Eating plan still going well although I fear that keeping off of refined sugar is driving me to eat more fruit per day than I might ordinarily do. The only reason I'm letting myself get away with that is that it's SUMMER. My garden has fruit I've waited all year for.

Exercise not going quite as well. I racked up some higher step days recently but today I didn't even set foot outside. I was up 'til 8am and am now right back in the clutches of that really awful insomnia that makes me feel otherworldly. And not in a good way.

I tried to keep my spirits up by joining the millions who hit YouTube to view "The Last Lecture" today. I had never heard of Randy Pausch before I heard of his death today. But his lecture is justly famous.

Another person with a terminal illness who is well worth reading is Carla Zilbersmith. I read the SF Chron article about her and I've been reading her blog ever since. Would that I had the optimism, wit and drive these folks have/had.

mood: weird music: xanadu

I am not the biggest fan of kids. I know where a lot of my issues with kids come from so that's good, but I try to keep to a child-free world as much as I can. It's just easier that way.

Coming as a total surprise to me, the housecleaner I hired to do a one-time clean-up brought her child. She had brought her (also unannounced) to the estimate but I hadn't expected her here today. Given that the housecleaner was an hour late and had not called to tell me she was late, I wasn't thrilled.

However, her kid is really cool. I liked her when I met her last time. Wish she'd ask before messing with things, but she's a really bright articulate child. I de-cluttered as best I could before the housecleaner arrived but I hadn't gotten everything. I thought I'd probably need to work alongside her to move things and to clarify things that shouldn't be tossed. But figuring the child would be bored hanging around a house full of vacuum noise, I told her that I had a big backyard garden and that she was welcome to hang out there if she'd like. She was happy to do that.

I meant to only go out for a moment to orient her to the surroundings but she was clearly really interested in plants and growing things so we ended up spending 2.5 hours together in my backyard. We talked about the plants and about her school and how things are. I really had a good time. So even though, yes, she picked things without asking (some of which I was saving for me!), I just couldn't get that mad about it. It's so nice to see a kid who is that mature (she's actually a couple years younger than I thought she was), that interesting and interested. Wish we had a lot more like her.

After going around asking me what this and that plant were, we ended up taking some pot-bound tomatoes and peppers and planting them. The tomatoes were 'Black Krim', a Russian heirloom tomato. When she heard that, she said "I love Russia! You know why? Because Anastasia was from there." She proceeded to tell me a bit of the plot of the animated movie (which I haven't seen yet) and I told her, well, they got it partly right...and then I told her in fairly simple terms about the Bolshevik Revolution (VERRRRY simple since my US education on anything to do with communism and socialism isn't that good). She took it well. But how cool is it when an 8-year-old says "I love Russia because of Anastasia"?

We talked about girly girls, the stupidity of the association of colors with a certain gender, tomboys, Brazil, identity theft, nightmares, the dangerousness of Hilltop Mall, Charlie Chaplin... She had me sing the various songs that are on a room divider I have that has vintage sheet music on it. I had to explain the concept of notation to her when we got to songs I didn't know (and couldn't read). When I found out she is Brazilian (like some of my siblings), I thought I'd burn her a CD of Carmen Miranda and other Brazilian stuff I have. She watched a couple Carmen Miranda tunes with me on YouTube while I burned my stuff to disc. Then I told her I was going to play her something that was from Scotland AND Brazil and played her a bit of MacUmba. By this time her mother had finished cleaning and was saddling up to go. The kid said "Next time I see you, you HAVE to burn that Scotland thing to CD for me!" I hope to god I've turned the kid onto Carmen Miranda. That would be super-cool. Just in time for the centenary of Carmen Miranda's birth in 2009.

I sent her home with some Nigella damascena seeds, some snow pea seeds, and a 'Black Krim' start.

I had a really good time.

location: living room mood: tired tags: carmen miranda, children, garden, kids

252 lb.

