Insomnia Looks Like This

This is what insomnia looks like:
Red eyes. Dark room. Dim lighting from a computer screen (and a DVD player...because the basic trait of any good insomniac is a non-stop mind which equates with multi-tasking and over-stimulation). Extreme sleepiness. Dire frustration with the fact that sleep doesn't seem to be coming quickly. Ultimate stubbornness in a refusal to succumb to the doctor-prescribed sleeping pill. And this sound: "Grrrrrrrrrr."

Here are some not so fun facts I've discovered about insomnia while suffering from it:
1. Insomnia is 1.4 more times common in women than in men.
2. Approximately 30-50% of the general population has or does suffer from insomnia. 10% suffer from chronic insomnia.
3. There are three identified types of insomnia:
a. transient - lasts from days to weeks
b. acute or short-term - lasting weeks to months
c. chronic - lasts for years at a time (lucky, lucky me)
4. The incidence increases with age and is more common in people in lower socioeconomic groups, chronic alcoholics, and mental health patients. (draw your own conclusions)

New Report Reports

I love The Daily Beast. It gives me the Reader's Digest version of news events. And here's one from today:

AIDS Could Be History by 2018

A stunning new report out today says the virus that causes AIDS could be eliminated in a decade. The research, published in The Lancet and based on a mathematical model, shows the virus could be eradicated if people in countries with high infection rates were tested and treated regularly. But don’t get too excited: The AP cautions the study “is based on assumptions rather than data and is riddled with logistical problems.” Still, “It’s quite a startling result,” Charlie Gilks, an AIDS treatment expert at the World Health Organization and one of the paper’s authors, told AP. “In a relatively short amount of time, we could potentially knock the epidemic on its head.”


That's 10 years in an ideal world. 10 years of everything going right and everyone being responsible.

I once went 10 minutes in an ideal world. 10 minutes of everything going right and everyone being responsible (that is, of those people I ran into in those 10 minutes, which was only one). Yes, that's right. 10 whole minutes. During the first minute, we slept. In the second, we slept some more. In the third, we were still tired so we slept. It went on like this for seven more minutes: sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep. Everything went right. Everyone was loving, caring, responsible, and selfless. And at the end of the 10 minutes do you know what happened?

We woke up.

Bellists and Bellism

I work for an amazing online magazine at iamthatgirl.com. The majority of the staff is young women, but each and every one of us on the staff would call ourselves bellists. Bellists live out the ideals of bellism, which is a movement dedicated to reconstructing society's definition of beauty. We at IATG do that by promoting other facets of a person; we encourage education, promote positive role models, and do a number of other things to inspire young women to DREAM BIG.

But here's the thing I notice...In a room full of female bellists (remember what that bellists work to redefine beauty), every one of them is beautiful. And I have to wonder why.

Every one of these women is also incredibly smart, probably more than the average girl in the coffee shop, and I wonder if those two characteristics mix well or successfully most of the time. I'd say they don't. Women, if beautiful, are not welcomed into boardrooms. They are either assumed (based on first glance) to lack the proper intelligence or they're considered a distraction for the men in that room. I think that's why many successful business women are plain-looking.

And isn't that exactly the fight of bellists? Not only to eradicate the need for all women to be physically beautiful so that they can walk into the local bar or local church social or whatever feeling confident of catching a man's eye but also to obliterate the construct that women who do happen to be physically appealing have nothing more to offer than their looks.

I've just finished reading a short essay on The Ugly Duckling (see my other blog for its text). The story has been prolonged for over a hundred years, contributing to a society's construction of image, and at a very early age nonetheless. I believe the world is fostering with bellists who are grown, and once we recognize ourselves, and gather together, we need to affect children and youth so that they can grow to be businessmen or businesswomen, a beautiful husband or a beautiful wife, without having to consider a glass ceiling based on their looks.

Fatty, fatty, fatty, fatty....

As Ross would say, "If you want to see a man gain weight and a woman stop shaving her legs, get 'em married." But what do you say when the man getting married has to be carried down the aisle in his bed--which he hasn't left in 6 years--due to his obesity?

Manuel Uribe, formerly the world's heaviest man (weighing in at 1230 lbs, though has since lost over 500 lbs) is now married. And though I should be wondering about who this woman is, if she inspired him to lose weight, etc. etc., I can't get past one curiosity.....How did the couple meet? I mean, unless they met prior to his bed rest, she would have had to chance upon Manuel while he was in bed. Would this be in his home? Or does he have people to carry his bed around to the local bar as though he were some form of ancient Egyptian royalty?

