Tag: quality of life

Makin’ it somehow

Twitter has been down all day, which is annoying because I like to use it to dash off quick complaints. Earlier, for example, I wanted to bitch about this production dude who decided to recite for me a complete plot synopsis of some anime he really likes. Yes, I enjoy anime, but you are boring the hell out of me. Shut up!

Time seemed to be moving awfully slowly this morning. It started when I was in bed waiting for my alarm to go off. The light coming in around the curtain in the bedroom looked the same every time I looked at it. I kept falling asleep and waking back up and still feeling tired but knowing I was going to have to get up “soon”. Finally at 8:30 I actually checked the time and got up.

The first two hours of work were like two weeks. Very tired, trouble concentrating, and later, mild abdominal pain. I took the opportunity to call my doctors and create a game plan for tomorrow.

Today’s symptoms include: coughing, nausea, gross taste in my throat, mild headache, mild abdominal pain, occasional burping, general feeling of tiredness. As usual, mild exertion exhausts me and I have to sit down for awhile to recover and catch my breath. When I woke up this morning, the wet raspiness was back in my throat and lungs. Also, I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this at all, but I have had so much acne since this all started. It is driving me crazy. It seems like every time I look in the mirror there are five more zits.

Seeing my GP tomorrow morning to demand that he actually order some tests. Like a meeting with a cardiologist, and a chest X-ray, and more labs, and whatever else I can think of before then. I’m going to bring in my calendar with all my symptoms for this month written in it, to see if that will help him think of anything we’ve missed. I’m supposed to call my endocrinologist after that appointment and let them in on everything that’s happening, so they can decide whether or not I should resume hormones.

My boss is back from Japan. I had asked her to see if she could find me a protection charm for my car, but apparently she didn’t visit any shrines. She did, however, bring me a beautiful floral pattern drawstring bag and a cute bookmark with a paper girl sculpted on it, both handmade by her aunt, and she also brought me an adorable little desk ornament of an owl. It’s hard to describe the thing. There’s a big ball that sits on the desk, and out of that comes half a hoop of black wire, and then hanging off that is a smaller straight piece of wire, and on one end is the little round owl, and on the other are two colored balls to balance him. It’s neat and it moves around with the air conditioning or with any vibrations on the desk.

She came in to talk to me today and told me that health has to be my first priority, because if we don’t have our health, we don’t have anything. It’s a total cliche, but I know full well how true it is. I have never been so miserable in my life–well, maybe when I was hospitalized with cancer, but at least then I knew what I was in for and didn’t fight every day to get things done.

I’m really lucky to have such a good boss. I hope I can get all this straightened out so I can go back to being the kind of employee I want to be–the kind of employee my boss deserves to have working for her.

Well, I’m awake

My nasal passages seem clear enough, but I still kept waking up gasping for breath this morning. It just felt weird because I seemed to be breathing fine, so I couldn’t find a reason for that to stop.

Last night I slept in our bed instead of the guest bed, which felt great on my back, but I wonder if Mom’s right and the flatness of it makes my throat get closed off. I guess tonight I can try sleeping on more pillows or something.

I went to bed early last night to try and get myself back on the good schedule. I’m thinking about trying to go biking later. But I don’t know how that’s going to work out if I get out of breath as easily as I have been. It shouldn’t be exhausting to put sheets on a bed, for example. I’m frustrated and I want to just try it and see if I can work myself out of this, but if it’s some sort of problem with my circulatory or respiratory system I’m just going to antagonize it. So meh.

Rex is coming over today to take the desk away. I need to get all my junk off of it at some point. :> Once the desk is gone I can reposition the second bedroom as a workout area, or something.

Right now I feel like there is gunk in my throat–not at the start of my nasal passages where I had been feeling it before, but instead a little lower–and it is grossing me out.

Now if I can just make it through the day…

Last night was not fun, and I hope it’s not an experience I have to repeat anytime soon.

I tried to get to sleep at around 11. Thinking it would help clear my sinuses, I put a cough drop in my mouth. Three hours of fitful sleep later, I awoke feeling like there were gobs of mucus in the back of my throat and with that old familiar hitching in my lungs. Lovely.

I got rid of the cough drop and tried to get back to sleep, but no matter what I did, it was impossible. I got up several times and messed around online, but I was really too tired to enjoy or care too much about what I was doing. Whenever I tried to get back in bed, I couldn’t breathe and I couldn’t relax.

