DIAGNOSIS

''DIAGNOSIS.'' ''Find out what is wrong with you.'' [[Start here.|Q1]] or [[Read about the project.|About]]

1. You wake up at night. Your phone glows 3:45. You woke up because suddenly your bed turned hot. And then you were hot. You, too, are glowing, you swear. You wonder what happened. Is it because: [[The vodka tonic you had last night is working itself out.]] [[Your partner has the flu, and heat is spilling your way from the other side of the bed.]] [[You have the flu.]] [[The heat came on, it’s an old building. It’s either hot or not.]] [[The other thing.|TOT1]]

You check the heat. You get out of bed and walk to the pipe that ususally gets hot first. And it is cold. It is so cold that it actually feels good to lean your forehead against it. [[It must be something else.|Q1]]

*There is talk now, public discourse, about THE OTHER THING. You are grateful for it. But there's not too much of it. There is, it seems, a time and a place for discussions of the other thing. Unlike the other thing itself, which is everything everywhere and all at once. It flares up when you do not need it. Or at night. You wonder whether Charlize Theron wakes up at 3:45 in a glow-state. When the other thing is talked about, it’s tied to more anonymous bodies, although famous bodies might well experience the other thing. Gladys Y. and Theresa G., for example, are women who participate in the discourse primarily as examples, as sufferers. These example-bodies are very separate from famous bodies. But the owners of these example bodies speak about waking up at night, at 2:34 or at 4:13, glowing hot. And the doctors who are part of the discourse confirm, that the other thing is likely the cause of the glow. You notice: Anything famous bodies experience but don't talk about has some sort of stigma.* [[Proceed. |Q2]]

2. It’s during the day. You are working. Let’s say you are teaching a class of mostly 19 year olds. You suddenly feel your face flush. It feels like embarrassment feels. Although there was nothing that should have made you feel embarrassed. You were talking about ... something innocuous…The Sapir Whorf Hypothesis. You furtively touch your cheeks. They are hot. Dammit. Also like embarrassment: Cold sweat collects under your armpits. You hope you are wearing something with loose sleeves. Just to be safe, you keep your arms closer to your body. Which curtails your normlaly gesture-rich life. Just as well. Signals that you should be taking up less space have flashed your way plenty of times recently. You soldier through the embarrassment. You assign an in-class writing task. At one point, while the students have their heads in their books, you furtively look at your phone, in selfie-mode. Yes, the red in your face is visible. Did this reddening happen becasue: [[You had that coffee and coffee does things to glands and bloodvessels.]] [[Because you are now again as socially awkward as you were in your teenage years. As if the decades of practice and learning hadn’t settled you with any confidence at all.]] [[COVID. You haven’t spent enough time in social situations, and now it’s awkward and sweaty for all of us.]] [[The other thing.|TOT2]]

You did have coffee, and you have had coffee every day for many years. Even yesterday you had coffee WITHOUT experiencing embarrassment. You have done everything the way you do it every day. [[Something else must be going on.|Q2]]

That's a good theory. You have lost confidence. You notice it in the way you dress now, for example. You mainly try to shift attention away from your body. The closer your outfit is to an invisibity cloak, the better. At 13, you wore Champion sweaters that had a similar purpose. And there are many other ways in which (insert your age here) feels like 13. Minus the boundless energy. Plus a good helping of fatigue. Doesn't this just bring up more questions though? Why this? Why now? [[Maybe it's ...|TOT2]]

That's possible. But why does this embarrassement hit during WEEK 9 of your teaching??? Why didn't it hit when you were discussing Memes and people brought up less innocuous examples??? [[Maybe it's more than that.|Q2]]

3. And then there is something else that’s been happening. You have held on to...ingested things…longer than necessary, in other words: constipation. You’ve noticed lately that the way your body used to rid itself of waste has gone off course. Or slowed down? For the first time, you see a Metamucil ad (how did this get onto your streaming service?) and really take it in. You wonder why things are abandoning regularity. Is it because: [[Stress. It has been stressful. The state of the world. A planet on fire. Politics and absurdity tilting into each other.]] [[Stress. Your mother had another operation. Your partner had an operation. You handled logistics and a hightened sense of mortality.]] [[Stress. The commute is back! Two hours a day in tunnels in close proximity with so much humanity. Best and worst of it. The guy eating a burrito while staring at people, waiting for a challenge.]] [[Stress. Your energy is frayed because you have too many jobs.]] [[The other thing.|TOT3]]