Hmmm....

Banana-Rama

I have long been known to eat more than my fair share of bananas. I eat them at breakfast, at lunch, at dinner, for snacks, with peanut butter, sliced, whatever. According to recent Japanese trends, this diet makes me thin.

Yep, the Morning Banana Diet is so HUGE in Japan that they can't keep bananas in stock. The diet's instructions include eating a banana for breakfast along with a glass of lukewarm water, eat normal meals for lunch an dinner, and be in bed before midnight.

The Japanese, obviously known for their obesity, may be onto something. Bananas are known to increase energy. (Now you can workout.) They can prevent depression, PMS, and anemia and they reduce high blood pressure (giving you better health). Add more sleep to the banana and you also get reduced stress, prevents cancer, bolsters your memory, and (GET THIS) makes you lose weight! Hmmm.....

Shall we sing along?

A beautiful bunch a'ripe banana
(Daylight come and he wan' go home)
Hide thee deadly black tarantula
(Daylight come and he wan' go home)

It's six foot, seven foot, eight foot, BUNCH!
(Daylight come and he wan' go home)
Six foot, seven foot, eight foot, BUNCH!

National Debt Clock

So you may have heard. The National Debt Clock in NYC's Time Square had to change its look last week. The debt has gotten so large that we have had to add a digit to the square that previously only held the dollar sign. It's hit $10.2 trillion.

Not to worry. There is a plan to remedy the situation.

The clock will be replaced next year to allow it to track up to a quadrillion dollars. I had to find a definition of that because I get a little loopy after trillions. A quadrillion is a 1 followed by 15 zeros.

This, of course, begs the question, what if we did this with our personal debt? Let's say I max out my credit card. No problem! Get a bigger card. Literally. Increase its dimensions as well as its funds. So what if it can't fit in your wallet? It's big and shiny and that's cool.

Parental Controls for your Car

I'm Ba-aaaaack. I know I've been MIA for awhile, now. But to be completely honest, it's only because I'm stupid enough to not only forget my password but also forget which of my emails I use for Blogspot. Get over it. I did.

So here's what you missed in the meantime: the SKIN project (which I had to have one of my writers at the magazine write on since I could not). Link here to that article. It's a really awesome but incredibly risky way to unite people through literature.

And now.....
the MyKey. This is a feature on upcoming Ford cars/trucks that limits the driver's speed to less than 80mph. It also allows for stereo volume limits an annoying noises to remind you that you aren't wearing a seatbelt.

Basically, it's a parent's dream and a teen's nightmare. But guess who usually buys the car?

The idea is a bit Big Brother for me to swallow. But, what with the new applications on your apple phone telling you where all your friends are at any given moment (and vice versa), the MyKey is surprising tame (and strangely geared toward safety rather than stalking capabilities).

Hmmm.

New DNA; Ramsey okay

Well, it only took eleven and a half years, but it looks like the family of JonBenet Ramsey is in the clear. Several years ago, the evidence swayed those still following the case that Patsy Ramsey was not the likely murderer and that the evidence suggested an intruder. New DNA has eradicated any remnant beliefs of the family's guilt. The results were announced and issued with an apology to the family for the increased stress in the situation. Unfortunately for Patsy Ramsey, this all comes a couple of years after her death from a battle with ovarian cancer.

Jeffrey MacDonald only wishes he had such luck. Excuse me, I mean innocence.

She Has Her Reasons

I originally wrote this for the magazine but a demographic shift means it's no longer usable.....

