spelling is one of those things i have managed to get compulsive about…spelling, grammar, punctuation. i kid myself that my obsession comes from the fact that i work in the field of higher education but the real reason is that i’m insecure, have an alarming lack of self-esteem and i am incredibly adept in the art of worry.

you wouldn’t think this with the lack of capitalization and the overuse of ellipses wouldja? well, i do this on purpose. it has, in a way, become my convention (one that i’m slowly abandoning, but i’ll leave that for another time). years ago, when i first got online, i found the politics list on a “board” at work. after posting awhile, i decided to dispense with caps. i have trouble with shyness and for some reason, typing in lower case made me feel less conspicuous. sure, i could pretend to be doing it out of some strange cosmic connection with ee cummings, but that would be a lie. i quickly realized there were others who did the same thing, but their reasons were different. one man did it because he was a programmer and he wanted everyone to know that. another woman did it because it was for her a sort of artistic expression of defiance. and brni typed in lower case also. after all these years, i admit i don’t know why he typed this way, but it was our first discernible link to each other. maybe he’ll tell me why after he reads this.

i also decided to type as i speak because i was (and still am) very self-conscious of my writing ability. i don’t feel i have a natural talent for it. i agonize over words, sentence structure, spelling mistakes, commas, semi-colons, parenthesis, nested parenthesis, and just exactly when the question mark falls inside or outside the quotation mark. typing as you speak is a great excuse to misspell on purpose…didja, owell, ack, argh, ya’all, whodathunkit, etc. it’s better than artistic license and it makes people think you are savvy in the ways of the internet….one of the “ins” of the internet.

but…

i still have trouble. it’s ok when i misspell on purpose, but only when it’s OBVIOUS that it’s on purpose. when it just happens…when it’s a mistake, i feel like crawling into a hole and not even peeking out to see who noticed. it’s not so bad when there’s an editing function as with livejournal, but omygod, if i send off an email and there’s a spelling mistake, or godforbid a mistake in grammar, i feel that i should send off an apology… an errata…and in fact, i’m sorry to say, i have done so.

so…

i am actively trying to remove this anal aspect from my personality, and not just about spelling. years ago it was all about time. i was always worried about being on-time and with the advent of digital clocks, things got totally out of hand. i was making myself and my family insane with worries of being late, not just by mere hours or minutes, but by seconds!

well…

this couldn’t go on. i had to find a way to stop this. so, i devised a way to ween myself off of time. i began by removing my wristwatch on the weekends. no time-checking while not at work. this was MY time and it was important to just let time flow naturally without the artificial segmentation of it into hours, minutes, seconds, nanoseconds. and when the battery went dead i didn’t replace it. instead, i dug out my old wind-up watch and wore that at work. the watch was old-fashioned with roman numerals instead of arabic numbers and there was no second hand. i liked hearing the tick tock and knowing that when it was first wound up, it would count time faster, slowing down throughout the day until it stopped counting time altogether. for some reason, that was comforting. soon, i began saying things like, o, it’s about half past 8 instead of it’s 8:28 pm.

later, i started forgetting to wind the watch on mondays. then i started actively forgetting it on other days until i stopped wearing the watch altogether. ahhh…this was nice. time was free to move on it’s own without help from me.

but…

even though i’m not wearing a watch on my body anymore, i still obsess about being late. i plan and plot out all sorts of things when i’m getting ready to take a trip…what time to get up, how much stuff to have packed and ready the night before, the day before, the week before. it goes on until i have to mentally bitch-slap myself out of it. to overcome this problem, i have instituted a method of inaction. i do not physically pack anything until the last minute (granted, my last minute is probably 12 hours before anyone else’s last minute, but hey, this is a process!). so, all the planning is going on behind the cranium, but the actual physical manifestation of getting ready just sort of floats out there in front of my third eye, palpable but untouched until compulsion loosens its death-grip around my throat. oyeah, this is all really really visceral for me. we are not talking philosophy here.

and then there is the problem of getting lost. planning must always factor in getting lost time. multiple maps and directions from various sources (mapquest, yahoo, AAA, better world club) are imperative to minimize getting lost time. still, a system must be in place to compute lost minutes-to-distance ratio. this usually results in showing up early which can be just as problematic, but much easier to deal with than being late. if you’re early you can simply pull over and sit for however many minutes it takes until you are on time.

but it really is getting better and i really am beginning to relax about time and being prepared for every little thing that could possibly happen on the way to wherever.

(and btw, i’m not at all convinced that time is linear, so obsessing over the minute by minute management of it might well be a a colossal waste of time, which makes this whole thing rather silly, no?)

so, back to spelling…

new rule: unless it’s for publication, i refuse to use spell checkers and i’m trying extremely hard to stay away from online dictionaries. it’s hard, but…spelling is not the measure of the quality of a thought, idea or opinion. a misplaced, dropped or transposed letter does not change the meaning of the thing. typos do not define the worth of a human being.

o, but even this is a problem. i hate rules and here i am making them so that i can live without them. heh. i’m sick of rules ruling my life, my actions, my very thoughts. why do we have so many rules? what are we afraid of? spontaneity? creativity? originality? mistakes? oyeah, baby! mistakes! not fitting in! BEING OUT THERE FOR ALL TO SEE AND DOING IT WRONG!

ack…

turns out, this is the easiest of all my obsessions to get rid of. i hate rules so much that i find a sweet, subversive delight in ignoring them. not breaking them so much, just paying them no-nevermind.