4. You accidentally took a picture of yourself on your cell phone while you were checking [[your redness level.|Q2]] An unlucky sequence of butterfinger moves resulted in you capturing yourself as you were looking down at your screen. And as any Instagram-savvy 13-year-old knows, this is a detrimentally BAD angle. You didn't notice that you took a photo. You encounter the picture a couple of days later, while looking for a sunset you documented recently. Boom. Here it is. Not red sky, red face. You freeze. WHAT IS HAPPENING TO YOU? Your skin, more specifically. In addition to being red, it seems to want to fall down toward the lens. You think of a cartoon (did you look over someone’s shoulder at a New Yorker?) that had replaced the tooth fairy with the jowl fairy. The jowl fairy seems to be visiting YOU. Is this because: [[That vodka-tonic or two you had the night before you took that photo is just giving you that hang-over dullness.]] [[The light source was at an especially awful position throwing shadows where shadows should not be.]] [[These HD cameras see more than the naked eye.]] [[The other thing.|TOT4]]

5. You walk into a room. It is a room in your house. It’s the bathroom. You stand in the bathroom, as if having been autopiloted here. Or as if dropped here by something like a teleporter? One question looms large: "WHY DID I COME IN HERE?" You check in with your body. It wasn’t to use the toilet or to wash your hands. You simply do not know why you are here. The only thing you know is that this question —"why did I come here?"— has been stopping you in your tracks almost daily for the past year. Is this because: [[Stress. You are overworked and have too many things on your mind.]] [[Long Covid. You did have Covid and perhaps it’s longer than you thought.]] [[A sign of a brain tumor? Or a sign of dementia?]] [[Multitasking. If you hadn’t been walking around your apartment plugged into a podcast, perhaps you would have remembered.]] [[The other thing.|TOT5]]

8. You are reading a steamy, steamy novel and get to the steamiest part, and you read it and mostly think about the hard work words have to do to co-mingle and evoke an erotic atmosphere. The words say one thing and you read: flesh-based engineering instructions. The words, you notice, really make an effort, and you want to pat them and say, “good job,” while sighing and admitting that you have become immune to anything they produce. You remember yourself at 13 when you returned to reading the same tame kiss passage from a YA book and the words clarified what desire feels like. And now you’ve gotten used to a new immunity. This immunity isn’t good. It isn’t good at all for your partner. But it’s made your body chiefly something like a wheelbarrow for your mind. Is this because of: [[Stress again. It has been stressful. The state of the world. The planet on fire. And you have too many jobs.]] [[You've achieved an intellectually refined state. 100% thought and 0% instinct.]] [[The other thing.|TOT8]]

This is true. Stress does affect your personal waste management system. You could let it go here and start looking at ways to de-stress. Except: You know that "stress" is the answer you give every time you prefer not to probe. "Stress" is such an easy anwer. It's true, and it's an accepted and de-stigmatized diagnosis. Maybe today you choose to probe and look at [[the other thing.|TOT3]]

This is true. You have a lot of caretaking to do right now. It is stessful, and stress does affect your personal waste management system. You could let it go here and start looking at ways to de-stress. Except: You know that "stress" is the answer you give every time you prefer not to probe. "Stress" is such an easy anwer. It's true, and it's an accepted and de-stigmatized diagnosis. Maybe today you choose to probe and look at [[the other thing.|TOT3]]

This is true. The NYC subway is stressful —and there was that time when two guys faced off in your train car with weapons drawn, and the times you saw a guy jerking off, and the time the rat made everyone jump onto the orange seats— and stress does affect your personal waste management system. You could let it go here and start looking at ways to de-stress. Except: You know that "stress" is the answer you give every time you prefer not to probe. "Stress" is such an easy anwer. It's true, and it's an accepted and de-stigmatized diagnosis. Maybe today you choose to probe and look at [[the other thing.|TOT3]]