Recently, my friend and I were discussing how uncomfortable we find the chairs we sit on for most of the day, every day, so we decided to get a little creative and think of things that might substitute for those chairs. Our not-so-great ideas included a tree stump (think of the splinter hazards), a stack of old textbooks, and no chair at all. But I’d have to say our best idea was the exercise ball….and here’s why:

1. It’s colorful. Most desk chairs offer you the wide color selection of black, or gray, or brown, or black. If a store is particularly daring, they may carry some shade of navy blue that is so dark it may as well be black. In contrast, the exercise ball comes in bright colors like yellow, red, and blue—the primaries. What an eye-catching way to add a little pop to your desk space.
2. It’s round. I don’t know why I find this fact so appealing other than that chairs don’t really have a shape. They’re chair-shaped. But an exercise ball, it’s spherical. It’s the best shape because it has no edges. If you hit your knee on it because you misjudged a corner—oh wait! Impossible. There is no corner.
3. It’s playful. I like to see how long I can balance on an exercise ball without touching the floor and have minor competitions with others or with myself. The game is not quite so challenging when you’re seated on a chair with four legs. I’ve tried it. It’s rather dull.
4. It’s unique. Do you know anyone who has an exercise ball-chair? I don’t.
5. It’s bouncy. I have been known to have some difficulty sitting still. And if you can get me to sit still, it probably isn’t in the proper way to sit in a normal chair. I’ll sit with in Indian-style, with my feet folded under my legs and nothing hanging down (let alone placed firmly on the ground). I’ll even sit with my feet both up on the chair, my knees bent, and my chin resting on my knees—let me tell you, this is a general no-no in the professional world. If I’m going to sit primly and properly all day long, my desk chair at home better offer me something different. The exercise ball is an interactive chair. It’s not quite so serious. And you know what bouncy, bouncy, bouncy means….
6. It’s fun, fun, fun, fun, fun!

There are, of course, negative aspects to the exercise ball-chair. For instance, how would you slide it under the desk for a nice, neat effect? It would just roll right out again. I can’t say I know of much back support that it offers—although, that may instead require you to work on your posture, which would, in turn, be a positive aspect of the ball-chair. The most obvious negative for the exercise ball desk chair is, of course, that with all the colorfulness, roundness, playfulness, individuality, bounciness, and fun, you’d never look at anything on the actual desk. This possibility somewhat defeats the point of the desk itself. In which case, we could remove the desk and simply play with the exercise ball in an empty room…..only when would any work get done?

Oooh, dilemma.

Misquoted Follow-up

Having visited the bank today, I was pleased and disheartened to find that the sign had been changed. The same message remains but the quotes had been erased. And although this is closer to the meaning they are actually seeking, it really takes away the enjoyability of my banking transaction.

What to Expect When You're Expecting

Lately, I've been doing some work for an up-and-coming magazine based in Beverly Hills and they've asked that I take on more responsibility and create a personal website for readers and professionals perusing their website to access. And so I set about staking my claim on the world wide web---it isn't land on the moon, but I'm gaining on Mr. Cruise. I'm still not all the way out of the woods on this project, but I've done a bit and here's my advice to others looking to do a bit:

1. Nothing is free. If a website offers to provide a free personal website, they will tack on their name in the address, and/or graffiti your site with a banner advertisement of their name. Prepare your wallet for a beating. Lay it out; string it up; talk trash to it, the works.

2. Wear a headset. You will inevitably be on the phone with some tech-y, at some point, and for some undetermined amount of time. Plus, it looks wicked. Quite stylish.

3. Listen to the Monkees. You'll have lots of stepping stones in this effort. Providers, hosts, layouts, design, etc. etc. etc. etc. Remember, the internet is nothing if not complex and potentially confusing.

4. Pay someone else to do it. Strangely enough, there are people, many people, who know how to do this stuff rather effectively. It will be worth the effort (which is far less than trying to actually create a website) to contact a few others to see who you know and who they know who know how to do what you don't know.

Misquoted

This is a mobile upload. I had to take it. When I read it, I couldn't help but laugh. A lesson in the colloquial quote, if you will.

Translation of the sign above: Please, but not really, refrain from using your fake cell phones (though how you might use a fake cell phone is beyond me) during a transaction. Thank you for following the request we couldn't make because it was an impossible request to extend.

Probable desired translation: We would really appreciate and prefer if you did not use your cell phones when dealing with our tellers.

Rewrite option: Lose the quotes.

The whole message just reminded me of Joey, on "FRIENDS" (quotes are okay here because it is the name of a television show, though I could argue for italics instead), apologizing to Ross. I'm "sorry." Not using them right, Joe.

Message to local Wamu branch: Not using them right, Wamu.

Ode to Sunscreen

I spent this past weekend in Palm Desert. More specifically, I spent it at a pool at a hotel in Palm Desert. And while I was sitting there, liberally applying my SPF 30 Dry-touch sunscreen to my rather pale body and a different oil-free sunscreen to my face, I thought to myself, "Thank God for sunscreen."

