Compression or how to get a restorative hug without touching another person.

When you velcro Fido's torso with a super snug vest called the Thunder Shirt, he doesn't skid around your good walnut floors like an Olympic skater, barking and chasing his tail every time the doorbell rings. He lies in his puffy bed, eyes closed, thinking his dog thoughts:  lick, eat, fetch, sniff, nap. Someone sitting around (like I often do) had a thought.  Fido solved a big life problem.  I could use that.  Could it be?  Can we keep it together by pressing seriously against ourselves just short of asphyxiation?

I remembered something.  The horrid dentist visit was suddenly okay when the nurse threw the lead apron over me as a shield from the x-rays.  That filthy heavy piece of plastic sucked the anxiety out of me. Nothing was going to fall apart - not my limbs, not my head, not my present or future. I was held in place by a benevolent force. My crazy thoughts were still there but they were pinned down. I liked it. Hey, do that some more, nursie.

The most popular compression item on the market is the weighted blanket.  It alleviates anxiety, insomnia, restlessness. Most ads mention the hugging feel as the favorite benefit of throwing a thirty-pound shroud over your body. Why not just stick with human hugging? It's free. And it's everywhere.  We have a hugging epidemic. Even men hug now. They were exempt but they had to try it. Men hug sideways. Around 2016 however, we grew tired of other people. We grew tired of interacting. Tired of talking and definitely tired of listening.  We now prefer to be alone with our devices and be hugged by the blanket.

What’s it like to sleep under a weighted blanket? If the 600 thread count pima cotton sheet is like a whisper on your legs, the 25 lb. weighted blanket is like Ethel Merman belting out Everything’s Coming Up Roses without a mic.  If you want to move your legs, you willfully drag them.

You might want to gift your anxious friend or a relative whose narrative is off-track with a compression item.  Here are some suggestions.

The Calm Company makes weighted blankets in 15, 20 or 25 lb. weight.  The 25Ib. blanket is always sold out. Because, you know - heavier. Honey, can you get the crow bar and lift this boulder off of me so I can go to work. The reviews all say pretty much the same thing.  I fall asleep faster and I sleep better.  I bought it for my dad who was struggling with anxiety.

At ETHOHOME they call it the Gravis Blanket. The gravis blanket holds you down and might give you gravitas. You can become a pundit and get a hug. There are many brands of weighted blankets, but the principles are the same: choose a weight, a fabric, a color, and a fill (sand or beads are mentioned.)

WikiHow has instructions on making your own weighted blanket. I would make one, but the first step is going to a craft store for beads.  I could go to the beach or the driveway and pick up pebbles. I also have to drag out my old sewing machine. To begin, you sew several vertical tunnels through two pieces of fabric, fill with a portion of pebbles and then sew horizontally every few inches, creating closed squares. This technique is called "baffling" Baffling prevents the stones from drifting to one place. You know what else is baffling? Crafting.

You can buy compression clothing including Bomba socks that have a ribbed swath that compresses the instep. 

In researching this post, I read reviews men leave on the compression athletic wear pages on Amazon.  Compression wear is used for faster recovery after gross (tough) exertion. It takes a long time to put on compression clothes, especially the tights. You have to stretch and pull to get the item up on your body. In the reviews, men talk candidly about the size of their bottoms and which brands give them the space they need.  Here's one gent that went that extra mile in reviewing his Tesla compression tights.

The good: The XL were tight (as a good compression layer should be) so the sizing makes sense to me. The bad: this is the only layer I own that doesn't have a wiener hole. Which isn't necessarily a problem if you pull your pants down to whizz in the woods. Personally, I like shooting through the wiener hole myself so it can get uncomfortable when you have say five layers on and you try to shoot through four wiener holes, but you have to pull just this layer down. It can be done but it's just not the same. 

Father’s Day is almost here. 

* Faith Popcorn predicted all of this (the stay-at-home, self-sufficient human, twenty years ago in her book Cocoon.

You are a little piece of Velcro in the conga line of life

You know that line in Beyond The Forest. Betty Davis says to Joseph Cotton as she looks around his house?  “What a dump.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3zShjyaTr8

Often I go around my house imitating Betty Davis and other goofy endeavors but yesterday I had a good grown-up revelation  Yesterday I figured out that EVERYTHING is connected.  Everything.  If you think that you are a little island of activity with a buffer zone around you that isolates your actions, your thoughts, your emotions from all other things (including ants, my personal favorite insect,) in the universe -nuh uh.

