reflections – Page 25 – Go Retire Psychiatrist

Be Quiet and Pay Attention!

I think it was last week that I got this thought about getting attention compared to paying attention. At first, I thought it was original. Hey, did I really just come up with that idea? The see-saw nature of it appealed to me. I write this blog partly to get attention. But I notice that when I pay attention and focus on what I’m writing, it’s more fun.

I quickly gave up the thought that I came up with the idea. I think the context was a little discouragement about the really low traffic to my blog. Now, I’m not just saying that to get more attention—although it does sound like that. And I really appreciate the visits I get from readers!

I searched the web for more about the get attention vs pay attention thing because I was pretty sure I didn’t come up with it but just forgot where I first heard about it.

The funny thing is that what first came to mind was the Men in Black (MIB) scene in which Agent J’s elementary schoolteacher Mrs. Edelson is displayed on the big monitor at MIB headquarters. It turns out she’s actually an alien and she’s crabbing at the class, “…Be quiet and pay attention!” I’ve searched for the YouTube clip but all I found were two: one deleted scene in which her rage at the class went up like a bomb and was way overdone and the other which was blurry and the audio was terrible.

Anyway, you get the idea. Of course, I also found the TED Talk by actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt about paying attention vs getting attention, “How craving attention makes you less creative.”

I think his point is spot on about social media being a big part of the push for many of us to crave attention. I used to have accounts on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn but dropped them years ago because I got almost no traffic. I’m still on YouTube, which has low traffic but which I have fun with because I like making funny little videos. I also made teaching videos back when I was a consulting psychiatrist at University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics.

I get hardly any traffic on my current blog (which I’ve had for about 3 years) and I get a little frustrated with that. However, I like to write so I’m probably going to hang on to it for a while. I had a previous blog that lasted for about 7 years. It also never got more than a modest number of followers.

When I’m paying attention to what I’m writing about, it may not get any views but I get more satisfaction from writing them. I do my best writing when I’m just having fun doing it. I get a kick out of writing. But then I wonder why I’m not getting any views.

I think the see-saw aspect of paying vs getting attention is normal. So, I should pay more attention to Mrs. Edelson.

Thoughts on the Song “Against the Wind”

A couple of days ago, while we were playing cribbage, Sena asked me who sang the song “Against the Wind.” I offered a name, which later turned out to be wildly wrong. It bugged her so much she got up from the cribbage game and went to the computer to look it up.

Of course, Bob Seger wrote the lyrics and sang it. She asked me what I thought it meant. I wasn’t sure at the time. I hadn’t thought about it for a really long time.

I read about it on the web. I didn’t know what the lyric “8 miles a minute” meant and found a forum message saying that it corresponds roughly to the speed of a cruising airliner which is about a “480 mph.” That’s technically more like 480 knots, which converts to about 550 mph.

Anyway, it’s really fast and might be a way of saying you’re moving through life at breakneck speed. In Seger’s case, it might have had a more concrete meaning, referring to flying all over from concert to concert.

The song was released in 1980, which was about the time we moved to Ames so I could go back to college at Iowa State University (ISU). It was a big change from working as a draftsman and land surveyor’s assistant in my hometown of Mason City.

If you extend the “against the wind” metaphor a little bit, Sena and I were both moving against the wind in terms of our place in society, income level, location and educational attainment. I thought I wanted to be an engineer at the time, mostly because I had worked for years for consulting engineers.

Backing up in time a little, I had done some undergraduate college work previously at an HBCU (historically black college/university), Huston-Tillotson College (now Huston-Tillotson University) in Austin, Texas in the mid-1970s.

That was also a kind of move against the wind. I grew up in Mason City, and often I was the only black kid in grade school. I got used to that, although the racism was more overt back then and it was difficult sometimes to bear up against that kind of wind. On the other hand, I felt like a fish out of water at H-TC. I just felt like I didn’t fit in. It was part of the reason I left Austin.

It was also challenging to fit in at ISU. I figured out quickly that I would never complete the engineering degree program. The math and hard science courses were tough from the beginning and only got harder. I realized I was going against the wind there.