It's not said enough. Without sunscreen, I cannot enjoy a good book (or, as was the case this weekend, a good water gun), without serious pain and placing my health in even more serious jeopardy. It's a very under-appreciated product.

Not only does its mere existence increase the pleasure of my existence but take a moment to think about its form. Yes, we often complain that it smells funny and feels slimy on our hands but, in its development, it was not so pristine. In fact, at one point, it was red, and of the consistency of petroleum jelly (not to mention not nearly as effective as today's product). Sunscreen was introduced to the market in the late 30s and early 40s (which explains the athletic fashions of previous times) and the SPF term we so freely throw about today came about approximately 25 years later by the same man, Franz Greiter, who had produced what is considered to be the first effective sunscreen. That is a lifetime dedicated to sunscreen. And, I say, a life well spent!!

Without sunscreen, where would you be? Tied to your house with brief excursions outside? Or worse, venturing out with layers of clothing, covering every morsel of your body including your face? Lovely.

It's been said that coffee makes modern life possible. So be it. Coffee makes the work world possible. But sunscreen, ah sunscreen, sunscreen makes modern leisure time possible.

I Left My Heart in Eastern Europe

Perhaps you've read about it in the news, the story of the father/grandfather who locked his 18-year-old daughter in the cellar for 24 years and fathered 7 children by her in a city outside Vienna. It is by all means revolting and disgusting on a level far exceeding "Chinatown." Eh, forget it, Jake. All allusions/lightheartedness aside, this story makes me miss Eastern Europe. Odd, I know.

I was only there for a summer---well, half a summer really--- between my undergraduate and graduate incarcerations, but I had such a profound experience in that brief time that that region of the world has ingrained itself within me. I think this is especially true of its children. I was there teaching English to preteens and teens and have gained at least one very dear friend whom I think of as a little sister. I taught as a camp counselor. Each week I was assigned students who belonged to me and that is precisely how I looked at them. For that week, they were mine. I was responsible for them in every manner. And who knows what role that may have meant that I played in their lives in the long run? They've very much had an affect on mine.

I miss them and do not doubt, that when the day comes, I will be looking into adoption in the Eastern European region. The countries have such interesting, tumultuous histories, and I just wish I could make everything better. I can't. But maybe I can do something.

Buy me a drink....

If you are as strange as I am and have seen those adorable 1950's wifes on flasks and ID cases and notepads and magnets and so on and so forth, featuring women who say/think coy and sometimes raffish things, and you wondered if those images were actual 1950's images or manufactured for this particular merchandise line, you'd be interested to know they are legit. Those women were actual women who looked like that at some point about 50 years ago. They modeled for Sears and sewing machines, etc. etc..

The women are called Taintorettes, named after the originator of the line, Anne Taintor. Some of the Taintorettes have been identified. Those who have can now be seen and read about in mini-bios on the Anne Taintor website. Take a look and find out exactly whose face you've been laughing at all this time.

Work Place Accidents

The clock. Some of you may remember that I have recently blogged on the woes of changing from Standard Time to Daylight Savings Time and therefore having to "change the clocks." Well, the clocks apparently took offense and decided to gather and construct a silent coup to take me down.

It all happened last Friday, after spending every day of the week in an office where I (and others) work as a temp flipping through pages of marketing reports looking for what amounts to computer and printing errors (and, in my case, discovering what's available in the wonderful world of podcasts to occupy my ears while my hands work). After a tedious week, and this the final Friday of the month, we were rewarded with cake which they tried to tell us was actually in honor of the month's birthdays for those people who actually work at the company and are kept separate from us, the temps. I am not a fan of cake but, like I said, this being Friday and boredom having set in on Monday, I was willing to try any insulin-injection I could. And I did. The result of which was not pretty.

