusion is huge, rock hard, horribly tender, and itches uncontrollably. It's started oozing blood and ruining my shirts. Nevertheless, I'm still driving up to Vancouver for Chorus rehearsal and Showtunes Night. Remind me that the antibiotics will make me projectile vomit if I try drinking alcohol.

Before I left the clinic, the doctor got a sterilized Sharpie out of its packaging, and marked the extent of the red blotch as of Monday at 10 am. But first she hesitated. “This is how we’re supposed to track changes in the inflammation, but I’ve never had to draw a circle on someone there before.”

Breaking the Glass

Despite years of practice, I’m not very good at therapy. Mostly I blame my healthcare providers for failing to recognize the real impact of youthful trauma. They let me settle for a generic “anxiety” diagnosis, punctuated with rare bouts of clinical depression. 

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve greatly benefited from a wide variety of therapists over the years. They helped me manage anxiety and depression, as well as serving as my foil each time I processed a major life challenge (coming out of the closet, having my heart broken, chronic career dysphoria, etc.). Hiring and firing counselors also gave me an excuse to postpone trying psychiatric medications. I figured I still hadn’t given therapy enough of a chance.

Not that I'm against drugs. I’m not some kind of Luddite anti-vaxer, and I have no philosophical objection to responsible pharmaceutical use. To the contrary, I thoroughly researched various anxiety meds, and observed their efficacy in others. The true reason for my drug resistance:  I was afraid if I broke the glass I'd find out I'm one of those unfortunate patients who don’t benefit from medication. And then what hope would be left?

I like to analyze major life choices as a matter of game theory. After twenty years of intermittent therapy, I was running out of unplayed aces in the hole. 

If you've read my blog entries about mental health issues, you probably think I finally went on meds in November 2015, when my insightful new Bellingham physician, Dr. Heuristic, diagnosed me with PTSD and serious codependency. You’re off by a year.

By November 2014, my ex and I had been successfully juggling alternate kid weeks for as long as anyone could remember. Then he and his husband decided it was time for them to move out of Seattle and start a small business. They ended up relocating to Bellingham, not far from my parents.

The girls had already begun Grade 4 in Seattle, and our son was in Grade 1. [Ed. Note:  anything written in Vancouver automatically uses the Canadian idiom, rather than the American-style “4th Grade” and “1st Grade." Same with spelling.] 

We'd carefully chosen Seattle’s excellent McGilvra Elementary School three years before – shout out to the inestimable “Miss Melonie” for nurturing the kids in before- and after-school care ❤️.But we knew the urban middle school options the following year would be dicey. Fortunately, within a few months I found my dream job in Bellingham, and we were all in one place again. The kids spent the next three years attending excellent public schools, regularly eating Grandma food, and smoothly shuttling across town between the two dad households each Friday. [SPOILER ALERT:  that “dream job” turned out to be a nightmare….] 

However, before moving to Bellingham I had to survive eight months alone in Seattle with the kids first. During the school year my ex and his husband hosted them in Bellingham a couple of weekends a month, but other than that I was full-time single parent. It’s hard to imagine a more stressful rock bottom moment. [SPOILER ALERT….]  

Which brings us to my Seattle gay doctor’s office in November 2014. The day I suffered my first-ever full-blown panic attack. On a school bus, on my way home from volunteering with a Grade 4 field trip. 

The doctor offered me my first Xanax. Fortunately, it immediately calmed my spiked anxiety levels. Even more fortunately, I haven’t had another panic attack since. Despite everything. [SPOILE…]

My Seattle doctor also prescribed a generic version of Zoloft. This is not where I summarize twenty-five years of research and dithering over the potential pros and cons of taking powerful psychotropic drugs. Instead, it’s the moment when I finally broke the glass. Even if I didn’t think I needed help yet, the kids needed me to get help right now.

My doctor and I carefully ramped up my dosages over the next few weeks. I can report that generic Zoloft works, at least for me. The side effects are mild, and the benefits are real.

When I started exhibiting strange new symptoms a year later, my new doctor in Bellingham diagnosed me with PTSD and codependency. I was a little disappointed to hear I was already on the right medication and at the right dosage. Fortunately, my meds still work. I’ve even ramped down from the maximum dose.  

How did I know when the medications kicked in? I like to compare it to cartoon dynamite. The most alarming effect of amped-up stress had been on my temper around the kids. Every little mess was making me uncharacteristically angry. 

On medication, my fuse feels a few inches longer. Just enough to avoid explosions.