So, I changed my major and settled on medical technology, which led to working in a hospital laboratory. But it took about a year to get a job after graduation. Looking back, It was a frustrating time and that really felt like pushing against a headwind. I don’t know what I would have done without Sena.

I finally got into medical school at the University of Iowa. Biostatistics and Biochemistry were brutal. I was very close to quitting before the 3^rd year of clinical rotations. I doubted I was cut out to be a physician. I thought about going back to surveying. But I didn’t.

Many deadlines, commitments, and struggles leading to brief forays from academia into private practice led me to think of myself as more of a fireman or a cowboy than an academician. Yet I spent most of my career at the University of Iowa.

Now I’m retired. Sena is my shelter against the wind. I guess if you look hard enough, just about anybody can relate to Bob Seger’s song. Let the cowboys ride.

Thoughts on the GuideLink Center Incident

The attack a few days ago by what was most likely a mentally ill person on staff at the recently opened GuideLink Center in Iowa City reminded me of what may appear to be disparate views by mental health professionals on the link between mental illness and mass violence perpetrators.

The GuideLink incident involved a person who assaulted GuideLink staff and who also left bags containing incendiary devices at the center and another building in Iowa City. The person is being charged with terrorism and is currently in custody in the Johnson County Jail.

I have not seen information about any injuries sustained by the mental health center staff. There were no explosions or fires at either location where incendiary devices were left. Bomb squad experts removed the devices. It’s not clear whether the perpetrator had been a GuideLink Center client.

The GuideLink Center opened in February 2021 and by all reports is a welcome and very much needed crisis stabilization mental health resource in the community. The staff members are dedicated to their calling.

Dr. H. Steven Moffic, MD, a retired psychiatrist who writes for Psychiatric Times, readily says that the perpetrators sometimes do have mental illness that at least contributes to committing acts of mass violence. Dr. George Dawson, MD, another retired psychiatrist, seems to say that the major reason for mass shootings is the ready availability of guns, a culture of gun extremism, and mental illness accounts for a small proportion of acts of mass violence.

But neither Dr. Moffic nor Dr. Dawson say that it’s only either mental illness or guns (or other instrument of mass violence) that lead to acts of mass violence. Both are important.

I’m a third retired psychiatrist and by now some readers might be asking themselves whether they should listen to any retired psychiatrist. Experience counts.

Speaking for myself, as a general hospital psychiatric consultant I was frequently faced with violent patients in the general hospital. Often, I found it necessary to ask a judge for a court order to involuntarily hospitalize a violent and/or suicidal patient on a locked psychiatric unit by transfer from an open medical or postsurgical unit.

In order to obtain an order in the state of Iowa, I had to be able to state to the judge that the patient in question had a treatable mental disorder and was an acute threat to himself and/others. In most situations, I had an open bed on a locked psychiatric unit available ahead of time.

Even if a Code Green was necessary, I usually had an inpatient resource to which I could move the patient. A Code Green is a show of force or takedown maneuver by a specially trained team to control a violent patient while minimizing injury to everyone involved.

I don’t know if that kind of approach is even possible in a community crisis stabilization setting like the GuideLink Center. I think it’s fortunate that it partners with many other community resources including the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office.

The outcome of the incident at the GuideLink Center was that the overall safety of the staff, the patient, and the community was preserved. More resources like this are needed everywhere. They deserve all the support we can give them.

Do You Get the Zoomies or the Zennies?

Does your pet dog, cat, or sloth ever get the zoomies? We don’t have pets; I just read about animals getting the zoomies the other day. It’s an interesting phenomenon. Right after a bath, a dog might race around the yard, getting all dirty again. They look like they’re having great fun and veterinarians say it’s harmless.

It would be great if we could catch a sloth with the zoomies. Not only would that be a first for zoology. Maybe it would outrun the fungus and other parasites growing on its hair, making it easier to gather by scientists. Some of that stuff might have potential for use in developing medicines for humans.

