Insomnia: The pharmaceutical phase

Once my doctor recommended I see a psychiatrist, the first task was to find one. I contacted more local clinics than I ever want to recall. Almost all of them were not accepting new patients, or weren't accepting patients like me, or had a waitlist, or just never picked up the phone! Imagine being someone desperately in need of support and having to go through all that! Trying to find a psychiatrist is enough to make you need a psychiatrist!

Anyway, I eventually succeeded in setting up an appointment for the last week in April. The virtual appointment was just as nerve-wracking as the original search had been—the audio on the video call was so bad that I spent the entire appointment asking the doctor to repeat himself and cringing at the sound of my own words echoing back at me 1 second after I'd said them. Somehow I survived my psych appointment with my sanity intact, and came out the other end with a prescription for mirtazapine.

I was afraid to take it.

I have always been a little leery of prescription medicines. I'm fine with taking a course of antibiotics or whatever is necessary to rid myself of some temporary invader, but the idea of using drugs to alter the way my own body functions kind of gives me the willies, especially if there's a possibility that I'll become dependent on the drug forever. My limited experience with pharmaceuticals also tells me that the side effects are usually just as bad as the condition they purport to treat! I won't digress too far with the tale of when I was prescribed Nexium, but let me just say that a few days on the purple pill made me feel worse than no pill at all, and it took me over a month to get back to feeling normal!

So I approached the use of prescription sleep aids with extreme trepidation and read the entire list of side effects before I began. There were a ton, and they were all very worrisome! I really, really, really, didn't want to become dependent on mirtazapine, but I did have high hopes that it would at least give me a few nights of decent sleep, so that my body could remember what it felt like.

Oddly enough (or unsurprisingly, depending on how you look at it), as soon as I had received the prescription but before even taking it, I started sleeping better (from around 4 hours a night to 6). Just believing that relief was only one pill away helped me relax immensely. But curiosity won out, and I decided after a few days to try the prescription.

I don't really recommend reading the next part, unless you're a glutton for overly procedural accounts of solutions that didn't work and near-infinite variations thereof. If you're not that sort, I'll catch you after the curtain. If you are that sort, settle in for what can only be described as a shitshow—in 4 acts!

ACT 1: Mirtazapine

I took my first mirtazapine dose five days after the appointment. It did not help me fall asleep any faster (I still lay awake for 2 hours), but I slept for 7 hours straight, which was a nice change! Unfortunately, it made me extremely groggy the next day (I didn't stop feeling tired until early evening), and never worked as well again after that. Most nights when I took the mirtazapine, I slept for four miserable hours, and felt like a zombie the day after.

I feel that the medical institution let me down during this phase. I barely got any instructions on how to use the medication (I probably wouldn't have been able to hear them if I had) and no instructions on what to expect or what to do if it didn't work as expected. So I had to figure it out all alone. I was told to take one-half pill an hour before bedtime, and that's what I did. I felt tired within minutes, but I forced myself to stay awake for the full half hour.

This, I have since learned, is a mistake. When you take a sleep aid, you should be prepared to go to bed immediately, and ideally, you should already be in bed when you take it. That way, when the sleepiness hits, you can just lie down and hopefully zonk right out. The longer you spend powering through the drowsiness and trying to stay awake, the less likely you are to sleep (and with some drugs, the more likely you are to engage in strange semi-somnolent behaviors like sleep-driving and extreme eating). But no one told me that, so I missed the optimal timing by trying to do it by the book.

And then I compounded the problem by experimenting. I tried taking the pill even farther in advance of bedtime (hoping that this would reduce the next-day drowsiness), not knowing that this was going to make it less likely to help me sleep. 

 

I also experimented with the dosage. I had found enough information online to learn that mirtazapine is more likely to help you sleep if you take a smaller dose, while higher dosages can actually be stimulating. I tried taking smaller and smaller doses, but that didn't do anything. One night, I took double the recommended dose, and I was up half the night, not only unable to sleep, but also afflicted by weirdly twitching thigh muscles. Never again!

I was supposed to follow up with the doctor after 4 weeks, but I hated the mirtazapine so much that I called the office after 2 weeks and was able to schedule a 15-minute chat with a different doctor. This consultation was over the phone, so I found it much more pleasant (no maddening audio issues this time), and the doctor was helpful and reassuring. I told him that since taking the mirtazapine, my insomnia had actually gotten worse. "Don't worry," he said, "We'll get you to sleep."

ACT 2: Trazodone

This time, I was prescribed trazodone. I researched the mechanism of action of that and mirtazapine and was disappointed to find that both of them do essentially the same thing: act antagonistically on various histamine receptors, to cause a sedating effect. If one histamine blocker had failed to help me sleep, I doubted a different one would do anything, but I dutifully gave it a shot anyway.

The results were even worse than before! This time, the instructions were to take the pill at bedtime, but I had found something on the internet that said you should take it 2 hours before bedtime. I split the difference, took the pill an hour before bed...and proceeded to lie awake for the next four hours! After a few days, I found different advice on the internet saying that best results are obtained when you take your dose as close to bedtime as possible. For a few nights, I took the trazodone just before bedtime and slept, but only for a paltry few hours.

Trazodone is not known for helping its users stay asleep, whereas mirtazapine is, so I decided to have another go with the mirtazapine, this time armed with the knowledge of proper administration timing. For one night, I had an almost perfect 7 hours of sleep! And then the next night, it was back to my old ways—took the pill, went to bed, lay there until, in desperation, I drank some alcohol. You're not supposed to combine alcohol with sedatives, because that's what people do when they want to die, but 1 or 2 shots is probably not going to make the difference between life and death, if the sedative isn't having any effect anyway. That was my rationale in any case—don't construe it as advice! Given that the mirtazapine wasn't effective at anything but making me feel comatose the next day, I gave it up and waited for my next 4-week appointment.

ACT 3: Lunesta

At this appointment, I had gotten a little wiser about the audio problems on the virtual meeting, so I was able to communicate better. I told my doctor that neither of the prescriptions had helped thus far. He asked me if I had ever tried Ambien. At this point, I bashfully (bashful because, like combining alcohol and sedatives, you're really not supposed to share prescription drugs) mentioned that someone had once given me a Lunesta and it had worked pretty well! So I left that appointment with a new prescription for Lunesta.

Oy vey, the Lunesta cost a pretty penny! I coughed up the 92 dollars for a month's supply, and really hoped that it would do the trick.

But — surprise! — it didn't!

