This Next Serial Post is a Post About Cereal

It's been a while since I've added a post to this blog. I'm back in the saddle though. (Actually, I'm in the recliner. I often write sitting down and will continue to do so, until I learn standup comedy).

A great deal has happened in the last year -- much of it related to a health issue different from the car accident that inspired me to start this blog in the first place. (I don't want to get into it here, but the most recent health issue begins with "C" and ends with "R."  I'm more fortunate than many whose "C" ends with "Death").

If you or a loved one has ever had that big "C," you may have spent some time worrying about food chemicals and additives.  I certainly have.  But I'm not going to let a little Red Dye #40, corn syrup, or BHT ruin my day. Suddenly it hit me today that I could beat the blues by writing some satire about processed foods:

TOP 10 CEREALS THAT NEVER MADE IT PAST MARKET TESTING:

1. Froot Quadrilaterals
Researchers at MIT concluded that kids wouldn't be able to say it. "Froot Trapezoids" was also under consideration and also never made it to the shelves.

2. I-Can't-Count Chocula
Originally marketed as "Five-Finger-Discount Chocula," the "I-Can't-Count Chocula" brand was mainly marketed to children under 4. 

3. Dreary-Os
Sigh. The people most likely to buy this cereal weren't going to get out of bed for breakfast anyway.

4. Cyanide Puffs
There's so much sugar in cereal, some people didn't see what the big deal was about adding some cyanide, but focus group members didn't seem to come back after the taste test.

5.  Fruity Boulders
After a rocky start, company officials nixed the very large packaging concept.

6. Frosted Snowflakes
Grocers south of Alaska complained that the cereal had melted by the time they got their shipments.

7. Mind Trix
Don't let anyone tell you this cereal isn't healthy.  It's very, very good for you. Millions of other people swallowed the hype, and you should too.You are hungry for Mind Trix.

8.  Private First Class Crunch
For the veteran consumer, this one just didn't make the cut.

9.  Unlucky Charms
Focus groups worried that the cereal could be the target of lawsuits, due to its toxic preservatives and diabetes risk. Luckily for the company, they were able to sugar-coat its downsides, change the name, and sell lots of it, with the help of a cute little leprechaun.

10. Death Cereal
They changed the name to "Life" after the spokesperson, Mikey, said about Death that he "didn't like it." Cereal companies were also afraid to put Death on the shelves next to Dreary-Os, out of fear that someone might attempt suicide by eating pop rocks with soda.  If you are younger than 30, you may not understand these references, so I've provided context here: http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/fooddrink/a/little_mikey.htm.

Suddenly the World Keeps Turning (and So Does This Room)

It's been about two years since a small car (a red hatchback, so I've been told) crossed over into my lane on a bridge over the Monongehela River. 

I am one lucky person. I am lucky because I am still spinning around the sun like all the other living people on the Earth.  I buy toothpaste and pay the electric bill. I have been able to return to work. I go for coffee and eat pretzels. I've started swimming again.

Yes, it's been about two years since the collision, and SUDDENLY IT HIT ME today that one of the greatest things about this whole "still spinning around on the planet" experience is that I get to say hello to my favorite season again very soon. This week, the ice and snow started melting, and I swear I noticed the muddy smell of last year's decayed leaves in the air.

The trouble is: the world is still turning, but I'm not always fully present to it, because while the equinox approaches and the days get longer, I still have to contend with attacks of vertigo and problems knowing where I am in relation to the sky and the ground.  In other words:  The world is turning, but sometimes so do this chair and desk.

One of the common problems for people with head injury is ongoing attacks of vertigo, as well as impairment in proprioception (knowing the position of one's body in relation to oneself and the world). 

When proprioceptive sensing is confused, your brain spends much of the day like this:

• Look, there's the crosswalk signal, and it's okay to cross. (Wait, are my feet on the ground?  Am I vertical)? 
• I see that the tulips are early this year-- I think I'll bend down and smell them. (Whoa, am I falling or am I upright)?
• Ring, ring-- Hi, Dora--I haven't seen you in a while--sure I can meet you for coffee after work. (Wait, am I walking in a straight line or am I going to collide with that building)? 

Most of the time, the brain has these conversations under the radar of consciousness. But with brain injury, the cognitive processing centers really struggle to understand the body's position, several thousand times per day. In my case, I go about my life, folding laundry, reading e-mails, avoiding the talkative mailman, comparing the pros and cons of firm vs. silken tofu, then -- BAM -- I need to drop and take a nap, sometimes for several hours.

