Category Archives: Health

Run Around The Block

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A few days ago I went out to lunch with Scott at a local restaurant and while we were waiting for our food to be ready I found myself looking at the other diners surrounding me. Adjacent to us were these two morbidly obese women, they looked like mother and daughter. It wasn’t just “fat” but rolling down between their legs and the chairs weren’t even able to support the extra wibbly flab that drooped over the side.

Generally these people do not interest me, beyond a twinge of pity for their unpleasantly short lives and the ruin they made of themselves. I unfortunately also caught an eyeful of what they were eating. Eating is a pleasant verb, what they were doing wasn’t that, it was more like shoveling. Burger, double-order of Fries, and a giant big-gulp cup of frozen custard. They were chowing down, not even slowing down enough to catch their breath as they matter-loaded. Witnessing this display of gluttony was incredibly disgusting and offensive to me.

What really bothers me is that the restaurant we went to HAS MANY HEALTHY CHOICES. These two women just weren’t interested in making any of them.

And this isn’t the first time I’ve felt this way about people like that. When we go to the local market and I spot one they almost always appear to me in the same way. Massively morbidly obese, more than just fat, but fat-under-pressure. They are in the little electric cart scooters slowly moving through the store. The poor scooters, unaccustomed to being under such duress make this agonized wimpy sqwuck-squick sound as they struggle to move the human elephant about the store. Then I see what they’ve loaded in their cart – and almost always it’s the same. A dozen frozen pizzas, and the edge of the cart is lined with six-packs of soda, all arranged so the six-packs are riding the edge of the cart. Then sometimes there are tubs of sour cream and butter. Not a single vegetable in sight.

I can’t feel anything but disgusted pity for these people. They just waddle through their sad lives and in a lot of ways it upsets me. It doesn’t have to be that way. They don’t have to always sit down everywhere they go so the fat rolls can just droop over the edges of their chair.

But there is nothing that I am going to do. There is no point, plus it would just lead to me getting in trouble if I tried to wake them up by rifling through their carts asking them why they bought such awful “food”.

And then I start to think about the markets and restaurants. It’s not their responsibility to ensure that people eat well, but they certainly don’t give a damn when someone who clearly does not need a big-gulp frozen custard waddles up to the register and orders one. A similar tack could be made for the market, so much “food” there that really shouldn’t be there at all!

People amaze me. They shovel in all this bullshit, all these product-lies and it does taste good, it tastes like food, but IT IS NOT FOOD. Food is mostly vegetation, fruits, nuts, proteins, and only a scant touch of fats and oils! How many people can trace their unhappiness in life to the fact that they haven’t had a proper meal in decades!

I don’t want to hear about the woe from congestive heart failure, from all the cancers that are eating us alive, at least not from people who could have chosen to live better lives! Everyone knows that certain things are bad for you and that you should avoid them! I just can’t be sympathetic to people who are for the most part on a very slow track to suicide. Eating yourself to death, slowly.

What should people do? There is one clear and easy strategy that works for me and would work for anyone else really. It works for anyone near a supermarket or a megamarket. Only buy things that are on the rind. Every store is designed in pretty much the same way, with the foods you really should eat on the exterior walls, and everything that is bad for you or is bound to kill you in the middle aisles. Spend most of your time in produce, to start! Learn to cook! Cook REAL FOOD from REAL INGREDIENTS.

And for the love of God, stop using the handicapped motorcarts if you aren’t handicapped! Being obnoxiously fat is not a handicap. It’s a suicide attempt.

People bother me. So much. Gah.

LJ – Bottoms Up!

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From 6/20/2003

I got this message forwarded on to me from the head MD at our local health clinic:

Dear employee:

Alcohol use among college students is a serious and growing public
health problem, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services. Their comprehensive report, entitled “Healthy People
2010,” demands a reduction in the prevalence of binge drinking on
campuses. Forty percent of college students have engaged in binge
drinking – defined as consuming five or more drinks in a row for men
and four or more drinks in a row for women – in the past two weeks.