This is true. You do have too many jobs, and stress does affect your personal waste management system. You could let it go here and start looking at ways to de-stress. Except: You know that "stress" is the answer you give every time you prefer not to probe. "Stress" is such an easy anwer. It's true, and it's an accepted and de-stigmatized diagnosis. Maybe today you choose to probe and look at [[the other thing.|TOT3]]

This would be the first time that vodka-tonic results in next-day jowls. You've had puffy eyes and grey skin before. But red skin and jowls? [[Try another threory.|Q4]]

Sigh. These HD cameras do see more. But they do not see what is not there. [[Maybe consider the other thing.|TOT4]]

6. The other day, while talking to a friend during a walk, you wanted to make a point about language and its...something? Anyway, you couldn’t think of the word “discipline.” You were stuck at the beginning of the sentence. Did this happen because of: [[Self-protection. You did not care to talk about discipline. It’s a frightful concept at this time.]] [[Bilingualism. Sometimes your languages get called up at the same time and block each other from articulation.]] [[Word overflow. At this stage, working in a field that concerns itself with language, you have too many words at your disposal, and none are quite right.]] [[Stress! You are overworked and have too many things on your mind.]] [[The other thing.|TOT6]]

7. You are noticing that print is getting smaller! Again. Perhaps you are looking at an actual newspaper and not the one on your phone, where someone has apparently incrementally adjusted the font size. This gradual decrease in font size has been happening for a few years. Now, there is an added smudge or blur, and your eyes feel dry and scratchy. Is this because: [[Your entire worklife is on-screen since the pandemic. And your screen time equals your awake time. So, of course, there is strain.]] [[Somehow the new eye cream is seeping beyond your lids and onto your eyeball -scratching it.]] [[You were only imagining that things have precise shapes and looking at the world should be pain-free. The way your eyes see now, THAT’S reality.]] [[The other thing.|TOT7]]

9. You are at home, just standing in the living room, assembling your bag for the day. Perhaps you are putting whiteboard markers into a side pocket of your bag, when, suddenly, your heart begins to throw itself against the bars of your ribcage. With each beat, and in a repeated frenzy, this heart is looking for a way out. You drop the bag and put your hands on your ribcage. You think you might have an attack of some sort. Heart? Anxiety? You don’t know why this heart revolt came on just now. Nothing out of the ordinary has been happening (as far as you know) to merit this...what? You read online and find out that you just had palpitations. Which are a symptom of: [[An anxiety attack.]] [[Stress. The world is on fire. Everyone around you is having an operation and you have too many jobs.]] [[Caffeine sensitivity. You depend on coffee for the stealthy energy required by your profession. But you've overdone it.]] [[The other thing.|TOT9]]

This is true. You could let it go here and start looking at ways to de-stress. Except: You know that "stress" is the answer you give every time you prefer not to probe. "Stress" is such an easy anwer. It's true, and it's an accepted and de-stigmatized diagnosis. Maybe today you choose to probe and look at [[the other thing.|TOT5]]

Absolutely possible. Sure, look into long Covid and look for how often it coincides with night sweats, sagging skin, rosacea, and constitpation. Or go with something [[more probable first.|TOT5]]

Really? You know, we can't stop you from thinking of the worst care scenario. Sure, look into early onset dementia and tumors and look for how often they coincide with night sweats, sagging skin, and constitpation. Or go with something [[more probable first.|TOT5]]

Yes. If you could stop multi-tasking, you'd be sharper. And you'd likely remember... whatever it is you need to remember...? How did you get to this answer option? Why did you come here? [[What was the question?|Q5]]

This is a pratial truth. You do not care to think about discipline. You have no discipline. You've had to describe yourslelf as multi- trans- cross-disciplinary. And when people ask you about your area of expertise, you have to launch into a complicated Venn diagram that makes people's eyes glaze over. You have been disciplined plenty, but it didn't end in a discipline. See, now you'll never again forget that word. [[But really this is about forgetting, not the forgetting of discipline.|Q6]]

This is a partial truth. You do feel that your languages get jammed at the exit sometimes. But this theory doesn't hold for "discipline." Because its German version is "Disziplin." [[Try something else. |Q6]]