By this time, I felt like an expert at taking sleeping pills, and the first night I took Lunesta, I did everything right. I'd been off caffeine for days, I took it right as I crawled into bed, I waited to get sleepy and then lay down my head. Instead of falling asleep, I started to get more antsy! I had a few intense muscle twitches, and after I'd been lying there for 2 hours, I began to feel hot and anxious. I had to get out of bed and walk around to calm myself, but even that didn't work, so I took comfort in my old standby – a shot of vodka – and finally slept for four hours. I woke up too early and didn't sleep again, and my anxiety skyrocketed! My ace in the hole, Lunesta, hadn't helped! I was pretty sure there was something wrong with me that couldn't be fixed.

But "pretty sure" isn't 100% sure, and I didn't have anything else to do but keep trying, so a few days later (after I had steeled myself against undesirable results), I took the Lunesta again—this time the maximum prescribed dosage of 3mg (the previous dose had been 2mg). This time, I fell asleep almost immediately and slept like a baby. That is to say, I kept waking up all night, but at least I slept! I was so pleased with myself, that I had another Lunesta the next night, and...got 2.75 hours of sleep. What had gone wrong!? I didn't know, but I was so disheartened.

I'd never planned to take sleep aids for the long term, but I'd really hoped that if I found the right one, I could take it enough days in a row that my body would catch up on sleep and stop perpetuating the cycle (did you know that sleep deprivation can actually cause physical symptoms that make it harder to fall asleep!?). But it was not to be. I was out of hope. I didn't think I wanted to try any more drugs, and I was just going to have to buckle down and do things the hard way: with cognitive behavioral therapy, However, that will be a topic for another post. In this one, we still have one more prescription to talk about.

ACT 4: Quetiapine

At my second 4-week follow-up with the psychiatrist, I explained my failed experiments with the Lunesta, and he said he was out of ideas. I should probably go get a sleep study. But first, there was one more thing I could try: quetiapine. Quetiapine is a little different from the other drugs I'd been prescribed thus far. Whereas Lunesta was designed specifically for sleep, and mirtazapine and trazodone are actually antidepressants prescribed off-label for insomnia, quetiapine is an anti-psychotic. It sounds powerful, right? It goes by the more common name of Seroquel, and several members of my insomnia support group (which I had joined in the midst of this saga) swear by it.

Although I was pretty weary of the revolving door of prescriptions, I filled this one, too (I'd asked for only a 7-day supply after the fiscal fiasco with Lunesta). My doctor had recommended that I take it jointly with the Lunesta, but I tried it one night by itself because I wanted to see its effects without being combined with other drugs. It took me almost an hour to fall asleep, but by this point, I had acquired some emotional regulation skills, so I refused to panic—I just stayed in bed, eventually drifted off, and clocked a delightful 7.5 hours! Victory! I knew better than to try and tempt fate by taking it another night, but I was pleased to find that drugs still could help me sleep...if I let them.

CURTAIN

You see, over those 2½ months of medical trial and error, I'd learned a lesson. Insomnia (in most cases, and definitely my own), is largely psychological. It comes from a misdirected activation of primitive survival instincts, and no exogenous chemical is going to override your survival mechanisms for very long (unless you take enough to kill you). 

 

Ask almost any long-term insomniac, and they'll happily (or grimly) tell you exactly how many prescriptions they've been on and how long it took before they had to switch to the next one. Every drug eventually stops working, because to truly overcome insomnia, your mind has to be a willing participant!

By early July, I'd learned how to help it do that, but it was with no thanks to conventional medicine. My psychiatrist certainly never had anything to offer but a drug and some crossed fingers. I promise I'll tell you, eventually, what set me on a better path... but first, I must share a little interlude, about a particularly wrong path! Tune in soon for the next terrifying installment of my insomnia chronicles!

Insomnia: The self-medication phase

This is the hardest part of my story to tell. In the previous chapters, I was a victim—you can't change someone else's actions, and you can't change your nature. But from this point onward, I was in control. I didn't know it at the time, but it was my thoughts and choices during the early days of insomnia that led me to my most desperate state. If you've never had insomnia, read this part carefully...and then don't do what I did! You might be able to save yourself from a dismal fate.

When my breakup with my boyfriend was still a fresh, gaping wound on my psyche, I spent a lot of time crying. I cried all day, in between work meetings and necessary interactions with my housemate. I went to bed as early as I could and usually cried myself to sleep, only to wake up after a few hours, obsessively thinking about the disaster that had befallen me. Most nights, I couldn't fall back asleep until 4 or 5. Some nights, I didn't fall back asleep at all.

By this time, I was regularly consuming all sorts of chemicals to help me sleep. Because of the window blinds situation, I had already been taking melatonin or Benadryl most nights in a (unsuccessful) bid to stay asleep through the night. When my sleep patterns deteriorated further because of the breakup, I started taking them more regularly...not that it helped at all! My new roommate recommended magnesium, which I tried, to no avail. CBD was supposed to help with sleep, so I tried that, even though it had never helped me sleep previously. Once, I even tried a THC/CBD gummy,* which made me so relaxed I couldn't get out of bed, and simultaneously so anxious that I just lay there having a panic attack for an hour! In the end, I usually resorted to alcohol after everything else had failed, leaving me the next day both sleep-deprived and mildly hungover.

I don't really recall too much about those early weeks of insomnia (after all, sleep cements memories and I wasn't getting much sleep), and all these nights of rampant substance abuse kind of blend together. Since I still didn't know this experience was going to turn into a saga I'd be writing about months later, I can only reconstruct the progression of my condition by examining my browser history. It was around 2 weeks after the breakup that my searches began to change from things like "stages of grief" to "benadryl vs unisom."

I was getting over the breakup. I certainly wasn't crying continuously and bringing obsessive thoughts of it into bed with me any more, so I couldn't understand why I wasn't sleeping, They say that stressful events can cause sleep disruptions, but sleep usually returns after the stressful situation has resolved. The only explanation I could think up (and indeed, I was thinking about it a lot) was that the stress of the breakup had been replaced by stress from not sleeping.

It was four weeks after the breakup that I began Googling my symptoms (Oh no! Retrospective red alert!), and right around the same time, I officially labeled my condition as insomnia. This I know because that was also when I started keeping a sleep diary, a recommended part of the treatment plan for most insomnia sufferers.