For those of us in long-term recovery from head injury, naps are a necessity. This is because our "fuel gauge" hits empty sooner than most. The gauge may be nearly full after a solid night of sleep. But here is our fuel gauge by lunch time, after a few hours of constant recalculating position and trying to keep our balance, over and over again:

I am learning to adjust to the fact that the seasons change, and the world turns, and while the room sometimes turns too, there is the day-to-day tedium to manage. There are times I bask in the tedium, just because I am grateful that I can. The enormity and complexity of it all--the Earth, the sky, the daily trifles, and the fact that life goes on--These things can still leave me feeling ungrounded. But at other times, like when I'm writing blogs, life sweeps me right off my feet. That's why I should probably get up slowly from this chair I'm in.

Suddenly I Don't Know Where I Am

YOWZA!

Two weeks ago, I was driving in the city where I live and had a spell of amnesia.  Nothing looked familiar.  I had no idea where I was, how I got there, or where I was going.

Let’s say this was unsettling, and not in the same way that finding ants crawling in your Big Mac is unsettling.   It was terrifying, like how it would be if A Nightmare on Elm Street was real, except… What the hell is Elm Street and do I live there or on Sycamore?

My cell phone battery had died, so I couldn’t even call for help.  And anyway, how do you tell people to rescue you when you don’t know where they should go?  (“Hi… can you come and get me?  I’m in my car.  On a street.  I see some pine trees.  Oh and there’s a German Shepherd”).   Yeah, I was S.O.L. until I got my bearings, which probably was only a few minutes, but nonetheless, the experience “drove home” the fact that I’ve still got some cognitive challenges.

Interestingly, though, my brain still grasps abstraction and allegory quite well.  After I got home from being lost, I cried, recharged my cell phone, took some deep breaths, and then SUDDENLY IT HIT ME:  Major life upheavals of any kind are a bit like amnesia while driving.  You think you know where you’re going, then—BAM!—a close family member dies, or you lose the job you’ve held for 15 years, or your house burns down and you lose all your childhood photos and your Freddie Kruger DVDs.  Suddenly, your five-year career plan, or your hope for love everafter, or your expectation that you’ll take care of your health once the kids leave the nest,  gets overshadowed by the realization that there is no guarantee that your destination will even be there someday down the road.

I cannot say for sure if and when I’ll regain my previous (may I add excellent) ability to remember names, dates, stories, and places.  I don’t know if and when I’ll stop having crying jags in the middle of social gatherings because suddenly I cannot recognize people’s faces.  All I can do is wait, summon my inner resources, and take notice of the details around me and the progress I’ve made.  Today, I stayed awake for 12 hours without needing a nap, when just two months ago I could only manage six hours.  I no longer have double vision, like I did before;  in fact, I can see that on the carpet are two ants crawling toward a piece of Dorito…

How is it that ants can find a crumb 20 yards away?  That would be like me sensing food all the way in Kansas and driving there from Ohio.  

Suddenly I'm Craving Shrimp

THWACK!

I never used to crave shrimp (nor did I ever crave anything that costs $34.99/pound or has the texture of rubber chickens), but now, after a head-on auto collision that resulted in head trauma, my brain says, "Whoa, shrimp is a-maaaaaayyy-zing." Suddenly, I like it even more than Bubba-the-Shrimp-Lover-Guy from Forrest Gump.  (Bubba:  "Shrimp is the fruit of the sea... There's pineapple shrimp, coconut shrimp, pepper shrimp, shrimp soup, shrimp stew, shrimp salad, shrimp and potatoes, shrimp burger, shrimp sandwich. That- that's about it"). 

No, Bubba, you've never had shrimp 'til you've had it in your oatmeal.  I'm telling you, it's also very good with curry powder.  Or dipped in hummus.

This shrimp fetish is kind of new, but the other day, while I was eating grilled shrimp for about the fourth time in a week, a weird realization occurred to me.  No, the realization was not that Lady Gaga was really Born This Way. While eating my meal, SUDDENLY IT HIT ME that so much of who I “think I am” really is subject to which parts of my brain are partying and which ones are on sick leave. Before my head injury, I used to say things like:  "I am a red person, not really a blue person." "I am not a Lady Gaga listener."   And:  "I am a vegetarian, not a seafood person."

Well, let me tell you that I'm now not only enjoying shrimp these days, I'm also wearing blue clothing more often.  I'm suddenly listening to music recorded after the year 2000. (Prior to the accident, I listened mostly to 70s/80s tunes and was very holier-than-thou about newer music being uninspired).

Personality changes are a really common aftereffect of head injury, which leads me to believe that "I" am not really "Me" and that I need to keep myself open to newer definitions of myself.  Tomorrow, I could no longer be a "shrimp person" and could become a "liver and onions" person.  You could be reading this blog and think, "I love online blogs," and then tomorrow have a giant coconut fall on your head from a cargo plane and never read blogs again. 

My point is that sometimes we think we're Born This Way, only to find out we're so much more.