Not really. You do experince exteneded inner conflicts about choosing a right word. Sometimes it can take you 40 minutes to write a two sentence email. But when you are looking for the right word, you are usually weighing several options. In this scenario, there weren't several options in your inner file. That inner file was B-L-A-N-K. Instead a banner saying "What's the WORD??" flashed ferociously. [[Try another option.|Q6]]

This is not untrue. When your phone sends you your weekly screen time report, you are often shocked. Sometimes the number can only work because you must have been looking at two screens at once. But: the blur and the scratch? [[There might be a more fitting option.|Q7]]

Okay. That's a solid theory. You have been a little crazy with the eye creams. You've tried four different ones in the span of a month. You tried medical, fancy brand, natural oil, natural cream. And you have slathered. These eye creams definitely breached the lid whenever you rubbed your eyes in your sleep. So, let's add a question: Why the recent obsession with eye-cream? Could that have to do with [[the other thing.|TOT7]]

10. One of the plusses of your sex and your particular genetic composition, you always thought, was the placement of hair on your body. Lots and steady on top. Fine and invisible on the chin. Sparse and manageable elsewhere. Your hair is dark, and plenty of times have you heard your hair-cutter say something like: "Oh my god, you have so much hair. It’s fine, but you have so much of it." This has always been oddly comforting. During the pandemic, Zoom trained your eye to spot your own imperfections. You started coloring your hair. It might have been your hair stylist's idea, but you kept it up. For one reason: You believe grey hair in women is a sign of distinction and achievement. Without distinction and achievement, grey hair is just a sign of having fallen short (you will not probe, for now, where this belief comes from). You will, you are certain, stop coloring your hair once you have achieved distinction. Lately, you’ve started noticing a few hairs on your pillow in the morning, a few in the sink after you wash your face, and a few too many (throughout the day) appearing on your keyboard. One Saturday, you take a leisurely shower and wash your hair. After you finish, you dry yourself, put on your glasses, and want to clean/rinse the tub. This is one of your good habits. You look at the tub and freeze. A smattering of nests patterns the white porcelain. Upon closer inspection, these nests look like small erratic piles of thread. And they have one thing in common. The thread they are made of is your hair! Hair that was once securely lodged on your head. What is happening? [[It isn't your hair. The cat has taken all its hairballs to the tub for a wash.]] [[A vitamin deficiency. You have been eating weirdly, and also your nails have been brittle.]] [[A side-effect from coloring your hair? Perhaps the chemicals cause follicular discontent and, consequently, shedding.]] [[The other thing.|TOT10]]

Again? Really? Yes. The stress of all this could certainly give you: [[An anxiety attack.]]

You did have coffee, and you have had coffee every day for many years. Even yesterday you had coffee WITHOUT experiencing heart explosions. You have done everything the way you do it every day. [[Something else must be going on.|Q9]]

11. You feel….decidedly “meh” lately. And by lately you mean the last couple of years. You read an article in AARP magazine —nevermind how you got that copy— that ageism in hiring is a definite thing and that employment discrimination is experienced by adults over…(insert your age here). You listen to a podcast advertisement for a show that covers dating for “silver singles” and are shocked to discover that silver begins at….(insert your age here). You remember laughing at this sketch “Last Fuckable Day” and now, as you watch it again, you just stare. This was a different flavor of funny when you were (insert your age in 2015). You imagine yourself in a boat floating to oblivion. All this causes you to question your place in society —should you still be out in public, now?— and so you take stock of your accomplishments. The short list you come up with makes you very very tired, so you lie down and close your eyes. And you keep you eyes closed for the next few days. Your partner asks you if you’re depressed. You say no although you are not sure and blame your intense rest-desire on: [[Stress! Your energy is frayed because you have too many jobs.]] [[The state of the world. A planet on fire. Politics and absurdity tilting into each other.]] [[The persistent smoke content in the air (drifting over from Canada). It hurts your eyes and they just have to rest a bit.]] [[Covid Hangover. It’s been a while. But, maybe, this fatigue is an aftereffect?]] Your partner sits at your bed and suggests, gently, that this might be: [[The other thing.|TOT11]]