Other animals including those in the wild can get the zoomies, and some version of it might be done by Springbok antelope, although it’s called pronking. They just run around and leap, maybe for no apparent reason. Some claim that dogs occasionally pronk, but I wonder if it’s just a special case of the zoomies.

The veterinary term for zoomies or (and maybe pronking) is Frenetic Random Activity Periods (FRAP).

Technically, I don’t think humans get the zoomies although some would debate the issue. Many of us try to do the opposite, especially nowadays. One example is mindfulness, which I’ve been doing for the last 8 years. It’s difficult for me to describe, but you’re really not trying to do anything, not even trying to relax, per se.

But I try to be still and notice whatever is unfolding, nonjudgmentally. It’s a little hard not to scratch that itch right next to my temple. I’ve seen on the web that some people call it the zennies—maybe we could call it Focused Regular Awareness Periods (FRAP).

I guess dogs and cats enjoy their brand of FRAP, or at least it looks that way. It’s really hard to tell what’s going on if you just watch people doing the human brand of FRAP. Sometimes they just look like they might be asleep—which occasionally happens.

Zoomies or zennies; could they be different paths to the same place?

The Kindness of Strangers in a Parking Lot

This is a post about how easy it is to forget where you parked your car in a big parking lot, say at the grocery store, and ways to help prevent it. This sometimes attracts the kindness of strangers, which is puzzling because it’s not very clear how helpful they can be in this situation.

But you want to say more than something like, “Oh, that’s too bad, hope you find it before the ice cream melts.”

The other day, Sena forgot where she parked the car at the grocery store. The circumstances were a little unusual. She parked near one entrance to the store and after getting the groceries, left from an entrance on the other side of the store way across the parking lot. The landmarks were all different.

This is how things started: she ran into a guy with his little boy. The guy actually couldn’t remember where he parked his car and was trying to use his car key fob remote to locate it. This is actually pretty common nowadays. I remember leaving the eye clinic a few months ago and hearing a small symphony of beeps from a number of people using their key fob remotes this way trying to find their cars in the large parking garage.

Sena was sympathetic to the guy, but it was understandably really difficult to help him. He eventually found his car using the key fob trick.

Then the situations were reversed. Sena had trouble finding our car. She was roaming about the parking lot, pushing the grocery cart, obviously looking lost. This attracted 4 different persons (including the first guy she met) who were sympathetic and offered advice—mostly on how to use a key fob to locate the car by pressing one of the buttons (probably the lock/unlock although there might be a panic button). They demonstrated it by pressing the key fob button while standing right next to their cars. They suggested holding it far above your head.

This trick usually works best when you’re fairly close to the car because the key fob remote is a transmitter which uses low-power signals. The operating range may sometimes be limited. Sena was probably pretty far away from our car. She actually began to suspect our car had been stolen. She eventually found it by trial and error.

This episode resulted in attracting a number of people who were kind to her. That’ s encouraging since it looks like kindness is often in short supply. On the other hand, it’s not always good to be alone in a large unfamiliar parking lot, perhaps at night, looking lost and surrounded by strangers.

We can’t remember having this problem years ago before the era of keyless fob remotes, which I read was in the mid-1990s. And we didn’t have them until years after that. I guess we were just more careful about noting landmarks in large parking lots.

There are few things to do in order to avoid forgetting where you park.

You can try to find your car using your key fob remote, although the effective range of the signal might be too short to trigger the horn or the lights. And it might not work if the fob remote battery power is low. And if you’re surrounded by a lot of other people hunting for their cars using the same method, you might have a little trouble discriminating which beep is yours. This could become a YouTube meme, especially with different beep tones (like the 5 tones in the movie “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”).

You can pick a landmark which will make it easier to remember where your car is. Many parking lots have large signs with numbers and letters which can help you.

You can take a picture of your car’s location using your cell phone, including more permanent landmarks than just the other cars adjacent to it—which can be driven off by their owners.