I distinctly remember my freedom to drink myself silly back when I was in College to be one of the best fundamental lessons of my entire life. The freedom that came with College life, and the ability to intoxicate yourself willfully, even dangerously, was the perfect teacher of “Actions have Consequences”. I found the pleasure and pain of that entire part of my life helped me understand many things, including personal limits, unintentional weight gain, and a new appreciation of ultra-intense headache pain. A dry campus, or one for which this message later on urged, that concerned staffers mentor students not to drink, robs these students of the chance to learn from the most effective teacher possible – pain and agony – and the ability to drink until your obnoxious roommate becomes a permanent visual blur.

Drink Up Kids!

LJ – Vet Visit

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From 02/11/2003

Owien and I are back from the Vet, all told each cat was $90 and they got their Feline Distemper, Leukemia and a Rabies Vaccine shots. The Vet said nothing new, Diva has some dental issues but they aren’t huge and maybe switching to Iams or Purina One would be a better choice than 9 Lives, we’ll see how much vomit we have to clean up when we switch – kitties have such tender tummies. Both are healthy as horses, Owien (the BIG male) may develop a weight problem just like his daddy Andy – of course Owien got his weight problem by being a lazy pig, his owner got his by being a… uh… er… nevermind :). I think the Vet is well meaning but I beg to differ, Owien is 12 pounds of muscular feline masculinity, this is plainly evident when he comes down the stairs, -thumpa thumpa thumpa-. The minute Diva saw the cat carrier with Owien in it, she promptly made for “under the bed” and Owien promptly made for “Damn I’m a DIRTY BOY, must clean, leave me alone” yeah, still cleaning – now he’s biting his claws… just like me. 🙂

I first considered that we owned the cats, but when you get right down to it who owns who? Scott and I work to make all the money while they get to lay about day in and day out, we buy them food and prepare it for them, we see to their health and pet them making them happy… it was only then while talking it over with Scott did I realize that indeed, the cats own us, or rather we are willing slaves. This is made more insidious because the cats purring lowers blood pressure and lengthens our lives – JUST SO THAT WE MAY CONTINUE TO SERVE THEM, HAND AND FOOT. I love my cats. 🙂

Stop Fear, Stop Hate

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http://t.co/DRY1lzF9

This is what comes of blind obedience to religious dogma. Your children are GAY and your children are DYING!

We will never know who they might be. They might have cured cancer. Now nobody will know.

Your faith in the Bible is killing your children. They just want love and instead all they get is hate. Hate that kills.

Stop talking about Jesus Christ. He would have never accepted one child to die by THEIR OWN HANDS! If you love Jesus so very much then love your gay children and leave Leviticus to the JEWS!

It is time for an end. An end of hate, an end of suicide. You do not understand. GOD CREATED US GAY FOR HIS DESIGN! You are destroying children. There is no penance earnest enough to relieve the shame of a needless death.

So, if you hate gays then FIND ONE and hug him or her. See that we are not evil. We are your children, your friends, your loved ones. What do you think your GOD would say to you, upon meeting him or her? Would he or she congratulate you on your defending a book written by 2000 year old men with sexual maturity problems, or would your GOD weep at your bigotry, your hate, your baseless ignorance of the truth of your children’s lives. Well?

It is self-evident. Dead children are WRONG. WIll you all just wake up and get over your fears and grab your gay child and tell them that you love them permanently. Would you etch it in stone and carry that stone on your soul for the rest of your life? Your children are DYING and THEY DON’T HAVE TO!

Grow up and stop making God cry.

So Rude!

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Today at our local Meijer’s Market I witnessed something that set my teeth on edge and nearly had me speaking out. We were going down the cookie and cracker aisle and I witnessed a mother of two little girls pull up in a cart to where the wafer cookies were, the mother grabbed a cellophane-wrapped Meijer-brand version of the cookies, tore the wrapper off and handed the cookies to her puling children.