12. You almost break up with your partner of 12 years because you cannot figure out how to settle a small Christmas tree into its stand. One of you has to hold the tree, while the other tightens the screws. But that’s not the whole story. Noooooo! It all started because when you bought the tree, which came with a stand, and your partner said, "We won’t take the stand we have stand at home." "I am not," she said, "paying 15 dollars for a plastic stand." And you said, "Are you sure we have a stand at home? I recall you tossing last year’s stand into the recycling because you always say we have too much stuff." She is sure. So, okay. You do not buy the stand and then at home, you try to put up the tree, and there is no stand. She says she’ll go out and find a cheaper stand, not one for 15 dollars. And she goes out and comes back with a shitty stand that cost $14.99. Bravo! And it’s such a shitty stand that you cannot figure out how to secure the tree in it. "THE TREE," you yell, "is TOO SMALL for this SHITTY BIG STAND!!!!!" And you are seething at a level that suggests this tree conversation is loaded with several seismic layers of subtext and resentments. You say, "I have no patience for this. I have to WORK." You sit down and open your laptop. Rage particles ping like pinballs around your solar plexus. Then you see your partner trying to make the tree bigger (so it will fit the stand) with layers of duct tape. It won't work. And: She shouldn't be doing any of this! She just had an operation!! You think about moving to a boat ALONE, so you do not become violent. You cannot believe how something so trivial —you remind yourself that it is trivial. It is trivial!— can lead to such ANGER against your loved one. And you do love her. You do. It this happening because of: [[Stress.]] [[Subtext and resentments.]] [[The other thing.|TOT12]]

Nice try. You haven't had a cat since 2011. [[Try again.|Q10]]

You are already taking a mix of powders, shakes, pills, and capsules. Unless there is a vitamin they haven’t figured out how to sell, that’s not it. [[There has to be a better option.|Q10]]

N.O. That’s not it. Hair processing can cause breakage. Your hair is not broken; it has the follicle attached. [[So, something else.|Q10]]

Your partner says, "Yes, it's been bad. [[Anything else?|Q11]]"

Your partner says, "Yes. Covid can last a while. [[Anything else?|Q11]]"

[[No.|Q12]]

Hell hath no fury like a person deemed past their prime. Yes, so much resentment, but not at her. It's [[the other thing.|TOT12]]

YOU ARE: PERI | MENOPAUSAL! [[Congratulations.|TITLE]]

*You talk to your friends about THE OTHER THING. You wonder if they, too, feel their skin getting thinner and redder. Well, they say, this thing is in a way a reverse puberty. And it does come in phases. There is nothing predictable and steady about it. The friends that have teenage daughters recognize a reverse version of their daughters' wild becoming: A wild undoing that holds a wild becoming within. Except the new wild becoming won't be celebrated by the world at large. The world at large will only get you something like a frequent vaccinator pass, becasue you now have to get more vaccines each fall. Don't forget the shingles vaccine. If you want to celebrate, you do it furtively with your friends who know. And you do it by talking about it. And saying all these things aloud. Whenever a man enters, or a child, or a much younger woman, you stop talking. Why? The one time you didn’t stop, you experienced a look of panic that you do not care to see again. When someone enters, you have learned, you swiftly move the conversation to HGTV.* [[Proceed. |Q3]]

*You listen to a health and wellness podcast about THE OTHER THING that a friend sent you. The podcast host, a man, interviews a medical doctor, a woman, about the other thing. They also talk about things adjacent to the other thing. You listen intently. The woman doctor talks about constipation and its higher incidence in women, generally. The man asks her why that is."Why do more women suffer from constipation?" She has a [[one-word answer]], which she delivers kind of dead-pan. After she says it, there is a glorious moment of dead air. And you laugh out loud. Over the years, she explains, the stress inflicted by the general daily soup of it compounds. You think about how you're trying to take up less space already by keeping your arms closer to your body. And now you’re also holding your waste in. It feels like you’re on your way to fossilization. Some clay version of you is trying to find final rigidity via its own built in furness.* [[Proceed. |Q4]]

