Sprinkle Chaos

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

I call that picture “the moment before the crash”. Or perhaps “Really? That’s where you’re going to sit while I have breakfast?” And yes, before you say anything (you wouldn’t want to hurt his feelings, and he’s reading over my shoulder!) that cat is a little chonky. Mostly because I’ve been feeding Havey whenever he demands it (twenty one and losing weight fast) and he has one or two bites, then leaves the rest for his accomplices. Who are getting rounder by the day. This too shall pass, right?

That vase is the successor of my beloved Koi vase which rests in pieces until I have time to kintsugi it. This one was purchased for two reasons only: It’s blue and white AND it’s heavy as the dickens, so the little terror hasn’t sent it careening yet.

And if you take in the previous two paragraphs, you’re probably asking yourself: Sarah, why do you put yourself through this?

There are many, many answers. Older son suggested “masochism” and several people — particularly considering the advent of the hyper-smart, very people engaged, full of mischief Misoites (Indy, Circe and Muse) in my life — have answered flat out “insanity.”

But it’s not, you know? They are a calculated addition to my life, one that keeps me what passes for sane around these parts, and more importantly, keep me getting up in the morning and doing things, including writing fiction (And writing this blog.)

But Sarah, you say, how can three (not so) little cats keep you writing? What do they even have to do with you getting up in the morning? Don’t you have a husband and sons for that? And a house that needs cleaned? And started novels that need finished?

Well, yes…. And yet–

Let’s start from where I am: I am a chronic depressive, forever skating on the rim of a deep crater of depression. Sometimes going one or two rings inside, which is where the writing stops and the curling up under furniture starts.

I don’t want to be medicated. Partly because either I’m very different from other people, or other people tolerate side effects that floor me with absolutely no problem, but the fact is I’ve never taken a medicine that doesn’t have some sort of “what now?” symptoms. Adderal makes me b*tchy enough that even I don’t want to live with me. Vyvanse is great, but it turns off the writing, as though it were a switch and it just goes “click” off. Oh, I can still write these posts. But the fiction dies before being born. Then there’s various anti-histamines. I’ve found one — finally — that makes me sleepy but allows me to write: xyzal. (My allergist found this report interesting, as according to him it’s a “cleaner” versions of allegra, which still, like all the other ones just turns off the WORDS. Not the writing. I still have stories. I just can’t put them in words. it makes posts very hard too.) But heck, even your humble ibuprofen seems to have weird effects if I stay on it. (Mostly it makes me incredibly sleepy. It acts exactly like sleeping pills. It makes no sense.) So, I’m not about to try to fix the depression with medications. Heck, I’ve been known to avoid pain killers after major surgery because I resent what they do to my mind.

That means I manage it. And because I’ve been managing my depression since before I had words to call it that, you could say my entire life is designed around it. It’s part of the reason that — arguably — we’ve always bought houses a little above what we rationally should have. One of the weird things I only recently identified is that I must have AT LEAST one room in the house that I love; that makes me happy just going into it. And why I actually spend precious time decorating and trying to make things look purty. And did, even when I had two toddlers and was trying to break into writing.

But that gets into who I am: I teeter forever between being over-managed, ie having a life that runs like clockwork, and trying to stave off chaos with unavailing and frantic activity, while my life falls apart around me.

Of the two I much prefer the first, of course, which is where I tend to fall, once I’m up from the latest illness, and not preparing for a con (Or actually while preparing for a con. Yesterday I cleaned and organized, because the house was getting to me.)

The problem is that left to my own devices I arrange things so that they are incredibly organized. Like…. so organized in terms of my life, that I get up at the same time, eat the same thing, do exactly the same actions every day.

If you’re going “oh, bliss” you might be slightly on the spectrum. Which, I will grant you so am I, which is why I tend to that. BUT–

But at some point you get up and are going through your routine and realize all the joy has drained out of your life. And you don’t know why.

When this happened, the kids were still living at home, but were both in college, both self-sufficient adults (except for the inevitable “mom, I thought we still had cereal?”) And my life had become a clockwork, ticking beauty of scheduling.

We all know the thing to do for that, right? Add Toddler. Let’s say that the time of life wasn’t conducive for that, besides my having the fertility of a small rock. In the Sahara. At the peak of Summer.