This isn’t the first time I’ve witnessed such behavior in Michigan. I’ve never in my life witnessed it in New York and I don’t know if it did happen there and I was just not cognizant enough to notice or if this is indeed a Michigan quirk. People have absolutely no qualms about grabbing a product off the shelf at the supermarket, opening it, and before they have checked out and paid for it, they begin to consume the product! I find this a very rude behavior and it drives me to distraction. You didn’t pay for it, at least not yet, so what gives you the right to just chaw into something? Can’t you wait until you leave the market before you feel the urge to shovel matter into your gaping maw? It doesn’t help that some of these people make that disgusting crunch-munch-gasp-goopy wet sound that comes with people who masticate in public. That alone drives me crazy! Please, for the love of god, either learn how to eat with decorum or eat somewhere else! Anyways, I witnessed this and I instantly thought that that mother was perpetuating two very bad things. First, that you can open a container in a supermarket and just go to town on it without paying for it and second, that her children will grow up spoiled rotten on instant gratification. They put their little prissy hands on their hips and screech and carry on and someone hands them a pack of wafer cookies to shut them up. It ruins the children and sets a bad precedent for normal behavior at the supermarket.

I don’t know if anyone else has witnessed this atrocious behavior where they are. I find it abhorrent and repellent. I can’t stand loud masticators and I really can’t stand such rudeness. Perhaps it has more to do with the idea that I don’t prefer to think of my fellow man as a rude lout with absolutely no manners at all – despite the notion that not everyone can have the same sense of decorum that I was raised with. I think what bothers me is that my sense of decorum shouldn’t be remarkably strict, it should be common!

I didn’t approach the mother and chide her for her bad parenting. I can attribute that to MY sense of decorum. At least one of us has it. Filthy rude loutish proles. Gah!

Healthy Chicken Parm

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Today was an exercise in trying to convert a time-honored recipe into a healthy alternative. The dish was Chicken Parm. We all figured that the pasta and sauce was pretty much a fixed requirement so we worked on what could be done with the chicken itself.

Instead of frying the cutlets in breaking and egg, we all pretty much agreed that we should bake the chicken with spices and then when it’s done, give it a little cheese covering. While at the market I found 2% Italian blend shredded cheese which helped cut back on the fat and the calories.

On the whole I thought it came out very well. I would on reflection have cooked the chicken longer or hotter than I did. It was done, but not done where I wanted it. It was good to eat, but just a smidgen rubbery for my tastes.

As a side I rolled up some Pillsbury Croissant Rolls and dressed them in a butter and garlic salt wash before baking. They came out crispy and with just a hint of garlic. The only real leftovers we had were about 3 cups of pasta, but those are easy to put up as leftovers for someone’s lunch tomorrow.

Today we also visited Cody Kresta winery in Mattawan, MI. Every time we go we come away with wine. They have a real passion for wine making and it comes through their bottles. I love their 2010 Chardonnay, it’s got a wonderful note on the palate that I just love. They are only 20 minutes away and so it’s not any real chore to go visit them. The lady who manages the tasting studio there is incredibly pleasant and she sells her wine very well.

Up Up and Away!

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The flight from Albany to Chicago went exceptionally well, despite the carrier being United Airlines. The flight boarded on time, took off on time, and we arrived about ten minutes early. The only issues with the flight was the heating system was stuck at 80 degrees making the aft section uncomfortably warm. I commented that we were actually in steerage class and a few passengers around us chuckled at that. Titanic jokes never go out of style.

Getting from our gate to Parking Lot E was more of a challenge. O’Hare’s signage for the economy parking lots leaves a LOT to be desired, eventually we got to where we needed to be but we took the scenic path too far, which tested everyones sense of patience. We got to the car, it was right where we left it, and $154 dollars later (parking is ass-pensive!) we left O’Hare.

Our next stop was to get to Joy’s Noodle Company which is in boystown, one block from Lakeshore Drive. After some ranging about looking for parking (a challenge in the Santa Fe) we eventually found a spot and had a wonderful dinner with our friends Jeffery and Sean. After that we got back to the Santa Fe, got to I-90, then went from Chicago, via the Skyway, along the highway and just after we entered Michigan I felt my nemesis crowding around my consciousness.