My resistance to prematurely breaking the glass is not limited to life’s nadirs. It applies to zeniths as well.¹

¹[Ed. Note:  In mathematics, the “nadir” is located at the bottom point on a curve. The “zenith” is the highest point on a curve.]

Long ago, a grateful law firm partner gave me a bottle of vintage champagne. Here are the “Winemaker Notes” for Dom Perignon’s 1999 vintage:

On the nose, this wine is full of life, with a fresh nose that dances through a spiral of aromas, blending hints of angelica, dried flowers, pineapple, coconut, cinnamon, cocoa and tobacco. With a fullness in the mouth, its earthy, smoky, pearly complexity rises to the surface, underscored by the vibrant warmth of peppery spice. The sensation of intensity develops and melts into a deep, rounded heart, with a fruity, exotic maturity and a slight touch of aniseed. This sensation, almost unsettling, is even more pronounced in the finish, while the notes of spice, still present, remain discreet, with toasted, iodine flavors.

Sounds perfect, right? Except for the iodine flavours at the end.

I still don't know what Dom Perignon '99 actually tastes like. I’m a ditherer. For years it was impossible to identify any occasion that would justify opening a $200+ bottle of champagne. Eventually I zeroed in on three possibilities:  becoming a judge, saving my house on Whidbey Island, or finding a real boyfriend. The bottle is still sealed in the box.

According to Wine Spectator, drinking the Dom Perignon 1999 vintage is “best from 2008 through 2020.” I need to hurry things up. Or lower my standards.

Previously in Rock Bottom Stories: "Prodigals."

Up next: "Happy Holidays."

Inclusive Language

As a person living with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, I'm triggered by all the people claiming to be "triggered" when they're merely offended. 

Actually, I’m usually just offended myself by their imprecise language. It demeans people with PTSD, and/or culturally appropriates our experience. Their insensitivity can be upsetting. Nevertheless, we all have to deal with upsetting things in life – even ten-year-old video gamers and people with PTSD.

On the other hand, it’s possible the specific words someone uses when claiming to be “triggered” might just happen to push my buttons and trigger debilitating PTSD symptoms – presumably because of the relationship between their words and the youthful traumas I endured at the hands of anti-gay Mormons. Or because the speaker resembles my bishop at BYU. I mean, it’s  theoretically possible.

I’m reminded of the classic gender guide for choosing toys:

A similar proportion of the snowflake/free speech debate involves language that is triggering in and of itself. Rather than merely upsetting or otherwise offensive.

Nevertheless, language is a powerful tool. With great power you should be able to expect great responsibility. 

P.G. Wodehouse is the greatest comic English novelist of the twentieth century. (Don’t argue with me, I have PTSD.) 

Unlike my daughter Eleanor, I binge on good books instead of cheesy TV series. Topping off the well of Wodehouse at Bellingham Public Library, which I have now drained, my parents recently gave me a three-volume book of Jeeves & Wooster novels and short stories. 

One of the stories in the collection came from early in the last century, and early in the Wodehouse oeuvre. It included one instance of the word “nigger.” The word was used thoughtlessly rather than as a matter of writerly art, as far as I could tell. Nevertheless, no one should be offended to learn my personal library includes an otherwise exemplary text that is nevertheless representative of its time and place. 

In the same collection I came upon versions of the following metaphorical expression four times: “That’s awfully white of you,” meaning “That’s awfully good of you.” In my short theatrical career in Utah, I encountered the same phrase in the script for Kiss and Tell, a comedy set during World War II. We changed the line. (FYI, I played the handsome hero’s nerdy best friend. As usual.) 

Whether you’re in 1986 or 2018, the phrase feels wrong. A “white” = “good” metaphor is no longer part of our shared English language. At least not quite so directly.

When I was in law school, I joined the Yale Gilbert & Sullivan Society, where I sang in the choruses of H.M.S. Pinafore, Patience, Pirates of Penzance, and Ruddigore. Some might call membership in the Yale Gilbert & Sullivan Society a clue to one’s eventual sexual orientation. Like excessively groomed eyebrows.

In addition to channeling my proto-gay-men’s-chorus urges, doing theater at Yale gave me the opportunity to socialize with folks outside the law school. Participants came from all over the university. For example, our divinity student choreographer is now the thirteenth Episcopal bishop of Rhode Island. 

At a cast party my first year, the wild G&S crowd at Yale introduced me to a term I’d never heard at caffeine-and-alcohol-free Brigham Young University:  “girl-ing your beer.”

Admit it. You know what the phrase means. Certain people, and I’m not saying who, have a tendency to open a beverage and then leave it on some surface undrunk. Repeatedly.

