One of the things I’m enjoying about The West Wing (I’m on season six) is the guest stars. I know it’s going to be a good one when we approach the new person slowly, and hear the voice before we see the face.

I wrote the report of the tooth extraction just a couple of days after I’d had it done, and by a couple of days after THAT things were nearly back to normal: I could eat dairy, I didn’t have to use ice packs or ibuprofen, and I was much better at talking with the little tray in. Now it’s been just over a week and I’d say things are pretty fine. I went back to the oral surgeon so she could make sure it was healing well, and she snipped off the little surgical-string ends I couldn’t keep my tongue from messing with (luckily that stopped feeling icky/painful after the first few days); the extraction site looks pink and normal, like regular gums. I can successfully eat salad again; it’s not EASY, but it WORKS. It doesn’t bother the extraction site to have the little tooth-tray in; I still only wear it when I go out, because I don’t like the feel of it in my mouth and it makes it harder to talk.

The discouraging thing is that I’d been…well, “looking forward to” getting the flipper is a severe understatement. I was more like counting the hours, and also feeling incredulous that it would take so long to make one. I was hoping it would be a significant, wear-all-day type of improvement over the tooth-tray, and I was thinking things such as “This is the last pottery class where I’ll have to struggle to communicate around this gross tooth-tray!” But when I went to the dentist, almost a week and a half after the extraction, they did STEP ONE of the flipper. They had not been tracking with the change from Plan A (attach my own extracted tooth to the implant) to Plan B (if the implant can’t be put in, make a flipper instead), and no one noticed this lack of tracking until the appointment. Now I have to wait more than another week, and I had to have a little weep in the parking lot. In the long run this time will seem like a meaningless blip, but right now it feels like everything is terrible.

Speaking of pottery class, I’ve gone to two sessions and so far I don’t really like it. I’m the only person in the class who is new at this; the others have a minimum of one year’s experience, and some of them have over a decade. It’s supposed to be a mixed-levels class, but the others sign up again and again; one of the regulars didn’t sign up this time because of traveling for so much of the session, which is why there was an available space for me, the newbie.

In theory, this is nice: it theoretically gives me another half-dozen or so teachers, and theoretically gives me more of the actual teacher’s attention. In practice, it turns out that the teacher doesn’t so much teach as supervise, and that making things on a pottery wheel must be mostly a matter of getting the FEEL of it, so every single person (including the teacher) is telling me how to get the feel of it, but that’s not something that can be explained, or at least not by any of this group, or at least not to me. I’ve spent two 3-hour sessions sitting at the wheel trying to get a piece of clay centered while someone tells me that I am in charge of the clay not the other way around, and to move my hand DOWN the piece of clay when my hand is already resting on the wheel and can’t GO any more down, and to make sure to use enough water, and to just get a FEEL for it. Oh, but not with your hands positioned like that. And your elbows are too high/low. No, keep your hands RIGID. Elbow down/up/planted/STEADY. Also there are air bubbles in your clay and you used too much water. Meanwhile everyone else is churning out mugs and plates and mixing bowls and vases and flower pots, and it’s a little discouraging. I wish there were just ONE other person in the class who was new at this—although I guess it would be even MORE discouraging if that person got it right away and I was still struggling.

Everyone is assuring me that it just takes time to figure out how to do this, and telling me their stories of how long it took THEM to figure it out, and that IS helpful, so I have only cried once, and only a little: it was more like a slight leak. I kept my face down and I don’t think anyone noticed, or if they did they were tactful about it and it’s probably not the first time it’s happened. It was when my fourth piece of clay in a row had gone floppy and rogue after a long careful attempt to get it as far as that, and the teacher was trying to tell me how to keep it from doing that but nothing she said was making any sense to me (“Start with your hands low and see if you can rein it back in”) so I didn’t even feel like I knew what to do next time to have it work any better, and while I was listening to her I was also thinking that I could actually just leave, no one would force me to do the rest of the classes. But instead I put my collapsed piece of clay over on the table for overly-wet clay, and I washed my hands and went off to find the bathroom, and I stayed in there for a little while extra, thinking I might do a little unsuppressed crying but it turned out I didn’t need to, and then I washed my hands again and went back to the pottery room and got another stupid piece of stupid clay.

Here is something I had in high school, and would like to find again now: friends I can turn to and say, “Hey, you know what I want? DOUGHNUTS. Do you want to go get a dozen different doughnuts and eat a bite of each one??”—and the friends say “Oh hell yes” and nobody, NOBODY, says anything about “being so bad,” we just eat the doughnuts because they taste good and this is a fun idea. And now we are older and we like coffee, which makes the whole thing even better.

