Hanging Around
I haven't been able to post because I was too busy hanging upside down. marrus kindly lent me her Teeter Hang-Up inversion table (see last post), and I can hardly stay off the thing. After the first day I had it, I was almost free of pain. I didn't even know how to move because my body felt so different; I'd find myself doing things (as simple as getting up from a chair) in my habitual slow, careful, old-creeping-Jesus way and being surprised when they didn't hurt. It was an actual high, like taking a painkiller and floating in a warm ocean. The second day, the fishhook-like catch in L5 that bothers me more often than anything else was still gone, but I was very tired and my thigh, neck, and mid-back muscles felt stretched and sore. Today I was more energetic, but still sore in my mid-back. That's the core of muscles I need to build up most, I guess. I don't expect the inversion table to make me completely better, but if it gets the pain down to a level where I can start going back to the gym and lifting weights, past experience suggests that I could feel as much as 60-80% better. Maybe I'm remembering that through rose-colored glasses, I don't know. All I can say for sure is that using this table three or four times a day -- and always right after I get up in the morning -- seems to be helping tremendously so far. Not only do I want a table of my own; I want bat feet so I can hang upside down anywhere the urge takes me. It just feels so damn good. I feel like Mrs. Levy with her exercise board in A Confederacy of Dunces.
A couple of the cats have already learned that, when I'm hanging completely upside down with my arms over my head, my hands are at just the right height for petting. Cookie even figured out that, if I'm trying to come up and she catches the table's edge at just the right second, she can pull me back down in an effort to get petted some more.
I seem to be getting a little tired of gardening. Watering? Fertilizing? Who gives a crap? Possibly this is just because the heat/humidity index has been hovering around 100° for most of the past three months. I hope so. I'd hate to lose interest in something that has brought me so much pleasure, but nothing except the tomatoes did particularly well this summer and the grass is like three feet high because I couldn't find the energy to cut it when our AC was broken and I feel that I've reached a plateau of growing skill. I guess most gardeners do, but in my case, it meant the Green Goddess didn't get a few interesting kinds of produce that I had led Chris to expect. Of course he knows it's a process of trial and error, but I felt bad because, aside from the occasional royalty check, these fresh herbs and vegetables are about the only concrete thing I contribute to our living situation these days. And of course Chris would never think of it that way; that's my own frustrated hypermasculine daddy-must-support-family insecurity talking. Two nights ago I dreamed I had to put on a dress (an ugly one, too) and attend a two-hour presentation about how bad I sucked. It was very glitzy and attended by hundreds. Sort of a "This Is Your Life" thing, except it was "This Is Your Suck." I thought I got my head straighter than that in Amsterdam, but apparently not.
Well ... when was the last time I left the house by myself? I don't even know. I went out to lunch with Chris Friday and today, but when I go out with Chris, I'm in a little bubble of security, if you will. I need to get off my ass and take myself somewhere, even if it's only to make groceries for dinner before the Saints game tomorrow night (SAINTS ON MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL, Y'ALL). I did go to Amsterdam by myself for nine days. During hurricane season. There is no further excuse for agoraphobia.
Well, shit, this is all pretty personal (if dull). I guess I'll post it anyway, because I don't give a fuck. I'm actually doing much better than this entry would suggest. I think.
A couple of the cats have already learned that, when I'm hanging completely upside down with my arms over my head, my hands are at just the right height for petting. Cookie even figured out that, if I'm trying to come up and she catches the table's edge at just the right second, she can pull me back down in an effort to get petted some more.
I seem to be getting a little tired of gardening. Watering? Fertilizing? Who gives a crap? Possibly this is just because the heat/humidity index has been hovering around 100° for most of the past three months. I hope so. I'd hate to lose interest in something that has brought me so much pleasure, but nothing except the tomatoes did particularly well this summer and the grass is like three feet high because I couldn't find the energy to cut it when our AC was broken and I feel that I've reached a plateau of growing skill. I guess most gardeners do, but in my case, it meant the Green Goddess didn't get a few interesting kinds of produce that I had led Chris to expect. Of course he knows it's a process of trial and error, but I felt bad because, aside from the occasional royalty check, these fresh herbs and vegetables are about the only concrete thing I contribute to our living situation these days. And of course Chris would never think of it that way; that's my own frustrated hypermasculine daddy-must-support-family insecurity talking. Two nights ago I dreamed I had to put on a dress (an ugly one, too) and attend a two-hour presentation about how bad I sucked. It was very glitzy and attended by hundreds. Sort of a "This Is Your Life" thing, except it was "This Is Your Suck." I thought I got my head straighter than that in Amsterdam, but apparently not.
Well ... when was the last time I left the house by myself? I don't even know. I went out to lunch with Chris Friday and today, but when I go out with Chris, I'm in a little bubble of security, if you will. I need to get off my ass and take myself somewhere, even if it's only to make groceries for dinner before the Saints game tomorrow night (SAINTS ON MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL, Y'ALL). I did go to Amsterdam by myself for nine days. During hurricane season. There is no further excuse for agoraphobia.
Well, shit, this is all pretty personal (if dull). I guess I'll post it anyway, because I don't give a fuck. I'm actually doing much better than this entry would suggest. I think.