*You look at other bodies, famous bodies, that you know must be afflicted by THE OTHER THING and the same sagging disease —eventually, the affliction comes for everyone!!— and scrutinize how they show up on social media and in magazines. Not a trace of the affliction is visible on their faces and their bodies. Filtered, filler-ed, plumped, toned. In bikinis. And sleek dresses. Captured from only the best angles. Without professional help, they would be just as visibly afflicted as you are! You yell the invisible diagnosis at them. Well, at pictures of them. This makes you feel better. Cate Blanchett, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jennifer Lopez, Jennifer Aniston, Cameron Diaz, Lucy Liu, Queen Latifah – ALL OF YOU ARE GOING THROUGH “THE OTHER THING”!!!* [[Proceed. |Q5]]

*You talk to your friends about brain fog as part of THE OTHER THING. A friend with a lot of knowledge about alternative medicine, recommends mushroom supplements and ginko biloba. Also, you talk about herbal pre-packeaged remedies, that end in (or begin with) "estro," and you read about estrogen-rich foods, like seeds and tofu. Your friend reports that she has adjusted her meals, and that it makes a difference. And when yet another friend enters the conversations, you suddenly feel like Shakepeare’s three witches gathering around a cauldron (except that you are gathering around a pile of supplement pouches and pill bottles) talking about concoctions, potions, elixirs, conjuring a secret recipe. At home, you now mix powders into potions in your kitchen: you begin with a green powder, add a brown powder, and top it off with a heaped tablespoon of collagen. The drink tastes like a puddle on Flatbush Avenue sweetened with Stevia. If life shall taste like this, you might prefer not to taste it. Is this the answer?...What was the question?* [[Proceed. |Q6]]

*Sometimes this sudden loss of language is absurd. Almost daily, you begin to say something to your partner and suddenly stop mid-sentence. You've lost the context and the goal. There's nothing to be retrieved. You have to begin a new sentence. A new topic. You think of a poem about forgetting and age. It begins with: "The name of the author is the first to go..." Who wrote it? ...You'll have to look it up again. But you suspect that the syllable "ills" is somehow involved. And now you understand why your partner, who is a bit older than you are, always found this poem so poignant.* [[Proceed. |Q7]]

*The friend, who is your age, says about THE OTHER THING: "Fuck this thing. It’s breaking my most important parts. My eyes and my vagina. I was using those. There are plenty of parts I am not using, but I am reading for a living, and I’d like to have sex." I know what she means, about the eyes. I keep looking at people who wear thick glasses (glasses like mine). Mostly they are older people, and the way they look at the world —with strain and longing— feels familiar. About the vagina... well, that's another story.* [[Proceed. |Q8]]

*You mention to your friend that these days you can only feel mildly excited, at best. And not about sex, but about a job prospect or a happy hour drink discount. She laughs at your “mild excitement” and says that to celebrate that mild excitement, she’ll hire you a stripper who’ll show up in sweatpants and won’t really try. You think about your ideal stripper, and yes: in sweatpants, leaning against the doorframe with a supremely bored look and no intention to strip or dance. They would just toss pictures of Cate Blanchett wearing suits in your general direction – that’s as much as you can handle right now.* [[Proceed. |Q9]]

*You are afraid this will happen again. And then it does. One morning, while you are walking to the subway, your heart tries to make a break for freedom again. You have to stop and lean against a trash can. Later that day, you look up palpitations online and are almost glad to find the word listed as a symptom of the other thing. Someone even made a bingo card of symtoms. When you check off heart palpitations, you have an unbroken line across the board.* [[Proceed. |Q10]]

*In August, you walk with a friend (you and she talk about the other thing) who tells you she is taking a pill for hair loss. (It’s basically Rogaine. And once you start taking it, you cannot ever stop it. Or else, all the hair that grew while you took it will fall out again.) At the time, you wonder how bad hair loss could be. Now you know, and you ponder whether you should commit to a life-long regimen of hair pills (you’d already have a pill buddy) or just SHAVE YOUR HEAD.* [[Proceed. |Q11]]

