September 21, 2021: Bees in My Bonnet -

Got a new box of heartworm medication for the dog , and guess what? It’s ivermectin! Somehow, Big Dog has kept this a secret, and has cleverly misdirected the folks who are inclined to use veterinary remedies, sending them off to raid the ivermectin supplies for Big Horse. Swift move, there, Big Dog. 

Replaced a light bulb and noticed that the box of new bulbs says they will last 13 years* (the asterisk is theirs). Found the matching asterisk on the bottom of the box, which clarifies that the bulb lasts 13 years if you use it three hours a day. I absolutely do not believe this, but I am not going to run an experiment. I’d be pushing 80 before I proved them wrong, and we likely won’t even have light bulbs by then.  

The alternative brand claims to last ONE year* if you use it four hours a day. I’m not sure that’s a selling point, but it may be TRUE. If we value truth in advertising,  we should applaud modest claims.

The lightbulbs were weird off-brands, because (for some reason), lightbulbs got scarce during the pandemic.  Sometimes I waited out pandemic-item delays.  Sometimes I bought weird brands.

For instance, it just rained in Portland, hallelujah, and three months of grunge fell from the trees, and I got out the spray bottle of windshield cleaner from the car trunk. It would have been Windex, except that  Windex  vanished at one point, along with bleach and hand wipes. So in the trunk, I didn’t have Windex. I had DirteX!

DirteX (“it’s ammoniated!”) works just fine. But I think the marketing folks chose a strange name. They wanted to say “it removes dirt!” and to play off of the better-known Windex. But Windex doesn’t remove wind.  It cleans dirt OFF of windows and windshields, so Dirtex cleans what off of dirt??

I spiraled quickly from Windex and DirteX into other brands featuring an X. Mucinex presumably gets rid of mucous, so it’s the “expunge” version, like DirteX.  Gas-X gets rid of gas and bloating (and even the “e” in “ex.”) SpaceX, I believe, is not about getting rid of Space, nor about cleaning up Space. I think it’s using that algebraic “solve for x” idea, the X as Unknown.

(In my childhood, I once heard a bunch of grownups talking about someone and his "ex." I didn't know they meant his ex-wife. I thought this was the X as unknown, or maybe the X as variable, or maybe whatever she was - his "ex" - it was so awful they couldn't say it out loud, so X was a euphemism for something, but WHAT?)

I blame this entire letter-spiral on the New York Times Spelling Bee. The Spelling Bee is a daily word puzzle which gives players seven letters, one mandatory, and then awards points and rankings (Nice, Solid, Great, Amazing, Genius, etc.) based on the number and length of the words the players create using those letters.

It gets into your head, the Spelling Bee.  

I’m comforted when I discover that whatever I’m suffering from, other people are suffering from it, too.  (If I were in a different community, the ivermectin purchase might give me that very sense.) I’ll find myself thinking, “I’m weighing risks in an idiosyncratic way these days,” or “I’m angrier than I want to be with the vaccine-hesitant,” or “I want to stop being vigilant about  COVID, and instead to dedicate a bunch of brain space to entirely different topics” and sure as shooting, within a few days I'll read an op-ed or a post expressing exactly the same feelings.

So too with the Spelling Bee. It was messing with my focus, and then Seth Meyers did a piece on how he would work the Bee in the morning, and then try to stop thinking about it, but his brain would be playing with the letters eleven hours later. Mine too.  MILKWAD? DIMWALK?

He also found himself analyzing random words, even proper names (not allowed) to see if they used seven letters.  Me, too!  CALYPSO! (Yes.) CONCERNING! (Yes.) BUTTIGIEG? (No, only six letters, AND a proper name, STOP IT, brain, just stop it!)

Two days later, a friend complained that half her brain was stuck on that morning’s Bee, and the similar half of my brain made me suddenly shout, “IGLOO!”

Those of us laughingly commiserating about our Bee problem were sharing a mental quirk, a thing human brains do that can be adaptive (I WILL figure this OUT) and can also verge on mild mental illness (patient perseverates). Right?

I felt I was getting a bit goofy and distracted. So I took a break, gave the Bee a rest.

And with my suddenly copious free time, I stumbled upon a reportof a study  on the influence of music on people with psychotic illnesses.  

The article is from the Yale School of Medicine, but it’s easy reading, and it contains a link to an EP of four songs created by a band called The Loopholes, people who experience auditory hallucinations (“voice-hearers”). They met and collaborated on the songs as participants in the study. I found the report moving:

‘Many participants have shared that the experience has introduced them to other voice-hearers for the first time and has made them feel less like outsiders…. [the researchers]  said. Participants have also reported that the “good voices come to the fore when being creative and the bad ones become quieter. The good voices were this helpful force….”

‘ “Giving someone a break from the bad voices and bringing positivity to the forefront is just wonderful,” [one of the researchers] said. “As a basic neuroscientist I thought I’d do that by understanding receptors but it’s more about psychology.”’

Imagine if you had never met anyone else who got stuck on the Spelling Bee (or whatever your equivalent mental quirk might be). Imagine if you were the only person you knew who was upset about anti-vaxxers, or weary of the pandemic. It would be so lonely.

Anyway, I liked the both the specificity and the non-judgmental feel of “voice-hearers” as a description. And I listened to a couple of the songs by The Loopholes. I liked “I’m Thinking” (“I’m thinking /Here we go again!’), but not as much as I liked “Get Up!” It has a reggae flavor, and a fine beat, and it worked. I listened to it, and I got up.