woozyspace - Health

What a weird week.........

robert@woozy.com (robert) — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 11:20:31 -0800

What a week this has been. Last weekend seems like it was months ago. On the positive side of things our oldest son lost his first baby tooth. Then a couple days later he lost another. We got him a really great used bunk bed off of craigslist last weekend. He had outgrown his race car bed and wasn't sleeping through the night because it was uncomfortable. That was fast. I can't believe that he is growing up so quickly.

Somewhat out of the blue we ended up getting a great deal on a beautiful 2001 Volvo C70 which will be my new commuter vehicle. I usually drive the 10 miles from home to the ballpark and then get on my bicycle and bike the last 9.5 miles into work. It even has a trailer hitch so I can take my hitch mounted bike rack off my gas guzzling truck and put it on my Volvo. The convertible mechanism is so cool it almost gives me a woody, but not quite. I feel like such a rich businessman driving this thing around. Funny how a car can do that as I'm not really rich nor am I much of a businessman.

It's odd how we go into consumer mode at times. (That's "we" for my wife and I, not the collective "we") I think in general we have less of those tendencies than most Americans in our age and income brackets, but on the other hand we're no slouches in that department and I do feel very self-conscious when we have these little spurts of spending. I imagine the Durham Quakers will disown us sooner or later for having too much "stuff". Then again I can't ever imagine wanting something like a big screen plasma HD TV, so maybe there is hope for me yet. When my kids grow up maybe L and I will go and spend 6 months at Pendle Hill to do penance and get deprogrammed from our stuff acquiring, non-simple ways. Maybe not.

I feel like a Quaker with Tourette syndrome most days. I don't know if they can fix that at Pendle Hill.

On the not-so-positive side, my doctor is sending me for a brain MRI to see if I have a brain tumor or tumors. It's too weird to even think about. I guess it would explain a lot, but I'd prefer to find other explanations. I fluctuate between being really calm and ok about it to being totally freaked out and on the verge of tears. I hate not knowing and having something like this hanging over my head. Hopefully there will be no tumor(s) and life will just continue on with our regularly scheduled programming. It feels weird to even mention it to anyone, but I was never that good at keeping things to myself especially after years of AA. What can you do? To top the week off, something happened at work that is a total bummer. It's something I've worried about for a while so it doesn't come as a huge surprise, but it sad and will require a big adjustment.

I'm not sure how I got into this position of being a husband, a father and an employer. They all take a lot of mindfulness and energy and I can be so damned clueless at times. My wife is beyond amazing so that doesn't really take that much energy. It actually feels like the most natural thing in the world most of the time, but the other stuff can be hard, amazingly hard. 15 years ago I woke up sleeping with the homeless people in lower Manhattan, and now here I am, "Mr. Gotta lot to Loose". Hmm (scratches head).

Life is so bizarre. It coasts along for a while and then there are periods of upheaval. I believe I have a lot to be grateful for, even in the times of upheaval. It would probably serve me well not to loose track of that.

ps: I'm a totally pretentious turd for putting this picture here.

Quote for a bad summer

robert@woozy.com (robert) — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 07:32:34 -0700

This has been a particularly hard summer with me being sick almost constantly and when I haven't been sick it seems like one or both of the kids were. Anyway this seems an appropriate quote / lyric to describe how I've been feeling. Score one more for the Drive by Truckers:

What used to be is gone and what ought to be ought not to be so hard
So I'll meet you at the bottom if there really is one
They always told me when you hit it you'll know it
But I've been falling so long it's like gravity's gone and I'm just floating

Mike Cooley / Drive-By Truckers ©Wayward Johnson's Music (BMI)

Here's a video of the acoustic version of the song and more proof the Mike Cooley is the coolest:

No Sleep

robert@woozy.com (robert) — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 11:46:29 -0700

I only got about 3 - 4 hours of sleep on Thursday night. On Friday night after having my yearly physical, biking 25 miles to the doctors and work, working, then going out to dinner with the family, I went for another sleep study. This is what I look like at 5:30 A.M. after a sleepless night in the sleep lab. I look like I need help....

I think they got that thing they stuck in my nose from our boys over at Abu Ghraib.

A couple of cycling links for a rainy Monday

robert@woozy.com (robert) — Mon, 23 Jan 2006 13:16:29 -0800

I came across a great source of inexpensive cycling eyeware courtesy of a post on the Icebike.com mailing list this morning. Safety Glasses USA has these great Radians Revelation glasses for around $5.00 each. They carry them in a number of tints as well as the anti-foggin clear (shown). Now if I could only find inexpensive prescription cycling glasses.

