intellectual properties

2009 was

something grey

a blurry line, illuminated,

between hope and the future

a swaying platform of change

feet unsteady

unsure of who or what

pubescent with insecurity

with all eyes looking forward

belief in the future

overriding the past.

.::.

abbreviated:

starting with the january oakland riots,

my car smashed

and my love for my city dented, bruised

in february i became an aunt

and for the rest of the year my heart was pulled homeward

in march i visited the family

and stopped funding my 401(k)

in april we went to new york

and i was braver than i’ve ever been on a runway

may brought hot springs and Nine Inch Nails

june there was an alien invasion and other things

and in july there was again Priceless

and then i won an undeserved blogger award (in 2010 it most certainly goes to the Holden Archive) and then perhaps unsubconsciously refrained from writing much of anything on the subject since

august meant a return to Phish and, counterbalanced, a nonreturn to Burning Man

with the addition of a family trip to mexico

and then came september, with it’s gorgeous autumn days and finally

FINALLY

a long-awaited extended vacation to Europe for 4 weeks

where we wandered and enjoyed, aimless with bounty

when we returned life was somewhat subdued, and shortly after then is when my body pain started

-i’m at the end of 7 weeks now-

and since then i feel i’ve been focused so hard on my body that

i can barely remember what else has happened in november and december,

some wonderful things, i know, and much love and support from all the humans in my life,

but it all seems very foggy, muddled, like the light from a frosted bulb.

.::.

i know from all the things i’ve read, seen and quoted this year that i have been thoughtful, but it seems not a lot of that made it into words written here.  all very internalized, it feels.  i spent a lot of time this year in my head. cerebral.

and so i end 2009 a little broken, edges a little ragged, vision a little blurry, soul a little tired, but grateful, and yes, optimistic.

for 2010, i make no grand resolutions, other than to strive to be well and hope for balance and clarity, inside and out, personally and professionally, logistically and artistically.  if i can do that, it will be a great year.

here’s to you and yours, and thanks for following along.

it’s like this

J&A-Dec2009crop1, originally uploaded to Flickr by amyleblancdotcom.

the human race

“The human race is an unfair and stupid competition. A lot of the runners don’t even get decent sneakers or clean drinking water. Some people are born with a massive head start, every possible help along the way and still the referees seem to be on their side. It’s not surprising some people have given up competing altogether and gone to sit in the grandstand, eat junk food and shout abuse. What we need in this race is a lot more streakers.” — banksy

tiny temples

miss erin arrow over at TinyTemples, a beautiful new art/fashion blog:

“Fashion is evolving. It’s not about the thrill of the new, or beauty or even creativity anymore. It is about knowing yourself deeply enough, and loving all that you have uncovered in your searching, enough to let it shine for all to see and be inspired by, be taught by. It’s about learning to trust your desires. Rather than being a display of vanity and self indulgence, taking the time to dress to express can be an act of love. This is a place for celebrating those beautiful people who believe it is their birthright to adorn their bodies, their temples, in a way that most authentically showcases all the jewels housed within.”

perfectly said.

status update: week six

so, here i am, in the Sixth Week of Pain (now with CAPS!), with an update since the last post.

if you’ve been following along (i’m pretty sure most of you have stopped reading by now, but this is my life-blog, so sometimes the mundane takes precedence over the political/arty/witty; don’t worry, your regularly scheduled programing will return at some point), you know after many weeks of seeing chiro and massage therapists with no results, yesterday i saw a family practice doctor (who specializes in GERIATRICS – how old am i getting?) about my back problem (ongoing since at least 2004), and his medical opinion is that i do not have symptoms of anything major (nerve damage, slipped discs, arthritis, etc) and that it is all probably due to muscular stress and contractions, most likely attributable to many (15? 1994-present) years sitting at desks/in front of computers for 8+ hours a day with less than perfect posture (good news if true, but contrary to that of my chiro; bad news, as that is what i do for a living; but good news in that if it is self-inflicted it is therefore self-curable). he gave me an Rx for a muscle relaxant, tips on avoiding bad head posture, and told me to come back in 2 weeks if the pain was still present.

i stressed that i was in daily pain and that it was affecting my work, and that i had already done everything i could over the past six weeks to address the problem with no improvement, and he said he understood and he said that he would also request an MRI from the health insurance company to see if there was something else going on but wasn’t feeling too confident that it would get approval, as they usually reserve that for more “extreme” situations with different symptom patterns (loss of movement, numbness in extremeties, etc). i will know by the end of this week or maybe next monday if the MRI is approved. i almost started to cry right then and there, but didn’t. (i had already cried on the way to work yesterday morning, and but held out until AFTER i left the doctors office to cry again.) he said the best thing for now would be for me to take the muscle relaxer and actively avoid anything that aggravates the situation until it calms itself down. if it doesn’t resolve itself, he will refer me to another specialist in January.

i can’t take the muscle relaxer AND function at work (causes me to fall asleep) and so can’t take it during the day if i’m in the office, which is where i feel the most pain.  after taking the relaxant last night (and totally passing out cold), i felt about 80% better this morning than i did yesterday morning (yay!). the pain/stiffness is still present, sitting at my desk still hurts, but i think if i can avoid aggravating it, the muscles will slowly relax and get better. hopefully.