In the sleep diary, I religiously recorded when I slept, when I didn't sleep, what I'd ingested in a bid to sleep, any activities I'd done that might have contributed to or detracted from sleep, and how I was feeling. I was feeling pretty awful. I'd begun noticing strange symptoms that are often linked with anxiety. I felt twitchy and on-edge, constantly getting butterflies in my stomach for no apparent reason, startling at the quietest of sounds. I wasn't really thinking anxious thoughts, but it seemed (I guessed?) anxiety had become a part of my physiology.

The sleep diary wasn't doing anything to help me improve my sleep, but it does provide a useful record of how my sleep continued to decline. At the beginning of April when I began the log, I was still falling asleep without much difficulty on most nights, and waking up in the middle of the night or too early in the morning. I was also sleeping 5 – 7 hours almost every night. By insomniac standards, I was sleeping great! But that all took a turn for the worse around mid-April. The change occurred rather suddenly, after I got my second Covid vaccine on April 15 (Moderna, thanks for asking). The second night after the shot, exhausted by my intense immune response, I slept a whopping 8 hours! And then the night after that, and every night following, I slept hardly at all! I'd gone from losing a few hours of sleep from mid-night awakenings, to lying awake most of the night. Over the next week, my nightly sleep time plummeted down to 3.5 – 5 hours a night.

After that one glorious night of 8 hours asleep, the wakeful nights were even harder to bear. I desperately purchased chamomile tea and started yet another dietary supplement (this time an expensive herbal blend) and again saw no results. My insomnia was clearly getting worse, nothing I could do was fixing it, and I was freaking out! So, six weeks after my first night of troubled sleep, I saw a physician, who referred me to a psychiatrist. Seven weeks into suffering insomnia, and I visited a shrink for the first time in my recollection! Did I finally get the help I needed? You'll soon find out, in the next chapter of this story!

*For the purposes of chronology, it must be explained that I took the THC gummy the same night following my psych appointment. He had prescribed me something, and I guess I wanted to try one last natural sleep remedy before leaping into the arms of Big Pharma.

Insomnia: How it all began (for real)

When people ask me, I tell them my insomnia started with a bad breakup. But looking back, I can really see that I'd been working my way up to insomnia my whole life. So let's hop into the wayback machine and dig up this case of insomnia right at its roots!

I've had minor trouble with sleep for as long as I can recollect. Some of my earliest memories involve nap time—specifically, hating it because I wasn't tired at all and I certainly wasn't sleeping! Or a few years after that, lying awake in my childhood bedroom, weeping because it was taking me so long to fall asleep!

The late-night pity parties ended once I realized I always did fall asleep eventually, and I learned to compensate for my poor sleeping skills. As an adult, I routinely budgeted 9–10 hours for sleep every day—just so I could spend 1-2 of them waiting to fall asleep at night and trying to drag myself out of bed in the morning. If I missed out on sleep (which wasn't often, because I valued it immensely and was zealous about protecting it), I was completely unable to nap. I also couldn't sleep on airplanes, or sleep in a car, or sleep pretty much anywhere except lying down with no ambient light (not even the tiny LED on a laptop charger!) and no distracting sounds. I always needed a long wind-down period before sleeping; if I did anything stimulating whatsoever in the hour before bedtime (including watching a movie or listening to slightly upbeat music), I'd find myself struggling to fall asleep. Even being in a little too good of a mood before bed was a guarantee I'd take longer to drift off than usual.

"Light sleeper" was practically my middle name. I used to pride myself on being able to wake at sunrise without an alarm, or to be up and ready with a receptacle in time to catch the mess before it hit the bed when my dog indulged in some nocturnal puking. Similarly, I always thought I was great at being able to stay up when needed. Though I had an early bedtime by choice, if something exciting was happening—a party or a great concert—I was always one of the last ones standing at 4 AM. One time I spent the whole night wide awake on an airplane, because a kid in my traveling party had gotten sick. Every passenger was catching Z's (including the sick kid himself!), but I couldn't even rest my eyes, so vigilant was I to make sure nothing else would go wrong. Those "skills" may have been useful when my sleep was more consistent, but they also made me a prime candidate for insomnia when my sleeping conditions changed.

What changed my sleeping conditions? Well, as you already know, the breakup was a huge factor, but it might not have knocked my sleep completely off the rails if it hadn't been for another disruptive circumstance that preceded it.

The story goes like this. Being the light sleeper and easily stressed person that I am, I hate alarm clocks because they startle me and subsequently put me in a bad mood. I prefer waking up naturally to the sunrise, but that became impossible when, around the beginning of this year, the city installed an impossibly bright LED street light right across from my bedroom window. I loathed it. I had to find a way to cover up my window completely...but still allow sunlight in the room in the morning.

I settled on programmable window blinds. I got thick wood ones that blocked out most of the light at night, and I set them to open slowly around 6 AM, so the morning sun would filter into the room and awaken me in a peaceful way. In reality, what happened was the blinds lurched themselves open in a series of loud tick-tick-tick noises over the course of 5 minutes. That did not make for a peaceful awakening.

Photo taken before I knew my new blinds
were going to ruin my life!

Over the next few weeks, I tried various things to get myself accustomed to the blinds (like having them open at 5AM, when I'd be more likely to be deeply asleep), but all I succeeded in doing was conditioning myself to wake up extra-early, even before the blinds! Being the sound-sensitive soul I am, I would rather (says my subconscious, apparently) wake up unprovoked in pitch darkness than be jolted awake by the ticking time bomb of a motorized blind.

I began to take Benadryl right before bed, in the hopes that the drowsiness usually persists in the mornings after taking it would keep me asleep. It didn't. I also tried melatonin and CBD, with the same effect. Finally, I decided to just give up on the smart blinds and go back to an alarm clock.

This is the state I was in when my boyfriend broke up with me. I was already accustomed to waking up too early in the morning. My sleep was already mildly disturbed. I was already in the habit of consuming chemicals to ostensibly help my sleep. If the blinds had been the only issue, I think I would have returned to normal soon, but then the breakup sent my sleep into a nosedive from which I could just not recover. Goodbye, boyfriend; hello, insomnia!

And that's the whole story this time!

Or is it? The real story of my insomnia doesn't begin when I started having trouble sleeping; it begins when I continued having trouble sleeping! So next post, I'll share all the gory details of exactly how trouble sleeping turned from a minor issue into a major ordeal.