That's more than before. However, it is within the margin of water weight flux, etc. Last time I weighed myself at night and this is late morning.

I'm being good about eating low-glycemic and have already had to resist temptation quite a bit. But I haven't been able to get the exercise portion together. The depression and insomnia have been crippling. I've done a bit more stretching than usual but that's it.

I'm going to the chiropractor today for the first time in months because when I fell roller skating, it seems the neck muscles got pulled and also pulled my jaw out of whack. So it hurts a lot to chew. Although I must say I was tempted to use that for dietary reasons! However, most things that one would consume through a straw are high in sugar...

mood: worried tags: fitness

Today I found out that I hurt myself more seriously than I thought when I fell trying to roller skate. It seems I pulled a load of muscles in my neck when I fell backwards. And the right wrist landing seems to have aggravated my elbow and right arm as well. Great.

I didn't think I was doing anything particularly strenuous. Yes, I worried about injuring myself if I fell but I didn't even get across the street to really start skating when I fell. And I stopped immediately instead of tempting fate. But this is a classic example of how one can get in worse and worse shape.

When I started working at Peachpit, I weighed 185 lb. and was and in reasonable shape. I rode my bike to work often. I worked out. I started walking during lunch and soon injured my right knee (possibly also from squats) I walk on the outside of my feet and something about that and my posture has weakened muscles around my knee. They don't hold the patella in properly. It was bad enough to really curtail my exercise. So while doing something that was good for the recovery of a particular part of my bad, I did something that was bad for my overall fitness.

This pattern happens over and over. When I started working at UC, I weighed a good deal more but I still biked to work at least half the time. Then after a couple months I re-injured my back. I damaged L-4 and L-5 in 1990. This was a bad relapse. I had trouble getting out of bed, walking, bathing...just about anything. It lasted for a couple weeks. I had no physical therapist to guide me. So how do you exercise when you're in pain anytime you move your spine?? So I got worse. My RSI got worse. I couldn't ride even my recumbent bike for months.

Then I was steered towards surgery for my Cubital Tunnel Syndrome. Tests showed that I had nerve damage in both arms (not surprising after having RSI since 1995). The surgeon told me that I was losing the myelin sheath around the nerve and that that is irreparable. So I went ahead. The first surgery went well. I was active but apparently not overactive while recovering, which is exactly what you want. The second surgery recovery didn't go as well. Apparently I overdid it in the first week. Then did total bedrest in an attempt NOT to overdo it. Which was good for my arm but bad for my body. And that started the road I'm still on today. I never recovered from that surgery. And doing what was good for one or more parts of my body was bad for other parts of my body.

How do you break the cycle?

mood: blank tags: chronic pain, disability, fitness

Insomnia made it such that I was dead asleep when Laura arrived at my house to get a ride to see The Dark Knight at the Grand Lake Theater. I didn't have time to fix breakfast unless I wanted to grab an Atkins bar. But since I'd eaten mostly those in the last 48 hours, I wanted something real. We got to the theater early and the designated ticketholders weren't around so I went to the KFC nearby and got some chicken. I had them keep the biscuit since there was no way I could get 2 pieces of chicken and JUST chicken.

I was finishing up the chicken when my friend Mike arrived. He politely said "You asked for help...I'll just point out that KFC probably isn't the best thing" I told him that I wasn't cheating. The worst thing about the chicken would be the flour in the batter. What I need to watch more than anything else is my blood sugar.

I have some friends who watch fat much more than they watch sugar. In fact, you have to be careful because a lot of non-fat or low-fat foods make up the difference by adding more sugar (in different forms like dextrose and other "ose"s). I'm not saying that eating tons of fat is the way to go. But fat doesn't shoot my blood sugar up and start the insulin resistant cycle of sugar high - crash - ravenous hunger for more starch/sugar.

People and their bodies are different. So if watching fat is the main thing for you, that's cool by me. But try to remember that if my choice is between popcorn with no butter and KFC, it's the KFC that's actually going to better for me in my particular situation.