With 15 minutes left in the day and therefore the week, 15 minutes left until a weekend of relaxation and freedom, 15 minutes!!!, the clocks saw their opportunity for revenge. And they took it. Working alongside the clocks, my coworkers begged me to do something to make the time go faster. Now you, being of sound mind and less cake than I was at the moment I had to react, may consider some form of entertainment as a way to make the time pass by quickly-- a little song or, say, a jig. I, instead, decided to go up to the 16"-diametered clock that reigns over our little, separate, temp office space, and pretend to hang on the minute hand.....a concept I'm not sure was transferred clearly to my audience. So I did and as I pulled away, my pinky on my right hand began to throb slightly. I thought nothing of it other than that I had accidentally made contact with the clock. But nooooooo. The clock had made contact with me! Somehow, somewhere, the clock held a tiny, but very sharp, dagger!! And it took its chance while I was near to it and sliced my finger (though, my theory is that it was going for my entire hand to disable me from writing any future anti-clock-changing blogs).

After playing it that nothing had happened, I finally glanced down at my finger and saw a strong streak of liquid red. I'm bleeeeeeding! It got me. <<>> It got me.

You're probably thinking it did not get me that well but the wound this the Tuesday after still bleeds often enough to necessitate bandage.

I'm going to call my surgeon. And I'm going to purchase a hammer. Many hammers. And share them with you. So that together we can pound on all the clocks, for they are out to get us. DEFEND YOURSELVES!!!

***This is not an April Fools Day joke.***

The Cookie Monster

I am a big fan of the cookie. I consume more than my fair share every week (an amount I might consider disclosing here if I did not think you would be disgusted.....or rather that I would be disgusted and attempt, unsuccessfully, to remedy my sweet-toothed ways). I'm not incredibly picky about cookies but I obviously have my favorites. And I have to admit, as it is season to admit, amidst that top tier is the lovely, purple-adorning, coconut-coated, Samoa from our friends, the Girl Scouts.

Let me let you in on a little known secret about the rest of the Girl Scout Cookies. They're not that good. Oh, I dare say some can hold on to a fight but, on the whole, there's nothing to talk about. Perhaps (I say perhaps because I haven't done the proper research and instead invite you to do my homework) the most popular of the Girl Scout Cookie Flavors is the Thin Mint--the green box, thin, chocolate coated, mint-flavored wafer-like cookies that are a great size for whole-cookie-mouth-popping. But, let's be honest here. Anyone who appreciates the stellar combination of mint with chocolate will run over the Thin Mint box to get to a box of the York cookies. Hellllo!! They're infinitely more minty and infinitely more chocolatey and infinitely more mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. And yet, each year, at that certain time, we flock to our neighborhood Wal-Mart or Target or ........ to get a box of this and a box of that from the somewhat oddly dressed little girls with overpriced goodies. We're more than willing! We're eager. We look forward to it!

((Quick anecdote: this year, my mother was in charge of ordering the cookies. We are a Samoa family. We don't mess around. We want lots and lots of purple, a couple green, a couple red, and who cares what else? But something went wrong with our order (yes, we are pre-orderers). Instead of having lots and lots of purple, we ended up with lots and lots of orange (orange?) and only one purple. It was a travesty! We timed our grocery store runs hoping to hit little Girl Scouts on our way out of the store for their supply of purples.))

It's marketing genius! You always want what you cannot have. And so much of the year, you CANNOT have these cookies. In their paucity....increase craving, increase craving, increase craving.....then supply and increase crazy! Go bezerk! Eat them all! And, remember, they're not very good. If Girl Scout cookies were on the market year round, most of them would never survive (I say most in respect for the Samoa). There are much better cookies in the grocery store aisle. Need I say SoftBatch?? Plus the potential for homemade cookies. Ooooooooooh. But we want the Girl Scout cookies because those cute, little girls have gotten into our minds, and messed with our desires, and manipulated our taste buds so that come the annual release, we stampede them like a massive group of Girl-Scout-cookie-deprived Americans.

Yikes.

Why Are You Making Me Wear Green???

I am not Irish, in any microscopic percentage of being (despite the name that has plagued me since birth). I've never been to Ireland. And although I do generally enjoy the color green (how could you not? leaves, grass, grasshoppers), I resent the need to wear it on St. Patrick's Day. In fact, if I were a St. Patrick purist, I'd insist on blue, which was the actual color of St. Patrick before the day became synonymous with Irish folklore and the green of Ireland. Guess what. I'm not Roman Catholic either, the religion which is supposed to celebrate St. Patrick's Day.

I am an American Christian who is not wearing green but is, coincidentally, wearing blue, and who, when I walk outside today, stands the risk of getting pinched. Pinched! As in, a method often used to discover if one is dreaming or not, an action designed for immediate, significant, though short-lasted pain. Transitively, I am risking pain by going outside and not wearing green today because today is the day that American Christians honor their patron saint by wearing a color unconnected to that saint......ohhhh wait.......that's not right......