Insomnia: The breakup that broke my brain

Back when I had a boyfriend, we used to laugh about our respective sleep habits. He was the type who could fall asleep any time, anywhere; he called it his superpower. But me, on the other hand—everything needed to be perfect, or I'd have trouble sleeping. Any amount of light was too bright, any amount of caffeine too much, any hour before 10 pm too early, any position but the perfect position too uncomfortable. As he put it, if I could find any possible reason to not be asleep, I would not be asleep. We used to laugh about it because, as I put it, at least I didn't have insomnia!

Haha. The joke was on me, because within a few months, he stopped being my boyfriend, and I stopped not having insomnia.

It began the very night of our breakup. After crying almost incessantly, all day long, I went to bed early, hoping to take refuge in unconsciousness. This is a coping strategy that has always served me well through previous periods of depression, but it didn't work this time. This time, I woke up around midnight, and immediately was inundated with a flood of the same miserable thoughts that had plagued me all day. In no time flat, I was wide awake and crying again.

The hours ticked by, but I didn't see any sign that I was going to fall back asleep. I thought about having a drink to help me return to dreamland. I usually make a habit of avoiding alcohol when I'm sad, as I know it can turn normal sadness into extreme sadness, but I had cried myself out and was feeling calm by now, plus I'd just had the worst day of my life—maybe I was entitled to a treat! Around 1AM, I had a shot of vodka, but it didn't make me sleepy. Around 2, I had another shot of vodka, but still didn't feel sleepy. Then I had a third shot of vodka, and, predictably, turned into a hysterically crying mess who finally fell asleep around 3 am.

Pretty much every night after that proceeded in the same way. I'd go to bed, maybe fall into a light sleep for a few hours, then wake up between 12 and 2 and not be able to get back. I'd try all sorts of tricks to fall back asleep, some of which helped some of the time, but most of which didn't most of the time. The only thing that reliably got me to drift off again was alcohol, which of course made me feel worse the next day.

Probably around 3 weeks after the breakup, I realized my grief had largely subsided. I'd decided to drown my sorrows by jumping back into the dating pool, and it was working. I no longer saw the loss of my boyfriend as the loss of all hope for my future. I was developing a more optimistic attitude about my prospects...but it wasn't doing anything to improve my sleep.

After a little less than a month, I finally admitted to myself that I had more than just temporary trouble sleeping. I had insomnia. The thing that I'd always been grateful to avoid had finally come to claim me, and it wasn't letting go.

So that's how it all began. Sort of. In truth, it was more complicated than that, and if you want to hear what I mean, just wait for my next post!

An Insomnia Story

Have you ever wished you could have more hours in a day? Well, now you can!

What's the secret, you ask? Just a little thing called Insomnia!

The average human spends 1/3 of her life sleeping! What a waste! With Insomnia, you can go from spending 8 hours a night snoring away, to 20+ hours a day wide awake, completely unable to function because you've done away with that boring thing called sleep!

Try Insomnia, and you will see: your energy levels plummet! Your cognitive ability regress to a fourth-grade level! Your mood hit an unfathomably new low! Your every daily activity become 20 times harder! And much, much more!

If you're interested in Insomnia, it's easy to get started—just subject yourself to a minor stressful life event and lose some sleep over it! It's that simple! Before you know it, you'll be on your way to months or years of intractable sleeplessness! And this can all be yours, for the low, low cost of your last shred of sanity!

DON'T WAIT! CALL TODAY!

Hello, friends, family, and fellow denizens of the Internet. I hope you enjoyed my little commercial and have decided Insomnia is right for you, because misery loves company, and there are a lot of miserable insomniacs out there who would love you to join their ranks. I myself have insomnia (temporarily! You'll soon learn why I say that) and felt it was time to process the experience in the way I know best: by blogging!

Insomnia (which is, in a nutshell, an inability to get satisfying amounts or quality of sleep) is literally an epidemic in the United States. They say that anywhere from 10-60% of people live with some form of chronic insomnia. When I speak of chronic insomnia, I don't mean an occasional night of trouble getting to sleep, but rather the long-term, life-destroying form of the ailment (though the word "insomnia" can be used to mean any trouble sleeping, even for one night, in my writing I'll be using it as shorthand for "chronic insomnia").

When I was a new insomniac, I searched the Internet for stories, maybe reassurance that my feelings were normal and I wasn't completely alone, but I found almost nothing. If 10% of the US population has chronic insomnia, and the US population numbers 328 million, then at least 32 million Americans are dealing with chronic insomnia at this moment! Where are all their stories? I don't know, but I'm going to share mine. Hopefully the next poor soul struggling through another sleep-deprived day will run across this one and feel slightly less alone.

It's a good thing this blog already has a celestial theme, because my nocturnal issues are going to be its new biggest subject. I'm going to talk your ear off about insomnia, including my personal anecdotes, and maybe those of insomnia sufferers I've met along the way! I hope you're ready for a long-winded discussion on everything related to insomnia—if you're not, at least I hope I can bore you to sleep!

Nerds, Part 2: Nerds as difficult writing prompt

Well, the second half of my post on nerds is still looming over me like a playground bully, and guess how much progress I have made on it. None! This is what I get for making promises about a project I hadn't even started!

My initial idea was that I'd dig deep into the nebulous topic of what defines a nerd and how that definition has changed over time. My early experience with the term indicated that it was exclusively pejorative, but in my later years, I've come to sense a warmer tone to people's attitudes about nerds. Is that just because our world has become more friendly to those who are intellectual and socially awkward...or is it just something that happens naturally as you grow up?

Dictionaries can tell you the definition of "nerd," (generally speaking, a person with overly intellectual interests and little social ability), but they can't tell you the prevailing connotations of "nerd." That's something you can only learn from direct communication with other people. 

 

As I've been doing a lot of dating lately, I thought I'd poll my matches who identify as nerds (there are a surprisingly large number of them) about their feelings on the subject, and round up a consensus opinion.

Unfortunately, whenever I'd matched with a temptingly promising nerd, the conversation always dried up before I could manage to work it around to the topic of why he considered himself to be one. I'm now almost 2 months into this project, and I have yet to interrogate even one nerd! In retrospect, it was silly to expect myself, a self-proclaimed nerd, to accomplish much in an endeavor that requires successful social interaction with another self-proclaimed nerd! I suppose I could set up an anonymous poll someplace geeky like Reddit, but that sounds a lot like investigative journalism, and I'm not getting paid for this job!

So I stop here. I abdicate my responsibility for dissecting this topic, and I leave it to you, my beloved readers! What do you think makes a person a nerd? Is it cool to be a nerd, or is it still the worst insult a 7-year-old can come up with? Discuss. I believe you're up to the challenge...but only if you're nerdy enough!