You can also use a cell phone with Google Maps or another geolocation app to help guide you back to your car. Just about all smartphones have this feature. You can consult the owner’s manual for instructions for flip phones, some of which have this function. I don’t think car owners’ manuals typically have instructions for how to use the key fob remotes to find your car. At least ours doesn’t.

Good luck.

Update on James Alan McPherson Park Memorial Plaque

Sena suggested we send a message to Iowa City Mayor Bruce Teague inquiring about the proposed memorial plaque to James Alan McPherson, Pulitzer Prize winning author and longtime Iowa Writers’ Workshop faculty member.

I can remember only one other time in my life that I wrote a letter to an elected official. I wrote President Barack Obama in 2013, basically complaining about the Maintenance of Certification (MOC) program for physicians. I’m not sure what I expected him to do about it. Like many doctors, I was frustrated about the regulatory requirements from certification boards. I thought they were unnecessary and burdensome.

I received a reply which was completely off topic and probably not written by the President. The letter from “President Obama” didn’t answer or even come close to addressing the concerns about what I thought was regulatory harassment. In fact, I never kept the reply and forgot about it.

But the email to Mayor Bruce Teague was different. We just asked about the timeline on the memorial plaque for the James Alan McPherson Park, which was renamed last year. The celebration and ribbon cutting reveal of the new sign was in early August 2021. The memorial plaque was still in the planning stage. We’ve driven by the park several times in the last year looking for it.

Mayor Teague’s reply came the day after we sent our message. It was definitely pertinent and to the point. McPherson’s daughter Rachel is still looking over the wording on the mock-up of the plaque, considering what to include. After her approval, it would take about 10-12 weeks to complete.

Now that’s a quick and specific answer from a political leader. Mayor Teague also sings.

Skimming the Parks

We took a walk on the Hickory Hill Park short Loop and the James Alan McPherson Park. We’ve lived in Iowa City for 34 years and walked only one other Hickory Hill Park trail. That was several years ago.

Just before you start the short Loop, you can read a poem, The Morning by W.S. Merwin.

We also saw a Widow Skimmer Dragonfly for the first time ever. It was spectacular.

We spotted proof positive for Bigfoot—a tree structure. OK, so not proof but interesting all the same.

And we fully noticed the two huge American Sycamore trees flanking the beginning of the walking trail on James Alan McPherson Park.

We also ran into others walking the Loop, often walking their pet animals, including a man with a Bengal cat. We’ve never heard of them. Despite its name, it was spotted more like a leopard than a tiger. It looked like a jungle cat.

It’s a great start to the July 4^th holiday. Have a good one.

The Little Mundanities of Life

Sena says I need to write about some mundanities, so I will. She says the mundane things in life are important. She told me about an episode of The Waltons she saw years ago, which emphasized the importance of life’s little mundane things. I looked for the episode on the web, but couldn’t find it.

We wash and dry dishes the old-fashioned way. We never use our dishwasher, so it’s like brand new. Sena overheard a conversation two women had at the store about a kind of pre-wash spray you can get that will make it easier to get dishes cleaner when you do them the old-fashioned way. They discussed the pros and cons at length. Neither one of them bought the product.

She got a bottle of that Dawn dishwashing liquid in the upside-down bottle. You get less soap. But you can squeeze out the soap without flipping it.

She can’t seem to get the coffee maker lid down in the morning sometimes. That’s why I took a picture of it. The mundanity of it. I fixed it later in the afternoon.

Without the mundanities, life would probably wear us out. Just think if you had to tolerate a day full of odd events, like the one we heard about on the KOKZ Iowa’s Classic Hits Radio 105.7 morning program yesterday, Mike Waters Wake-Up Call. It was about this crazy rooster who crowed until he fainted. This was a pretty exciting meme in December of 2020.

When we heard it on the radio, we actually heard the THUD when the rooster finally keeled over. Could you stand that level of hilarity all the time every day? Of course not! I wonder if that fainting consequence could apply to other situations?

Politician: “And if you elect me, I promise—THUD!”

Bigfoot Hunter: “If I hear that little twig snapping noise one more time, I will run over there and confront the hulking—THUD!”

