Shatter

I am tall and strong. Sturdy, like a warrior princess. But that seems to be only my appearance, not an actual truth. I think it's possible that I'm made of delicate china, my fragile milk-white frame ready to crumble at the lightest blow.

Evidence:

• My lower back is a torn-up battlefield. An extra vertebrae, bulging discs, muscle spasms, inflamed bursa... a wasteland of pain and crunchy tissue. This is not new; I've learned to make accommodations, and with the right stretching routine, the pain is relieved. Still, the degeneration started about 30 years too early, and that makes me uneasy and difficult to insure.

• On Sunday, I sprained my ankle. This is not my first sprained ankle. Oh no, this same ankle and I have done this dance many times before. The last serious sprain was in college, and I couldn't afford the physical therapy, so it healed sort of lumpy. But it healed nonetheless. In the years since, I've turned it here and there, and it always bounces back. It's healing again (as I write this, I am standing up), though I don't recall ever seeing it so bruised as it is. There was no adventure to cause my injury. I tripped, fell. I'm hoping R.I.C.E., Advil, and arnica will do the trick. I don't think it's broken, but if you told me I had some pretty pissed off connective tissue, I wouldn't be surprised. I do not like sitting still, and while I've enjoyed watching TV while I work (because I've had to sit on the sofa to elevate), I am frustrated that I am not taking 10,000 steps a day, nor sweating through TurboKick. I want it to be better already.

• I have this pesky little hand numbness thing that happens when I lie down. I was willing to ignore it, until it decided to stick around for months and months. Since that's not a good sign, I went to the doctor. My MRI showed that I have several herniated discs in my neck. I had no idea: I have no neck pain, no symptoms at all (except, maybe, hand numbness? Still too soon to know for sure). But what it does mean is that the pain could start at any time -- one false move, and my oozing disc goo could slide around some nerves. Then my neck would start to feel like my lower back, and I'd have to start eating Advil like candy.

So, like, now I am scared to move. What if I bounce too hard and rupture more discs? There are only 23 in your spine, and I'm out 5, and still not old enough to be President. Can you imagine what things could be like when I'm -- gasp -- 50? Am I going to be a cripple? Before all this, I was starting a nice running routine. I wasn't a particularly good runner, but it was pleasant. I stopped because I had pain in my hip. Crap, is that the next joint to go? I wake up with stiff, clawed fingers, sometimes unable to open lids until after I've had my coffee. What's next? 

As much as I hate sitting still, I'm afraid to do anything else. I did not realize I could break so easily.

Hello Mudda, Hello Fadda

Dear Congress,

Hi! What's going on? I hear you've had a lot of snow in DC lately; please know that you're welcome to visit sunny Florida any time. It's been a little chilly here lately, but there's no shoveling required. Well, enough small talk. Let's get to it.

I need you to get on task with this whole health care thing. I understand the "big government/socialized medicine" arguments y'all have going on, and while I agree that both sides make valid theoretical points, mostly what I hear is bickering and sniping. But I wonder, if we could look past politics and posturing for a minute, what you would say if I were your daughter.

Seriously, Congress, just for a moment, pretend you're my parent. You brought me into this world, me, this tiny helpless, incredibly sweet baby. You raised me right: I floss regularly. I went to college, got a good job, and learned to provide for myself. Even better, I registered to vote and checked the little box marked "organ donor." It makes you proud, doesn't it?

But now, there's a little problem. You see, for some reason, despite my rule-following and best intentions, my body is starting to fall apart. (You know, Congress, I did some research, and my condition appears to be genetic... but I digress.) I am going to doctors, trying to figure out what's wrong, and how I can be fixed. Except my health insurance company has decided that I have a pre-existing condition, and will not pay for any diagnostic testing nor treatment of my degenerating discs.

This is my fault, right? Because I quit my corporate job (with a good group plan) for a job that satisfied my ideals. And now that my idealistic job is suffering in the poor economy, it's my fault for sticking with it and not finding another job with benefits, because I'm holding tight to my dream of being a playwright. The message I get is "Because I want what I want, I must pay the consequences." Is that what you say to your child?

I actually wish I hadn't gone for a check-up. I would rather live with my symptoms, instead of knowing that I am not worth fixing. Because that's what it feels like the insurance company is telling me.

Would you allow your own daughter to settle for suffering or financial stress? I hope that you wouldn't, Congress. Even my own less-than-stellar parents haven't been so negligent. They worry for me, they offer advice, they refrain from judging my choices, and they hand me money to pay for my care.