I really appreciate that he had it in mind to look out for me, though.

mood: a little worried music: I Wouldn't Bet One Penny - from "Donnybrook"

Last week I bought some quad roller skates. I felt seriously rusty and being only able to go the length of the store didn't give me enough distance to figure out how well the skates (or skating) would work out. I decided I felt rickety enough that I was going to test them in my house (which has hardwood floors) until I felt confident enough to go outside. However, I got impatient and began to think there wasn't much difference in danger between falling on concrete/asphalt or falling and hitting a wall or floor inside. So after one short trial inside, today I went to the Ohlone Trail in El Cerrito. I parked across the street from the strip. Mistake one. Instead of carrying all the gear across the street and putting it on there, I put it on while sitting in the car...leaving me to get safely across a reasonably busy street.

I already felt rickety again. I held onto my car roof and just moved my feet around so I could get comfortable. Then I slowly skated a couple yards, then back to the car. Finally I figured I'd better dare to cross the street. I went down the curb cut and nearly immediately lost my balance on the pretty chunky asphalt. Was I going to fall forwards or backwards. I opted for backwards. Luckily, I had strapped wrist protectors on because I did a 3-point backwards landing, taking the brunt of it on my right wrist. I then crawled back to the curb and lay there taking my skates off because I didn't trust myself getting up again and skating to the car. How humiliating.

I was never fantastic on roller skates, but I got by. To not even be able to balance well on sidewalk and asphalt anymore makes me feel older than anything else I can think of having experienced. I feel utterly lame. Like I'm in danger of never being able to skate again. I guess this gives me a little more insight into what it's like for people who haven't kept up cycling them way I have. People who gave up cycling when they were 10 years old and later in life want to get back into it. I suppose it's equally intimidating.

I guess I'm going to have to learn in a roller rink. And it's still scary because I don't have insurance and continuing to land on my wrists won't be good. The bigger they come, the harder they fall, yazzuh. I'm going to have to devise some ways to train my balance. Standing on one leg, walking a plank, using one of those balance boards, if I can get one. Honestly, I've even lost a bit of my balance on upright bikes because for so many years I had a broken upright frame on which it was impossible to ride no hands. And you can't ride no hands on most recumbents due to the geometry of the frames. The BB is too high. I used to be able to ride very confidently on an upright without using my hands in all but the most unstable environments (like on top of gravel).

It sucks being old and out of shape. Let's hope I can remedy the situation to my satisfaction.

I have been keeping a food diary here but hiding the entries because I don't want to bore the bejeesus out of y'all. I have been doing more stretches but I haven't yet launched the full exercise program yet. Part of the problem here is the continued insomnia. It is BRUTAL. When I get in bed at a decent hour, it never fails that I wake up merely 4 hours later and can't get to sleep again. I'm awake but not rested.

Today I was up into the wee hours because of insomnia. I took a Benadryl to try to knock myself out and it still took nearly an hour to kick in. I think I finally fell asleep at 8am. I slept until the early afternoon and then I went into kitchen to mix the fruit I got at yesterday's tasting into fruit rolls. I then went into the garden to pull some weeds, prune some invasives, and water the plants. Just doing that has exhausted me. I'm ready to go to sleep again. But I'm clearly not getting physically exhausted enough because that's probably what's causing the insomnia. Tired tired tired.

Anyway, I've been very good about my food intake, I think. Especially when we were in the Central Valley yesterday and stopped for gas. I wanted an ice cream sooooo badly. I didn't pick one up. Furthermore, when I found I couldn't find anything dietetic that didn't have caffeine, I reluctantly bought a plain ol' water (reluctant only because I hate paying for water). I'll have to be careful about how many fruit rolls I actually eat of what I'm making. There's no added sugar, but my insulin resistance is bad enough that I even have to limit how much fruit I can have.

mood: tired

Issues about my own childhood are probably to blame for making me such a grouch around kids as a grown-up. But there are genuinely annoying things, too. Like I can hardly count the times someone has brought their kid to my yard and fruit & plants have been picked without permission. Now, parents think I'm out of line for not understanding that kids make mistakes, test boundaries, etc. Actually, I understand that they do. That's one of the many reasons I don't have kids. You may have made the choice for yourself but when you bring your kid to my house and don't watch them well, you're visiting your choice upon ME.