My driving nemesis is night driving along dull interstate roads. I tend to get worn out quickly with these straight stretches of nothing, no conversations, nothing to do but drive and listen to whatever was on the radio and interminably wait for us to reach our destination. I am renowned for dozing at the wheel, and so far the rumble strips and terrified passengers are enough to keep me going – but what really scares me, even more than the dozing is trance driving. It’s different than simply being narcoleptic, my eyes are open but nobody is home. I’m conscious but wholly unaware. It’s a huge source of concern for me because I can so easily imagine myself dying at my own hands because I was in one of these situations.

A few months ago I made a pre-new-years-resolution that I would have my car always stocked with a number of “5 Hour Energy” shots. I’ve tried other chemicals before, sugar, caffeine, sugar bound with caffeine, food, brisk walks around the car, jogs, you name it. They all help temporarily but I almost always fall into the same trap I always do. The sugar gives me a huge lift and then I crash even harder when my system burns through it. The caffeine eventually starts to hurt my stomach (caffeine pills), and when I try to bind the two together, like in soda pop I find myself okay for a time but need to use the facilities a LOT, as caffeine keeps me awake and then acts as a diuretic. Sugar, Water, Caffeine, and damn it all to hell, I have to pee again.

I can’t express how happy I am with the 5 hour energy shots. They are loaded with massive quantities of B Vitamins, some caffeine and very little sugar. It’s the magic brew that keeps me up and at ‘em for as long as I need to be running a motor vehicle. So when I drive, like I did tonight, and I start to yawn a lot and feel the power start to fade and my eyes start to get heavy I peel the security plastic off a 5-hour, unscrew the cap and down the entire shot. I’m sure there is a placebo effect also at play here, if I believe that the shot will help then it will, even if the chemicals in the shot cannot make their way into my system within say 10 seconds of taking the shot. My brain, in anticipation of what the shot does for me must give me a wee boost right up front, so it hits me pretty much right after my last swallow is complete.

That feeling of having heavy eyelids, the tiredness in my neck, and my yawning cease almost instantly. I am awake, I am alert, and so far I’ve never sensed an instance of trance driving while hopped up on a 5-hour. So this is my solution. These little shots are the way I can cope with my body telling me that at 10pm after a whole day of flying around creation that it’s time to sleep and SLEEP NOW. I can take a shot and subvert it, at least temporarily.

So now I have a new rule. I cannot operate a motor vehicle without at least one available 5-hour energy shot somewhere in the car with me. I almost never need it, but for those times when I’m driving along and I feel that droopy feeling coming on out it comes. If I don’t have a shot handy, then it’s time to stop at a rest area or a gas station to tend to the supply problem.

I think that every state, in rest areas should have a 5-hour-energy vending machine in operation. Set it to $2 a shot and impress upon motorists the dangers of accidental unconsciousness and what these 5-hours can do for them. A life saved by not passing out at the wheel is worth a measly $2.

So here I am, still a little lit-up from my 5-hour shot, writing a blog post and cradling a very needy cat. Thankfully he has forgiven me for being away so long, it can be challenging to blog while your cat is trying to brace himself against your hand with his paw. Life is hard. 🙂

Flitting Away

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Here I sit at Albany International Airport, Gate A5 waiting for my flight. I went through the TSA security checkpoint. It appears as though Albany has elected to only use the backscatter scanners to secure passengers. After requesting to pass through the magnetometer, a passive scanner that I am comfortable with, and then being denied that, I elected to pursue “Enhanced Patdown” which was a Code 22 in the TSA. I had to wait only a very short while and a man approached me, took me over to a staging area and proceeded with the enhanced patdown.

I don’t really see how that is upsetting to anyone at all unless you are violently touch-sensitive. It was very tame and wholly not-upsetting. I have a longstanding issue with the backscatter scanners, cutting to the chase, I don’t trust that technology. It wasn’t cleared by the FDA, there aren’t thousands of studies that tell me it’s safe, so I assume it’s hazardous to my health. It’s important to understand that I have a special sensitivity to being exposed to ionizing radiation. I have a huge risk factor for prostate cancer and the last thing I want is to expose a prostate cell to any radiation that I don’t actually have to endure. It’s the difference between a cell that lives and dies naturally and a cell that gets damaged, goes on a bloody rampage and kills me with prostate cancer. Would a backscatter scanner do that? Chances are 99 out of 100 that it would not and that I’m simply acting beyond rationality in regards to this. But if I can elect to follow a path that doesn’t require me to walk into a machine I don’t know and don’t trust and do something else, a simple act that allows me to skip the risk altogether, why not? I can sleep at night knowing I didn’t consciously expose myself to something harmful and I don’t have to live with the weaksauce spectre of the headline that might be “Backscatter Scanners Cause Cancer” which may or may not be a New York Times headline. I just skip it altogether.