You like me.  You really like me.

 All is connected.  It might or might not be sequential I haven’t had that thought yet.  It might or might not be direct and timely. Time is a whole other mystery.  Again, the thought I had was about connection.  This is a simple idea and almost a throwaway line.  It is not simple or throwaway.  I’m not smart enough to parse all the parameters of how everything is connected and the certain consequences, I only know it is a very efficient system.  Nuanced, reliable and inevitable.  If you think about it, it has to be that way.  The whole enchilada that is life has to be completely connected down to the last sigh, glance or step

So what does that mean?  It’s scary. You have to be alert to the larger picture and get out of that merry-go-round pattern in your head.  It puts a lot of responsibility of what you do and especially what you think because you are a little piece of Velcro holding on in the conga line of life and let’s face it we want to be in the section with the good dancers.  

Meditation is helpful. It makes you stop, clear the desk and take out a clean sheet of paper so to speak.  (BTW I was surprised to learn that Jerry Seinfeld meditates every day.)  I used to meditate all the time when I began writing.  I used to meditate to get myself out of plot problems.  That is not what they recommend.  They recommend thinking of nothing.

Following is the conversation I had with myself after I had these revelations.

Do you ever think ill of people?

I have several horrid thoughts a day.  I suddenly think of someone and say: ‘That (f word adj.) moron.  I hate him.’  Or  ‘That (f word adj.) bitch.  I hate her.’ It comes out of nowhere.

That is not good.  Can you make some wiggle space around those thoughts and think from the other person’s point of view?

No.  I like hating them. (pause) Wait.  I don’t know now.  You’ve ruined it.

It’s not a matter of being good - an imprecise term. Goodness has nothing to do with it, it’s about being scientific.  This is a big scientific experiment that will bring you reliable outcomes.  How do I know this is true and what special powers do I have to say it is true?   I have special powers and it is true.

 

Let's chat about laziness.

I don’t think you’re lazy.  You get up you get dressed you go somewhere you do things.  You make your smoothie and drink it.

No, I’m lazy.  Once in a while I'll do some fake hard work to avoid real work.

Do you know what lazy means?  A disinclination to activity or exertion despite having the ability to do so.

That’s exactly it.  I sit around.  No daily plan.  No delaying instant pleasure in order to get greater pleasure.  

What’s wrong with instant pleasure?

Doesn’t last long.

What about greater pleasure?

I don’t know.  Never had it. 

Maybe it doesn’t last long either. Name a person who you think isn’t lazy.

That’s easy.  Joyce Carol Oates.  She has written over 40 novels and almost that many plays, short stories, nonfiction. She writes so much people make jokes about it. I once saw a picture of her at a party and her slip was showing an inch below her skirt. She works so hard, she doesn’t even know her slip is showing.  If I worked that hard, I’d go out in my pajamas that’s how little I would care about anything else.

Maybe you’re not lazy.  Maybe you are gestating, as in incubating ideas that you will use later.  Or maybe life, as in LIFE, is so hard you are rightfully stepping aside for a day.

No, I’ve been lazy all my life. I'm lazy about the things that really matter.  

If you were not lazy what would you be doing?

I’d be working much harder and getting things done. I'd be focused. I would kill for more self-discipline.

Do you know what 'not being lazy' feels like?
Yes.  I get lost in the task - I could be dead that's how immersed I am in the work.  In fact, that's what I think dead feels like.

I believe we use the word lazy because we don’t know what to call the trait we are really exhibiting.  We don’t know to say: I work hard at physical tasks because I don’t know how to access the task I should be doing. Is there any prompt that makes you work hard?

Yes.  If I get good news I become hyper and ideas pour out of me.  My head explodes. 

Why do you think that is?

I think good news jerks us around, jiggles some part of our brain and makes it want to do things.

So the answer to laziness is to get good news every day.

No. The answer is to learn to jiggle our own brain and make it act as if it heard good news.

Is there anyone you know who has enough self-discipline?

Yes.  I know one a person who is all self-discipline.  Everything he does is deliberate and would be hard for most of us.  He never takes the easy road.  If he did that experiment where you delay eating the cookie in order to get two cookies, he wouldn’t eat the cookie.  He wouldn’t even eat the reward cookies.  He’s all discipline.

Is that person happy?

No.   That person is not happy.

So hard work doesn’t necessarily lead to happiness?

I guess not although I don't believe in that amorphous, ill-defined state known as happiness.

What have we learned here?

I don’t know. Nothing.