… At the time I added something else, which took away some time but helped in other ways.

BUT when faced with the same issue a few years ago, I added the current crop of cats. Look, cats are ideal for adding just a slight sprinkle of chaos — okay, the Misoites might have meant overshooting — because they are mobile, cute, get into things but aren’t going to — for instance — eat a sofa, and will make you smile with their insanity.

It doesn’t have to be cats, though. During a particularly stressful part of my life, having derpfish on his tiny aquarium on my desk, glaring at me because “where are my food pellets, hooman?” was immensely cheering and took away from the sterile quality of an over-ordered life.

For that matter, my husband spent ten years tending a cantankerous (And now enormous) cactus in a corner of his office.

The point is that it’s something alive with the potential to give you at least tiny surprises, and which pulls you out from the tendency to over-order your life.

Left to our own devices, being slightly on the spectrum and very work focused, Dan and I would create utterly sterile lives, where we get up at the same time, eat the same things, work at the same desks side by side, eat the same dinner, go to bed. There’s reassurance in that too, but after a while it starts feeling like you’re just a cog in the machine the day has become.

Now we have some critters who will make us take unscheduled breaks because the belly must be petted (like the spice must flow, but warmer and more fuzzy. Okay, find, and chonky.) And this morning I found that, the dry food having run out in the dispenser, Indy had unplugged it both at the plug in and from the wall. (Why he thought that would help is another question. Or maybe he was just mad at it.) Which is annoying, but also amusing because WHAT EVEN?

And minutes ago Circe was walking around talking to herself, which she does on the regular.

Now, yes, if you’re of an age and situation to do this, kids do the same and are, arguably, more rewarding. But kids will also worry you more. (I know. Mine still do.)

Cats — though note I’m side eyeing Indy who is reading this over my shoulder as I type — rarely grow up to be ax murderers — lack of opposable thumbs — and you don’t worry about their careers and their relationships and what are they doing now? They’re just cats. As long as you keep them from chewing electrical cords, removing child locks from cabinets (I still have no idea what he did to the lock for the under-sink cabinet) and attempting to fix your computer (okay, that’s just indie) they are a safe outlet for chaos, and something you can love too. Because you want to love the thing that bring chaos.

And chaos is absolutely necessary, at least if you’re some sort of a creative. Because otherwise life becomes clean, ordered, and profoundly sterile.

66 thoughts on “Sprinkle Chaos”

  2. I’m actually kind of boggled, looking at that picture, since it seems we share the same aesthetic … pale blue walls, white trim. Toile-patterned curtains in blue and white. Blue and white oriental pottery, white painted shelves…

    And an orange cat, too. (Augie-Daddy says hi, kiddo!)

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  3. Costco has a brand of cat food called “Maintenance Cat” which we pronounce as if it’s referring to a cat in a hard hat and little coveralls that happens to be mechanically gifted. I’m starting to think that Indy is determined to be that cat.

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  4. I got really disproportionately excited when I noticed that you and I have the same curtains, which I bought (along with a nearly matching rug, plus a bedspread and pillow shams) to match a blue and white pitcher and bowl my uncle got for me at an estate sale. Never been diagnosed, but I’m starting to wonder if the tism has a stronger hold on my family than previously suspected. Especially given the intense loathing I have developed for the color yellow, preferring instead that absolutely EVERYTHING be blue. Any shade of blue, but preferably cobalt or lapis lazuli.

    Sometimes my mind doesn’t go any deeper than that. I am so, so sorry. This is why you write books and the rest of us read them.

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    1. I still love yellow. :D But my mom made the toile curtains when she visited almost 30 years ago, and I like blue and white in the dining room.
      Also, when I last visited I brought back the portions of mom’s fabric that I liked. SO MUCH TOILE. both blue and white and red and white. Celia, do you need any to cover cushions or something?

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    2. I like yellow.

      I just do not like yellow walls or on the house outside …

      Room walls are generally a shade of blue or gray. With blue or white (off the shelf white) trim. White trim with color is what I’m moving to.

      House color matches the light gray brown that the new garage door was available in without a color premium charge. With, off the shelf, white trim (matches window frames).

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        1. It has to do with the shade and if it works for the room in question. Get the shade too intense or put it in a room that looks like it’s supposed to be dim and it would most likely bother you.

