Exercise Gives You Gas… And Other Randomness
March 11, 2010 by NaysWay · Leave a Comment
So last night, I worked out for a long time after having foregone a workout. In a long time. And it was a good workout. Just me, my sweats, my newly purchased sports bras from Tarzhay, and a new exercise DVD. After coming down with bronchitis, me and workouts weren’t exactly on speaking terms, and I’ve got weight to lose because, honestly, I was supposed to be documenting that whole process, and I could just see this ugly spiral of procrastination churning in my belly and… never mind. You know what I’m saying.
Needless to say, I got my butt kicked. I hurt. I think I may have even cried a little. I farted A LOT! Did you know exercise pushes all that air out of you? I always wonder if I should ask BFam to spot me as extra motivation but, after last night, I’m thinking not.
Bo seemed not to mind.
My tattoo has healed nicely. I’m thinking of getting more added to it because, like I said, tattoos are addictive. And I’m still dumb. Obviously. Hello?!
I heart this dog. I can’t even help myself sometimes.
FUN FACT: Did you know that dogs can sense ailment before humans can? Before I was diagnosed with bronchitis, Bo routinely laid on my chest. He’d never done it before and I had no clue he was trying to tell me something. All this time I had my own personal Lassie and didn’t know it.
When I die, I’m leaving everything to him. (Sorry kids.)
I could really go for a glass of this right now.
It’s almost Spring which means it’s almost Summer which means AWESOME!
Which also means I’ve got to find a new word to replace awesome. I’m really starting to show my age here.
Mooter’s playing soccer in the Spring, and she’s going out for softball. Who’s trying to get coordinated? Eh? EH?!
(Also, that kid has grown AT LEAST a foot since this was snapped. Heaven help my wallet!)
This is my favorite picture of Booger. I don’t know why.
These acts of randomness were brought to you by nostalgia.
Is it Spring yet?!
FEAR No. 057 – Crevasses
March 9, 2010 by NaysWay · 5 Comments
Jack: It’s 1994. I went ice climbing, and I fell into a crevasse. I hurt my leg, and I couldn’t climb back up. So, fighting every natural instinct, doing the thing that seemed most awful to me, I climbed down into the darkness. And that’s how I got out. And when I got back to base camp, I went and found my fellow climber, the one who had cut me loose after I fell. And I said, “Connie Chung, you did the right thing.”
–Jack Donoghy, 30 Rock (Into The Crevasse, S04E02)
One of my favorite SpongeBob episodes is called Rock Bottom. (If you are not familiar with the excellence that is SpongeBob SquarePants, feel free to skip past this paragraph. Oh, and also? SHAME ON YOU! That is all.) In the episode, SpongeBob and his good friend, Patrick, take a bus trip home after a rousing excursion to the local amusement park, Glove World. Excited from their day, SpongeBob and Patrick are so caught up in talking about the rides and recounting their prizes, they totally miss the stop that would drop them home in Bikini Bottom. This gaffe pushes them outside city limits down a torturous, 90-degree angled cliff (for you Ohioans, think Demon Drop at Cedar Point), into a strange, foreign, and scary town called Rock Bottom. The only way in and out of the town is by bus – a tricky bus wickedly bent on leaving our dear, yellow sponge trapped. He is ultimately rescued and returned home, but not before experiencing some of his coldest and loneliest times in what seemed a desolate wasteland.
(And that, my friends, is how you dramatize SpongeBob. I’m available for kids parties.)
Some of my scariest FEAR moments have happened in dark, desolate wastelands (also known as “new experiences”). When I feel trapped in the FEAR, it’s because I’ve put myself there. More than I care to admit, I’ve wanted nothing more than to get out of the situation and, like anything trapped, I struggle. Twisting, turning, scrapping the air for higher ground. In the end, I’m only fighting myself. Never does it dawn on me that I may need to dig deeper in order to pull myself out.
Lately, I’ve been in a wasteland – a crevasse I’m in and can’t seem to figure my way out. I know the answer is to dig deeper. The shovel sits at my feet, but I don’t want to. With most emotionally sensitive people, sometimes the hollow cocoon of woe and dread is far more comforting than freedom. Of course, as I’d suspected when I realized I had a twin on my hands, Mooter is in her own crevasse. It’s times like these I really don’t envy BFam. It was more than enough having an emotionally unstable wife, but to have a daughter expressing the same traits makes you not want to come home for dinner sometimes. He doesn’t have to tell me. I know.
Yet when we are in our respective caves, figuring our respective ways out – should we choose that route – we tend to cling more to each other. To give you perspective, she and I have been extra clingy lately. To wit, the dog is officially over us both. (He is our mascot of love in most dire circumstances. We like to pet him and hug him and love him when we’re sad.) I keep trying to tell myself she’s too young to carry around such emotional burdens, but that would be like talking to a reflection so, instead, I just try to let her know I’m there and help her talk through it. And if I take my crapiness out on her, I make sure to sit her down and apologize.