I don’t know if you saw the happy update on this post that I DID get into the pottery class after all! I’d emailed and asked if they had a waiting list (the site is a little old-school, so I thought they might have one even though there was no way to access it online), and I got an email back saying actually they had one more opening in that class if I wanted it, and I DID want it, and so now I am in! I am very excited! I haven’t yet acquired the cheap washable fake-croc-type shoes I want (Kay W. mentioned in the comments that it is nicer to rinse off one’s shoes rather than ruin them, and that sounds like a solid plan), so I’m going to wear my tall pink polka-dotted rain boots! I am going to be THE CUTEST! Also, you are all getting lumpy mugs for Christmas!

I have a peeve to report, which is that one of my favorite radio stations got rid of their perfectly good normal unnoticeable DJs and have switched to a Bratty Assh0le format: guys laughing in a hysterical high-pitched grating way about crude/mean things and thinking it’s edgy to mention dild0s and b00bs just like the grown-ups—and this is on MORNING RADIO. But I’m reluctant to change that pre-set, because I still like the music when they are playing it instead of using the toilet-flush sound effect.

Well. One cannot have everything one’s own way. One cannot expect to get into the already-full pottery class AND keep the normal DJs. Somewhere else in my broadcast area there is someone who tried to get into the pottery class and could not, and it is making them feel better that at least their favorite radio station got those hilarious new guys who crack themselves up with all those “That’s what she said!” jokes.

I typed the title of this post, and then I opened up the archives, thinking maybe I had already written on this topic. The first match was another post, with the very same title! …Oh, it’s the draft of this post.

I did mention it in a post called Day Sadness (written about nine years ago when I had an infant and two toddlers and two elementary school kids, hmm, I wonder if that had anything to do with anything, well it’s all a rich tapestry):

Last night I had Night Sadness (lying awake thinking of sad and oppressive things, and all the ways in which I have failed / am failing / will fail), and usually sleep cures that—-but this morning I woke up with Day Sadness. It feels like I do the same thing day in and day out, and like it’s never going to change, and like I’m never going to handle anything right, and like the world is a bad and stupid place. I know that’s not true, but what I know doesn’t have much to do with it.

And I mentioned it in a post called Accommodations, written about six years ago; William was about ten years old then, and I’d forgotten about this:

William gets Night Sadness: feeling in the evening or around bedtime that everything is too awful and sad and hopeless to be dealt with at all.

I think the second excerpt captures the feeling more accurately. The first excerpt’s “Lying awake thinking of every dumb thing I ever said/did” can be PART of Night Sadness, but it’s not the DEFINING part; the defining part is awful/sad/hopeless/despair/everything.

What separates Night Sadness from other moods is: (1) it happens near bedtime, and (2) the only cure is sleep, and (3) the cure works. It can be brought on by over-tiredness, or it can just happen when normal tiredness breaks down the usual coping mechanisms, but the ONLY WAY TO DEAL WITH IT is to go to sleep and wake up the next morning. There is no talking it out, there is no reasoning it out, there is no “have a hot bath and a glass of wine and write in a gratitude journal”-ing it out: just get to sleep. If necessary, using benadryl, tranquilizers, sleeping pills, hard liquor NOT IN COMBINATION WITH OTHER THINGS, etc.

ANYWAY. That post that mentions William having Night Sadness is very encouraging to me, because what I came here to write about is Henry having it. And William had it six years ago, when he was Henry’s age, and I didn’t even REMEMBER that. So that gives me hope for the Henry situation.

Henry has it somewhat more severely, however. A few times recently, he’s gotten such a bad case of Night Sadness, he’s actually thrown up. He gets more and more upset and anxious, and nothing seems to help, and then he throws up and feels better. This seems to me to be crossing the line between “I’m sorry, child, but you’ve inherited your mother’s Night Sadness genes; the jury is still out on whether you’ve got her unreliable ankles” and “Let’s call the pediatrician.” But I haven’t called the pediatrician. Because I am very, very, very, very, very, very, very reluctant to get any kid into the system of Mental Issues, and particularly when pre-existing conditions are such a current and applicable topic. But of course I don’t want to put something off that should be dealt with, or let him suffer with something he doesn’t have to suffer with. On the other hand, it’s not happening often. And William outgrew it.