The enhanced patdown was actually quite a non-event. Perhaps it’s the fact that I have a rather loose sense of propriety, in a way that I’m just a big old slut that means that being touched, all the way to what amounts to a kind of non-sexual petting. It’s really not that thrilling at all. The TSA has stopped exploring all the parts of a mans body, so you don’t actually have to worry anymore about junk-handling. I was half looking forward to some junk-handling personally. The fact that the procedures changed makes a whatever event into a complete non-issue. Oh well. At least the fellow doing the enhanced patdown wasn’t attractive otherwise I’d have lots more to write about. “Do you have anything in a 6’6” blond otter?” If only you could select the TSA rep who gave you the pat-down, that could be a pseudo-non-sexual Top 10 TSA award. 🙂 Yeah yeah yeah, I’m a big old slut. Yeah yeah yeah.

The TSA apparently doesn’t think that my 1L stainless steel Hydroflask is worth commenting on or asking to see the inside of. They missed it in O’Hare, and they missed it in Albany. I think they’ll always miss it. What’s in my Hydroflask? Nothing. I threw out the water before I left for the airport, but what if I didn’t?

This only reinforces my original precepts that the TSA is performing security theater to make us feel better. That there really isn’t any security actually being secured, but actually just people from the federal government who are there to give the impression that we are safe. Either way, they catch some things, and they miss a few others. As for the enhanced pat-down, whatever it was supposed to detect is quite silly. It’s just a procedure to impress upon me how safe my flight is going to be.

Whatever.

From Beneath You, It Leaks…

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Helping to install and sort through old technology has raised a spectre that I’ve rarely thought of before. There is one place that almost everyone has in their home that they spend absolutely no time thinking about. Somewhere in your house you have a box with some sort of gadget: a box of remote controls, a few alarm clocks, perhaps an old music player or two. Hidden in these little bits of convenience technology is usually a pair of batteries. These cells just lay around for years and nobody pays them any mind, everyone but of course chemistry. Chemistry knows full well, and when it goes along with time, hand in hand, it’s sometimes a recipe for some really hazardous consequences.

Alkaline battery cells that are very old will tend to leak battery acid. This is really not good for anyone, nor the environment. These little caches of chemical consequence lay inert and placid for a very long time. They are almost always stored in pretty tit plastic housing containers where time, gravity, and chemistry can really work their wonders on them. When you open up one of these old gadgets you might discover an oozing corroded leaking alkaline battery cell. Getting this cleaned up can be a challenge if it has progressed far enough. So, if you happen to have a box of these battery-powered gadgets laying about that you won’t ever really use again or won’t for a very long time, please take the alkaline battery cells out of these devices!

Just throwing them in the bin is not enough either. These cells really need to be recycled. If you have a glass jar or a plastic bin, store all the dead or questionable alkaline battery cells there until you eventually take them to a battery recycler. In Michigan we have a chain called BatteryPlus and they accept recycled batteries of any type gladly and for free. BestBuy also provides a battery recycling collection program as well if you can’t get to a BatteryPlus location. At the least you really shouldn’t just toss these cells into the trash – the chemicals they are made out of aren’t good for anything. Not good for birds at might come into contact with the cells in a landfill and not good for any amphibian that might find itself in runoff water from a landfill. It’s corrosive, it’s harmful, and it is likely waiting silently for you in your very own basement or junk drawer.

If you work in a business or run one, one of the best things you can do for the environment is to sponsor a battery recycling collection point. I do this at my workplace. I found a useless plastic index card box, slapped a label on it and told everyone to please use it. People, if told that a recycling depot is handy will use it! My recycling bin at work fills up every few weeks with an assortment of dead cells in various states of decay. On my way along I carry this box of hazardous waste off to BatteryPlus. They greet me with a smile and thanks for recycling. It’s good for the environment and takes almost zero thought and nearly zero investment. The rewards, birds and frogs that aren’t poisoned are all you need to see to know you’ve done the right thing.

