Everything I Tell you is Hearsay

every tattoo i have is both for someone i love and a lesson i’ve carved into my skin.

appropriately, this one hurt much more than any other, as i love the person i had in mind much more than any other. also, the lesson is harder to remember. so.

crying of the sort that when you are done, your breath hitches as you draw it in. that leaves you feeling scoured out and strangely weightless. there has been that sort of crying, today.

and sometimes it is so hard to relinquish that which has done naught but hurt. to let go what has been little more than a source of pain and anguish. and why that is… i continue to wonder.

but i am trying to discover how it feels to do so nevertheless. and soon, if i am fortunate, there will be no stutter on the indrawn breath; no hitch with its release.

didnt turn out like i planned.

first i kinda randomly…

hacked all my hair off

went to seattle

saw an amazing sunset

went to ikea

experienced intense coveting of this bed

then got smacked with the sick stick, like hard.

i only drink tea in times of desperation

i coudnt face the idea of an evening spent at the ER, so i’ll be going in the morning. but, generally, boo. episodes of gossip girl and chicken soup delivery nothwithstanding…

it turns out watching a personal trainer tell someone else how to do a particular exercise is not the same as having them explain it to you. what’s more, eavesdropping on the personal trainer isn’t going to encourage said trainer to come over and make sure you are doing the damn thing right.

so guess what?!?

first, let me describe this monster. i’ve seen a balance ball push up before. prop your feet up on the balance ball and push up from the ground as otherwise typical. these are tough enough on their own. they demand an additional engagement of core muscles and concentration to maintain balance on top of the strength required to make the push.

but this trainer had thrown in an extra piece of tough; a bosu balancer under the hands. i knew just looking at it, it’d be tough as hell, but make for all over firmness.

pop a balance ball under your ankles too; i dare you.

i managed to do a whopping 3 of these. and frankly, i was damn proud of myself for managing that. these were brutal, brutal, brutal. i wanted to do more, but have tried recently to keep from overextending myself. oh. ha.

and actually, i felt okay at first. it wasn’t until i got through the 2nd set of pullups that followed these double-balance-ball-demon-pushups that i realized something was terribly terribly wrong.

it is now 3 full days later, i’ve been to the chiropractor, and had a massage, and i am still sore. i still can’t tell for sure if it was the pushups, but they were the only really significant shift in my workout i made that day. whatever the case, i have been a bit of a gimp the last few days. i’m really hoping i’ll be less sore in the morning so’s i can go back to the gym and hurt myself some more tomorrow.

for anyone who suffers, there is no need to explain the misery associated. for anyone who doesn’t there is simply no way to convey how awful it is.

in my case, i suffer from something called a Hemiplegic Migraine. that means that right before the headache part comes on, one side of my body goes completely numb. it happens to be my left side, and the first time it happened i thought i was having a stroke. my grandfather and more than one uncle died young of cardiovascular disease and had strokes very early in life, so this was not so far-fetched as it might seem at first blush.

while the numbness itself does not cause undue discomfort, it does tend to send me into something of a panic knowing what it heralds. i have learned however to be grateful for it in that sometimes, on very lucky days, if i take medicine RIGHT when i go numb, it can forestall the onset of a full-blown migraine and just leave me with a low-grade but tolerably terrible headache.

the last time i had one, as i lay there with towel wrapped around my head for darkness, earplugs and fan for quiet, medicine not having done it’s magic,  i thought about all the various folk remedies that have been suggested down the years to try and prevent or treat migraine and thought it would be interesting and somewhat amusing to list a few…

Fresh Cut Green Apple: i got this one from my mother, who also suffers. she never gets to the super awful headache stage, but she does have the numbness part. she claims if you cut open a green apple and hold it close to your face and inhale the scent, it can help ward off the headache. migraine vs aromatherapy? i’m skeptical. i’ve never tried it. i don’t usually have green apples lying around, and cutting anything open when i’m pre-migraine seems like a bad idea since the temptation would likely be to plunge the knife into my own eye to put myself out of my misery. seems best to keep away from sharp objects…

Hot Feet, Cold Head: this one comes via my friend Stephanie who suffers migraines at least as frequently as i do, and suggested the medication that (sometimes) staves off the full-blown monster. She mentioned that putting your feet in hot water and an ice pack on your head helps contract the capillaries in your head while dialating them in your feet. it helps divert blood flow that would otherwise increase the intensity of the headache. i’ve had reasonable success with this tactic. though usually it just takes the edge off rather than curing it altogether.