 

Immune Defense Day

Apparently a year of avoiding all potentially pathogenic human contact has completely crippled my immune system, because as soon as I started leaving the house with no mask on, I caught a cold. And as soon as I recovered from that cold, I caught another one.

It is now Independence Day—a day for socializing and celebration—and I am holed up in my house with 120mg of pseudoephedrine coursing through my veins and a mean mood.

There are a lot of things I could have been doing today. I could have gone down to celebrate with a friend in Charlottesville. I could have gone out to celebrate with a different friend in Annapolis. I could have met another friend to watch the fireworks in Alexandria. I could have gone to an EDM party in DC. I could have accepted the invitation to go have sex with this one guy I met 3 months ago on a dating app (um, no thanks?). 

I could have done any of those things. But because I was unwell, I chose to stay home. Now let's be clear, I'm not that sick. I spent the morning mopping my floors. I could easily dance a jig and do a couple of cartwheels and not get winded. I'm not staying home because I feel like death; I'm doing it because it's the right thing to do.

If there was one thing that I thought we all learned throughout this year-long-and-still-strong pandemic, is that you don't go out when you're sick! It doesn't matter if your symptoms are mild, or if you have a really important deadline, or you don't want to miss out on the most epic party of your week. It's not a badge of honor to power through your illness, shedding viruses to all and sundry—if you have a transmissible infection, you owe it to your fellow humans not to spread it around!

Apparently, though, it seems that many people didn't get the memo. The fact that I caught two colds in two weeks is a strong indicator that there are plenty out there who are more than willing to go out and share their viral wealth. 

When I informed one person that I'd be staying home today due to my illness, he told me to come out anyway because a margarita would make me feel better (first off, factually wrong! Second off, it's not about how I feel; it's about protecting other people from having to feel the same way). When I declined on the grounds that "I prefer to not spread my germs all across creation," he continued to push the issue. 

Don't be that guy! If someone you know wants to keep their distance in the interest of public health, just let them! And if you yourself are mildly ill and on the fence about whether to play it safe or go to town, just play it safe!

"It's just a cold" is not a legitimate excuse to willingly expose other people to illness! If there's anything we learned from the wide variability in COVID effects (ranging from completely asymptomatic all the way to death), it's that infections can affect different people in different ways. What's just a cold to you could possibly kill the next person to catch it!

I'm staying home today. I'm eating ice cream alone and getting takeout for dinner and showing off my patriotic pedicure to my dog. And I'm writing a grumpy rant on my blog. If you want me to feel better, don't try to coax me into drinking margaritas; just promise me that the next time you get sick, you won't let it spread any farther. Tell me that you've learned the lesson that could stop the next pandemic. Just tell me, if you're sick, you'll stay home!

This post needed a picture, and my patriotic pedicure needed a wider audience than just one dog!

Nerds, Part 1: Nerds as marketing tactic

Fashion kind of took a backseat for me during the pandemic, but in March, I decided to treat myself to a pair of breakup shoes, to start my new life as a single lady on the right feet! When they arrived, hiding out in the bottom of the box was none other than a sample pouch of Nerds® Gummy Clusters! Because, of course, what goes better with a pair of shoes than candy chews?

I was thrilled (to the teeth!) because Nerds are one of my favorite candies. Despite the incongruity of unsolicited sweets in my shoe shipment, I wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth (not if I could put it in my mouth instead!).

When I had a chance to investigate my Nerds packet more closely, I noticed a QR code on the back of the card—but not just any QR code: specifically, a QR code with all the right angles softened just enough to evoke the blobby shape of Nerds candy or perhaps a gooey gummy. That visual trick definitely earned my respect, in a way that hasn't happened much since I graduated from design school in 2010. I guess it is only appropriate that after a decade, when I finally nerd out over design again, it's about a package of Nerds.

But the story gets sweeter. The QR code came with an invitation to "see the work Nerds have done. Get stories about inventions, teamwork & fun!" Never one to resist the siren song of a story, I scanned away! I was expecting some made-up cartoony tales meant to inspire kids, but what I got was a short tale about a real, (formerly) live human (John Walker, who I soon learned invented matches) — written in verse!

Well! If there were ever a marketing campaign designed to appeal directly to me, it would include candy, cute happy cartoon creatures, QR codes that subtly evoke said creatures, and a plethora of poetry with loose meter and slant rhyme! Oh, and it wouldn't hurt for it to be a celebration of nerds—because I've always considered myself to be one.

Or at least, I used to. Nowadays I'm not so sure. The question of whether I'm still a nerd or not consumed me so much that I decided I had to do some research on the subject. That took me so long and got so complex and gave me so much material that I could no longer justify putting it in the same blog post as my little ode to a cute candy-corporation campaign.

So here's where this one will end. Take some time to appreciate Nerds (the candy and the humans who inspired their name). The website and the rhyming stories are fun, and you might learn something! Go scan the blobby barcode above if you want to get there without typing. Marvel at the absolutely adorable cartoon mascots, and wonder, as I did, whether you can get them in stuffed animal form. (Answer: you can't, so maybe that's the marketing avenue the brand should take up next!)

And maybe, by the time you're done, I will have completed my investigation into the nuances of nerddom and published the second part of this essay. Maybe. But probably not!

Three breakups and a pandemic

These days, I usually try to be circumspect about how much personal stuff I share online, and if I do share, I like it to have a more universal purpose—some kind of takeaway that can benefit my readers. At first, I thought this post had totally failed in that. I thought it was a good old-fashioned self-pity party like I used to have in the old days. I almost decided not to post it at all. But the more I think about it, the more I see that this can be an inspirational tale. Or a cautionary tale. Or a tale of whatever you gain from hearing other people's stories. So sit down (it's long), and experience an increasingly rare glimpse into my heart. Just try to be gentle with it—it hurts!

It's March 12, the exact date that last year, my state's governor announced the first restriction on public gatherings, to slow the spread of the coronavirus. I'm glad to say that it looks like things are finally looking up, and like almost everybody else who writes stuff on the internet, I was planning to use this anniversary to do a little retrospective musing, perhaps share a few snappy tidbits about how life has changed since COVID.

But a few days ago, my subject matter took on an unexpected twist (because I'm not very good at dramatic suspense, I'll just tell you right now: my boyfriend broke up with me). So now, I'm taking this time to revisit not just the coronavirus era, but my last three relationships and the interstices between them. They all tell a story, and a year in quarantine is just the middle.

