Health – Page 3 – Rant and Roll

Soup, soup, tasty soup

Well, boys and girls, it’s back to the sick bay for me.

If only I had a real-life Dr. Crusher.

She, in her fierce blue-black onesy, and camp-fire toned hair would not only cure me, but also immunize me from any other cough-flu-colds I may pick up in the future. (Somewhere around the rings of Saturn no doubt.)

Plus, on top of it all, Wil Wheaton was pretty darn cute as her son.

Seattle trip! 058 — I like to refer to it as the Death Star's hipster little brother.

Side note about Mr. Wheaton: In one of our more, well, nerdy moves, in 2007 M and I went down to Seattle for the Science Fiction Hall of Fame’s induction ceremony, as M’s favourite author is Gene Wolfe who was being honoured that year. Gene Roddenbury was also being celebrated and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out who was the man introducing him until I turned to the woman sitting next to me and stage whispered, “HOLY FRICK – IS THIS WESLEY CRUSHER?”

Little did I know that he’s now some prolific blogger and hugely popular figure in the nerdverse and highly celebrated as such. Seriously, the women seemed very off put that I was at an event at the Sci-Fi Hall of Fame and didn’t know this.

I actually got a photo with him after the celebration that ran on Startrek.com for an entire week.

Ah well, live and learn.

Last night on my way home from work my entire body seemed to go into shut-down mode. A thick fog swept its way over my brain, throughout my sinuses and down into my lungs.

My bones felt as they had been soaked in rubbing alcohol.

It was all I could do to pick up the necessary ingredients for a much needed cure-all: Jaime Oliver’s Mint Pea Soup.

I take all my cues from my little sister who is a rock star professional chef. No joke.

De-lish.

What I love so much about his recipes is just how easy they are – you make them once and it’s easy-peasy (pun intended) to memorize the ingredients and instructions – it takes absolutely no effort to put them together.

Plus they taste so darn lovely.

I got home, unloaded my bags and turned on my favourite CBC radio program As it Happens.

Now, hands down, if I could have any job in the world, I’m pretty sure hosting this show would be it.

They interview the craziest, most irreverent, brilliant, interesting, heartbreaking individuals, and cover stories that can be described in pretty much the exact same way.

Last night they interviewed a city councillor from Louisiana that is working on banning pyjama pants from public places (having already passed a bylaw prohibiting the wearing of baggy pants.)

They also interviewed Michael Semple, a former EU envoy to Afghanistan, on negotiations with the Taliban, and read a story about how sheep shearers in New Zealand are trying to get their sport into the Olympics (albeit just for demonstration.)

To say that the show is scintillating and thought-provoking would be simplistic in the extreme.

It is, the best.

I think one of the biggest reasons behind why I enjoy it so much is the brilliant way in which it is structured: mixing in the odd with the important, the beautiful with the bad.

There is a very fine, very important balance to the program. No one emotion, and or sentiment is ever allowed to hold a monopoly over the stories they cover.

For one and a half hours, you get the happy, and you get the sad.

Because isn’t this how life itself, actually unfolds? From my experience, nothing is ever just good, and nothing is ever simply bad.

That’s why As it Happens is such a refreshing look at world events compared the overwhelmingly negative emphasis that I find so pervasive in traditional news outlets. Turn on any news site – whether radio, television or online, and I promise you the focus will be on what bad thing happened, in what bad town, orchestrated by which bad individuals.

No wonder so many people chose to remain uniformed – the constant onslaught of depressing stories is enough make even the strongest individual weary of established (read: static) journalistic practices.

We already know bad things can happen. Need we be reminded every single day of this fact? I don’t even have the energy to get into how this is probably the number one reason why so many dangerous and harmful isms are so readily and easily reinforced and socially institutionalized.

There is a reason why brainwashing has remained en vogue for so long. It works.

I suppose this is also another reason why I really love CBC radio programming as a whole – the overwhelming diversity it brings to the table. And yes, I am fully aware of how nerdy this makes me (yo – Wheaton, are you hearing this? I’m encroaching on your crown so you better watch yourself!) but I really don’t care. Maybe it’s because I grew up in a family that always had it on in the background, but the more I listen, the more I learn, and the more I am inspired.