I know that it's your job to look at the country as a whole, to do what is best for millions of people. But sometimes, we're not just the masses. We're individuals, human beings. Many of us are good people. I am a good person, Congress. And I need your help.

Ok, I guess that's all. I hope the weather gets better for you -- those cherry blossoms will bloom before you know it. Write back soon!

Love,
Miranda Sunshine

Swim on, little fish

Happy March! I did not meet all of my goals in February. Also, February has way fewer days than any other month. I'm not looking for excuses. Ok, yes, I am. In some ways, February was not my best month ever. But in other ways, maybe it wasn't so bad. Ask me at 1pm, when I can take another dose of Advil to soothe my sore, inflamed sprained ankle.

I did read an extremely awesome book: The Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler. Oh, honey mustard, do I love this woman's writing. I didn't want the book to end, and was fairly annoyed that it had to. Also, it energized my "disaster planning" neurons (which hardly need stimulating), which is always exciting. So, if nothing else good happened all month, I had that experience. Mind enriched, outlook enhanced, so on and so forth.

If sharks stop swimming, they die. If fish stop swimming, they get eaten by sharks. No matter whether you're a big fish or a little one, the best thing to do is to just keep swimming. Thanks, Dorie.

Step by step, ooh baby, gonna get to you girl

So I recently purchased a pedometer. It's a very basic, very cheap model from Target. Regardless, it's amazingly powerful. The pedometer has taught me that I am ridiculously sedentary. Like, the first day I got it, I took only 1100 steps. The recommended daily goal is 10,000. Getting the mail is what managed to push me across the 1K threshold.

In order to reach 10,000 steps a day, I pretty much have to go for a walk. Like, get up, put on real pants (pants without rainbow-colored reindeer), and real shoes (shoes that aren't sold in the slipper section of the LL Bean catalog), and walk around for about an hour. Because if I don't go for a walk, I'm just never going to be close. My commute? Uh, 57 steps from bedroom to living room. Lunch break? 34 steps from desk to kitchen. No, actually, I do putz around the house A LOT during the day, and it does add up. It just doesn't add up to 10,000.

It is sort of fun to see how many steps I can take. And looking down to check it feels so nostalgic, back to the days when I had a pager. The only real obstacle is an unfriendly waistband. Certain pants don't allow the pedometer to hang properly, and it cheats me out of HUNDREDS of steps. Bah.

Why put off until tomorrow what you could do next week?

Alternate title: procrasti-nation.

I have procrastination issues. Part of me thinks that's because I might be ADD. No, really. I saw a commercial the other day about children with ADD, and they visually described his symptoms (which is good, because there's no audio at the fitnessy center), and I totally have all of those. The other reason I think I procrastinate so much is because I have an overdeveloped lizard brain which recognizes 4/5th of everything I want to do as "terrifying" and tries to protect me from it all. Bad lizard! Bad!

So it's February now, and it's time to dive in to my February books. It's a shorter month, so I need to be a little more on the ball if I want to get things read. And that would be a lot easier if I could stop reading Percy Jackson and the Olympians books. They're similar in style to my Dresden Files books, but geared for YA and involving Greek mythology. Pretty darn great. I tear through them in about a day and a half, and because they're on the Kindle, no one has to know what I'm reading. Good thing there's only one more left in the series.

I've decided for February, being Black History Month, that I need to read more by African-American authors. For my non-fiction, I've downloaded a great collection from the Kindle store: W.E.B. DuBois, Booker T. Washington, essays by Zora Neale Hurston. And for my classic, I have an Octavia Butler book on my shelf that I haven't read yet, The Parable of the Sower, which I'm excited to read. "That's a classic?" you ask. Yes, it is. It's on HS reading lists... lucky kids. Octavia Butler is fantastic. If you haven't read her yet, I highly recommend Fledgling. It is to vampire stories what Twilight is to a McDonalds Two-Cheeseburger Meal. I adore the Two-Cheeseburger Meal, but feel completely sick and ashamed after eating it. Lucky for me, it's not available outside of the NY/NJ area.

Ok, enough procrastinating for now. I have a bunch of other stuff that I've been putting off that I really should get to. Ironically, I'm also putting off napping (something that people usually use as their procrastination tool). I'm stupefyingly tired. While I can do more if I get up earlier, it feels like I'm doing all of it in a pool of molasses. Maybe I need more coffee. Mmmmm... coffee. Chick-Fil-A has free coffee. I'm just saying.

The Books of 2010: January

Ok, so I'm on this reading thing, wherein I make sure I read a "classic" book and something non-fiction each month. This month's books: The Art of War by Sun Tzu (both a classic AND non-fiction!), The War of Art (non-fiction), and The Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde (my classic for the month).