Finally I tried the decongestant that worked for me the other day. It dried my throat out, which was sort of a relief and sort of made me nauseous, but I still couldn’t actually get to sleep.

It was around 5 or 6 when I finally asked Sean to please come sit next to me because I couldn’t calm down. He snuggled into bed behind me and wrapped his arms around me and stroked the skin of my back and legs.

And I was able to concentrate on the niceness of that feeling, instead of all the other things that always race through my mind when I go to bed these days. It seems like every night I think about how I wish I was back in the old apartment, or I miss some item we used to own, or I think about how I’ve “chosen” not to worry about having kids since it’s impossible, or I ponder how far away I live from my family, or I wish I could figure out if I want to buy a house here or move away. I think it would be pretty ridiculous at this point to try and claim that stress isn’t a factor in how I’ve been feeling. I’m just not sure what to do about it.

Anyway, I am so thankful that Sean calmed me down enough that I finally slipped off to sleep. I’m not sure how much sleep I actually got, and I feel like crap right now, but I know I’d feel even worse if I hadn’t gotten any sleep at all.

Side note: I noticed yesterday that the veins that normally stick out of my feet don’t, anymore. It kind of weirded me out.

Side note #2: I think, constantly, “Remember back when I could breathe?” or “Remember back when I didn’t feel terrible?” I’m really annoying myself. It’s not that clever, Heather.

Side note #3: I’m going to a specialist tomorrow who will hopefully figure something out about my respiration/pulmonary function. I’ve had friends who’ve said it sounds like allergies and friends who’ve said it sounds like sleep apnea. Looking forward to a doctor’s opinion.

Side note #4: Why am I so sweaty all the time?

4 o’clock fluke

On Wednesday I woke up at 4 o’clock. I was able to cook breakfast and dinner, as well as get in a workout and do some freelance work as I’d done the day before.

I tried to do the same yesterday, because I planned to go to my freelance job earlier and I wanted to get some sort of workout in before that, but I ended up getting up at 5:30, which didn’t seem like enough time to work out properly and still manage to feed Sean. I did go to the grocery store instead, though, and on my way back I got Sean a couple of breakfast biscuits from McDonald’s. But I barely had time to put anything away, I didn’t cook that night’s dinner, I was only able to pack a lunch because there were still some leftovers from Wednesday, and the kitchen was a mess.

This morning I woke up even later, at 6:30. I called the guy I’m doing freelance for and told him I couldn’t make it today. The purpose of getting up early was to get in a workout, get my meals prepared, and spend time with Sean, not to have time for a second job. While I will appreciate the extra income, the other things take priority. I’m still easing into this, as evidenced by my inability to get up ridiculously early on a consistent basis, but I don’t want to let the important things slide.

Disenhearteningly (which is apparently not a word), I awoke with that same raspiness (also not a word) in my chest and throat. Lovely.

(I’m enjoying Firefox’s spell-checker. But come on, I think it’s past time for spellchecker to be all one word.)

I’ve been feeling pretty good this week, overall.

I did get the lab results back from the doctor, and I’ll go and talk with him about them on Tuesday. My cholesterol is high. My thyroid is borderline. The endocrinologist called me back to ask that I add a complete metabolic profile to the labs she requested, which I will be having drawn sometime next month (I have to start the progesterone on the 1st, and then have the labs done on day 2 or 3 of my period).

In response to the cholesterol I am trying to figure out ways to include more veggies in my diet, and less meats. It turns out I can steam frozen veggies in the microwave at work pretty easily, so if nothing else I can always grab a bag from the freezer to put in my lunch. I’d love to eat more salad, but it seems like when I buy bagged salads they go bad before I eat them. Now I’m considering the tried and true head of lettuce method.

Today’s lunch is going to be a BLT, I think, because I have leftover bacon from Wednesday and I just bought tomatoes. No lettuce though…

As far as my productivity, I feel that it’s up, but there are still things I need to deal with, like getting the desk in the second bedroom disassembled so a work friend can take it, dealing with the weird smell in that room, finding a smaller desk to put in there, and assembling our second media cabinet for the living room. I’m also planning to rearrange my office at work soon, which has kept me thinking. It’s really an awkward space with awkward furniture; hopefully the idea I have in mind will work out.