I don't remember where this link came from but I thought this story about a new recumbent powered coffee company in Winston Salem, NC. was pretty neat. Can Durham, NC be far behind??

From the "Why bother trying when you're already screwed?" files

woozy@woozy.com (woozy) — Tue, 04 Jan 2005 11:34:18 -0800

Review finds little proof diet plans work

CTV.ca News Staff

Canadians resolving to go on a diet this new year may want to consider this: most commercial weight loss programs offer no real evidence that they actually work.

A review of 10 of the most popular weight-loss programs found that except for one, none offers proof that they work.

Only Weight Watchers had strong documentation that their diet helped clients lose weight ? but not much. One study found that participants lost around five per cent of their initial weight in six months -- an average of 10 pounds -- and kept off about half of it two years later.

Read the full story >>

I tried Weight Watchers at one point, it sucked, it sucked hard, and to lose just 10 lbs? There has to be a better way......

The Fat Fuck

woozy@woozy.com (woozy) — Sun, 19 Dec 2004 14:35:15 -0800

Today I was driving in my truck after Church with my wife and son. We go to a Quaker Meeting on Sunday mornings and I was feeling the after meeting bliss that comes from sitting quietly with a bunch of other people thinking, listening, and meditating. As we passed another Church or maybe it was a school where I saw a crossing guard with a slow down sign, and some young children crossing the street. As I slowed down I heard the car in back of me beeping and after we passed the crossing I noticed him trying to pass me aggressively on the right.

So much for the bliss. Now my adrenaline was flowing and the testosterone was definitely kicking in. When we pulled to the light we ended up side by side with his car on the right of my pickup truck. He rolled down his window and started yelling something, and I in turn rolled down the passenger side window where my wife was sitting and started yelling back. At this point I wasn't sure what the problem was but anyone who blows his horn and tries to pass when children are in the street is an ass as far as I'm concerned.

As he was yelling I started to make out something about "pussy liberals" and Democrats. It was starting to make a little sense now, he was pissed because I have anti-war bumper stickers on the back of my truck. I've run into this a few times already, during the election it got really bad with rednecks trying to run me off the road several times because I dare voice an opposing opinion to what they have drummed into their heads by Fox News.

He went on about how if people like me had their way that "Sadam Hussein would still be raping and killing today" and then he said it: "Look at you, you fat fuck". I could tell from where I sat in my truck that he was a redneck, skinhead, moron but he could tell from where he was sitting, just by seeing my face across the cab of my truck, that I was a "fat fuck". At that moment something became crystal clear to me, something that I've been trying to avoid recognizing. To other people, on first glance, my defining feature is that I'm a "fat fuck" or to be PC about it an overweight or obese person. Maybe since I wasn't always this way I don't see myself this way. I've gained a great deal of weight in the last 10 years, especially after moving to NC and giving up smoking, and its been a constant daily struggle dealing with it. Different doctors, different exercise regimes, different diets, therapy, different prescriptions. So far nothing has worked.

In our society we treat the overweight and obese with distain and repulsion. They are the lowest of the low, after all, why don't they just get it together and just stop being fat lazy slobs who couldn't push themselves away from the table much less lift a finger to exercize. I've had this attitude at times myself. As an ex-normal person I'll see a fat person now and recoil in disgust before I even notice the irony, hypocrisy and total lack of compassion in the thought running through my mind; "Damn, look at that fat fuck, why can't he just........".

Normally I wouldn't pay any mind to what someone like this person said, but with schoolyard honed accuracy he picked up on my one outstanding weakness and let it rip. My son is too young to know that I'm fat and that being fat is something we look down upon in our society. I know that someday he'll figure that out or worse yet some other schoolyard bully will point it out to him.

The thought of my son thinking of me as "that fat fuck" or someone to be embarressed about breaks my heart. So tonight I'll get back on that elliptical trainer again and pray that somehow, someday I won't be the "fat fuck" anymore and "four-eyed freak" will be the worst insult that can be hurled at me based on my appearance during some random idiotic driving encounter.

Could it really be this simple?

woozy@woozy.com (woozy) — Tue, 07 Dec 2004 04:02:52 -0800

Obesity linked to lack of sleep

Less sleep led to higher levels of a hormone which increases hunger. A reduction in the time people spend asleep could partly account for soaring obesity rates, a study has revealed.

Full Story >>

Not that getting more sleep would be all that simple. I get ~ 6 hrs. per night and have no idea how I'd squeeze in 2 more hours.......