So, anyway. Beer, anyone?



Reasons to like St. Patrick's Day:
1) Green. It's my color. I look stunning in it.
2) Beer. You can drink so much beer you think you're Irish and then enjoy St. Patrick's Day because you're Irish.
3) Four-leaf clovers---they're so abundant that you delude yourself (see reason 2) into thinking they're easy to find in reality and that, therefore, good luck is easy to find in reality.
4) Brotherly love (again references to reason 2)
5) Not American. Since you are Irish for the day (or if you actually have some Irish blood in you), you can claim to be un/non-American, which is a very cool American thing to do.

DST Ready for TNT??

So it only took 40 years to discover but apparently Daylight Savings is a bust. The clock-changing effort to save energy, well, doesn't. Instead it's causing Americans to use more energy and therefore pay more for that energy use. Good idea, Mr. Franklin.
Here's a thought: perhaps, just perhaps, we shouldn't focus huge time-altering efforts on the thoughts of a man whose lighting system functioned around candles and wax.

DST is pretty much wretched--all the way down to its name: Day-Light-Savings. The very idea is impossible for, as it turns out, we as people do not control the amount of sunlight given off by (get this) the sun in any given day. We are just a bunch of parasites that live off of it but have no control over it. We don't save daylight---though, the title is convenient for our over-indulgent self-perspectives. (I did it! I saved the daylight! You're welcome, Little People. Worship me like you worship the sun because I control the sun.) Shockingly, the sun rises when it rises and sets when it sets because of the axis tilt, rotation, and revolution of the earth in relation to the sun. Crazy. The season of summer allows for more sunlight automatically. All we did was call it summer. Ta da!

I do understand the hesitancy to give up the whole DST practice, though. I mean, who would want to have to stop saying, "Spring forward; fall back?" It's a very catchy phrase. And very catchy phrases should not be eradicated just because they cost billions of dollars in unnecessary energy use. They're very catchy.

The Wind-Up Arm Chronicle

As I just told a friend and former player, "My arm is not made of normal arm substances." Over a year ago, I got sick of being normal and decided to become a surgical phenomena. So I broke and shattered a handful of bones in my arm. Now I have a part-human, part-robot (okay, just metallic) bone structure. It has planes, chains, and automobiles. ..... ..... .... Okay but the chains part is true! And replacement heads (aka huge long bolts), screws, and plates.

Most of you will not recall (because, hopefully, you never had to see it), but for several weeks after my injury/surgery, my hand blew up to the size of one of those dentist's office gloves that you can inflate and put a toothbrush inside---only my was a bit more purpley-blue. Other than being well-timed for Halloween (and therefore the repeated answering of the question as to my hand's authenticity), it wasn't a helping hand. Puffy balloon. Purpley-blue. And one more thing. Stuck! That's right I said stuck. Here are a couple of pictures. Just keep in mind that I am actually straightening my fingers as much as possible in these photos. When I was first able to sleep flat again, I remember trying to hold my hand palm down on the bed and not being able to do it because my fingers would not straighten that way. Oh, sigh. Jolly good times. We spent a great deal of effort to get those little guys straightened out--bending them backwards and stretching out the tendons and ligaments.

Well, anyone who knows anything about the intricate structure of the arm (and that does not include me) know that, in the forearm, there are three dominant tendons, each serving its own purpose. In my double-dislocation and single-shattering, I messed up all of these tendons. One of which, to use the words of my PT, is "meshed up." No, not messed. Well, yes, messed. But more than messed; it is meshed. That is the one that works the outer fingers. Therefore, if you apply any kind of pressure to my little pinky on my left hand, it will immediately go towards the rest of my fingers despite my effort to fight you. (AKA I'm very weak and now have tons of excercises and a heart shaped ball to squeeze. Which is okay because I like hearts.)

Okay. Meshed up tendon = meshed up fingers. Check.

Now, let's have some interaction. Give yourself an exaggerated wave hello, up and down. Like the stereotypical "I'm gay" hand gesture. Normally, your hand goes about as far back from vertical as it goes forward. Although my left hand in no way matches my right when I attempt this, neither does my left match itself. It goes back to about normal. It seems to get stuck going forward. This is only a problem for me because I actually enjoy playing the guitar....but can't. Although I can actually hold the neck and apply my fingers to the proper frets, I cannot do so without a considerable amount of discomfort. (I now have exercises for this, too....and a left-handed guitar.)