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      2. Hmm. Late ’60s, we redid my bedroom, and I picked a yellow paint. (In honor of the time, it was YELLOW. Very.)

        The last three houses I’ve had (ranging from 1978 to now) had yellow exteriors, though generally muted to moderate. Interior colors were usually white with a tiny bit of yellow therein (barring one living room where I duplicated the existing yellow color. It matched went well with the tile fireplace surround and the oak floor. That and I couldn’t afford to replace the 5 sets of curtains in that room).

        Current interiors are white(ish) or a pale tan.

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      3. when we first moved into this house the back room was very dark — we’ve long since opened it up with French doors — the wife decided to paint it a nice yellow to brighten it up. DIsney themed paint colors were all the rage and she picked one called a smakeral of honey. It looked good on the swatch. I opened the can and rolled out the first bit. You could have used it to paint caution stripes on the road, it was that bright. I painted out one wall and called the wife. She took one look at it and down to the paint shop she went for a nice warm grey. The back rooms in the house are this grey with the front rooms and upstairs rooms in various blues.

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        1. I visited my aunt shortly after most (all?) of her kids were out of the house. The middle boy’s bedroom had one wall in a dark red. Not sure of the other color, might have been a tan. It floated his boat, not my taste. OTOH, she lived in that house a few decades longer, and the red wall stayed. It was her husband’s (third time, she finally got a good one) ham shack.

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        2. My wedding colors, in December, in eastern Oregon (i.e. COLD), were light blue, and light yellow. So, yes I like some yellows. In contrast, there are few blues I don’t like (smurf blue, because, smurfs, is one blue I can do without).

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          1. A girl I was seeing noticed a sleeve of Smurf-themed Dixie(R) cups in the back seat of my car and thought it was cute. When I explained that I took them to the range, filled them with water, and blew them up with my .22 she thought it was mean.

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      4. I just finished doing the master bedroom of my own little house in the same very pale blue with ice-white trim that we have used in two other rooms. Toile blue and white curtains, blue, pink and white cottagecore bedspread, plain wood furniture and my collection of Japanese prints on the wall over the bed. It is so very restful, now that I moved all the work stuff to the small bedroom which my daughter and grandson vacated. The main room, kitchen and hallway will be done in a very pale ivory-yellow – as the main windows face west and in the afternoon that part of the house just glows like a paper lantern. (Same ice-white trim, though.)

        A west-facing room looks very warm and bright, with the right shade of yellow.

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    3. Interesting. I took a quiz a few days ago that said I had an elevated likelihood of being on the autism spectrum. (No, we shouldn’t take the quiz; no, it doesn’t matter which quiz.) Wish I had bookmarked the site, because it had a lot of interesting tests that seemed to be reasonably well designed and didn’t require giving up personal info, and I can’t remember the URL, which seemed so memorable at the time. Anyway…I don’t think I am really on the spectrum, as such…but there are a few adjacencies.

      Certain colors actually cause physical revulsion. That faded pseudo-pastel “dusty rose” type color? I can *feel* it, and I hate it. (The entire healthcare/hospital color palette…ick.) Used to hate yellow, but I think that might’ve just been a hangover from those nasty ’70s yellow-browns (seriously, has there ever been an uglier decade?) and a badly painted yellow kitchen in the ’80s. Now I actually like yellow a lot. Would I decorate with it? Maybe not, but then I’m a dude; “decoration” for me is mostly random posters I like, guitars on wall hooks, and tools left on handy surfaces.

      Did I have a point in any of this? Eh…maybe not. Just random yellow associations and a tiny bit of the ’tisms, I guess.

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      1. My preferred wall color is cream puff (basically an off white just yellow enough to where you can tell there’s yellow). I don’t love cool tones on walls by and large.

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        1. Our whiteish interior walls have the tiniest amount of yellow in it. As I recall, you could do the color in a 5 gallon bucket, but there wasn’t enough yellow to do a 1 quart mix. (I think you could do gallons, maybe. We did most of the house. Repainted the master bedroom a pale tan a couple years ago. It works.) The yellow isn’t detectable to ordinary eyes.