Eight years ago in January, my 7th boyfriend and I had a breakup. It was basically an accident; I went into the conversation thinking I wanted to clear up some concerns I had about our relationship; I ended it as a reluctant single lady. After I got over the initial heartache, though, I honestly wasn't too disappointed to become a single lady. It was during our tenure that I had finally learned how much fun life can be if you just act a little social, but we hadn't gotten out much together, so I was eager to experience the best of what city life had to offer!

What followed was a crazy couple of months. I went out clubbing; I got invited to parties (sometimes I brought my ex with me!); I did a fair amount of unenjoyable online dating; and eventually I ended up with my 8th boyfriend.

Though I kind of missed the thrill of meeting new guys once we paired up, I was happy to have a partner in crime. We spent a lot of our time living it up: going out at night, dancing, partying, and drinking—and I loved it. But he, who had been doing that kind of stuff for years before we met, was getting tired. Our relationship suffered a slow decline over nearly six years, from constant fun to the Valentine's Day that wasn't, to a breakup a week later.

Part of me was relieved that it was over, because we'd been growing apart for so long, but at the same time, we had been together for so long! I really didn't know how to be anything else!

Since our split happened around Mardi Gras, I gave up men for Lent, and focused on forming female friendships and becoming a strong independent woman. It worked, but it wasn't the life for me. As soon as Easter came around, I kicked into manic mode and jumped back into the dating scene! While being single in 2013 had been more downs than ups, I remembered how exciting the ups had been, and I wanted more of that! I had always loved trance music and concerts, but hadn't been to many. As soon as I was ready to mingle in 2019, I started going to a show almost every two weeks. And at every one of them, I had an absolute blast and met someone I was excited about. Then I met the one I was most excited about: boyfriend #9.

From June to the following March, he and I made concerts the centerpiece of our relationship; we didn't see each other often at first, but if there was a show in town, that was always a good excuse to meet up. I thought that someone 8 years my junior who I met at a concert would surely be up for lots of activities, but actually, other than for concerts, he wasn't often interested in going out. I sought out novelty on my own, through a women's Meetup group and my Bumble BFFs, but it just wasn't gratifying to me without a partner.

Sometimes I was disappointed that he wasn't as eager as me for constant activity, but our disparate drives for excitement were all moot when the coronavirus arrived and everything changed. I went from constantly striving for things to do and people to do them with, to just being at home. I was somewhat surprised how soon I grew to enjoy the quietude of a life unburdened by pressure to be moving and shaking. After a few isolating weeks, my boyfriend was permitted by his roommate to come visit me again, and we settled into a groove of after-work hangouts at my house, takeout dinner dates, and board games galore!

Our relationship was enough for me when our social circles narrowed, and I was feeling no further inclination to recommence the bustling life I'd led in the Before Times. I went into the COVID days desperate for excitement, but I was ready to go out of it with a comfortable sense that I'd had excitement enough. Although I was looking forward to attending concerts again, I also felt like I was ready to relax and enjoy a slower pace of life, with my slower-paced boyfriend by my side!

And then he ended things.

There are a lot of things that this breakup has in common with the last one: both occurred sometime around the intersection of February and March; both occurred for the same main reason (differing life goals, to be vague about it); and both involved an hours-long tear-filled conversation precipitated by a "We need to talk" (his words, not mine!).

There are also things that are vastly different. The last breakup (and the one before it), I was eager to have a chance to meet lots of people and explore my wild side...but this time, I don't feel like doing anything of the sort. Quarantine taught me that a quiet life isn't a bad life; it might even be the life that I prefer! Our final conversation as a couple really solidified for me how much my desires have changed, and I can't get over the irony that just when those desires were finally aligning more closely with my boyfriend's, that was when he stopped being my boyfriend.

A global pandemic did for me what years of experience did not: helped me to be happy with what I had. Now that I have something completely different, can I be happy with that too? My friends all tell me I've grown a lot since the last breakup—I'm more confident and less codependent. So this time around, can I just do my own thing and not need no man?

Haha, probably not. I know myself well enough to know that I am happier in a relationship, and as soon as I am over my devastation, I'll probably look for one again (in other words, no giving up dating for Lent!). But this time, I'm going to do things differently. I know I can do it, because I already have!

I had felt a lot of personal responsibility for the gradual demise of my previous relationship, so after it was over, I made some goals to be a better girlfriend next time around, and I'm pleased to say that I achieved all of them! In the process, I think I've evolved from seeking thrills to welcoming the quieter times that lead to a deeper connection. This doesn't mean I'll never go to concerts again, but I'm ready for a calmer, more deliberate approach when it comes to meeting boyfriend #10, whenever I'm ready for that to happen, and wherever I go from there.

 

So yes, my life has changed tremendously since COVID! As the world starts to return to normal, I don't feel like I have a normal to return to. But I'll figure out.

Adventures in Cooking: Broccamole

There are so many things that you can make with silken tofu! Smoothies, fruit dips, and stuff that is supposed to resemble cheese or pudding but doesn't—these are all popular tofu recipes. Basically, if it is supposed to be mushy, creamy, or somewhere in between, you can make an unconvincing vegan version of it with silken tofu!

If you have recently used some tofu to make creamed spinach that doesn't taste like creamed spinach, and still have some left over, you might want to search the internet for recipes you can use it in. Or not, because I've saved you the bother and hunted down the ultimate use for leftover tofu—it's broccamole!

This recipe has the kind of name that I enjoy inventing myself for other recipes I've tried — such as "tacofu" (tofu taco filling), and "no-tato salad" (potato salad made from cauliflower) — but this one came ready-made by the recipe author. The name alone is reason enough to give it a shot, but combined with the fact that it will help you use up the remains of a broccoli crown that you've had sitting around for just a tad too long make it a no-brainer!

Now, I've tried a lot of new recipes over the past year, but there's "trying recipes," and then there's "Adventures in Cooking!" I've realized there are actually a number of criteria that must be met in order for a kitchen session to qualify as a true Adventure:

1. You must attempt to make a smaller amount of food than specified by the original recipe
   
2. You must substitute, remove, or otherwise alter at least one ingredient
   
3. You must cut as many corners as possible during preparation
   
4. The process or outcome must be terrible, unexpected, or at least mildly comedic.
   

I'll leave it to you to tell me if I nailed #4, but in making broccamole, I followed the first three principles so diligently that it's not even worth trying to replicate the original recipe here. Instead, I'll just describe how you can follow the Rules of Adventuring so that they result in something that might be generously referred to as broccamole.