Speaking of working out (har), I’d better get outside for my walk before it gets too much hotter.

I agree with James Brown (although I didn’t know that I would)

This morning I awakened with the distinct impression that I was about to have an awful Charley horse in my left calf. There are things you can do to stop them, or to lessen their impact, so I set about keeping my leg as still as possible while I attempted to get out of bed so I could stand with my foot flat on the floor. It was mostly successful, though there in the middle I had a huge jolt of pain.

Despite that, though, I noticed something as I was waking up: I felt good.

Not only did I feel like I had gotten enough sleep, but my heart wasn’t racing, and I felt like I could breathe–almost normally.

This good feeling carried me through my morning routine and out the door for a 25-minute walk around the neighborhood, during which I never once had to gasp for air. By the end of it I was a little winded, but I recovered almost immediately.

What the hell?

Not that I’m complaining, mind you, but this is so different from how I’ve been feeling. I’ve been essentially unwilling to try to do anything due to how horrible my chest made me feel. Yesterday I was so annoyed about it that I broke down and had McDonald’s for lunch, complete with sweet tea.

I can think of two environmental things that have changed recently that might explain this. First, I haven’t spent a whole lot of time outside since last Wednesday, when I took a brief walk.

Second, we’ve been keeping the door to the second bedroom closed the past few days because of a really weird smell in there.

I thought at first that another lizard had gotten in and died, but I’ve scoured that room, moving the furniture even, and I can’t find a damn thing. Plus, oddly, the smell occasionally goes away.

We’re keeping the door shut so we don’t have to smell it, but I think it’ll also help contain the smell and make it stronger so when I finally call maintenance they’ll know what I’m talking about.

Anyway, it’s possible I’m allergic to whatever I’m smelling in there.

Or maybe it’s neither of those two. I hope it’s not the outdoors thing, because I don’t want to seal myself away inside all the time.

Regardless, I haven’t felt this good since the day I decided to start getting up earlier, right before I got gastroenteritis. Hope it continues!

What is it?

I’m trying to figure out what has caused this downward spiral in my health.

My initial reaction was to blame it all on emotional distress from the fire. While that may be a factor, at this point I don’t think it accounts for everything. After all, I was still riding a bike after the fire. As soon as I was able to get one, I rode when I could while we were still living with Sean’s parents. Back then I didn’t have full time work and was able to do things according to my own schedule, but I was also healing emotionally, and I also didn’t really have a place to call my own…so I wasn’t as vigilant as I had been, but I was very eager to get our own place so I could get back into the swing of my life.

I got my current job around the same time we moved into this apartment. At first I was going on walks or to the Y during my lunch break all the time. I knew I wasn’t in as good shape as I once was, but I was determined to get back to it.

But something happened and I didn’t stick to it. Why did I stop working out at lunch?

Sometimes I wouldn’t take a lunch. And then I got into the habit of eating out for lunch, which meant I had to have time to pick something up to eat, which meant I usually didn’t think I had enough time to work out as well.

Also, since we’ve lived here, I’ve only been to the Canal once, and I haven’t biked the Greeneway at all. For some reason I’ve felt like it was too much trouble or it took too much time. But that makes no sense. At the old apartment, I had to lug the bike up and down three flights of stairs, and I did it without complaint. Here, all I’d have to do is walk it out the door. So why am I not biking before or after work, or on the weekends for that matter?

And why do my weekends solely consist of sitting around on the computer and/or watching DVDs? Why don’t I go places anymore? Every Friday I think, “I want to do something this weekend,” and then every Saturday and Sunday I think, “I’ll do it later,” and then it’s Monday and I haven’t done anything.

Is this horrible out-of-breath-all-the-time thing a product of my slow decrease in activity? If so, how did I let this happen?

Or is my slow decrease in activity caused by being out of breath all the time? Is there something in my environment maybe that makes me less desirous to move around? Am I allergic to something in the apartment, or at work?

I don’t want to just assume I’m a victim of my environment. Obviously I’m going to ask my general practitioner about this when I seem him in another week.

This is all just making me so mad. I can’t draw a clear line of how this has happened to me–how I’ve let myself go this badly.

The more you do, the more you are able to do. The more you do it, the more you are able to do it.

The less you do, the less you are able to do. The less you do it, the less you are able to do it.

Is that all there is to this? Am I where I am now because my laziness gradually grew? Because I stopped packing lunches and cooking dinners? Because I never “feel like” taking the bike out for a spin?