I just had a housecleaner come by to look at the place. She had to look before giving me an estimate. She made no mention that she'd have kids with her. So she parked illegally across my driveway and started ascending the stairs. I had to rein in my impulse to tell her that I was no longer interested in getting an estimate from her. The kids came in and asked where the bathroom was. Honestly, they were reasonably well-behaved but as I was talking with the housecleaner, I could hear a pop and another pop. The kids had discovered some bubblewrap I had waiting to be reused. Without asking, they started popping it. Now, that shit drives me insane. There is NO WAY that I would have done that when I was their age (I'm guessing these girls were 11). The mother did not notice it or make an attempt to tell the kids not to touch things that weren't theirs. I asked the kids if they wanted the bubblewrap and they gladly took it.

I just have a really hard time with bad behavior. It's bad enough that it's in the world at large but my home is supposed to be a refuge from that.

mood: grumpy

This insomnia is killing me. I had a short day because I got tired so soon. I thought that was good because I need to wake up early this morning to get to Hickman, CA for the Dave Wilson Nursery fruit tasting on time. I went to bed at something like 11 pm. Then I snapped awake at 3:30amish. And couldn't get back to sleep. At first I just messed around online. Then I got hungry. I was tempted to take a late night drive to Safeway to pick something up because I didn't feel like cooking. I resisted and just had an Atkins bar. Messed around just a little more. Then decided I would take a bath. It tends to make me sleepy. So now I'm bathed and starting to get drowsy. But I would only be able to sleep an hour at the most at this point. ARRRGGGHHHH!

mood: annoyed

Insomnia kicked in again last night. I probably didn't get to sleep until 4:30 am or so. Woke up at 8am, puttered, took a Benadryl, went back to bed. Woke up again at 3pm -ish.

Because I didn't plan this much, I wasn't prepared with a pantry that held only what I could eat. It was hard to stop myself from unconsciously grabbing whatever was around. Not that what's around is horrible...the kitchen table has tomatoes and unripe apricots from my garden. The issue was to be aware of what I was eating and making sure that if I'm limited in the types and amounts of what I can eat, that I'm choosing what will give me the "most bang for my buck". And also making sure I eat proteins before I eat anything that sends my blood sugar up. So I had half a small underipe apricot from my yard before realizing that it wasn't my best choice.

Breakfast wasn't much different than what I would have made before (I actually was making an effort to eat well...I just wasn't cutting out things like summertime ice cream) - scrambled eggs with garlic bulbils, purslane and rosemary. With a sprinkling of shredded cheese on top. But there's something about putting one's self on a regimen that psychs you out. I find myself craving something more now. And I probably would have had such a breakfast without feeling deprived before. But just the idea that I shouldn't have anything more for another couple hours makes me WANT more. Boo.

I started wearing my pedometer again last week. The minimum recommended amount of steps per day is 10,000. Here's how I've been doing (without making a specific effort to challenge myself...just getting in whatever the errands that day give me):

7/9/08 - 4620 steps
7/10/08 - 3239 steps
7/11/08 - 3679 steps
7/12/08 - 3518 steps
7/13/08 - 7761 steps
7/14/08 - 8224 steps
7/15/08 - 4097 steps
7/16/08 - 8579 steps

I feel a bit weird from the anti-depressant withdrawal (I don't have insurance anymore and the Primary Access Care Clinic cancelled my appt. without rescheduling so fuck them...) and probably from trying Benadryl to make me sleep. Well, and waking up in the afternoon, too. That's always weird.