Lean, Mean, Caffiene: this is a well-documented way to combat headache in general. the stimulant helps dilate those pesky contricted blood vessels and relieve the pressure causing the pain. of course, i am not a fan of most caffienated beverages and so this one has always been a bit tough on me. i’ve taken to keeping caffiene pills around for the purpose so i dont have to try to choke down a mocha when my head is pounding.

A More Unorthodox Approach: turns out the human body is itself quite a remarkable little pharmacological factory. and one of the substances the body produces that has both a pain-relieving and calming effect is a hormone called Oxytocin. this hormone is released during two related but distinct experiences: orgasm and direct nipple stimulation (as would be produced during breastfeeding). so. i heard somewhere there were studies (STUDIES!! it MUST BE TRUE!!) which indicated that oxytocin could be very effective in helping relieve migraine. and though the onset of a migraine is not exactly my idea of sexytime, i have tried this method and had excellent results. far better than any other remedy i’ve tried. suddenly  “honey i have a headache”  turns out to be a come on…

wondering if anyone else has any remedies that have worked for them over the years? i’m willing to try most anything (obviously) so if you have any suggestions, they would be most welcome!

my horoscope for this week will be right on the money:

After extensive analysis, I’ve concluded that you won’t serve any time in hell for the shock therapy you’ll unleash this week — with one caveat: The shock therapy must be motivated primarily by love, not a lust for power. My research also suggests that in dropping your bombshells you may even rack up some karmic credit, not karmic debt — if the things you destroy are truly beyond repair and certain to keep causing pain, and if you institute a plan for building a shiny new creation to replace what’s lost.

from FreeWill Astrology

here’s to a shiny new creation…

“This is the story of the boys who loved you
Who love you now and loved you then
And some were sweet, some were cold and snuffed you
And some just laid around in bed.

Some had crumbled you straight to your knees
Did it cruel, did it tenderly
Some had crawled their way into your heart
To rend your ventricles apart
This is the story of the boys who loved you
This is the story of your red right ankle.”

From Red Right Ankle Her Majesty The Decemberists

for i am feeling rent, and crumbled.

and not because i have been up to no good, or doing anything fun, or strenuous, or for any other reason than my persistent klutzitude. which is prodigious.

i put on slippy shoes this morning. they are orange and cute as hell, but dangerous. as i was attempting to get off my chair to grab a file my foot shot out from beneath me on the hard slick linoleum and i landed full weight on the hard bony nub of my right hip. i laughed hard enough, but also, fuckow.

i am now walking with a pronounced limp and working on what i suspect will be a bruise of monumental size and purpleness.

and, of course, complaning.

stupid falling.

i guess when i think about what qualities define me, i’d be reluctant to admit that “creative” ranks up there pretty high, but it seems to be true. i say this because i know when i’m not playing music, pasting things as my own weenie attempts at art, taking (poor) photographs, or something in that vein i get pretty antsy.

and things have been kinda tough in that respect lately.

i’ve been singing for longer than i’ve been talking, but never one for formal training, i hadn’t bothered to learn an instrument. about two years ago someone thought it worth my while enough to press an acoustic into my hands and suggest i take a shot at some chords. once again thank you caseyface!as such, since then, its been my primary creative outlet. and i’m proud of what i’ve been able to create.

and usually i do my best work when i’m sad. my musical catalogue is pretty heavy on the boo-fuckin-hoo end of the emotional continuum. but, for some reason, in the last little while i’ve been too sad to even play the guitar, let alone try and write anything. i even have a really good songlet chasing itself around in my head. but every time i’ve tried to start work on it, i begin to cry so hard i get Livingston all wet. he doesn’t really thrive in the high moisture and salt environment of a crying jag, so i put him away, if only for his own good.

i have been blogging like mad, reading like they’re getting ready to go Fahrenheit 451 on the library, working out with more regularity than i’ve ever mustered before, and trying to absorb myself in things that tend to focus my considerable attentive powers completely enough to keep me from going completely bonkers. but none of this feel particularly generative and it’s starting to get to me.

so, i’ve decided to take a stab at writing something longer than a blog post. i used to fancy myself quite a writer. i came in second in a poetry contest in 5th grade: a truly atrocious offering about how freedom came with responsibility or some such tripe. the prize was a trip to the opera, my music teacher made me do it. in the wake of which  they sent me to the “Oregon Writers Conference” and told me i was a prodigy. and i was vain enough to believe them. i don’t have any such pretentions anymore, i can write a mean wedding toast, but i’ve read enough miserable novels to know just how easy it is to think you can write something decent, and how much easier it is to be wrong. but i do want to give something fictionish a try.

i have to do something and so, its either this, or sedatives…

i have only been intermittently successful with the not crying.

it hurts knowing i am only a memory