How can I correct this if I get winded after thirty seconds of mild physical activity?

I will find out more when I see the doctor again. I hope I can figure something out.

Keep it up

I haven’t exercised since Tuesday; yesterday I felt terrible when I got up, and today I was just tired and got up too late. I did run around shopping during lunch yesterday, if that counts for anything.

But I have been eating fairly well. Yesterday I had a Slim-Fast for breakfast, half of a spring greens salad with strawberries (no dressing) for lunch, and then salmon-potato croquettes with grits and steamed veggies at Boll Weevil for dinner. Dinner might have been too much food. But at least I drank water, and I didn’t have a dessert…which is a miracle for me at the Boll Weevil.

I found yesterday that putting off my lunch until late in the day made me not feel hungry at all, and then eating a large dinner not too long after that staved off the headache. I just need to make sure I don’t eat a large, unhealthy dinner.

Today I didn’t have breakfast because I’m out of Slim-Fast, but when I got to work I discovered some leftovers from where the morning crew had made breakfast for one of the production assistants to celebrate her birthday, so I had four cocktail wieners. I also ate a mint from Olive Garden that happened to be in my desk…I need to watch that sort of thing.

I’m not doing anything mind-blowing in terms of lifestyle changes, but that’s how it should be: one step at a time. And I am feeling better. I’ve been pretty chipper lately…reading and posting more on my blog, for example. The next thing I want to get back into is photography. I was out at a party last night for nearly three hours and I didn’t take a single picture. That really shows how out of practice I am.

I think once I get myself into a decent routine, where I’m getting up at the same time every day, I will start looking more seriously at my meal planning and charting things out, but for now I’m just trying to gradually adjust.

Here goes

I got up at 6 this morning, put on my workout clothes, set up my new pedometer, and went for a walk, taking out the trash as I went.

Almost immediately I was out of breath. I had to stop walking and force myself to breathe deeply. These days it feels like there’s a hole in my lungs, so no matter how heavily I breathe I don’t get enough air. I’m thinking it’s allergy-related, though it almost certainly also has to do with how out of shape I am.

After dumping the trash I walked straight back to the end of the main road, then turned into one of the many patio home complexes and walked back through there. I thought about going on into another complex, but I ultimately decided that I didn’t want to overdo it on my first day, so I came back to the apartment. In total, I walked a piddly .628 of a mile.

It was already hot when I walked, even though the sun had barely risen. My clothes were plastered to me by the time I came back inside, and the air conditioning was quite a welcome relief.

Yesterday I bought a stand for my bicycle so I can use it as a stationary bike indoors. I also looked at treadmills, but all the powered ones seemed too big, and I didn’t see a non-powered one anywhere. I may do some more research online.

The two bad habits I need to break are eating out all the time and staying up too late. If I can keep those things under control, I think it will make a big difference.

I’m considering making a rule for myself that if I do eat out, I have to have a salad. That might work. But I seem to always break my own rules, so I really just want to try to pack my lunch as much as possible.

Avoiding staying up too late will really just involve willing myself not to get heavily involved with something I’m doing right before bed, be it watching DVDs or reading blogs or working on a project. Last night I was burning DVDs and watching Detective Conan until I realized it was already 10:30. I wrapped up as quickly as I could and went to bed.

Something I’m worried about is how Sean tends to wake me up by playing music or talking on the phone too loudly in the morning. He woke me up shortly before my alarm went off today, so maybe I was ready to get up anyway, but I recall thinking furiously as I listened to him through the wall that we really need to do something about it. I even considered for a long time switching the bedrooms so I would be sleeping in the front room, down the hall from the living room, instead of in the back room, which is right next to the living room. But that would mean I would have to do laundry in the spare bedroom and then carry it into the other bedroom to put away, and having a washer and dryer in a spare bedroom’s closet just seems weird.

Plus it would be a pain to move our bed :>

I’m wondering if maybe a white noise generator would do the trick…it might also cancel out any noise from our upstairs neighbor, who can keep odd hours. But would it interfere with my alarm clock?

Beyond that, I have two things I want to do to get myself further into the “zone”. The first involves some changes to our second bedroom. I’m giving away the huge desk, and I’m going to try to find a small desk and maybe a shelf to go in there and then use the floor space for exercising. Eventually, when we get a flat panel television, I’ll put the ancient monster we currently use in there as well, for use with workout DVDs. Until then I can just use a laptop.

