Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Back at Wit's End

The change was abrupt.
I was treading water, then
At the bottom, drowned.

*     *     *     *     *

I thought Summer was starting.  I thought I was gaining momentum.  I thought I was possibly getting better.

I still may be, but it doesn't feel that way at the moment.

Just days ago, I was on the verge of getting a puppy.  It didn't happen.

*     *     *     *     *

I have been telling myself that the Moore, OK tornado is what sent me into depression, but it was before that tragedy.

It was the puppy.

I admitted to myself just how alone and empty I have been, and am.

It's a harsh reality I knew, but had not accepted.

So, I had decided, even though it will be difficult physically, that I need the puppy.  The physical cost is necessary.  My emotional state is desperate.  I'll take more pain for a bit of love.

Then, it didn't happen.  Wrong puppy.

And I'm left feeling very empty.

*     *     *     *     *

I'll keep looking, but I won't just jump at the first available dog.

There has to be a bit of magic.  There was with Matilda.

I won't get another without some kind of feeling that it's the dog for me.

I could use something good to happen along the way though, cause I'm back at Wit's End, that cul de sac off Insane Way.

Friday, May 10, 2013

One Odd Action

I did the jog, swim, jog thing on Thursday, the weather having returned to warmth.

It was interesting, to say the least.  My upper arms and shoulders are really finding a new position, and during the jog home, I found myself much more upright than usual, without the effort it would normally take to concentrate on remaining so.

Last night, however, I had a terrible time trying to eat.  My throat just wouldn't let me swallow.

It is not fun to spend a whole day alone.  Then, when the wife and kid finally return, and I spend 40 minutes choking, coughing, and spitting in the bathroom because I tried to eat dinner, the day goes from unfun to shit.

Anyways, I hit the spa after my daughter went to bed.  There, while trying to trace some of the tensions, I ended up (as best as I can express) swallowing my throat with my neck.

It's the best description I can come up with.

Picture a snake with a mouse half in it's mouth.  It's swallowing motion to send the mouse a bit further in it's mouth is what I am getting at.

It was like the muscles in my neck were able to swallow my throat a bit further down towards my chest.

It felt pretty odd.  I was quite overwhelmed for a while.

*     *     *     *     *

The kicker was that I was able to swallow food afterwards, with only slight discomfort, compared to the complete inability a few hours before.

Moreover, it seems to have freed up some more of my right shoulder.  The jog, swim, jog was much more productive today, and the seeming change of posture during the jog, being more upright, was even more pronounced with very little effort.

And the dizziness stints were very minor today.

Such a roller coaster.

Weeeeeeeeeee!

Thursday, May 9, 2013

My Leftists Agenda

[An update as to the latest issue.]

The progress has continued, though the swimming has slowed with a return of cooler weather.

I've gotten strength in parts of my shoulders which never had them before.  This, in turn, allows them to move to new extremes and several releases have been quite promising.  I, too, can perform a controlled back arch that I couldn't have imagined only weeks ago.

Yet, a problem has finally surfaced which I have long feared, and hinted at before.

I have long noted that my two sides seem to reflect issues.  The right shoulder needs to develop one way, the left the other.

Most often, however, when I try to stretch, or make adjustments, I use both arms the same way.

More often than not, I assume, this has been harmless, as the adjustment occurs on one side, where the other side maintains the status quo.  It may have been a longer process because of this, but progress was still happening.

Now, I am not so sure.

My left thumb, quite easily, becomes a lightning rod of pain.  It's like the tendon going along the side of the thumb to the left wrist is pulled too tight, from the shoulder, and any pressure on the thumb brings intense, rather sharp pain.

I can do an adjustment to the left shoulder (I can't quite explain it - it's like pulling the arm up the shoulder, which sends slack to multiple other places), and the pain instantaneously goes away.

However, I have as yet been unable to identify what I am doing that returns the left arm to this painful position.  I only know I do it as soon as I let my guard down, and I do not maintain attention anywhere near as well as I did 7 years ago.  It's been happening 10-15 times each of the past 4-5 days.

Don't get me wrong.  The pain level has gone up, but it is not as mentally taxing as when I feel like a knot exists that I cannot figure out how to undo.  I am not at wit's end over it.

At least not yet [knocks on the desk].