For my own treatment, the essential piece is recognizing the particular mood as Night Sadness. This does not work with most mental issues (like when my therapist thought that if I REALIZED my anxieties were irrational, those anxieties would MAGICALLY DISAPPEAR!) (no, I ALREADY REALIZE they’re irrational, Genius, which is WHY I AM HERE), but it does help me somewhat with night sadness: I think “Nope. I recognize this. This is Night Sadness,” and I can get benadryl or a tranquilizer or a swift double shot of vodka on board and be asleep while still noping. So my natural inclination is to get Henry to be able to use a similar coping mechanism. I am worried that if I instead consult the doctor, Henry will get put on a daily medication that is not as safe as an occasional benadryl. I am worried there will be Referrals, and Diagnoses, and a suggestion that he See Someone once a week, when really what he needs is some occasional help getting to sleep for the next year(s) while he outgrows it as William has, or learns to handle it as I have. But so far, my method is not working on Henry. It is hard to decide how long to wait.

I had to tell a child for the millionth time that we do not yuck another person’s yum. We do not look at something someone else is eating, and express our opinion that their food is gross; we do not observe someone else’s passionate interest and then volunteer, unasked, the information that we think that interest is stupid and boring and a waste of time. Oh, you don’t like every single thing liked by every single other person? HOW INTERESTING, HOW UNIQUE, WELCOME TO THE HUMAN RACE. We can use empathy to consider how bad it would feel to have someone sneering at what WE like, and know that we should not sneer at what THEY like.

Later that same day, I was thinking about how tempting it is, at this stage of parenting, to idealize the earlier stages: I see someone out with a baby in a baby carseat, and I just want to tell her how LOVINGLY I remember it: the sweet little baby companion in the cart, cheeks within easy squeezing-reach! But wait: when I was in that stage, I rejoiced in the times I did NOT have to take the baby with me to the store. And I absolutely did not want to hear how I should cherish every moment. I wanted to hear how cute my baby was, YES. I wanted to be asked how old the baby was and what the baby’s name was, YES. But I did NOT enjoy being told again and again by what seemed like an endless procession of older ladies that I should be appreciating every moment, and that it all went by so fast, and that I would be sorry when it was over that I hadn’t appreciated it more. Because, as I also remember, that stage was filled with a weeping lack of sleep, and babies who cried unless they were held even when I had things to do that were incompatible with that, and blow-out diapers right after baths, and having to constantly assess the well-being of a child who COULD NOT TALK, and treasuring the two minutes I could be by myself in the bathroom, and having fantasies about getting sent to prison so I could be by myself, and so on.

I was NOT cherishing every moment, NOR SHOULD I HAVE if I wanted to continue being counted among the sane: some parts were just TERRIBLE, and we don’t have to pretend they weren’t, let alone feel guilty in advance for not ENJOYING them enough. Hearing someone else claim to have gone through this same stage and to have emerged thinking of it as the best time of her life made me feel like RUNNING SCREAMING INTO THE SEA. Oh, it’s all downhill from here, then? GOOD TO KNOW, BRB FLINGING MYSELF OFF CLIFF. Oh, I’m going to REGRET not CHERISHING the diaper that required me to mop up the baby as best I could with rough brown paper towels in a public bathroom, then wrap his soiled clothes as best I could in more paper towels so that I could get them home, then wrap the baby in a blankie and go back out into the store to buy him a new outfit on the spot so he wouldn’t have to go out into the sharp winter weather without clothes? In the future I will be looking back on this moment as belonging to THE BEST TIME OF MY LIFE? THANK YOU FOR THAT GIANT DOSE OF DESPAIR ABOUT MY SAD FUTURE, OLDER LADY.

(What’s funny is that one of my happy memories ACTUALLY IS the time Elizabeth threw up in the car when my mom and I were almost to Target. She mostly just got it on her clothes, so we stripped her down to her diaper, put her clothes into a plastic bag I kept in the car because car-barfing was not rare, cleaned her up with baby wipes kept in the car for the same reason, and then went into Target and I had the excuse of buying her the darling four-piece mix-and-match Carter’s pink elephant pajamas I’d really wanted to buy her. I went through the line with Elizabeth and the pajamas while my mom waited with the cart and the other kids, and I took her right into the bathroom and put one set on her, and then we continued shopping and she looked adorable, and I felt so RESOURCEFUL to have handled the whole situation, and so HAPPY to have those cute new pajamas.)

Anyway, thinking of both of those things on the same day made me realize one is the flip of the other: we shouldn’t yuck someone else’s yum—but also, we should try not to yum someone else’s yuck. If we know from personal experience that a particular stage of life is filled with loveliness but also with suckiness, we should avoid rhapsodizing about the loveliness in a way that makes the other person feel as if they can’t admit to any suckiness, or as if they alone are finding it sucky whereas WE found it wreathed in roses and angel-song. When someone else is going through an experience universally acknowledged to be rough (even if also glorious), we should avoid telling them it was the best time of our life, even if we now remember it that way, even if it turns out it actually was. It’s not going to sound like good news to the hearer.