My hope is to arrange the room so that it looks inviting but is still easy to work out in.

The second thing I want to do is rearrange my office at work. I have a vague idea on how I want to do it. Basically my goal is to shift the “hallway” part of the room so that it’s in front of me rather than behind me. It’s really annoying to have people walking behind me all the time. My plan is to move my desk back so that my back is against the opposite wall. I’ll have a decent view of both doors that way.

Once I get my office to where I can see when people are coming, I want to start doing mini-workouts at my desk. Nothing elaborate, just some movement on a regular schedule. I actually found some software that will pop up and lead you in Tai Chi every 30 minutes, but I’m not sure I want to have some woman’s voice all of a sudden blaring out of my speakers. Still, it seems interesting and I’ll look into it further. I can also simply get a timer and set it for a certain interval, and do my mini-workout whenever it goes off. You can understand why I’d prefer to be able to see people coming…I’d rather not look like a complete doofus if I can help it.

I’ve come to believe that using my lunch break for a workout isn’t the best plan. I think when I take my break I should do some walking around, but I’d rather it be something fun than something I won’t look forward to doing, and something that will make me sweat enough that I’ll need a change of clothes. Changing to work out saps my valuable break time. So I think I’ll shift to an “exploring” sort of lunch, when it’s not too hot. I’ll do my usual trek to the Riverwalk, or I’ll go to the Greeneway, or I’ll find some other place that isn’t too far away.

Also, when I went to the bike shop yesterday I learned how to take the front wheel off my bike, so it shouldn’t be quite as big a hassle to get the thing into my car. So maybe I can bike a little during lunch too, or before or after work.

Ultimately I want to try to keep it interesting so I don’t get bored and quit.

Finally, I need to change my mentality. If I don’t exercise much (or at all) one day, that doesn’t mean I can’t do it the next day. But I need to stop thinking of every time that happens as “starting over”. When I do that I get all revved up with my “new plan” and then when it fails I crash for awhile. What I need to do is think of myself as continually doing these things, rather than starting and stopping. It’s just like how they say you shouldn’t “diet”, but instead change your eating habits permanently.

I will be seeing my general practitioner in two weeks to discuss the results of the bloodwork they took yesterday. Depending on the outcome of that, I may be starting on blood pressure, cholesterol, and/or thyroid medication. Come September I will be back on hormones to regulate my periods. However, I will not think of those as fertility treatments. I’ll talk more about that in another post.

Words of wisdom from Sushicam

I haven’t read many of my Bloglines subscriptions in the past year or so. Working in news, I’ve either found the thought of reading online tiresome or overwhelming every time I’ve tried to catch up. Today I’ve got some free moments while I wait for DVDs to burn, so I’ve been working through some of my Japan blogs. I’m currently plowing through Sushicam, and this post of Jeff’s seemed like it was written just for me:

Did you enjoy yourself today?

I mean really, REALLY enjoy yourself?

I shudder to think what the most common answer would be if we were all to honestly answer this most simple of questions each night before drifting off to sleep.

Barring any serious illness, unemployment issues, or family tragedies, probably the greatest reason that a person is not enjoying their life is because they are not taking the time to take care of themselves. And what better way to find happiness in life than to take the time to do something that really means something to you.
Slow down.

Get a hobby.

Have a purpose

Do something meaningful with your time.

And while everyone has a different interpretation of what has meaning, each and everyone of us should be doing something each day that is just for us. Something we enjoy, and not something you either feel obligated to do, or something that you get paid to do.

Wow.

So maybe it’s not my circumstances that are making me unhappy.

Maybe it’s just that I’m not doing anything fun.

I’ve been thinking of that as a circumstance…but don’t I have the power to do what I want, if I really try? Even if I have to work around Sean’s schedule and my work schedule, isn’t there a way to pursue my hobbies?

It feels like it’s been so long since I’ve explored.

I need to get out and enjoy myself. I need to take care of me.

I’m sure this has been painfully obvious to all of you, and I thank you for your patience in dealing with my whiny posts for the past however long it’s been. These emotional epiphanies never seem to come easily, even when they’re this simple.