So. The crevasse. How to dig yourself out. I feel I should be inclined to know but, then again, I’m not ready to dig just yet.
[Cover Image: Explorer Tree on Flickr by Josh Sommers]
Then & Now
March 5, 2010 by NaysWay · 4 Comments
When Bo was a little bitty baby child, I loved him.
I thought there was nothing better in the world than a Bo.
Who else could get away with being so completely serene… and downright lazy?
Who else could make me believe ugly things were cute?
Who else could resemble the jowls of Walter Cronkite?
Everyone needs a Bo in their life.
Running Over
March 4, 2010 by NaysWay · Leave a Comment
At some point, we hit a lull with the amount of children populating our family. I use family in the singular sense because mine doesn’t count. It’s my family – all four of us – then that’s it. I’m an only child (which is starting to be a recurring mention in my posts – I’m sensing some hostility within myself). I don’t have nieces or nephews. What cousins I do have are second and third generation, and I rarely see them unless someone dies.
I don’t know what I was thinking marrying BFam. Not only is he the oldest of his clan (which, as I’ve read in various online articles, is not the greatest match with an only child), but he has a buttload of siblings, nieces, nephews, and cousins. I feel like I need a tally sheet talking to them. Because whose kid are you? And how are you related again? And I’m your what?
BFam’s siblings range in age. The youngest sibling is sixteen (and I’m probably getting that wrong but see my previous statement: I can’t keep up). There are a good mix of girls and boys. Save for the sixteen-year-old, almost all of his siblings have procreated.
And this wouldn’t be such a big deal, but I’ve officially gone from having hardly any family to HOLY CATS WHERE DID ALL THESE PEOPLE COME FROM?
And the birthdays?! Don’t even get me started on the birthdays. Sweet Georgia Brown, all these little people! As if I wasn’t having enough trouble already!
I’m going to need everyone to go on procreation lock down. What’s trickier than asking everyone to keep their legs closed than getting that word out to 1.5 million relatives.
FEAR No. 056 – Shadows & Forewarnings
March 1, 2010 by NaysWay · 3 Comments
When word broke that Andrew Koenig – known to most of the world as “Boner” from the television show Growing Pains – took his own life after weeks of being reported missing by family and friends, it took me a long while of sitting and thinking before I could talk about it. Like everyone else, it’s troubling me. I’m sure, if you’ve read enough of my drivel here, you can imagine why.
Most want to know how this happened. How could he have been depressed for so long and no one know, or have done anything about it. How was he so far gone and totally unreachable that no one could save him. Was there an event that triggered it.
And then, Marie Osmond’s 18-year-old son.
The words escape me again because… 18.
Looking at the two cases – one aged 41; the other much, much too young – you begin to wonder what’s in the Hollywood Kool-Aid. But you can’t. Because it’s not the Kool-Aid. In both instances, this man and man-child dealt with one key factor and it wasn’t Hollywood. Depression is real. There’s ad campaigns, and therapy, and rich pharmaceutical companies harboring on this as truth.
I’ve touched on depression and suicide before by rehashing my own experiences with both. I was lucky. I lived to tell the tale after two attempts. I wasn’t looking for attention. I wasn’t looking for solutions. I was looking for an end. No matter how I achieved it, ending the pain and weird thoughts and insomnia and panic attacks was the ultimate goal.
For the families of both victims, my heart goes out to those left wondering what more they could have done. How, maybe, their loved one would still be around had they reached out a little harder. I don’t want to say those suffering with depression can’t be helped, and I can’t relieve the guilt by telling those left behind that depression and suicidal thoughts are worse than shoving cotton wads in someone’s ears and eyes; that, despite your best efforts, sometimes nothing you do is enough. Because you want to hope beyond everything that you saw this coming. That there were forewarnings. That you weren’t oblivious. And, to all those things, I say… Sometimes you can’t. Sometimes there aren’t. And you weren’t.
Out of my experience, whenever I can get BFam to talk about it with me (which isn’t often), he says it’s the one thing he blames on himself – not seeing it. He could have stopped it. He should have stopped it. He would have stopped it. And, even if he could have, I was so far gone, I would have found another opportunity. That’s how it works. You get pulled from the ledge. Loved ones offer comforting words. Therapists offer billable hours and scripts. And there you are. Nodding your head. Agreeing with it all.
Numb.
I wish this was a FEAR of encouragement. But, like I said, I’ve been sitting with this for days trying to find an upside. Trying to articulate a positive. How to understand the turning point that brought me out of darkness long enough to survive. And I know what that point was for me, but everyone’s turning point is different. I don’t want families of those suffering with depression to think I’m telling you to give up. Never give up. But, if you can help it, know that if it fails… you didn’t.
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