I was disappointed in my translation of The Art of War. There was more commentary than there was text, and the commentary was annoying. I would have much rather have just read the original, in a giant numerated list, as it appeared to have been written. But I suppose you get what you pay for: it was free for the Kindle. I'm not planning on leading an army any time soon, so I don't have much use for the strategies it contained, but I could see how it could be useful. I would imagine this book being used today for philosophical discussions and cherry-picked aphorisms.

Speaking of aphorisms... seems like people have been mining the pages of Dorian Gray for years. I liked this book, but then I like Oscar Wilde a lot. Such pretty words... no pretty doesn't even begin to describe it. Lush, humid language. I did find a few paragraphs that I read aloud to Cabana Boy, and found my own quotes that I want to explore in more depth. However, I did skip over the catalog of fancy things that Dorian began to acquire after reading the "poisoned book." As one chastised for cataloging in my own writing (yeah, except for this here bloggy-blog), I'm not likely to seek it out in others. Having seen Gross Indecencies, the play about Oscar Wilde's trials, I feel primed to look for homoerotic subtext in every chapter. But I don't think that matters too much, and there's no need to add to what's already there. I don't think Dorian and Harry were shtupping. With Dorian and Basil, probably some oral. Dorian and those other pretty boys he corrupted? Most definitely.

I did want to capture this quote: "A great poet, a really great poet, is the most unpoetical of all creatures. But inferior poets are absolutely fascinating. The worse their rhymes are, the picturesque they look. The mere fact of having published a book of second-rate sonnets makes a man quite irresistible. He lives the poetry that he cannot write. The others write the poetry they dare not realize."

It's very common to see writers, actors, general creative types who are wacky on the outside. Ostentatious clothes, hipster trends, disdain for normal grooming habits, ridiculous nicknames, and a deliberate cultivation of a low-rent lifestyle... the visual identifiers for so many artsy types (especially when I was in college). Some of the most talented writers and artists I've met are the most unassuming, nondescript people in a crowd. This is not to say that one shouldn't follow one's own style, just that Burning Man is no longer counter-culture. In other words, stop trying so hard.

If I can find the time between today and Sunday, I will try to throw in a classic play too. I've also selected my books for next month, but more on that, uh, next month.

Lady Who Lunches

Yeah, like I need another blog to read. Like I need another distraction. Well, at least this way, I can claim that I'm well-rounded.

Anyway, I've added this blog to my feed: Fed Up: The School Lunch Project. It's another one of those annual "stunt" blogs, wherein the person does something completely out of the ordinary for a year, blogs about it, and then gets a book deal. I don't mean to sound overly cynical... I think many of the stunts are very interesting, I read a lot of them, and I would love to discuss, over coffee, how this is becoming performance art for the technology age (but I fear that most of you would zone out after the first cup). Plus, this one is an actual school teacher eating the lunches fed to her students, so right there, that gets my attention.

Luckily, I found this blog in January, so I didn't have too much catching up to do. I've read through the whole site, and two things are glaringly apparent:

1. Why are all of those lunches covered in plastic? Back in the day, when I was a kid, all of our lunches were served on plates or in bowls, with real silverware on actual trays. Sure, the plates and bowls were plastic, but they were the washable, reusable kind. It was institutionalized fare: probably mostly from cans, boxes, and mixes, but still required someone to assemble or cook. This crap looks like vending machine food. The pizza we got was equivalent to what you could by in the frozen food section of the grocery store. Which is to say, probably not the healthiest for you, but at least recognizable as pizza. I'm utterly appalled at what passes for student lunch these days, so I will watch this blog with keen interest.

2. The author interjects with posts about her own upbringing. Though her family was not wealthy, she had a mom at home, who reviewed the school lunch menu with her, and packed lunches for her on days she didn't want to buy. These lunches were nutritious, and filled with the encouraging love notes that parenting magazines like to suggest. This is completely foreign to me. No one packed me lunch, no one wrote me notes. Lunch money was given to me at the beginning of the week. It was my responsibility to make it last until Friday.  Fortunately, this was not looked on with pity in my school: buying lunch was cool, packing lunch was not. We were a middle-class district with a very small reduced lunch program, very different I think from the school where the blog-teacher works. I'm curious to see how her background will influence her project. Already, she is anti-fast food and soda (which seems a little sad to me...  I feel like the moderate use of McDonalds and Burger King is a fun rite of passage for children and teens, the youthful versions of a local bar or coffee shop).

So, lunch on, Mrs. Q. Can't wait to read your book next year!