I've got so many things I should be doing as well as things I want to do that I'm almost paralyzed trying to make the best choices. But I'd better get to it.

mood: blank music: Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog tags: diet, fitness, pedometer

I keep waiting for a time when things will come together and it seems like a good time to start the whole regime. That worked for me in 2000 when I changed my eating habits (I was already going to the gym 5 days a week) to a low glycemic diet and eventually lost 55 lbs. It was just the right time. But today was just a super-crappy day and one of the reasons it was was being challenged by my shrink to start. To do something different. To not see obstacles but to see what I *could* do.

So I went to my friend Paula's tonight, rolled down my panties, rolled up my camisole and took probably the most embarrassing photos of my entire life.

Here's what I looked like when my brothers called me "Fatty" every day:



Here's what I looked like between 2000 and 2004:



Here's what I look like now after backsliding on the low glycemic stuff PLUS years of health setbacks that have made exercise much harder:





My metabolism "broke" in early June of 2004. I had a couple days where I didn't eat low glycemic. If I'd ever fallen off the wagon before, things were fine as long as I got right back on. This time that wasn't the case. Tonight I looked around for any old logs I have of my measurements and weight. And I'm surprised to find that I was actually on an intense exercise program at this time. Must have fallen off of it within weeks because it was a high stress period in my life (which is why I fell off the wagon in the first place). Here are the measurements from 6/1/2004 after nearly 4 years of maintaining weight loss:

Weight: 185 lbs.

Arms (at widest point): R 13" L 13.25"
Chest (across fullest part of breasts): 42"
Upper abdomen (a trouble spot since developing insulin resistance): 35"
Waist: 37.5"
Hips: 46.5"
Thighs (at widest point): R 26.25" L 26.75"


Here are the same set of measurements tonight, 7/16/08:

Weight: 250 lbs. (Oddly, this is slightly good news since it's 10 lbs. lower than the last time I dared get on the scale.)

Arms (at widest point): R 14.5" L 14 5/8"
Chest (across fullest part of breasts): 48"
Upper abdomen (a trouble spot since developing insulin resistance): 41.5"
Waist: 45"
Hips: 53.5"
Thighs (at widest point): R 31.5" L 32"

And, just of the hell of it, calves: R 14.5" L 15 3/8"

My right calf has always been thinner, even though I'm right-footed.

I'm so not looking forward to this. It is frickin' hard going through life without bread. Without baked goods. Mostly without fruit. But I have to come to terms with it just like I have to come to terms with the RSI. It's not fair that others don't have these conditions. That they can eat what they want, that they don't have to choose their sexual positions based on what their hands are capable of doing. But resenting it doesn't do any good. It's a fact of life and it's time for me to move on.

Being raised Catholic, it seems I need shame and humiliation to motivate me. Self-love sure doesn't do it. I can't even find that button. So I'm depending on my friends, family and acquaintances to keep me honest. Only the shame of possibly failing when I have many eyes on me might motivate me this time.

mood: embarrassed tags: chronic pain, depression, fitness, insulin resistance, transformation

I am in awful physical health. I wasn't in great health before my surgeries, but the way the recovery from the second surgery went put me in a tailspin from which I have not yet pulled out. I've had all sorts of evening epiphanies about starting to eat low carb again (which has worked best for me in the past and is more likely to keep me off the track to diabetes), doing all my physical therapy exercises, taking walks to work up to more general fitness....but the morning always brings something else.

I thought about setting up a structured program and doing it publicly. If I think about these things just to myself, there's little accountability. If I make a big announcement on the internet that I'm going to do something, there's more pressure to stick to it. Of course, I wonder if I have enough readers to even put enough pressure on me!