This is the saga of my abnormalities, a chronicle, if you will--which I can wind with my right hand but not with my left (very well). My arm is meshed up. Despite being surgically removed and bolstered, it is not perfect. It can't be perfect. And it continues to disclose it's imperfections as though it were a trickle in a dam, waiting to break. Only it's already been broken. A lot.

My P.T. Rocks---Literally

My presence has been requested this week at my Physical Therapist's (PT) office. She requested that I come in and pay her a visit. I'm quite lovable and therefore....she misses me. She can't live without me---even though I just saw her at her son's basketball game a couple of weeks ago. WARNING WARNING: Kenzie is a legal, addictive stimulant. Taking any amount of her with any regularity or irregularity may cause permanent and possibly excessive use. (She's also very humble.)

So, I have an unofficial (as in, uninsured) appointment this week at a place I used to frequent thrice weekly just to be able to move my left arm and function as a semi-normal two-armed human whose left hand is not in a permanent fist--anymore.

What is so unusual about this, you ask? Of course she wants to see me. Of course she'll figure out a way to get around my uninsured health insurance status. Of course, of course, of course.

Well, yes. Of course. But her final request for said visit: "Bring your guitar."

Excuse me, huh?

After, first, checking to make sure she was, indeed, serious and, second, receiving corroboration that this was not an elaborate hoax to get me to perform at an office birthday party, I agreed.

Me and my guitar will be rockin' out with Julia later this week. Intrigued? Me too......but I know something you don't know.

Uh, I'm Disgusted.

I try to hide the fact that I am a quitter. I'm a great quitter though. Perhaps the best. And I do it so well, that it's rather difficult to tell I'm a quitter. But I've recently decided (kind of sort of or at least in a couple facets or just specific instances of my life) that I'm not going to be a quitter anymore.

Sitting on my desk for the past few weeks has been a book I deserted. It's called Why We Run and I picked it up a few months ago while browsing the aisles at the local book branch because I've enjoyed the two running books I've ever read. Two books; one author. Time to expand the horizon. So I bought it. And I forced myself through the first 40 pages of it and I considered the horizon well ablaze and time to put it aside and let it cool off---or burn up to the remains of ashes....either one, it's not important.

But, as I discovered last week (in a completely different incident that will be discussed in about a week when the resulting impulse purchase arrives on my doorstep), I WILL NOT BE DEFEATED. And so I will defeat this book. And, seeing it resting on my desk, I decided to take it out for a workout---you know, take its pages for a spin. And today I read some 60 pages of it....at the end of which.....I came upon this.....

"....contestants on a race in over 80F heat on the Bowdoin College track in Maine. Every couple of laps, the racers dunked their heads into a barrel of water the race director, Bill Gayton, had set thoughtfully alongside the track. The water evaporating from the contestants' heads and backs kept them cooled and running despite the heat. Surprisingly, bees that have collected nectar have a variation of this approach. They regurgitate their stomach contents from the mouth and spread the liquid all over themselves with their forefeet. Once they are back in the hive, colony mates lick off the residual solids (sugar) that are left after the water has evaporated. However, relying on regurgitation for evaporative cooling is probably not a recommended option for us.
"Some storks and vultures cool themselves by a reverse, yet similar, strategy. They defecate runny feces down their legs. The blood in the bird's legs is cooled by the evaporation, which reduces overall body temperature by as much as 2C. A turkey vulture sitting on a fence post in the sun on a hot day, calmly and deliberately defecating on its naked legs, is behaving in a way that makes sense. Anyone who has ever been running hard on a sweltering day will be able to identify with such behavior."

How does one respond to this??? I mean, obviously beat out the gag reflex and give in to the "EWWWWWW" reflex but other than that....... ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww. And apparently I just can't get past that part.

It disgusts me. It disgusts me. It disgusts me.

I'm disgusted.

But I will not be defeated. I will persevere. I will read this insect-infested, regurgitation-marinated (ewwww), densely defecated book supposedly about what causes man to run but appears to be more about what causes him to regurgitate and defecate himself. What an experiment!