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      2. Part of the “dislike’s yellow”, is from the ’70s. I looked horrible in yellow. Go figure, I don’t like it. Brown and black made me disappear (OTOH … through HS … if you know, you know), or did. Now that my auburn hair is white/gray/with-little-black, I can wear black.

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  7. I could use a bit more orderly sterility in my life.

    I think I might have kept the place tidier when I had cats, if for no other reason than to give them less stuff to vomit on. At this point, though, I wouldn’t feel comfortable getting a new cat unless the place were tidier.

    Making a “happy room” sounds like a great idea though. The Vitamin D supplements… well, I wouldn’t say they’re not working. They do their job at making it easy to escape a depressive spiral.

    More sleep would be nice.

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    1. When I got a modern CPAP machine (ResMed AS10, then an Aircurve 11), I installed the web based coach. For a lot of years, I averaged 6 hours of sleep a night, but the coach says 7 is a minimum for the best possible score. Manipulative as hell, but I’m willing to go along.

      It used to be, if I woke up at 5 hours, I’d get up. Now, I hit the bathroom, then back to bed. On a good night (depends on what’s hurting and how much) I can fall asleep for a while. So I’m sleeping (for values) 7 hours rather than 6. If I’m really tired, I can achieve 8. That’s rare, but less so than before (and those were after multiple 5 hour nights.).

      TL;DR, try a reward system. I found it amusing I can respond to an attaboy.

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      1. I take a light sleeping aid at night at bedtime not so I can go to sleep, that isn’t the problem. It is so I can go back to sleep after the usual multiple trips to the bathroom. Otherwise, I sleep, but after 3 to 4 hours, it is a nap, and can’t go back to sleep. I can’t take something if I can’t go back to sleep after the first nap, or it can knock me out for 8 hours. There are nights where the sleep aid doesn’t work. When that happens the next few nights I don’t have any problem going back to sleep, usually (unless traveling). The day after that bad night is not fun.

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      2. To RCPete: Re responding to an attaboy – definitely.

        On the other hand, Giggly Health has replaced the Fitbit app on my phone – forced conversion. It sucks purple instellar chicken poo, IMNSHO. Especially the Sleep portion.

        I set my preferred hours of sleep to 7. Because why not? Now, some days I can sleep a few hours, get up to take morning pill and bio break, and go right back to sleep for a few more hours. Maybe even get 8 full hours before breakfast.

        Other days I sleep very very well for say, four hours. Take my morning pill, and then – just toss and turn until I give up and get up. I then usually get more sleep much later as a long nap.

        Makes no difference – the app SCOLDS. Variations on the theme of how poor my sleep was and must have had a bad night and should try better next time etc etc and so forth. AND I CAN’T FIND A WAY TO SWITCH THAT COMMENTARY OFF!!!

        That is NOT a reward system, it’s a sadistic one.

        Oh, and on the days I sleep 5, am awake 6, and then nap for 2 more, it rolls the whole period together, and scolds that I slept 6 hrs 48 minutes, but “You spent 13 hours in bed with a sleep efficiency of 42%. Your sleep efficiency is below range.”

        No, you stupid excuse for a sleep tracker, I did NOT spend 13 hours in bed. I slept well for 5 hours, and spent the next 6 hours eating breakfast, mowing the lawn, and doing 3 loads of laundry. Then I took a well-deserved nap. Deal with it!

        I suppose you can tell I am perhaps mildly irritated by this “new and improved” software? ;-)

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  8. Dunno if it would work for earthquakus felinus, but for the natural kind out here I have had pretty good luck with a product called “museum wax”.

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  9. Critters are wonderful for just the right amount of chaos. I had to say goodbye to my 16 year old orange cat a couple of weeks ago (RIP, Italics, I miss you horribly) and I really miss him stomping around the house grumbling and cussing, and lurking in the bathroom to demand any passing human turn the sink on for him.(There are numerous other critters in the house, so that does help. But he was a big chunk of my life, and left a very big hole.)

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  10. Maybe put out only a spoonful or two for Havey, given he doesn’t eat much?

    I donthink of myself as on the spectrum, but I eat the same lunch almost every day at about the same time, and if my routine gets interrupted I get….cranky.

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  12. Sis decided it was time to get a cat, so we went to the shelter. When the kitten cage was opened, one tiny black-and-white furball made a break for it and went barreling down the hallway for the exit. Sis pointed at it and exclaimed, “I want that one!”, and that is how Pounce de Leon entered our lives.