This fall we observed a sudden increase in this same phenomenon at our house. Particularly abandoned cans of Diet Coke. All fingers immediately pointed to Eleanor. Her fingers most dramatically.

After a brief period of observation, I realized something more was going on than my daughter’s usual combination of hoarding, absent-mindedness, and casual privilege. It turns out they have a fancy new coffee-maker over the hill at my ex’s house. Teen-aged Eleanor has become addicted to a splash of coffee before school. During the weeks when the kids are with me, she gets her morning fix from a demitasse of Diet Coke.

I told Eleanor the story of gender-correlated alcohol consumption patterns at Yale. We agreed it’s best to avoid sexist language. And I suggested she work on her carbon footprint.

The other day, Eleanor came home from school and went straight to the fridge. She retrieved that morning’s mostly-full can of Diet Coke with this proud announcement:

“Look, Papa, I didn’t ‘Eleanor’ my drink!”

In our house, at least, one may refer to this reprehensible practice as “Eleanor-ing” without being accused of sexism.

Language is filled with hidden historical prejudices. For example, there are linguistic purists who won’t use the word “dilapidated” to refer to run-down wooden buildings, because they know the word’s Latin root “lapid” means “stone,” not “wood.”

Similarly, “dexterous” means “showing or having skill, especially with the hands,” while “sinister” means “evil or criminal.” The two words come from Latin roots with opposite meanings:  “dexter” means right handed, while “sinister” means left handed. 

As we paddle down the river of a language’s evolution, most of the baggage washes away. Today’s English speakers are unaware that our vocabulary subliminally reinforces rightie hegemony. I’ve never heard a right-hander use either “dexterous” or “sinister” for the purpose of encoding his supremacy. (Obviously we’re talking about a “his,” rather than a “her” or a “their.” Supremacy is involved.)

Now that I’ve let the right-handed cat out of the bag, no doubt we can expect an outpouring of feedback from outraged left-handers. Remember, “offended” is not the same as “triggered.”

Which brings us, at long last, to my real question today. What do we talk about when we talk about lunacy?

Sometimes I consciously apply words like “crazy” to myself in ostentatious air quotes, just to annoy my mother. She's convinced I’m not even trying to find a real job. Or I hint that PTSD caused me to be late for chorus rehearsal. Really I just lost track of time while writing at some coffee shop – but I worry folks will get suspicious if I overuse my usual excuses, i.e., kids, border, and/or traffic.

The other day I noticed the phrase “driving me crazy” in a sentence I’d written months ago about the itchiness of facial hair. Other blog posts similarly mention things like going “stir crazy,” or hearing “maddening” noises. Most of these references don’t come up in a discussion of mental illness itself. Instead, I consciously and unconsciously use the colorful language of Bedlam for its metaphorical effect. These words are part of the English language that's wired into my brain.

Every three years, lawyers in Washington have to report that they’ve attended 45 hours of Continuing Legal Education. Because I’ve been working at home instead of at some cushy firm, for the first time in my career I find myself up against the deadline. I still have another 16 hours of coursework to go before New Years Eve. 

To finish my CLE requirements, I bought the cheapest possible video lectures online. They’re taped in a conference room in New Jersey. Each of the presenters is dreadful, but in his or her own uniquely dreadful way. The Fifth Amendment speaker read her entire printed text. Slowly, in a monotonous drone. The employment discrimination instructor could barely speak through her bronchitis. The sports law guy managed to make “Boxing Law” utterly boring. And so on….

This morning I watched a generic legal ethics presentation, describing the usual parade of horrifying exemplars of the profession. In one case, the disgraced lawyer spent a year in prison after going on a 45 minute spree where he assaulted his ex and trashed her apartment. The question was how long state regulators should suspend his law license for – sixty days, six months, or three years? 

In describing the factual background and potential mitigating or aggravating factors, the instructor mentioned that after the incident, the lawyer went to a psychiatrist who diagnosed him with anger management issues. I don’t have an opinion about the case – the instructor was primarily using it as an example of how legal regulators vary widely in their sanctions. But it’s not the first time I’ve heard a lawyer cynically suggest mental health diagnoses are a gimmick to game the system. Indeed, much of the pernicious early case law undercutting the Americans with Disabilities Act involves judges who can barely disguise their hostility to claimants suffering from mental rather than “physical” impairments. 

I have no objection to folks appropriating the language of craziness to describe the world – particularly these days, when the world seems so deranged. As long as you remember mental illness is real. And not just a metaphor.