1. You must attempt to make a smaller amount of food than specified by the original recipe.

If you only have 1/4 a block of tofu and something like a cup of  broccoli florets, you're on the right track, because the recipe calls for more of both. The goal is to finish them each off, so don't worry about the exact ratio; just throw them in the blender and hope for the best! Since this lack of measurement means you can't neatly calculate the remainder of the ingredients, just guess on them all!

2. You must substitute, remove, or otherwise alter at least one ingredient

It's a good plan to not have most of the ingredients in the recipe. Try something like the following: Never buy fresh cilantro, because you'll only use a few sprigs of it for any given recipe and the rest will always go bad, even when you attempt to root it in water! So just use dried cilantro. Use the same principle for tomatoes, but instead of buying them dried (impossible), just wait to use them until they're on the verge of spoiling, then dice them and stick them in the freezer so you can at least use them in cooked food in the future. Then you will conveniently be lacking fresh tomatoes when it comes time to prepare this recipe the next day. Onion and jalapeno should never make it into any recipe, so enough said about them! The remaining ingredients (spices mostly) are easy! Most spices are overpowering when used as specified by a recipe, so feel free to just sprinkle them conservatively into the mixture until it smells right.

3. You must cut as many corners as possible during preparation.

The original recipe is only one step—but really 5 steps lazily combined into one, so the corners are already pre-cut, if you ask me!

4. The outcome must be terrible, unexpected, or at least mildly comedic.

Well, imagine what you would get if you took some mushy cooked broccoli and some tofu, and you pureed them together. That's what broccamole tastes like! Pretty terrible, right? Like most recipes that attempt to replace one ingredient with a healthier one, this food is nothing like the inspiration. It doesn't help that, in the absence of the onion, peppers, tomatoes, and fresh cilantro, the resulting substance has no mouth feel. But at least it's the right color! In the end, that's what's most important.

My first attempt at eating broccamole was just as terrible as you might expect from an Adventure in Cooking. I just dipped some leftover garlic bread in it and paired it with a side of lettuce. Somehow when combined with garlic bread, the spices in the broccamole could no longer be tasted; so it lost the one quality that gave it an edge over a jar of baby food.

On my second attempt, I got wise and added in some chopped bits of the remaining broccoli stem, for texture, and scooped the stuff over some black beans on a tortilla with olives. I even grated some carrot on top because I needed it to look cute for a picture. With the broccamole serving more as a condiment than the main event, it was much less disappointing. But hardly worth the effort at that rate. Unless I have more tofu to use up and no better ideas, I probably won't make it again.

In fact, I definitely won't make it again in the near future, because the broccamole broke my blender! Unexpected, right? My blender is a relic from the 1960's that I found on Craigslist for 10 dollars. Though the motor is still going strong, the plastic parts have all turned brittle, and there are a number of cracks in the blade assembly. When I finished blending my broccamole to find gooey gobs of greenish gunk all over the inside of the blender base, I decided I'd repaired it for the last time.

I'm getting a new blender, and this time, I'm getting one with a food processor function too. Truth be told, I was so spoiled by my last boyfriend's insanely powerful Vitamix that I might just be forced to spring for one of those. It's only 450 dollars.

So, mildly comedic? You see these tears in my eyes? They're totally tears of laughter. Totally.

Cuddling: A Dog's Guide to Next-Level Loafing

By Special Guest Blogger, Bilbo Baggins

In our last post, we mined the wisdom of expert canine, Bilbo Baggins, as he shared some napping tips he's learned over a 2-year lifetime of lazing about. Today he'll continue in that thread by digging deep into a subset of loafing that is beloved by humans and dogs alike!

The first half of my life was pretty awesome. I chased squirrels and balls and ate dog food and sometimes even human food! My human also left me alone every day, which gave me plenty of time for loafing. Then one day, my human stopped leaving! And, I didn't think it was possible, but my life became even more awesome!

As you can see, she has a thing she calls a "computer" in our house, which she uses for a thing she calls a "job," which she says means she's working. I don’t know how she can call it “working” when it doesn’t involve a bone, but I do know that it requires sitting in front of the computer, which is easy enough. If your human is working, you can help! The best position for working is with your chin on the desk and your booty in the human’s lap. Everyone is comfy this way! Working is so great!

Sometimes when I am loafing in another room, I will hear a dinging sound from the computer that means my human is probably going to have a meeting. I don't know what that is, but I do know it means my human will probably be talking. I love it when my human is talking! The best position to help your human while she is in a meeting is on her lap with your paws on her chest, so that you can easily bite at her face whenever she speaks. If you ever hear that funny ding, you should come running. You don't want to be late for your meeting!

 
Other ways you can ensure you don't get excluded from the workplace – and still get your loafing done at the same time – are: 

1. Surreptitiously interpose yourself between your human and her chair.

 

2.  Take up the entirety of her chair. At first, you might feel a bit guilty about this, because you are a dog and your human is glaring at you, but I have it on good authority that working is important for humans, and working means sitting on a chair, so you are definitely being helpful!
 

3.  Drape yourself over your human while she is on her chair. This is apparently the most effective of working postures. My human is always telling me to get off when I do this, which must mean that we have completed all the work! What a team!

 

One of the best ways to ensure lots of joint loafing time with your human is to have an out-of-control furry coat like I do. This means that once a month, she will have to sit down on the floor and groom you. The clippers will feel a little weird on your ear hair, but it’s worth it, because it means over an hour of non-stop cuddling and hand-feeding! This is a relaxing and cozy time for everyone involved!
 
By far the best way, however, to spend quality time loafing with your human is to do it when there are no distractions: no meetings, no tickly clippers, just you and your bestest favoritest friend! This is easy: just find your human when she is lying down, and position yourself on top of her.

The chest and back are classic options, but if you haven’t learned to cuddle with human legs, you’re missing out! When the legs are positioned properly, you can be fully surrounded on all sides by a secure, protective friend. Legs are way better than a dog bed, which is perfectly sized to your body and has no pokey bones and was designed exclusively for you to sleep in, and I’ll tell you why: because the legs are made out of your beloved human! How could any nest be more perfect!?

 
And that, my friends, is the pinnacle of dog comfort and lying-down mastery. I have no more to say...except a small reminder to any humans who happen to be reading this. It is inspired by a wise saying I would have seen once on a pillow, if I could only read:

“If you want the best seat in the house, you can’t have it, because it’s you!”