Home

It’s been almost two years since fire destroyed the first home I created for myself and my husband. Sean found the place and I moved from Kentucky to live there. I decorated, I cleaned, I learned to get over myself and deal with things like loneliness and uncertainty. Over time I developed ideas and systems and I was in great shape. I loved the apartment–it was filled with things that reminded me of my home back in Kentucky and beautiful in its own right, with a cathedral ceiling in the living room and a gorgeous view of the pond below.

It was home.

After we lost it, lost everything, we didn’t have a home. We lived with Sean’s parents. There was no place for us to go back to, no comfort zone. We stayed there perhaps a little too long, until finally I told Sean we had to move now.

It was I who found the new apartment. It costs much less and is in a good location. The building is still fairly new. Our management company is fast and helpful.

I wasn’t able to decorate right away, mainly because we didn’t have many possessions to move in, but also because I had a job and wasn’t able to spend entire days working on the apartment like I did when we first got married. So for months we have been accumulating things and I’ve been trying to put them in places that look good and make sense.

Some things are different. We spend most of our time in the living room now, whereas in the old apartment we could usually be found in the office. The office here is more of a second bedroom with a desk and a closet full of dry goods, paperwork, and stuff we couldn’t find another place for. It’s never felt cozy, and I haven’t had time to deal with that.

Since there was only one desk and I was using it, Sean took up a position on the kotatsu in the living room, and he’s been there ever since. Now he says he doesn’t want to have a desk, but prefers to stay right where he is. To manage some of his clutter, I bought him a little black file cabinet.

Meanwhile, I got lonely sitting in there by myself, so I moved my laptop out onto the coffee table we’re keeping for Brooke. The desk wasn’t particularly comfortable to sit at, so this really isn’t too different. When my back hurts, I sit on the floor, and when I’m bored with that I sit on the loveseat Brooke gave us.

We have a large, old TV given to us by Robert and Julia, and a cheap DVD player I bought at Wal-Mart, and we spend much of our time at home sitting at our computers and watching DVDs. Sometimes I feel like I’m trying to escape into another world rather than dealing with the things that need to be done, or even the things I think I want to do.

The TV sits against the wall shared by our master bedroom. With that; the fact that the door is right next to it, allowing sound through the cracks; and Sean’s late-night schedule, it is often difficult for me to sleep soundly. I’m sure the same is true for him when I’m up during the day. Complicating matters is the fact that Sean will often sleep on the couch next to his kotatsu, meaning when I get up I feel like I have to be quiet. So I can’t even retreat into a DVD.

I’ve Twittered about my discontent lately, how I feel like I haven’t really had a summer, how I have trouble waking up in the morning.

Today, while sitting at my laptop in the living room of our apartment, I thought, “I want to go home.”

And it finally hit me. I feel the same about this place as I did about Cheryl and Reid’s. It’s not home. It’s a place where I’m keeping my stuff, a base to operate out of. When I’m not here, I don’t wish I was. Even when I say I want to go home, when I finally get here I don’t feel relieved. I feel resigned.

Part of it, I’m sure, is due to some actual problems with the apartment, such as the layout and our noisy neighbors and the fact that we have no view whatsoever. But I think I’ve also failed to take ownership of this place and the things inside it because I feel like none of it belongs to me. How much of it was given to us, and how much of it was purchased using money that was given to us? What here can I say is truly mine?

I hope when our lease is up next spring that we are able to move. Even though I have an idea of what’s bothering me, I don’t feel like I want to take ownership of this place. I want to start fresh, and put more time into picking the spot and the things I want to go in it. I want to find a place that doesn’t have the problems this place does. I want to find something cute, just large enough to suit our needs.

I want to stop wishing I was back in our old apartment, with all our old stuff.

I want to find home.

Just say no

Doctors seem to think they’ll hurt my feelings if they say no. “Never say never,” they’ll say, even after informing me that there is only a 7% chance of ovary function returning to normal after a bone marrow transplant, and even then it usually happens within the first year of recovery.

I would rather you just told me it was impossible, because I hate wishing and hoping and planning when I don’t know if it will ever happen.

Regardless, I do think I like my new doctor, despite her tendency to ramble.

An interesting snippet from the first maru-ma light novel

Yuuri is having dinner with the previous Maou and her family, as shown in the anime. They get to talking about what Yuuri’s world is like, and he mentions science and technology. At first everyone’s response is that the humans have things like that to try and kill people from a long distance away, but Yuuri quickly says that he’s not talking about war technology, but technology for improving people’s lives.