Dreaming about Watches

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Have you ever dreamed that you had a watch and looked at the time in your dreams? I just woke up from a dream like that. It had a number of other qualities 😉 but at the end it also featured me looking at my watch. In my dream I could have sworn that the time was 10:30 in the morning, but actually it is 8:46 AM.

This dream has got me thinking about the physics of that existence. I carry around my self-monitor even when I dream so when the dreams are offering me a chance to explore something I wouldn’t normally feel alright exploring I usually don’t elect to go forward with whatever it is. Its the flow of time that interests me. If everything in a dream is constructed out of my mind, then a watch, indeed the flow of time itself is completely malleable and up to me. There has to be some basic irreducible moments in dreams because you can’t spend an eternity dwelling in a dream-state, you do move forward despite the notion that time is a complete construction in that state.

I think the jury is still out as to the phenomenology of dreaming. I’ve seen competing theories ranging in meaning from dreams as prophetic tools, diagnostic tools, all the way down to a bored cortex that is clamped down with a motor inhibition yet continuously gets input from other parts of the brain that are accidentally firing due to their functions as part of the restorative part of sleeping. I think dreaming is more than a bored cortex making up bits and pieces to keep itself occupied while the limbic system and the hippocampus are busy refining the days memories, chatting up the immune system, and pushing brain chemistry back to a point where we are unlikely lot run into pink elephants.

I do certainly believe that the brain is actively occupied in a lot of maintenance procedures during sleep. Resetting neurotransmitters, dealing with chemical deficits here and there, and conversing with the immune system, but for me, dreaming feels more than just a random series of inputs making my cortex come up with a set-dressed stage to entertain me. I think that when we are in a dreaming state, that we are much closer to the reality that exists purely in our minds. Existence there is not really bound by reality in the real world. I’m sure a more spiritual person would approach this argument that when you dream you are in direct communication with your soul. In a way that is compatible with what I imagine, as the physics of the brain have to point almost by default to the existence of a soul, I just don’t go that far. When people dream, the only real thing that your mind has to go on for stimuli has got to be the noisy click-clack chatter of cells that are firing “accidentally”. I put “accidentally” in quotes because it’s actually very much a quantum mechanical thing, these cells are so small, their connections so fine that a portion of what they are firing for might be the foamy background noise of virtual particles being created and annihilated in the very small spaces between synaptic clefts between neurons.

I can’t escape the theories from David Bohm, that perhaps these tiny spaces between synaptic clefts or even along neuron cells themselves are an interface between classical reality and the implicate order. That the soul is a part of a holographic superstructure that lies independent of classical reality and needs a brain of sufficient complexity to access these special conditions. That it is our larger, more convoluted brains that lead us to consciousness, sentience, and that dreaming is a natural epiphenomenon of that sentience.

If all of of this supposition even has a whiff of being true, that means that the soul is immortal, and that our experience in the world, our persistence in it despite how often our bodies are effectively replaced and how much of our bodies aren’t really ours, but mostly bacteria is all because we are expressions of the implicate order inside flesh. Here we arrive again, like a big circle and back to a really awesome statement: All Is One.

It would be certainly something if our ability to dream Implied a soul, that our bodies were constructed to tune the implicate order and that our consciousnesses, our sentience is not only a fundamental structure of the universe itself but that we are actually all connected in a fashion in the implicate order. The ramifications for ethics and morality are mind boggling. If we are all in a certain way intimately connected to each other wether we are alive or dead, then we are never truly alone and when we do violence to each other, we are doing violence to ourselves.

There is no way to prove any of this. It’s pretty to think about and perhaps someday science will demonstrate wether the brain actually does what I suspect that it does or rather the opposite, that it’s all just a flash in the pan. I really find the entire notion of my soul being a part of the implicate order to be very comforting and puts a rather fine set of clothes on Buddhism.