so now i am going to work short days today/tomorrow, take this thursday off and have a long weekend in Tahoe with some of my bestest friends where i will do no computering or sitting at desks and lot of lying on the floor and in hottubs, take the relaxants, and hope it goes away.  i am also working on a plan to modify my desk to standing position, but in the meantime i’m working on modifying it myself as much as possible and taking long breaks between sitting.

so that’s it. an obvious diagnosis from the doc, and i’m not sure if it’s true, but i’m hoping. it’s sunny today, and the silver lining has been spotted. (fingers crossed)

many thx to all who have offered kind words of support, advice, and encouragement.

the enemy within

Cicero stated in his Enemy Within:

“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banners openly. But the traitor moves among those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears no traitor; he speaks in the accents familiar to his victims; and wears their face and their garments, and he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation; he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of a city; he infects the body politic so it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to be feared.”

status report

because a number of people have asked….i am feeling ok. starting my 5th week of pain now, and despite numerous visits to various doctors and bodyworkers (and numerous $$), condition not really getting any better.  working less and doing more to address the pain, so most of the time it’s not too bad, but as soon as forget to think about my posture or sit at my desk, or even here on my couch with my laptop, for too long it hurts again in less than half an hour. man it reallysucks someone who is as addicted to the internet as i am can no longer sit at a computer without it hurting.

if i’m not sitting, the pain isn’t super bad, just constant.  i think at this point i feel more depressed mentally that my whole life is going to be out of whack for longer than anticipated.  i’m trying to make lemonade (vacation! visit family!) and thinking short time that is easy, but thinking long term (what will i do for work?!) is deflating.

i feel like i’m in a kind of intense independent study re: my body.  reading about symtoms, causes,  treatments.  relearning musculoskeletal system.  spending hours at the gym, strengthening my upper body. chiropractic has been quite informational but has been little to no help.  latest theory is that i have a disc out of alignment and it’s causing nerve pain from the center of my spine up and across my shoulders, kind of in butterfly pattern.  next week i’m going to a regular MD to see if i can get an MRI, and maybe even some drugs! maybe i’m an idiot for not trying drugs (muscle relaxers? antinflammatories?) in the first place, i dunno.  but this problem has been reoccuring so i figure an investigation into the root cause is prudent.

so that’s the status update.  thx for everyone who’s had suggestions, recommendations, advice, or shared their own personal anecdotes wrt back pain or pain management in general.  i apologize that this has dominated a lot of personal conversation (in person and online), but it’s dominating my life at this point, so really, it’s all i have to talk about.

resist

“The opposite of courage is not cowardice, it’s conformity.”

–jim hightower

found advice.

peel off the layers

speaking of europe: i do know that i have not written up anything more about our European Vacation, and i admit that now a lot of the details are fuzzy, and maybe i won’t. in summary: Amsterdam is a dream + i <3 bicycle culture, Berlin has taken proper advantage of the years since WWII and The Wall and become a fantastic city full of art and culture and music and i hear the only real complaint is re: WINTER, Prague is a fairytale, IMHO Vienna took the years since WWII/Communism and became overzealously Westernized and boring and i suggest maybe going to the mountains of Austria instead, Buda-Pest is funky and cool with lots of great bars and nightlife; the economy (and therefore local disposition) is slightly depressed, but i could imagine living there. what more can i say? we went to a lot of insanely beautiful churches (in two of which i was moved to light prayer candles) and walked as far as our legs would take us (i think we walked for almost 10 straight hours on my birthday in prague. oh yeah, i celebrated my 33rd birthday in prague!) and made sure to get up into the highest point possible in each city. we ate at approx 60-90 cafes/restaurants across europe and only in Vienna was ordering a problem wrt language barriers. we went to at least 20 bars and 7 music venues. we rode all kinds of trains and never for a minute did we wish we had a car.

i will go back again, maybe to revisit some of these places, but more for all the places we didn’t go, but before then i would like to visit South America and Africa (gotta get to the southern hemisphere to complete!). in my wanderlust dreams for 2010 there is: Puerto Rico (w/RBM), Cuba (with jayeesha), Chile/Peru/Argentina (helen!), as well as trips to see the family in Michigan, weddings here and there, and also the pilgrimages to Las Vegas and Burning Man. can i fit all this in while keeping a job? i think maybe.

my mom posted something to Facebook about my travels and one of her friends (possibly a relative) commented something to the effect of “i don’t understand this crazy wanderlust kids these days have”.  i also recently had a conversation with another friend about how “entitled” many of us feel about travel, and all i can say is that for me, it’s not about not being happy at home or wanting to flaunt my American wealth in some poorer country by taking advantage of the exchange rates and renting a yacht. i think in this the 21st century, where the things you eat and clothes you wear often come from the other side of the planet, it is not just fickle entitlement to want to travel; it is super important for the affluent who consume most of the world’s resources to see how the rest of the world is living and where their things are coming from.  for the amount of money most affluent Americans spend on unnecessary consumer goods, they could travel to a different place at least once a year, and that’s a trade i’m happy to make.

Lust for comfort suffocates the soul
Relentless restlessness liberates me
I feel at home whenever the unknown surrounds me
I receive its embrace aboard my floating house
Wanderlust! relentlessly craving
Wanderlust! peel off the layers
Until we get to the core

.::.