    His first trip to the vet, he managed to escape the re-purposed AWOL bag cat carrier and managed to climb halfway up the brick face of our three story apartment building before his claws lost traction.

    His last trip, 19 years and 19 pounds later, he was hissing and spitting defiance to the world even as the needle went in.* Couldn’t see, could barely walk, couldn’t keep anything down or in, but he was still ready to take on all comers. Only thing he couldn’t defeat was the guy with the sickle.

    *I guess I’d be a little miffed too if somebody strapped me down to a cold stainless steel table and approached me with the intent of ending my life . . .

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    1. We had to take two of our dogs in for that last trip, one in December ’20, the other July ’21. The vet clinic did everything they could to make the dogs (and me, I got the duty) comforable for that last shot.

      Years before, we had another vet for our Italian Greyhounds. Same good care at end of life.

      OTOH, I’ve heard that the burnout/suicide stats for small animal vets can be horrendous.

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      1. We’ve had to take a lot of our elderly animals to the veterinarian for their last trip. In general, none of us go alone. Usually we all go. Most have died while in our arms.

        It is difficult to judge when “is right”. We’ve failed a few times. Last dog came running to me, died in my arms (she had a bad heart) at home. Two cats chose to “go off on their own”. Never did find T after he snuck out. Neighbor, whose front porch H curled up on, knew where he belonged.

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  13. My ADD/ADHD – now former – manager had to stop Adderall as it made him aggressive and antagonistic.
    I forget what he was on to replace it, but he was also on Omeprazole as whatever also caused reflux, and had just started Xanax for anxiety. I told him Omeprazole can cause anxiety, so he might want to look into that. I found that out the fun way. Prilosec, Pepcid and even Zantac cause me issues. I no longer take anything, just tums/rolaids (Rolaids mostly, of late)
    Cats, I have, numbering 4. Fuzzball was sleeping near me again, but is still of the “No! Don’t touch me! . . .but let me sniff your fingers. She must stay within an arms length nearly all the time. Cole is the knocker off of things. Runt is becoming more like Fuzz, but still wants attention when I lay in bed. Allie is a grump who must stand on me.
    Yeah, if growing up now, I’d be drugged to the gills. Glad I predate that.

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        1. To be fair, not everyone has a library of novels waiting for their turn to be published.

          Some people can barely manage a mildly amusing comment once in a great while.

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      3. I have stories that I want to get out of my head, but my muse is this absolute bitch who requires very expensive wooing to get anything done.

        And I can’t replace her, because she’s the only one that wants the job…

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  15. Keeping stuff in place when cats be about….

    If the shelf isn’t particularly valuable, and is not metal, I will drive 3-4 small brads into it a\ong the thing base to hold the thing in place. If the shelf is steel, strong magnets can do the trick. Double-stick tape also can work.

    So far, Miz Kitty hasn’t defeated rare-earth magnets or nails or the hell-tape. (A few forbidden zones have exposed double-tape and she really, really loathes stepping on it. Facial expression, priceless.)

    There is also several forms of putty meant to stick things in place. This only stops a casual brush-pass, not a determined push.

    Now, when Miz Kitty decides to go burrowing in the bookshelves, things are going to get … displaced. Trick there is no gaps and snug fit. (MOAR books!) I stuffed cut up packing foam on top of several shelves of books to prevent MK from going over the top to find the hidden bliss behind the books.

    This determined little wench also will crawl between my back and the chair back. then rotate 90 degrees and start pushing. “MMMine!rrrrrrrrt”

    She has also learned to “BLONK” her empty kibble bowl. batbatbatBATBATBLONK! BLONK! BLONK!

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      1. My son and I just recently finished assembling a puzzle that may have been inspired by that picture. It was great fun! Text is from the search response.

        “”Cobble Hill – The Cat Library – 1,000 piece Jigsaw Puzzle

        It’s the Cat Library and what’s more fun than furry feline friends and delightful books! The purrrfect 1000 piece puzzle. Thanks to Russell Books in Victoria, BC for the use of their bookshelves! Assembled Size: 26.625″ x 19.25″ Artist: Cobble Hill Creations. Reference Poster: Included.””