Similarly, I saw someone posting on Facebook about something they were worried about, and someone else commented “I’d love to have that problem,” and then added a mention of her own problem, which was indeed worse, and yet the original person’s complaint was not about something anyone would “love to have.” It should go without saying that we do not tell someone else that their worry/problem/issue is actually a POSITIVE thing when compared to our own problems. We do not yum someone else’s yuck, or act as if we think they should be yumming it.

I remember what was my favorite thing to hear, as I was walking through a store with a fussing baby and fretful toddler. I would be fighting my way through a store, and someone would hold a door for me and I would thank her fervently, and she would say, “Oh, no problem—I remember those days!” Or if my child was being loud and unpleasant in a store, I loved to get a sympathetic look from another mom, combined with “Oh I’ve been there!” Do you know what those words told me? That I was one in a long line of women going through this same experience—and that other women had LIVED THROUGH IT. That one day, I would be able to hold the door for someone else, because my hands would be free. And that I would think, “Oh, how nice that my hands are free,” instead of thinking, “OH GOD, MY HANDS ARE FREE AND NOW I AM MISERABLE AND I REGRET NOT REVELING IN WHAT I ONCE THOUGHT WAS MISERY AND NOW PERCEIVE AS PURE JOY WHEN COMPARED TO THE FRESH HELL THAT IS MY LATER LIFE.”

Elizabeth went to a wheel-thrown pottery class this summer, and I was really impressed with how good a piece can look even with very little experience. When I went back to pick up her finished things, they gave me a pamphlet about fall classes, and I noticed that they had a ten-session wheel-thrown pottery class for adults.

I had an unusual surge of interest in that idea, quickly followed by all my usual reactions to a surge of interest: new/scary thing, what if I hate it, it seems indulgent, maybe I should wait and see, it’s kind of a long drive, what if I have scheduling conflicts, how can one justify frivolous things in this time of worldwide crises and sweeping injustice not to mention college costs, etc. But I sensed in myself a rare mood of ability to overcome, so I went and got my credit card before I could lose that surge of interest.

As I clicked through the various links to get to the sign-up, I psyched myself up: It’s good to try new things! New things are good for aging brains! Maybe you’ll love it, and if you don’t, it’s okay! It’s okay to do things like this! I felt almost dazed: I was ACTUALLY SIGNING UP FOR IT!!! And EARLY—not at the last minute! And with so little agonizing! I thought maybe I would even ask a friend to do it with me, but I sensed in that idea an excuse to postpone registration, so I continued on: I could sign up and THEN mention it to a friend.

And the class was full. No waiting list. I feel deflated. I was doing it, I was actually DOING it!—and then it was not available. I can do it next session, but that is not comforting: I suspect I will NOT do it next session. It’s so rare for interest to merge with the ability to take action.

I considered trying a different class. I could learn basket-weaving. But there was no surge of interest. I could learn drawing/sketching. But eh. Painting? A slight feeling of interest, followed by total loss of same.

[Edited to add:] Okay, I checked further, and there is a one-session class that makes just one bowl or mug. I signed up for that. If I like it, I can take the full course next session.

[Edited a second time to add:] I also sent an email to the art-class place, asking if by any chance there was a waiting list even though there was no waiting list mentioned. And I got an email back saying actually there was one place left in the class, and if I wanted it I should call this number. I went back to the website and tried to register that way, because I did not want to call, but it still said the class was full. So I clenched my teeth and made the phone call, and now I am in the class. I am in the class! My cheeks feel hot and my eyes feel wide. I realize there are people who decide on and get into a doctorate program with less fuss and angst, but we are who we are, and now we are someone who is full of fuss and angst AND ALSO enrolled in a pottery class!

I have just finished the second of two books that have left me feeling mildly dumbstruck because they were so exactly what I like to read: My Name Is Lucy Barton and Anything Is Possible, both by Elizabeth Strout.

(image from Amazon.com)

(image from Amazon.com)

I should not have been surprised, since I felt similarly about one of this author’s earlier books, Olive Kitteridge. (I know it’s been made into a movie. And there is probably no actress I trust more than Frances McDormand. But I haven’t seen it yet. Don’t urge me. Let nature take its own course, one way or the other.) What I remember is finishing Olive Kitteridge and then being very disappointed by Amy and Isabelle, but I don’t remember anything about why. After reading these two books, I think I need to go back and give Amy and Isabelle another chance.

The books are almost like collections of short stories, but completely interwoven, so you learn more about the various characters through their roles in other characters’ stories. Both books are about the same batch of people, so they should be read one right after the other, starting with Lucy Barton.