There is a part of me that envisions this puzzle as one of the last.  Should I figure out how to properly rehab both arms at the same time (a maneuver that will no doubt feel awkward as all hell at first), I will find myself on a path much more directed towards where I want to be.

One can hope, anyways.

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Change The Channel (A Political, Apolitical, Rant)

[While I spent a great portion of my last sleepless night going through different ways to extrpulate on the "braid" concept, which included pictures of the body made of braids, demonstrating how a kink in one deep spot shifts the entirity out of alignment, better explaining both my overall theory of the human condition and the pain I personally suffer from trying to "unbraid, then correctly braid" myself together again, I found myself thinking politics.  In truth, I'm thinking governement in general and how exasperated I am with my own country.  So, here . . . ]

I have a 6 year old daughter.  She's pretty much the reason I continue.  She is the back brace that stops so many, so many, last straws from breaking me completely.

And while my physical, mental, and emotional states limit me to being less than 10% the Dad I want to be, I have managed to plant a few seeds in that brain of hers.

*     *     *     *     *

Commercials are the bane of a parent's existence.

They fuel the need machine that is my child, as if the things she actually needed were not enough work, especially when just putting together a meal presents one with physical issues.

I have not cured my daughter of commercials, by any means.  She pulls every manipulative stop out after each new desire hits her.  [Though it would be much more fun to write them out, demonstrating both her brain power and the hell of being a parent, it would take too long to do justice, and it would send this entry into an entirely different direction.]  Yet, she does know that commercials are "trying to sell you something."

Sure, she does not totally understand this concept in terms of the inherent deceptions of marketing campaigns, but that seed exists.

*     *     *     *     *

There is one set of commercials in which I have trained an automatic response from her, which has become one of our games, one of my favorite games.

You have most likely seen them, a man sitting in front of a group of kids asks a question, they discuss, and eventually the screen solicits AT&T Wireless services.  There are a bunch, most are pretty funny.  I particularly love "Wait!  I'm watching this," while the man watches a boy do two things at the same time.

Each commercial of this set starts with the man asking a question.  My 6 year old refutes the answer given to this question.  It has become an automatic response.

She can be in the other room, practicing typing on some computer game (which blows my four-finger-one-thumb-typist mind) while I watch a sporting event on TV, when she'll hear, "What's better, bigger or smaller?"

Before the commercial even gets going from that point, she'll scream, "Bigger isn't always better!"

Then, we'll start giving examples: bigger owies, bigger car crashes, bigger messes, bigger servings of [insert food you don't like], etc.

This makes me happy.

*     *     *     *     *

What does not make me happy is that our government has become a giant commercial.  It exists, seemingly solely, to advance the profits of corporations.

While facially evil, Citizens United is only the tip of the iceberg.

Our politicians are the actors in the commercial, paid to play a part.  Granted, most do so unknowingly, just as you can get most any kid to smile and say they love McDonald's Happy Meals (at least I hope most do so unknowingly - a hope greatly hurt by the current lack of transparency in trading stocks off of governmental knowledge), but the results are the same.  Everything, EVERYTHING, is geared to perpetuate the stranglehold corporations have on this country.

Our democracy has become an illusion.  Our votes serve corporate interests, the only question really being which ones.

Just like a commercial, our government manipulates us into believing we want or need what those producing the commercial want us to buy.

*     *     *     *     *

I cry often.  It's no secret or surprise, given my pains, their duration and all.

Usually, I'll cry over something good happening, fictional or real, because I so long for something good to happen to me.

Two days ago, I watched Lincoln.  I wept, often.

This time, it was because I saw evidence of politicians actually trying to do what they objectively believed was right.  Back then, the corporate interest was slavery, and it took a war and politicians of integrity to beat those interests.

I simply cannot even imagine men being able to work within our government to do what is right today.  Even should a few somehow be elected, even should several get elected, even if they were men willing to "commit political suicide" by calling for the people of this country to stop buying the products and ideas this governmental commercial is selling, they could not possibly make any real changes, not in my lifetime, anyways.

What I am trying to do to myself is infinitely easier than the prospects of our government actually beginning to serve The People.

And so I wept.

*     *     *     *     *

Yet, maybe, we can plant some seeds.

[It's a departure, but I felt like venting.  I'm a bit bothered that I do not have the energy to go back for a proof read at present, so forgive first draft the errors that surely exist, please.]