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  16. The psycho-chemical range of operations for writers of science fiction and fantasy is both extremely variable and quite narrow. However, like Americans in general, most writers appear to thrive on copious quantities of caffeinated drinks for their primary self-medication. Alcohol is contra-indicated, as the range of operation is even smaller than for other medications. The operative quantity of 1/2 to a full shot of alcohol before writing to calm the jitters or ease the flow state is both short lived, and hard to limit. Of course, failure to limit the ethanol intake either shuts down the writing entirely or causes it to veer wildly out of control and into complete incomprehensibility. Oddly enough, unlike with Information Technology workers, consumption of pizza does not appear to improve or detract from writing, although typing speed is severely limited during the periods of downing a slice.

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    1. I suspect the news reporters of olden days turned to copious amounts of alcohol to cope with the horrors of seeing humanity up close and personal like. I know I’ve been tempted to intoxication after a city council meeting or two. And they didn’t even involve trips to the morgue.

      Novels require a clearer head, so as to imagine something involving human nature that won’t scare off the normie customers.

      I believe that is why Fantasy is so popular. People would rather believe that orcs, or similar, are behind the evils of the world rather than their commie voting neighbors.

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  17. One IB will put me out for the night. Anti-histamines dry me out to the point I can barely bresthe. Acetaminophen doesn’t do anything. Any level of caffeine has me wired for hours, then I pass out.

    I gave Dad catnip once. It’s supposed to be a sedative for humans. He was wired for hours. Prozac made him nearly suicidal.

    With a family history of 1 drink alcoholism and known odd reactions to medications, I choose not to use anything unless it’s an emergency.

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  19. OT…we went to the Flight 93 Memorial today. I defy any of you to get through it without choking up. We couldn’t.

    The actual crash site, though, is now very peaceful. So much so a doe had stashed her twin fawns near the barrier between visitors and the crash site.

    It reminded me of a scene in Stands of Sorrow (book 4 of Black Tide Rising) where Faith and Staff Sgt. Decker are speaking of the dead at Arlington, where the dead, “have laid down the mountain of duty for the feather of honorable death.”

    My beloved noted (after seriously choking up; one of the names on the Wall, the 9/11 victims wall, belongs to a friend who used to hang out with him and build armor in our basement) that barely an hour after the first plane hit, Americans – civilian Americans – were fighting back. I noted that they talked it over and took a vote on whether to attack or not.

    How very American.

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    1. This may have been mistranslated, or taken out of context, but if that twitter account really is the actual Pope, he maybe isn’t limiting it to Catholic writers.

      I mean, we get told that the Pope gets misquoted, and the full autism due diligence can indicate the correct context and or other nuance.

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      1. The link goes to the Vatican website, and there’s an official English translation of the document that’s being quoted. While I haven’t read the document myself, I can’t imagine that there’s any misquotation going on. The only way that this can get more official is if you read the prepared text in the original Latin.

        And yeah, I think that is the Pope’s official X account.

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        1. Actually, after looking at the prepared text more closely, I noted that there’s no link to a Latin text. The text is available in English, Italian, and Portuguese(!?), and was presumably delivered in one of the first two languages.

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  21. Trying to find the right place to work for me has been a fight.

    I need a certain level of quiet. Which I don’t get at home, because the TV showing network programming is just out of the corner of my eye and Dad keeps the volume at ear-bleed levels due to his tinnitus.

    (And yes, I’m wearing noise cancelling headphones. Doesn’t help enough.)

    I need physical reference materials…which is a problem with Dad’s efforts to Declutter Everything In The House after Mom’s passing.

    No cats. Can’t. We have a German Shepard who has made it very clear that if anyone interferes with Her Human (Dad), she will respond vigorously.

    (And I can’t move because I can’t afford a place of my own. It’s also why I’m not packing for LC as well.)

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  23. I’ve been slowly trying to get off antidepressants after being on them for almost two decades. It’s been a struggle. I wish the field of mental health wasn’t both in it’s infancy and utterly captured by political ideology.

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  24. OT: I won’t be able to attend LibertyCon this year. I’m in the hospital for issues urgent enough to be grounded, but not serious to be worrisome in the long term. Son of Silvercon is currently still a GO.

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