and endless sea of rainy weekends
holy absence, batman!
It's been forever. My life got swallowed by what can only be described as a 'lazily chaotic whale' this month... I'm behind on just about everything I want to be doing in my Jane Life, and slogging through work at a decent pace in my Employed Life.
Ze weekend: mother's day, Meg's bachelorette party, hanging out in bed with a big glass of water for the majority of two days, a delicious evening of takeout and conversation and crap-tastic t.v. with my prom date.
Tomorrow I'm going to test-drive my new (Tom's old) iPod at the gym to see if NPR and This American Life can get me to run any more efficiently than People Magazine can. I have several categories of 'lists of things that annoy me at the gym', divided by topic... hygienic issues, male-specific habits at the gym, co-ed habits that drive me batshit (texting on the stationary bike during the entire workout = # 1-10 on that list). For the female-specific list, there's wearing fancy jewelry while working out; wearing a baby on your back while running at full-speed on the treadmill; wearing more makeup than Victorian England while working out... and previously... reading gossip magazines.
Well. That one didn't bug me TOO much, but I didn't understand it.
Until I tried it.
The distraction is priceless. The font is just big enough to read when your head moving like a bobble-head. The pictures are huge. Nothing, and I mean nothing, is too deep to handle while sweating and barely concentrating. And-- the most genius part of all-- the magazine covers the calories burned / time countdown / distance data at the top, and the *format* acts as your guide for where you are in the workout. I am a terrible runner, I'm not in terrific Boulder Uber Athlete shape, and my brain is the antichrist when I'm jogging ("you're getting tired! You're getting tired and you just started! Youuuuuu aaaaaaarrrreeee goooooiiiinngg tooooo neeeeed toooooo stooooop sooooon").
I've discovered that, at a moderate jog, if I start with the scathingly vapid letters to the editor, flip uninterestedly through the fashion section, and feign interest in all of the longer articles (never skipping ahead-- the most painful part of the People Workout Routine, because you can't control how terrible each and every story is going to be)... I know that when I get to the stories toward the back about teenagers being stolen on spring vacation and parents adopting babies with a gerbil head and giraffe legs, it's time to peek at the time.
Granted, I'm still not a very good runner. But a combination of new running shoes and a guilty pleasure that battles the evil inner monologue during my workouts has made me *enjoy* running a helluva lot more. And that's worth the embarrassment when I can plant my palms on my knees at Harpos and bellow the names of 7 celebrity babies over a table full of people eating fish and chips at trivia night. Shiloh, Apple, Moses... I secretly hope that each of you grows up dumber than a post. I don't have any idea why, but I do. Apologies for my ill-will, and I hope you all have lovely lives.
Other than that, lots to come back to and babble about in the near future.
I have had little playtime on the computer... long, long work days make it really, really hard to come home to files that need to be formatted and fixed for the cd project, essays that should be written, music files that should be organized, iPods that should be filled to capacity, and software that should be downloaded and properly tinkered with.
Not to mention that I have been putting off a massive cleaning and re-organization of the apartment for about 5 consecutive weeks now, and I am barely on speaking terms with myself.
I've been feeling like total crap for more than 2 months, and it feels like that's seeping into everything else. The fekking mystery pains took a turn for the worst, followed by side symptoms that have been going on for so long, it's actually just gotten to the point of being comical. My doctor sent me off to the labs to get poked, prodded, and scanned, and the lab tech said that it was one of the most perplexing blood draws that she'd ever had... no matter what we did, we just couldn't get any blood out of my arms. I burst out laughing finally and said that I didn't feel like I had any extra to give her. The good news is that the blood work came back looking pretty good... the bad news is that it was fixed because I just gave up on my arms and sent them a vial of chocolate lucky charms.
Anyhoo. Things are going to be ok... I just feel *totally* drained from the last two months. What used to be tiny, stabbing pains once every few days (or once a week) are now every day, for a majority of the day, and come out at night with a vengeance while I'm trying to sleep. The pill I take to try to combat the problem was prescribed incorrectly in March, and my body rejected the mistake so dramatically that I've been paying for it every day for almost 30 consecutive days. These things aren't a huge deal, but what worries me is that I have a lot of conflicting reactions and 'action plans' from my doctor(s), and the research I've been doing on my own is equally murky and frustrating. I feel like I may be doing damage to myself by taking things slow and letting something possibly progress for years, but I'm also being told that doing diagnostic surgery and any reparative measures would also be potentially harmful.
So... that's not reassuring.
Especially when my doctor sees me three times in 7 days, and at the last appointment, says something completely different than she had 72 hours earlier (possibly confusing me with a different patient altogether?!)
UGH.
I'm so grateful that this isn't a terrible, life-threatening disease. I can't imagine having to deal with being your own advocate like this if your illness was putting your life on the line.
Healthcare is really scary sometimes. I'm incredibly grateful for health care and being employed at the moment... and for Tom, who is the only person I've really talked to about everything, who doesn't bat an eye when I'm tired and nervous and weepy, and who lets me vent and get many of the (too much information) details out of my system while he's mixing cherries into chocolate cake batter. I listed "going face-first into an entire chocolate cake" as a new symptom during my last doctor's visit, and because the nurse practitioner there is awesome, she recorded it into my chart next to "feverish nightmares" and "defensive reaction against new prescription".
Ah. I can feel myself stalling. I should've been asleep half an hour ago.
Goodnight, thoughts that I needed to vent into the vast universe.
Goodnight, posts with substance and interest that I will just have to post in the future.
Goodnight, Sunday night that is so cold and drizzly that I'm forced to wear a parka into my cold lonely little bed.
Goodnight until Monday.
