Jones To The Grindstone

My mother and I "playing for pills."

Ehhh, you’re not supposed to share your meds, but friends let friends have “better living through chemistry,” right? Enabling each other is what friends do who are on the hunt for a prescription fix. The suburban medicine cabinet is stocked with old “scrips” from prior surgeries, pills that didn’t work for that specific person, and pills for the kids that never got used or are an easy refill. I’m talking the good kind: Vicodin, Xanax, Adderall, Klonopin, Oxycontin, Tylenol-3, Ambien, etc.

The “prescription drug trade” amongst friends, family, and neighbors interests me. Instead of clandestine conversations, bottles being secretly passed at playgroups, and cell phone whispers, I have a suggestion for streamlining the community cause. There are Botox parties, so why not “playing for pills parties”? Point values could be assigned to the class of drug, like the powerhouse painkillers could rank highest with the run-of-the-mill SSRIs ranking the lowest. And, I’m sure the meds that suppress appetite and assure weight loss in their list of side effects would have a bonus assigned to them.

Bringing an appetizer or dessert, the cache of pills in the purse and a bottle of something to drink would be the entrance ticket to this new brand of community bonding. Here the mentally anguished can find fellowship and acceptance rolled into the vice of gambling. Don’t forget the knowledge one would have of who has what to hit up later, between parties.

You win some...

...You lose some.

Any of you who only have allergy meds or some kind of weenie drug, just stay home.

Annie Dillard wrote in her essay, “Seeing”, “If we are blinded by darkness, then we are also blinded by light. When too much light falls on everything, a special terror results.”

Looking beneath the frilly overlay can be frightening.

Reading Dillard’s essay made me think back to an art class I took more than twenty years ago. What I learned in that class still lives in my daily thinking. The instructor was adamant about retraining his students to see what we truly saw before us as opposed to what we thought we saw before us.

For example, when drawing a bowl of mixed fruit, one may be fairly certain what a typical apple’s shape is; but, maybe the apple in that particular bowl of fruit does not look like the average apple. Take a longer look at what is in the light and draw what is truly there, like blemishes or absolute perfection. When a focused effort is made on a subject–analogous to Dillard’s “light,” the reality—like Dillard’s “special terror”—of what is in front of one’s eyes can be exceptionally revealing, even frightful.

That notion was true when it came to sketching what was in plain sight. As an assignment, the class was told to draw what was directly in front of us in the classroom. I saw the back of a “skater boy’s” head. He had a dark mullet for a hairstyle and acne on the back of his neck. That drawing turned out realistic, detailed, and accurate. Drawing one little piece of his head at a time produced a much clearer portrait, down to the correct direction his cowlicks grew and the thin, wavering line of a small scar. Viewing the scar made me wonder how he had cut his head. It made me think deeper into his existence, like if he had been a victim of an act of violence, or “special terror.”

I never talked to that boy, but I still have that drawing stashed away in my box of keepsakes. It serves as a reminder of how to look at what is in front of me with an eye for the small, exposing details.

At the end of the semester, we had a final exam. The class expected a culmination of all that the instructor had hoped to instill in his students. At each pupil’s desk, he placed a black piece of construction paper and a small circle of white lace on top of it. Instead of being asked to draw the lace, the class was asked to draw the black colored pattern behind the lace. I painstakingly drew the black spaces and not the glaring white lace on top. It was amazing to see how accurate the drawing of the lace turned out–or how the cluster of black shapes looked–depending on one’s point of view.

Dillard’s essay is about seeing what is beyond the surface and deeper into what is hidden in the details, much like my art final. I made a “96” on that exam. Yes, I remember the numerical grade all these years later. This teacher graded with high standards and I knew that he did not thoughtlessly hand out “A’s.” I am still proud that I was able to see beyond the overlay of lace and draw the alternative shapes that hid underneath. In art and in everyday living, one can retrain their eyes to not gloss over what they think is apparent, but to instead look deeper into the reality of what is beneath the glaring lace on the surface.

By Karen Jones

Rock the blame.

As the “Chariots of Fire” theme song plays in the background, a team of track stars run in what appears to be slow-motion as they pass the baton to the next relay runner. The baton is not just any baton—it is the Baton of Blame. One after another, a runner would firmly grab the blame and take it away.

Wouldn’t it be great to be able to pass the blame on to someone else with such timing and success?

Whenever something goes wrong, perceived or real, someone gets the blame. Many people accept blame even when not guilty because they have been trained that way, often beginning in childhood. Or, sometimes it is just easier to take the blame when one doesn’t deserve it because it makes the issue go away more quickly and cuts off the ensuing argument. And then there are those who will absolutely not accept blame even when it is totally their fault; thus, they give the blame to some innocent who is willing to shoulder it. But if blame were something tangible, would someone be more or less likely to correctly take it?

Imagine if blame were a boulder, hard to wrap oneself around and difficult to carry. Or, sense blame as a smelly sack of dog crap. Either option would be laborious to cope with, much more “in your face” than some impalpable concept.

If one had to literally receive the blame, would one take it unless they honestly warranted it? If no one was to blame and blame could be physically left alone, would it sit that way more often?

Some will say that the martyr-type would take the blame no matter its size, shape, smell, or atomic number. Those martyrs want to suffer. It’s their chosen lot in life. Martyrdom identifies them and they aren’t about to change what is comfortable to them.

And the super-talented blame-deflectors aren’t going to suddenly start picking up the blame just because they can precisely take it in their arms.

Even though a concrete blame in this world may not change a thing for the martyrs and the Teflon coated, it seems that it would relieve many who have wrongly taken the blame in the past because they were shaped that way. Falsely holding the blame in one’s hands would be fought against much harder if it were that much more undeniably unpleasant and impossible to ignore. Who would blame them?

Taking volunteers for the clinical trials...

Pests get in your hair, bite and defecate on you, and leave the mess behind as a reminder. These pesky types feed off your energy and leave you uncomfortable, lurking until the next nip. They can be hard to detect and may even survive in your environment without you knowing.

A worse pest is the blood-sucking variety that nestles in close, attaches itself deeply, and draws from your life. In some cases, this type can cause mental disease and catastrophe.

Dogs and cats have preventative medicines against their type of pests and blood-sucking insects. Humans should have these as well—a simple monthly application placed directly on the skin to kill and ward off these maladies. Imagine the sight of these human pests and blood-suckers rising to the surface and out of hiding. You can finally see these pests disengage from you and fall to the floor. No longer will those “insects” be able to cling to your life and drain you.

It could be as simple as going to your family doctor. You could go through all the pamphlets for the different human pesticides, decide on one, and get a prescription.

Likely, there would be a list of possible side effects, like redness at the application point and urges to roll around on your back like a dog. However, that seems like a small price to pay for the protection you would receive.

Now, a tricky part may be getting drug manufacturers and health insurance companies to make and cover these drugs. Perhaps if there were human pesticides available, all those together in the out-of-control “healthcare costs bed” would eventually become extinct.