It's not a new idea even though it felt new to me. A short Google showed me quite a number of people who've built businesses, gotten book and movie deals, etc. out of putting their weight loss process on the internet. I don't flatter myself that I've got anything wildly new to say on the subject (other than perhaps the difficulty of recovering fitness while limited by a disability). It's really more of a tool to help myself. But if a pound drops in the forest, can anyone hear it?

Well, I'll give it some thought. This is another evening epiphany. An evening considering going to Health Recovery Center in Minnesota, fat farms in Arizona and yoga retreats in Ireland. And realizing that I don't have the money and that I could SAVE the money if I were just disciplined enough to do it at home!

mood: tired tags: disability, discipline, fitness, health, recovery

I've done a lot of trolling of YouTube in the throes of my insomnia (perhaps it's contributing to the problem). Tonight I bounced around from Craig Ferguson to Julie Andrews to Gene Kelly...and that brought me to Xanadu. I love musicals and always have. I have been a fan of mythology since I was a nipper. Likewise with romance and fantasy. So the movie premise appealed to my 15-year old self a great deal.

I saw the movie when it came out. And was disappointed, oh yes. But I think the movie has been slagged way way in excess of what it deserves. There are at base at least 2 reasons why the average American should be happy this movie was made - 1) It gets a 68-year old Gene Kelly dancing on screen again and he does a pretty damned good job, even roller skating. (2) It immortalized the Pan Pacific Auditorium on film (the PPA burned down later so it's great to have some nice footage of it. The score contains some standout tracks and the big dreamy sound of ELO lends itself to something meant to be supernatural. The dancers they hired are talented and there are some very nice choreography ideas, like using the clothes racks in "All Over the World".

One of the problems both movie musicals and Broadway musicals sometimes have is their budget - if the budget is huge, it allows folks to focus on the details and flash and not see the forest for the trees. The first question any musical producer should ask is whether the musical could stand the "high school test". Could it be put on by a local high school theater department and be engaging and entertaining? If not, there's a very good chance it's not a good musical. The best musicals stand on their story, the quality of the music and the quality of the choreography. All of those are things that an average high school theater department can muster in some form or another. When there's too much money being tossed around, people get involved with the hydraulics and the trick photography and whatever and it all masks the fact that maybe the writing isn't as good as is needed.

The post-Beatles era really hit the American musical hard. It survived Presley (even inspiring the wonderful "Bye Bye Birdie" but after the hippie counter-culture spread, musicals were looked on as square. And there were some really unfortunate gyrations gone through by Broadway and Hollywood to try to make "relevant" musicals. The American movie-going public wasn't in the mood for musicals from 1965 - 2000ish. This is partly because H'wood wasn't doing as good a job when they made them and also because the increasing presence of method acting, naturalism and such made it harder for people to be comfortable with a flamboyantly *theatrical* experience.

In a reaction similar to my reaction to superhero movies, each attempt to bring a musical to the screen raised my hopes AND my fears. If it failed, people would attribute it to the genre rather than the individual effort. And that's very much what happened with Xanadu, I think. It doesn't help that the story involved something that was a fad at the time in the US - roller disco. Fads are often over by the time someone in H'wood hears of them, develops a project around them, and brings it to the screen. So Xanadu was doomed to be dated on delivery. Punk had finally broken on American shores (and you can even see "punk" hairdos in the film) and punk was not accepting of the sweetness of a classic movie musical nor the melodicism of musical theater.

I haven't seen Xanadu for a while. I rented it a couple years ago but my memory is so bad that I've already forgotten my reaction to the acting jobs and the plot. But when you go on YouTube and look at the clips of the musical numbers, it stands up rather well.

mood: awake tags: film, gene kelly, musical, musical theater, xanadu

Good lord. The experience I had going to Oh La Lounge last night, plus my insomnia/depression, plus some reading I've done on the interwubs have me in a funk. I have a terrible time living in the now and all too easily flip back to bad past experiences and worry about the future. Friends and my shrink have warned me about this. I'm trying to change. But let me blurt this out anyway.