Car Salesman: “This little coupe has only 2,000 miles on it, driven by a little old lady librarian—THUD!”

Psychiatrist: “Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, if carefully and consistently implemented, could solve every human conflict if only—THUD!”

UFO Witness: “Look at that thing! What the “bleep” is that thing?” I’ve never bleeping seen a bleepity-bleep thing like that in my bleeping life, can you believe—THUD!”

Celebrate life’s little mundanities every once in a while. They’ll give you a break from all the excitement.

The Cigarette Waltz

A couple of days ago we heard a ballet called The Cigarette Waltz by a French composer, Edouard Lalo, on one of the Iowa Public Radio (IPR) classical music programs. The announcer told a little anecdote (most of which I didn’t hear) about the saying “Smoke‘em if ya got’em” which he traced to the World War II era, reflective of the general idea that you can do what you like if you have the means. I didn’t get the connection, frankly.

I was curious about why the ballet Namouna (Valse de la cigarette) was connected with cigarettes. The first thing I did was to look up the ballet on the web. I found the version done by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by—Yondani Butt. That’s actually a better joke than the one by the IPR radio show host.

At first the only thing I could find out about Lalo was that his name is the answer to a crossword clue, which is “composer of the Cigarette Waltz.” I followed several dead-end leads. There’s no real connection with Lalo himself that I could find, unless you count his “hemiplegic attack” (a stroke from smoking?) which prevented him from finishing the score for the ballet.

I read the Wikipedia article summarizing the ballet, which didn’t mention cigarettes.

And finally, I found a Google book entry after using the search terms “why is Namouna called the cigarette waltz.” The book’s title is “Traveling Sprinkler Deluxe: A Novel,” written by Nicholson Baker, published by Penguin Group in 2013. It might help to read the Wikipedia synopsis of the ballet before you read Baker’s passage, which mentions a cigarette:

“It’s true that there is an opera by Edouard Lalo called The King of Ys about the flooding of Ys, based partly on a forged Breton ballad by Theodore Hersart de la Villemarque, and true that Debussy had wildly applauded Lalo’s ballet Namouna while at the conservatory, and had memorized parts of it, including perhaps the scandalous waltz in which Namouna rolls a cigarette for her paramour…”

It’s still not exactly clear what’s going on with the cigarette, but because the waltz is described as scandalous, I wonder if there was something salacious about the rolling of the cigarette. The slave girl Namouna is, after all, flirting with Ottavio.

Baker’s point is probably that the ballet is not so much about the cigarette as it is about a larger issue, judging from my general sense of his passage. Larger than a cigarette anyway.

There’s a book titled “Cigarette Waltz: Seventeen Short Stories Adaptable for Theater” by Philip-Dimitri Galas” but I was unable to access any inside text.

Alas, I couldn’t find Cliff Notes about it.

Invasion of the Pregnant Man Emojis!

I just saw a pretty funny story in the news about an old guy who was not allowed to donate blood at a Scotland blood bank because he refused to answer a new questionnaire asking whether or not he was pregnant.

I thought that was uproariously funny. Then I read the rest of the story and found another punchline: The director of the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service defended the question on grounds of respect for inclusiveness. So, I had a good laugh about that one too.

I wonder if there could more than just a yes/no question about whether a guy is pregnant. We need space for an essay response: “No, but my 33-year-old son is living in our basement. Would you please adopt him?”

There are two other comical trends. One is providing tampon dispensers in men’s bathrooms. Another is the chuckle-provoking pregnant man emoji. What kind of email message would you use that for unless it’s a joke?

The issue is less farcical when you consider there is a rare psychiatric disorder known as delusion of pregnancy in men, otherwise known as Couvade syndrome. I never encountered it in my career as a psychiatric consultant in the general hospital.

And there is a psychiatric disorder known as pseudocyesis or delusional pregnancy as well as denial of pregnancy in women.

This reminds me of a fascinating episode from Blue Planet II in which David Attenborough filmed the transformation of a kobudai wrasse female fish into a male.