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Paging Dr. Banner

Posted on May 13, 2020 by Minna Hong • 0 Comments

Captain America: Dr. Banner. Now might be a really good time for you to get angry.

Dr. Banner (with a wry smile over his shoulder as he’s walking forward): That’s my secret, Cap. (Pauses, drops smile) I’m always angry. (Hulks out.)

I didn’t care much for The Avengers (the first movie, which is the only I saw), but this line stuck with me. Here it is in video form:

This is me, and I’ve never heard it put so succinctly. You don’t need the backstory of The Incredible Hulk to understand what Dr. Banner is saying, but it helps. Very basically, Banner’s Hulk mode runs on rage. In the earlier films/comics, he had a hard time controlling it. I haven’t read it in some time, so I might be misremembering it, but he tried to tamp down his anger and he would get caught off-guard by it and bad things happened as a result. In this movie, again, as much as I can remember, which isn’t much, he’s pretty chill most of the time. So, him saying this showed that he had gotten a handle on his temper and controlled it rather than it controlling him.

I feel this so hard. I am angry all the time, but I’m still in the ‘trying to control it’ phase. I dealt with it for two decades by numbing out. For many years, I couldn’t feel anything at all. I was seriously and chronically depressed, and everything was stuffed way down deep. It’s hard to look back at the younger me without wincing at what a hot mess she was. But, instead of embarrassment, I feel sorrow and compassion for her.

I’ve been sick these past few days. Not sure exactly what, but it’s either sinuses or allergies. Perhaps both. We’ve been having weird weather (supposedly polar vortex?) with frost warnings at night. We almost had snow last week, but it was just a bit too warm. I’m so fucking exhausted. I snoozed on and off all last evening. I’m not able to do much of anything, and I have no interest in anything. I know that’s depression, but it’s more than that. My nose feels as if it’s being pricked over and over again by a thousand tiny needles, and my brain is full of cotton. I concede it might be the cusp of a migraine, too, but whatever it is, I just can’t find the wherewithal to give a shit.

You won’t like me when I’m angry

Posted on July 17, 2019 by Minna Hong • 0 Comments

We’re going through a heatwave here in MN. And by heatwave, I mean three days of ‘feels like’ 90+. I broke down yesterday and set the AC at 75 (I normally have it at 78, but I noticed I had perma-held it at 76 when I went to bump it down to 75). That’s surprisingly high for Americans if anecdote is data, which it isn’t, but it might as well be. Yes, I hate heat, but I also am trying to be environmentally conscious, and I hate wasting money. But, yesterday, I lost my shit when I woke up at 8:30 a.m. to my AC going off. It was already 88 degrees, and it was only going to get hotter. I decided to indulge myself for one full day before going back to my parsimonious ways.

I also have a fan blowing on my at high speed 24/7. That may seem like overkill to other people, but other people are not living in my very overheated skin.

Side note: I used to have hyperthyroidism, and now, I have hypothyroidism. You’re supposed to be never feel cold with the former and always feel cold with the latter. That explains why I never felt cold when I was younger, but not now.

The thermostat wars are very real. My BFF and her husband always argued about it. He’s more like me and would have happily never used the heater ever. She, on the other hand, is the one that when we used to go out in the winter, would pull her coat close to her, shiver, and demand to know why I wasn’t feeling the cold. She would say, “Isn’t your spine scrunching up?” I would retort that it made me feel alive, and we would laugh. It was all in good fun, just as me saying I would kill the sun with the heat of a thousand, well, suns, and she would get more energy from being outside.

She and her husband came to a compromise that neither of them were very happy about. Oh! This is a nonnegotiable for me in a relationship, by the way. Not that someone needs to love the cold the way I do, but that they understand that five minutes in the heat can deplete me to the point of needing to rest for several hours.

Back to my friend. She’s dealing with menopause now which makes her feel hot–which is a novice feeling for her. her husband is finding that he can tolerate the cold less as he gets older. They’ve switched to him wanting to bump the heater and her needing it colder, and she’s said to him, “Now you know how I’ve felt for twenty years!” while staring at him in the eyes and slowly turning the thermostat down. Ok, not the last bit because she’s a nice person, but it’s amusing how they’ve switched places.