It's been forever. My life got swallowed by what can only be described as a 'lazily chaotic whale' this month... I'm behind on just about everything I want to be doing in my Jane Life, and slogging through work at a decent pace in my Employed Life.
Ze weekend: mother's day, Meg's bachelorette party, hanging out in bed with a big glass of water for the majority of two days, a delicious evening of takeout and conversation and crap-tastic t.v. with my prom date.
Tomorrow I'm going to test-drive my new (Tom's old) iPod at the gym to see if NPR and This American Life can get me to run any more efficiently than People Magazine can. I have several categories of 'lists of things that annoy me at the gym', divided by topic... hygienic issues, male-specific habits at the gym, co-ed habits that drive me batshit (texting on the stationary bike during the entire workout = # 1-10 on that list). For the female-specific list, there's wearing fancy jewelry while working out; wearing a baby on your back while running at full-speed on the treadmill; wearing more makeup than Victorian England while working out... and previously... reading gossip magazines.
Well. That one didn't bug me TOO much, but I didn't understand it.
Until I tried it.
The distraction is priceless. The font is just big enough to read when your head moving like a bobble-head. The pictures are huge. Nothing, and I mean nothing, is too deep to handle while sweating and barely concentrating. And-- the most genius part of all-- the magazine covers the calories burned / time countdown / distance data at the top, and the *format* acts as your guide for where you are in the workout. I am a terrible runner, I'm not in terrific Boulder Uber Athlete shape, and my brain is the antichrist when I'm jogging ("you're getting tired! You're getting tired and you just started! Youuuuuu aaaaaaarrrreeee goooooiiiinngg tooooo neeeeed toooooo stooooop sooooon").
I've discovered that, at a moderate jog, if I start with the scathingly vapid letters to the editor, flip uninterestedly through the fashion section, and feign interest in all of the longer articles (never skipping ahead-- the most painful part of the People Workout Routine, because you can't control how terrible each and every story is going to be)... I know that when I get to the stories toward the back about teenagers being stolen on spring vacation and parents adopting babies with a gerbil head and giraffe legs, it's time to peek at the time.
Granted, I'm still not a very good runner. But a combination of new running shoes and a guilty pleasure that battles the evil inner monologue during my workouts has made me *enjoy* running a helluva lot more. And that's worth the embarrassment when I can plant my palms on my knees at Harpos and bellow the names of 7 celebrity babies over a table full of people eating fish and chips at trivia night. Shiloh, Apple, Moses... I secretly hope that each of you grows up dumber than a post. I don't have any idea why, but I do. Apologies for my ill-will, and I hope you all have lovely lives.
Other than that, lots to come back to and babble about in the near future.
I have had little playtime on the computer... long, long work days make it really, really hard to come home to files that need to be formatted and fixed for the cd project, essays that should be written, music files that should be organized, iPods that should be filled to capacity, and software that should be downloaded and properly tinkered with.
Not to mention that I have been putting off a massive cleaning and re-organization of the apartment for about 5 consecutive weeks now, and I am barely on speaking terms with myself.
I've been feeling like total crap for more than 2 months, and it feels like that's seeping into everything else. The fekking mystery pains took a turn for the worst, followed by side symptoms that have been going on for so long, it's actually just gotten to the point of being comical. My doctor sent me off to the labs to get poked, prodded, and scanned, and the lab tech said that it was one of the most perplexing blood draws that she'd ever had... no matter what we did, we just couldn't get any blood out of my arms. I burst out laughing finally and said that I didn't feel like I had any extra to give her. The good news is that the blood work came back looking pretty good... the bad news is that it was fixed because I just gave up on my arms and sent them a vial of chocolate lucky charms.
Anyhoo. Things are going to be ok... I just feel *totally* drained from the last two months. What used to be tiny, stabbing pains once every few days (or once a week) are now every day, for a majority of the day, and come out at night with a vengeance while I'm trying to sleep. The pill I take to try to combat the problem was prescribed incorrectly in March, and my body rejected the mistake so dramatically that I've been paying for it every day for almost 30 consecutive days. These things aren't a huge deal, but what worries me is that I have a lot of conflicting reactions and 'action plans' from my doctor(s), and the research I've been doing on my own is equally murky and frustrating. I feel like I may be doing damage to myself by taking things slow and letting something possibly progress for years, but I'm also being told that doing diagnostic surgery and any reparative measures would also be potentially harmful.
So... that's not reassuring.
Especially when my doctor sees me three times in 7 days, and at the last appointment, says something completely different than she had 72 hours earlier (possibly confusing me with a different patient altogether?!)
UGH.
I'm so grateful that this isn't a terrible, life-threatening disease. I can't imagine having to deal with being your own advocate like this if your illness was putting your life on the line.
Healthcare is really scary sometimes. I'm incredibly grateful for health care and being employed at the moment... and for Tom, who is the only person I've really talked to about everything, who doesn't bat an eye when I'm tired and nervous and weepy, and who lets me vent and get many of the (too much information) details out of my system while he's mixing cherries into chocolate cake batter. I listed "going face-first into an entire chocolate cake" as a new symptom during my last doctor's visit, and because the nurse practitioner there is awesome, she recorded it into my chart next to "feverish nightmares" and "defensive reaction against new prescription".
Ah. I can feel myself stalling. I should've been asleep half an hour ago.
Goodnight, thoughts that I needed to vent into the vast universe.
Goodnight, posts with substance and interest that I will just have to post in the future.
Goodnight, Sunday night that is so cold and drizzly that I'm forced to wear a parka into my cold lonely little bed.
Goodnight until Monday.
posted by JustJane at
11:14 PM
0 Comments