A couple of years ago when I was more svelte, I went to a theme party. I love the parties thrown by this group and wish I'd become acquainted with them years earlier. So, anyway, I dressed up according to the theme. The theme/party involved some scavenger hunt-like games, one of which was finding someone to kiss. I was a little more confident than usual since (a) I was more svelte and (b) I'd been dating enough and having casual sex enough to realize that whatever problems I had getting into relationships, it wasn't because I was totally unattractive. Not that I wasn't afraid of rejection. I was. But I hoped that the party atmosphere and the fact that people were hammered would help.

So I asked someone. And he made it clear that there was no way on earth he was going to do it. We're not talking about french kissing here. It could just as well have been a peck on the cheek. No way. Not you, hon.

Well, parties are always dicey for me. I always feel like the ugly one, the uncool kid in class. And now this guy had made it clear that I WAS the uncool one. I gathered my things and got ready to go back home with my tail between my legs. I just hung around long enough to find the one or two acquaintances I knew and cared about at the party and say goodbye.

One of those acquaintances was nice & chatty and we started talking and he relaxed me enough to stay at the party rather than leaving. I was feeling better again. Then the first guy came upstairs and talked with the other one. And the scavenger hunt stuff came up again and it came up that I hadn't fulfilled that part of the scavenger hunt. The first guy "helpfully" suggested that the second guy kiss me. And clearly HE didn't want to, either. Being a master of self-deprecation, I put myself down to take the pressure off the second guy and hopefully forestall him hurting me worse than was already happening. And then I waited a decent interval and drove home desolate.

People say that you should learn to be more assertive. Learn to not be shy about flirting. And not take it personally when you get rejected. I know it's a matter of taste. I'm not attracted to every guy who's ever expressed an attraction to me (all two of them). But there are better ways of handling it. I have *always* tried to be polite and caring in demurring.

The way the first guy made it almost like a dare to the second guy to kiss me was wrong. It put the second guy on the spot and it humiliated me. And, honestly, the fact that the second guy couldn't manage even a peck on the cheek when he was holding my hands and talking to me was pretty shameful. I was good for conversation. I could give a good backrub, but man, I must have been more hideous than Medusa because there was no way someone was going to kiss me.

It's my problem that I'm so bad at letting things roll off my back that when I think about this incident I cry and it's like a flashback. But it's these guys' problem that in the case of the one it's like he went out of his way to rub my face in it and in the case of the other that he couldn't figure out a more graceful way to handle it all.

Don't do that, folks. You really can wound someone for life.

mood: sad

I am in the middle of a bad period of insomnia. I never used to suffer from insomnia. The only times in life I've had trouble sleeping have been periods when I've been dumped by a boyfriend. I couldn't stop thinking about it at the end of the day and thus couldn't sleep.

This isn't that.

This has come about from the same snowball of crap that has put me on disability again and in one of the deepest depressions of my life. The two surgeries last year messed things up. Bedrest was the best thing for recovering from surgery but the worst thing when it came to fitness. So I got in worse and worse shape. And that starts other painful things like the pyriformis-caused sciatica, restless leg syndrome and others. Which means I have a harder time sleeping and then I start to go out less because I can't find anyplace safe to exercise at night and nighttime is when I'm awake.

I've been having a bad bout of it for at least 2 weeks now. Last night I went to sleep at about 8am. I woke up at 3:30pm today. I went out to the garden and did stuff for the first time in days. Even though my hands are in bad shape and it means that I might not be able to paint or do anything else I'd like/need to do with my hands. But I've been tiring for the last hour or so and may need to go to sleep again. If I sleep through 'til a normal morning wakeup time, that's fine, but that usually doesn't happen. I may wake up at 3am and there I go again.

There's not even anything normal to my rhythms. Sometimes I'm sleeping 3 hours. Others I'm sleeping 6. Every couple of days the tiredness will catch up to me and I'll sleep 12. And then it's more of the fucked-up merry-go-round.