Don't have CBC in your life? That, my friends, can change! Or, you know, an over-sized cat mug with pea soup also helps.

There is so much good work being done in the world, it’s just such a shame that so little of it remains unreported, and unnoticed.

But then, even just typing those words, immediately they rang false – because if these wonderful works actually went unnoticed, I have a hard time believing the world would even be running at the (somewhat limited) capacity that it is.

They may not be celebrated, but they are definitely making the world a better place.

And that makes me feel better, on the whole.

And I hope that, perhaps, just being aware of this will, like a real-life Ms. Crusher, make me just that little bit healthier.

A new order

Heading into the start of this week I’m definitely feeling a little better, a little brighter and little less like Phil from the warehouse with the pains in his head.

Don’t know Phil? Let me introduce you:

All in all, while I may not be in tip-top condition (or Phil’s for that matter), I’m not about to keel over either.

Side note: M really doesn’t know what to do with Kids in the Hall (whereas they sit firmly in my list of top comedy geniuses of all time.) He told me yesterday that he has a hard time taking anything produced in the 80’s seriously, particularly stuff made in Canada (re: by the CBC). This is both hilarious and devastating to me, especially because I’ve just discovered that old school episodes of Degrassi are now available on Netflix. For me, that stuff is 24 karat gold nostalgia – what memory lane is paved out of! (You know, that and The Goonies.)

One point of note (or perhaps, one two-pointer point of note) regarding this recent spat of illness is 1.) this is the first time, in a long time (almost two years), that I had been sick for more than two consecutive days, and 2.) despite this fact (or perhaps because of it), I have not pushed my body into working out, or going for a run whilst still in the clutches of this congestion, fever and fatigue.

This may not seem like that big of a deal, but for me, the more I think about it, the more aware I become of the positive implications I can derive from this decision.

See – I cannot even begin to count the number of times I have gone to the gym in the past, plagued by aching bones, clogged sinuses, and high temperatures just because I couldn’t handle the way my skin felt due to the length of time it had been since my last workout.

Going more than a few days, particularly while sick, without physical activity was an excruciating, live-action nightmare.

Now, I understand that I haven’t written extensively on my past struggles with food and exercise, but suffice to say that they were long-endured, damaging and incredibly complex.

And exercising (whilst ill) was just one symptom of my disease.

It is only now that I am into a period of recovery (I actually like to think of myself as living “clean”, in so far as I cannot view my eating disorders as anything other than what they were – addictions) that I actually can even step back and objectively look at my behaviour both then (disordered) and now (healthy) and feel okay about both.

Where exercise was once an agent of my disorder, it is now an antidote.

Edit: When I say that I am “okay” about my past behaviour, I am in no way condoning those choices or behaviours. What I am trying to communicate is that I am able to reflect on that destructive period my life, and not beat myself up over decisions made, or, more dangerously, fall back into old patterns.

I am okay with looking back; I am okay with moving forward.

I am okay with making, and keeping myself okay.

…

Yesterday M and I ventured outside of our little house, in an attempt to stave off cabin fever and to procure new passport photos.

Whilst at the mall I came across the following window display outside of The Gap:

2012-01-08 13.17.41 — I. don't. understand.

Erm.

What the FRESH HELL is a “sexy boyfriend” look?

What does that even mean?

YO AD EXECS! Can’t we leave gender alone for like, two minutes? It’s confusing me! And good ol’ J. Butler never accepts my collect calls anymore.

Also, something tells me that the marketing team over at Gap Inc. sure as sunshine won’t be releasing a “SEXY GIRLFRIEND” look for their men’s department any time soon.

2012-01-08 13.17.33 — Oh! You mean, the "SEXY BOYFRIEND look". I though you meant the "LOOK SEXY FOR YOUR BOYFRIEND" look. I mean, that's the only reason to wear clothes, right?

Because, jeeze, what self-respecting guy would ever want to dress like a girl?