A Lazy Dog's Guide to Loafing

By Special Guest Blogger, Bilbo Baggins!

Life is hard when you're a domestic dog—so much human food to beg for, so many balls to chase, so many suspicious characters to bark at! Sometimes it's enough to make you just want to lie down and nap! But how?

Don't worry, our special guest blogger and expert on being a dog, Bilbo Baggins, has your hindquarters! With his vast experience in strategic lounging, he will guide you through a compendium of possible poses and get you well on your way to Doggy Dreamland!

A question I get from a lot of dogs is, “When I get the urge to loaf around, where should I do it?” 

The answer is easy: Any time your human puts something on the floor, that is an invitation for you to sit down on it. Outfits she has laid out for the next day and her yoga mat are the best of the best, but don’t overlook the less cushy objects either. Even the smallest shopping bag is a gift from your human and must be sat upon! 

Empty cardboard boxes don’t sound very comfortable, but what the human wants, the human gets! She will always take a photo of you when you sit in a box, so that’s how you know you’ve been a good boy!

If you haven’t tried sitting in the suitcase, you really must! This opportunity only comes around once in a while (usually when the human is planning to abandon you!), so act quickly when you see it! Your goal is to get your fur all over the human’s possessions so she doesn’t forget about you while she’s gone.

If the object you are lying on is too hard and flat for your liking, you might want to employ a trick I learned from my ancestors. Simply poke and pull at it with your paws and turn around a couple of times until it is no longer flat. You will have a bed of perfectly arranged lumps in no time! Definite improvement!

There’s one thing you shouldn't ever bother lying down on, though: your dog bed. Basically, if it’s got the word “dog” in it, you don’t want it! Freshly folded laundry is a better choice every time!

For some reason, my human doesn’t like me to sit on the couch (she says it has something to do with my tendency to puke on it! As if!) If your human is the same way and does mean things like put metal grates on the couch so you can’t sit on it even if she’s not looking and there’s absolutely zero chance that you’re going to barf up that combination of grass and dust bunnies you ate earlier, you can at least let her know how you feel by sleeping mournfully as close to the couch as you can possibly get. Much sad!

 

Pro Tip: One of my favorite places to get some shuteye is behind the toilet. My human thinks that’s because it’s a nice cool spot in the dog days of summer, but really I’m just trying to make her feel sorry for not letting me on the couch. Someday she’ll catch on!

 

In case you, too, are trying to guilt your human into sharing her couch with you, and the toilet trick just isn’t reaching her, try pressing your face into the leg of a chair. This sends a sure message of pitiful imprisonment. It’s a metaphor any human should understand!...except mine. I’ll keep working on her.

My friends, I am a dog of few words (in fact, I have said zero in my entire life!), but when it comes to loafing, I've barely gotten started! My human says she knows a thing or two about blogging, and that I'd better split this into two posts. So just steady... steady... 

And come! (back tomorrow, when I'll have another helpful guide to my favorite kind of loafing of all!)

Dog Mom Level: 500?

You might recall that last year, I rigged up a stroller to be a wheeled dog carrier and trained my little pupster to enjoy riding around in it. That was a great solution for conveying him around a public transit system, but since I haven't ridden Metro since March and don't plan on doing so in the foreseeable future, the stroller hasn't really seen much use. Well, he still loves to jump up and sit in it for no reason, though, so I guess that's an accomplishment I'll never undo!

This year, I decided to up my dog transport game and find a way to bring him with me when I ride my bike. My first idea was a trailer, like some parents use to carry their human children. I actually salvaged an abandoned bike trailer from the curb, but it was missing so many parts that I never got around to converting it for use with a dog. And that's just as well, because my second idea was a better one—I'd carry my dog in a backpack!

There are companies that make special backpacks specifically designed for dog transport. For a few months, I had one of them on my Amazon wishlist. But I could just not see my way to spending 50+ on something that might not even work. So I decided to test out the concept with a backpack I already had.

In a months-long process involving lots of treats and tennis-ball-chasing sessions, I trained Bilbo to love sitting on top of the backpack, then tolerate being inside the backpack, then tolerate being carried in the backpack, then carried on a bike in the backpack. 

 

Training in progress!

It was a big accomplishment this summer when I was able to bike with him all the way to campus where I work, because that meant I'd henceforth be able to bring my dog to the office whenever I wanted! You know, whenever the office reopened, that is.

Well, the office reopened, and today was my first day back. Naturally, I took my dog, which means we, together, have survived a full day at the office and a round-trip bike ride using a dog backpack! I have been so successful with my trial backpack, that I decided it's not necessary to invest in a special dog backpack from Amazon. The regular-old secondhand backpack (with a few slight modifications to make it easier to get a dog into it and harder for a dog to fall out of it!) is quite sufficient.

In spite of it being a success in almost every way, I can't help but feel that my dog backpack is a little anticlimactic after creating the dog stroller (which was a much more impressive feat of craftsmanship at very least), so I decided to construct a comparison chart to lay the matter to rest, and maybe help other DIYers out there decide where to invest their energies when they feel the need for more dog mobility!

	Dog Stroller	Dog Backpack
Allows you to bike with your dog	❌	✔️
Allows you to take your dog on DC Metro	✔️	❌
Takes up very little space	❌	✔️
Protects your shoulders from carrying a squirming 20-pound burden on your back	✔️	❌
Elicits reactions like "Aww," and "Hahaha" and "I love your dog!" from random passersby	❌	✔️
Unequivocally qualifies you as a "Dog Mom"	✔️	❌
Costs nothing in supplies (assuming you already have a backpack and a stroller and some basic sewing notions)	❌	✔️
Is an impressive feat of craftsmanship	✔️	❌
Allows you to feel like a dog trainer extraordinaire	✔️	✔️

 

Well, folks, looks like it's a tossup! The relative merits of the different methods of canine conveyance are highly situational, but one thing is clear: You're more of a "dog mom" when you're pushing your dog around in a stroller than when you are carrying him in a backpack! So if having that status is important for you, then by all means go for Dog Mom Level 1000 and make yourself a stroller. But if you're like me, and your present lifestyle is more suited to biking everywhere you go, then you might be happier with a backpack.

Bilbo and I clearly leveled down, but we're upwardly mobile and ready to work like dogs at the office! That is, once I can get him to stop barking his head off at every person who comes down the hallway. Next training project: Social Skills!