“Wait wait wait, I didn’t mean that kind of science! In short, well, umm, machines that will do troublesome chores like cleaning and laundry, and machines that will plow fields all at once. In short, stuff to make daily living more comfortable.”

Cheri seems sweetly surprised.

“I don’t think cleaning and laundry are troublesome. That’s the job of the cleaning men and laundry women.”

I didn’t even think about how the queen lives up to now.

“So, so, instead of people in charge of cleaning or laundry, you’d have a machine.”

“If that’s so, the servants lose their jobs?”

“If that happens, those people work at factories to build vacuum cleaners and washing machines…”

I don’t really know if people can live easily.

Translation from Onadoru Euphoria.

I read a utopian story once–can’t remember the name, thought it was by Doctorow but am having trouble locating it–in which robots did all the menial tasks, freeing up people to pursue whatever activities they desired. People’s pursuits were profitable because there was typically a market for them. The pursuits were also typically creative. Unfortunately, to reach this point of bliss, the world had to go through a period of war, during which the US created the robots now being used to better people’s lives. In the story, the US was pretty totalitarian, and the utopia was in Australia.

I love the idea of people being free to do whatever pleases them, but I wonder if that’s even possible. Not everyone is as self-motivated as the author of that story (though we certainly wish we were sometimes!). So if people really were free to do whatever they wanted, would things really be different from now? Wouldn’t quite a few people sit around wallowing in boredom, watching TV, supported by the infrastructure and entertained by the people who did have motivation? And what about people who just want to have fun, and don’t care about producing anything or offering a service? I, for example, want to travel and eat. How would those things better society?

(And who maintains the robots?)

Anyway, I just thought it was interesting to see that sort of philosophical question appear in maru-ma.

(By the way, “maru-ma” is the term used to encompass all facets of the story which was made into an anime called Kyou Kara Maou. The light novels have names with variations on “Ma no Tsuku“, for example. The common thread among all these is the “Ma”, roughly meaning “demon”, which is always enclosed in a circle, called “Maru”, hence “maru-ma“.)

On a natural high

I worked for nearly 12 hours, and I was so cheerful at the end that it’s hard to remember how I freaked out yesterday, and how anxious I was this morning that things were going to be the same today. I got to take care of a lot of things that needed taking care of…I think that’s part of why. Like I mentioned on Josh’s blog, being productive really does help with depressive moods. Apparently it helps “omg I’m gonna freak out” moods, too.

Anyway, the big project should start tomorrow, and hopefully Wanda will be back to work, and I’ll get to immerse myself in glorious data entry, uninhibited.

About the only thing I have to complain about at the moment is my headache, which I think came from drinking cold water way too fast after biking home. But I’m going to console myself with some Friends season 4–my DVDs arrived today :)

(By the way, the weather today was perfect for biking. If I hadn’t stayed until after 6, it would have been uncomfortably hot. As it was, the sun was going down, and there was a cool breeze. It was lovely, and I got to see the lights turning on. I also spotted the first blooming tree I’ve noticed this spring, at the entrance to Augusta Christian School. I stopped and took a picture :)

DAY ONE

The alarm went off at 5 am, offering me just enough lucidity to have to go to the bathroom. As I stumbled out of bed and hit the snooze button, I thought dreamily about how I would crawl back into bed, and how maybe I should set the alarm ahead to 6 so my sleep wouldn’t be disturbed.

As I sat on the toilet, however, I realized, Oh yeah, I have to get up and exercise, because I look like a beached whale.

(I realize that isn’t a very nice thing to say about oneself–and I know my friends, and Sean [who said some very nice things about the way I look last night], would disagree, but it was motivational, so I don’t regret it.)

I turned off the alarm completely, gathered up my cell phone, glasses, and wedding rings, and left the bedroom.

Last night, in order to prepare for today, I laid out my work clothes and my workout clothes on the dining room table. This was a very good idea, and I should keep doing that. One of the most time-consuming things in the morning is trying to pick an outfit, and it’s doubly annoying because Sean is asleep and I don’t want to disturb him. Doing it the night before (something that FlyLady suggests) solves both problems.