THAT SHIT IS GAY BRO.

I mean, what about ladies that don’t have boyfriends? What about ladies that have girlfriends? What about ladies with un-sexy boyfriends?

I may be kidding here folks, but seriously NOT THAT MUCH.

Why can’t girls wear just pants and sweaters without it being about BOYS AND SEX AND FEMININITY AND MASCULINITY ALL THE GOSH DARNED TIME?

And seriously, when the frick were pants re-appropriated by the male sex? And the SEXY contingent of the male sex at that?

(I’m so sorry to inform all the fugly gentlemen out there, but it seems that you are no longer allowed pants within the confines of your wardrobe. Unless, of course, you want to be accused of co-opting the style of your sexy peers, then by all means, go for it. You’ll be in good company.)

Sometimes I feel as though I am living in a bizarro world.

At least I now understand what that lady was talking about each time she told me to “mind the gap”.

And I’m telling you, sexy boyfriend-less legs and I?

We mind.

Chillin’ out maxin’ relaxing all cool

Tonight I am exhausted.

Having been quite sick for most of the last week, my energy is at an all time low. Normally I can kick it pretty well after about a day or two of an illness, but this blasted flu has really dug its claws in deep.

I feel as though my sinuses are in a vice that has been set on “death grip.”

That, and the fact that my nose is dripping for all of Canada. It’s like I have a leaky tap attached to my face.

I really hope my cat doesn’t start to hydrate herself from my nostrils as I sleep (uneasily at best), thinking that I actually have transformed into some kind of human-malfunctioning-faucet hybrid.

(If you’re reading this Uwe Boll, I don’t give you permission to take this idea and turn it into a movie. Just walk away now.)

Our kitty doesn’t do well at the vet at the best of times and I really don’t want to have to take her in due to massive mucus ingestion.

The embarrassment of the explanation alone might destroy me.

So as you can imagine, all in all, this whole sickness experience has been, for lack of a more poetic term, bloody lovely.

(Let me assure you.)

(Erm.)

Anywho, despite my all-encompassing-entire-body lethargy, M and I went and had dinner with some brilliant friends this evening.

My sister in-law is in town from the Big Apple, and we had dinner with her and her parents, and her three nephews.

At one point every single person in the house, save for me, was playing (re: wailing on) an incredibly random assortment of musical instruments. For serious, we had the bodhran, the maracas, the violin, the bagpipe chanter, the recorder, the auto harp, and the piano all going at once.

I just laughed like a loon, giggling myself into a tear-streaked stupor.

It was like that scene from Mary Poppins that features Bert’s one man band, just without the – you know – talent and musical prowess.

Not that I’m complaining. It was sheer brilliance.

Now that I have arrived back home, I am in the process of rehydrating. It is imperative that I replace all that vital fluid I lost through my laugh attack induced tears – plus my throat is like the mother fracking Sahara here dudes. DRY AS CRAP.

The way that this this blasted sickness has set up camp in my chest, it’s like Occupy fricken Wall Street in there.

Though Occupy Respiratory System doesn’t have quite the same ring to it…

(We’ll also have to wait and see if Kanye manages to show up or not.)

Okay, enough now. I’m all over the place tonight.

What I’m trying to say here is that I am making a concerted effort to just chilling out.

FOR REAL.

This is especially true due to the fact that I always find that it’s a bit of an adjustment period heading back to work after an extended period of time off. You have to find the right rhythms, get used to the crank of the gears, and the ebb and flow of the, well, flow charts.

(Let alone the challenge of accomplishing all this when you have an accordion in your lungs and nasal cavities with the proportions and capabilities of a water hose.)

It’s discombobulating! But heartening to acknowledge that at least everything will eventually return to as it once was, all in good time.

In the interim, I am going to sleep like a sleeping thing, and drink like a drinking thing, and eat as much lemon meringue pie that I possibly can.

When life gives you lemons - blow your nose and eat pie.

It’s probably not the best thing to be eating while still fighting the flu.

Can I write it off as part of my daily citrus-Vitamin C intake?

Because that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.