I've got a find a way out of this.

mood: exhausted

I was recently talking to an artist via Flickr and figured it was high time I scanned in photos of my old work. The great bulk of my work was created before I discovered the Internet in 1994 and well before I owned a digital camera. So I borrowed a non-SCSI scanner from my friend Paula and figured I'd scan away.

I went to look for my stack of art photos. I've always kept them with my journals and other things and they're reasonably accessible in every place I've lived.

I can't find them. I looked in the proper box tonight and they're not there. It figures that just when you finally get around to doing something, the item disappears.

I'm painting a bit right now but it's been much slower going. Some of that is because my RSI pain has increased in recent weeks. Part of it is because I didn't take good photos of the plum stand in winter so that I can reference what the scaffolding is like. It's far too lush at the height of summer to see what's underneath. I could "cheat" and just paint the exterior appearance, but I'd rather approach it the same way I did the apricots and build it up from the inside out.

mood: frustrated

Yes, it took a mind-altering substance to help along, but I feel sexy and I feel happy. And since I don't blog as often when I'm happy as when I'm sad/mad/upset, I thought I would make a point of saying: right now, I'm happy.

location: living room mood: too sexy for my shirt music: Sorten Muld - Mark II tags: content, drugs, happy, life, love, sexy

Last night, I asked my brother in email for a bit of help checking in with me to help me keep on track with fitness goals. I had a long conversation with him this morning and he offered me a bit of advice on why relying on someone else for check-ins wouldn't be such a good idea.

He's had some major injuries he's had to recover from. But I think that he, like many others, doesn't understand how the kind of repetitive stress injury I have differs from something like a broken limb or torn ligament. Folks recovering from injuries like those often get very intense physical therapy to help them do so. And there's usually a known trajectory of how the prescribed course of treatment will go. The first time I ever got physical therapy for my RSI was last year. I first got RSI in 1995. The only reason I was approved for physical therapy last year was because it was post-surgery physical therapy.

Anyway....I just got on the floor and tried to do some stretches and such for the first time in a while. I got the roller thingie and tried rolling my body against it to break up the knots. God, it hurts. It hurts so much. It always has. I'm supposed to use it mostly against my hips because I get bad sciatica-like symptoms but my thoracic outlet (the more commmonly-referenced one i.e. upper torso) has been so bad lately that I tried rolling it under my arms to break up the tightness in my pec major, pec minor, subscapularis and lats. Holy crap, it hurts.

It's different asking someone not only to be disciplined enough to exercise daily or even several times a day as is usually required with physical therapy exercises, but to have the discipline to do so despite an increase in pain. It's one thing to turn up for a doctor's appointment to get a shot or a physical therapy appointment where at least someone is encouraging you. It's another to do it yourself. It's like asking someone to smash their thumb with a hammer 3x daily because if they keep doing it they'll get better.

Anyway, I'm just venting. It's hard. And I've got to do it anyway.

mood: awake tags: "chronic pain", "physical therapy", fitness

My weird sleeping cycle ended up being weird in a new way today: I woke up at 6am. And since I have a hard enough time exercising without trying to do it in the summer heat, I forced myself to suit up and get out on my bicycle. I biked through Aquatic Park almost to the ped/bike bridge, then looped back and overshot to the Emeryville Amtrak station (to see if I could get a photo for the Amtrak contest) then home again. I tried hard not to overdo it on this first time, which was why I didn't go over the ped bridge to get to the more scenic Bay Trail. I was riding my Bridgestone xo-2, which has been made as ergonomic as I can afford to make it but is still an upright bike. Predictably, my wrists hurt quite a bit from the time spent riding an upright. And that was accentuated by the ABOMINABLE state of asphalt in our poor part of town. It was like off-road riding while on-road. Truly boneshaking.

But I'm proud of myself for not having turned over and gone right back to sleep. I'm glad I got out and exercised.

mood: accomplished