I pulled on my new yoga pants and a blue shirt, both of which I bought yesterday at Wal-Mart. I grabbed my camera bag and put my cell phone and keys in it, and picked up my 3 pound handweights. Then I hung my kitchen timer around my neck and set it for 45 minutes. Finally I was off, heading out of the apartment for a nice brisk walk around the complex.

I made the circuit twice, moving my arms around with the weights in alternating motions, trying to work as many muscles as I could think of. By the time I was finished with my second lap, my arms were feeling the burn.

Coming around to the final stretch, I went into the workout room at the apartment office, where I managed the stair climber for 5 minutes (yow), and then did some stomach crunches and leg lifts. To finish off my workout, I hopped on the treadmill and did some very fast walking.

I may actually have time to hop in the swimming pool after my workouts, which might be something I want to try sometime. This morning, though, I hurried back to the apartment, made Sean’s lunch, emptied the dishwasher, took my shower, and made my Slim Fast for the morning. Now I’m off for work, so I’ll grab my lunch Slim Fast from the fridge, leave Sean’s lunch in the bedroom where he can see it, and head off.

I’m feeling a little sore, especially in my upper back (I think from all the handweight stuff I was doing), but I also feel fairly energetic. I’m going to keep this up!

Aftermath

Yesterday, Mari, Kelly, Chris and I kidnapped Brooke and took her to Atlanta for her birthday. We ate dinner and played all sorts of games at Dave & Buster’s. It was pretty fun, although I’m not sure the expense (meal + game card + gas) would make it worthwhile to go again anytime soon.

While we were sitting at the table for dinner, our waitress took a picture of all of us together. I didn’t look at it until after I got home, when I uploaded pictures to Box of Bunnies.

It was sort of a wake-up call to me. I already knew my weight, from the gynecologist visit, but I had never quite realized what all that weight was doing to my figure. In the mirror, I only see my torso, which is an okay shape from the front (and I can just ignore the side view). This picture, though, was a side view of me sitting down. It is so horrible that I’m not going to show anyone, but think about how Jabba looked in Jedi and you’ll have a pretty good idea ;P It’s like I’m a lump of pudding, or a shapeless pile of lard. It’s disgusting. I couldn’t even believe it was me at first. Then I was so upset and frustrated that I resolved to keep the picture and look at it often so I would never forget just how far I’ve let my body go to hell.

Obviously, something needs to be done. I really don’t have the time to start a diet, mess up, overeat, and start the cycle again. I’m at the point where I need to stick to a lifestyle change. I want to be able to have a child, and while it looks like I have a chance, I don’t want to shoot myself in the foot by being too unhealthy to carry it. I also don’t want to be the kind of mother who is “too tired” to play with her kids. The time to get myself active and healthy is now.

I’m always scared when I commit to doing something positive for myself, because I’ve never really succeeded before. I’m always afraid I’ll let myself down. But that picture–ugh! I’m horrified even thinking about what I look like now. And I’m doing good; I’ve been biking and bellydancing (although this past week I haven’t done either :/). I need to keep up the exercise, add a little more, add some weight training, and start eating better.

Since I got the job, I haven’t been cooking dinner as much as I used to. I’ve also been eating out for breakfast and lunch quite a bit. This has done horrible things for my health as well as our bank account. Stopping this behavior will really help. I have been successful in cutting caffeine out of my diet–no more Mountain Dew for me!–so I believe I can do this. I just need to keep up my willpower. I stopped caffeine because of the horrible headaches I was getting. Surely back pain, sore feet, dwindling funds and an expanding waistline are good enough reasons to alter my eating habits.

For now, I’ve bought a bunch of Slim Fast shakes and shake mix. I’m going to try doing two shakes and a meal for my daily food intake. We’ll see how that works out.

I’m going to keep going biking with my friends as much as possible, and bellydancing too, but I can’t just rely on that anymore. I have to add more activity, especially during the weeks (like last week) that we don’t meet due to the weather. My apartment complex has a workout room that I can go to in the mornings and after work, and there’s a swimming pool too. I’m also thinking I’d like to buy some roller skates and take some passes around the complex every day, since that would be more fun than walking.

The hardest thing will be scheduling all this activity and also scheduling making Sean’s lunch for him and making dinners for both of us. I’m accustomed to a lot of idle time–in the past I spent it online, and more recently I’ve been spending it with my nose in a book. But that time is going to shrink, at least a little.

It’s worth it, though; I have to do this. I may even take the scariest step of all…and finally buy myself a scale.