*Your partner keeps sitting by your bed, and you tell her all the things from 1-10. No-one turns on the light. The room is dark. She tells you about her experience with the other thing. She tells you to be astonished and curious about all the things your body does to adapt. She tells you to talk to your doctor, maybe? You had thought of that. But you'll have to find a doctor first. A change in health plan has canceled your old doctor.* [[Proceed. |Q12]]

*By now you know.* [[Proceed to Diagnosis |FINAL DIAGNOSIS]]

[[PATRIARCHY|TOT3]]

Since when does one vodka tonic work itself out with such ferocity? Not unless it was spiked. Which it wasn't. You have beend drinking for (insert your age minus 16) years and... you know better. [[Try again.|Q1]]

You check your partner. You put your hot hand on her warm forehead. She's sleeping right through your touch. And she's exactly as warm as a body under blankets should be. She's not the radiator. [[Try again.|Q1]]

You check yourself. Sweat is on your forehead. But you are cooling down now. It's disspating. If it was the flu, it was the shortest flu on record. Just heat, no other symptoms. [[Consider something else.|Q1]]

Oh, the light source! You took this picture in a classroom with overhead neon light. Of course the light source is awful. But does it make jowls?? You know how your students look under that same light. They have many expressions and their faces have many forms. But not a single one of them has jowls!!! [[Try another threory.|Q4]]

"Diagnosis" is an interactive exploration of selected symptoms that a person in mid-life might experience. I've conceived it as a story questionnaire. The questionnaire replicates my reaction to various symptoms and tries to communicate the resistance we might feel when our body signals that we are no longer young and that we now have to redefine our position in American society. As part of this resistance, we might experience the urge to default to more general (less age-dependent) explanations for our symptoms, which is ultimately an exercise in futility and perhaps points to the stigma loss of youth carries. I purposely chose to leave the actual word Peri|menopause unmentioned until the end. This decision, I think, underlines the hesitancy that surrounds any amplification of the term. Peri|menopause is (even as discourse expands) a carefully encircled and separated discourse community. The circumscription of the term is also an invitation for readers living in different bodies to perhaps inhabit a middle-aged female body for a few moments as they contemplate the 12 scenarios. And for readers who do share my experience, I hope it is a work of humorous solace and a dare to take our discussions/celebrations and wonderings to places and people that have not asked for them. Enjoy the discovery. MGB [[Start here.|Q1]] A word on structure: (do not read if you believe, as Janet Murray does, that figuring out a game's structure is a substantial aspect of the joy of virtual reading/play) The game questionnaire takes the player through a sequence of 12 scenarios/questions to arrive at a final diagnosis. The player has to cycle through all 12 scenarios sequentially, and only one answer option per scenario allows the player to move to the next question. Each scenario offers between 3 and 5 answer options. "Wrong" (right and wrong are not so clear-cut here) answers will lead the player back to the question or connect to another answer option within the same section; "right" answers will lead the player to the next scenario. ][Your Text Here]

This is true. The world is on fire, and you do have too many jobs and too little money to quit any of these jobs. Who has energy for sex after reading the news on the subway at the end of a 13-hour day? You remember the joke your partner told you. This is the joke: A stripper knocks on Jerry's door. For his big birthday his friends got him a stripper as a special treat. He opens the door. The gorgeous stripper strike a pose and says: SUPERSEX! Jerry answers: "I'll have the soup." [[You have become Jerry.|TOT8]]

This would be true, if a) you didn't still have irrational cravings for chocolate and beer (not at the same time). b) your mind would actually manage to hold onto thoughts. As it stands now, you have achieved a "meh" state. 48% intellect, 24% instinct, and 28% lumpy oblivion. [[Try another option.|Q8]]

This is not a movie. But it might be a solid idea for a movie. Superhero genre. Coming in 2024: THE BLUR [[Think again.|Q7]]

When you tell a younger friend, she immediately diagnosoes you with an anxiety attack. She has them. This is what they feel like. You know this could be true. But why would they start now? You think of them in connection with 8 other symptoms that you're trying to make sense of. You already suspect that [[the other thing|TOT9]] might have a hand in this.

Your partner says, "I understand. [[What else?|Q11]]"

Your partner says, "Makes sense. [[What else?|Q11]]"