it might just be the fact that i’m getting older. i just don’t see the point in all the structure anymore. as gravity is breaking down my physical structure…bringing me literally (at least parts of me) closer to the earth, the source…grounding me…i find i have little time to indulge in these pointless obsessions. they are becoming mere annoyances and i’m becoming a bit more casual about many things. my interests are turning to broader things in nature, fluid things, invisible things, things with no straight edges or right angles. i’m hoping that one day all the lines will bend, angles will soften and i will become so careless about the everyday stuff in my everyday life that time will stretch forever and the meaning of life will reveal itself freely, without boundaries or rules to inhibit the joy of it all.

or maybe not.
who needs meaning anyway?
just let it be…

so, i’m almost finished with the doctors.

doctors do very little for you nowadays. they have a nurse fetch your vitals for them; outside clinics, centers and/or hospitals take the tests and lab technicians read and analyze them. the doctor then has a nurse call you to read off the reports to you and then browbeat you into making another appointment with the doctor. ‘scuse me? what doctor? where? o, you mean that guy who walked in, read to me what you wrote in my chart (and already told me)? ah. that doctor.

anyway, almost two weeks before the echocardiogram and less than a week after the library turned the heat off in the building, all my symptoms disappeared. hmmm.

now i have a theory. the library has the most ridiculous hvac system this side of the mississippi. the heat is turned on in october and turned off in april. during that period of time it pumps out super heated air through the vents around the flourescent light fixtures in the ceiling. along with that comes all sorts of debris that is trapped up in that ceiling too. there are no thermostats. well, there are but they don’t work. they aren’t connected to anything. they are vestigal thermostats from the old system that they replaced in 89. last summer, my department was moved from a spacious room with lots of windows to a small corner blocked off by 3 brick walls, shelving and no windows. it’s a dead zone with no air circulation at all. i’ve been running a fan all winter so as not to pass out from the heat. so, my theory is that my symptoms were a combination of environmental stress along with the emotional crap that we all deal with everyday.

the doctor’s nurse called me and said, your labs are back. no lyme disease. all the stuff in my blood is normal. my cholesterol is a tad high. the hdl is whooping 103 (extremely good) but the ldl is a bit high (177). my thyroid is what this particular lab calls “normal.” apparently, the labs are the ones who decide what is normal, so normal varies from lab to lab. hmmm. from what i’ve read up on, my thyroid is sluggish. but, since this particular lab says it’s normal, it will be ignored for now. sigh.

and the xray tech said my chest is unremarkable.

so i tell the nurse my theory. she doesn’t listen. she says to go get the echocardiogram anyway. i ask why since my symptoms are gone and she asks, “how old are you? well, you’re due for one.” huh? since when are people DUE for echocardiograms? everybody wants a friggin baseline.

and then, after the echo, make an appt with the doctor for a complete physical exam. um, thought i just had one. apparently not. what more can there be? he’s looked at my heart, my lungs, my blood, he’s dosed me with xrays and soundwaves. he’s left me with 5 horrible sores on my chest and sides from the adhesive of the electrodes that they stuck to me for the 24 monitor.

AND EVERYTHING IS NORMAL AND MY SYMPTOMS ARE GONE.

they think they’ll do more tests.
no, they won’t.
they think they’ll put me on statins for a slightly elevated ldl reading when my hdl is off the charts.
no, they won’t.
they won’t treat my sluggish thyroid.
i guess i’ll have to figure that one out myself….kelp anyone? daily shoulder stands?

whatever happened to doctors who could examine you and figure out if you were sick or well?
brni says lawyers happened.

i think i’ll boil some dried nettles and oatstraw and go stand on my head for awhile.

symptoms: heart pounding in throat when lying down to sleep. started several weeks ago. since last week the pounding is almost non-stop. i am only unaware of it when i’m concentrating on something. as soon as i broaden my focus and take in other stuff, i notice it again. i’ve never been prone to “feeling” my heartbeat…it’s just not something i was into. now, i’m aware of my whole circulatory system, i can feel my blood pulsing through my entire body. it’s extremely distracting.

when i take my pulse, the range is between 63-64. my bp last take was 110/68. my ekg was normal (cept for when i moved my head and scrambled the printout–nurse was annoyed). went for the chest xray yesterday and tomorrow morning i’ll get the full blood workup. they are checking all my levels of every single thing. they are checking for lyme and thyroid too.

i think it’s thyroid.

i’ve been “aware” of my thyroid for sometime now. i know it’s there and i can sense it’s larger. i’ve requested my gyn to check it, but she only will do the one test that is known to miss the more subtle changes in function. hopefully, this new guy (i can’t find a dr i like…they all suck) will be a bit more thorough.

in the meantime, i wait and worry and wish my heart would stay out of my throat.

so, i seem to be in a total funk. not a whiff of inspiration, creativity or motivation to get anything going.
things i haven’t the gumption to start: new web page, drawing, painting, next project on my correspondence course, cook, clean, sex, write, read, watch tv, drum, yoga, karate.

god, i hope i don’t develop an itch.

so, yesterday i went to the doctor when it became evident even to me that i was dealing with a sinus infection. i thought it might be worth asking if there was any treatment besides antibiotics. i hate taking antibiotics because them bother my stomach, destroy all the good as well as bad bacteria leaving me (everyone) open to other nasty infections and because they are over prescribed creating monster-bacteria able to leap tall buildings, dodge bullets and destroy mankind in a swell foop.
so i ask, “is there anything besides antibiotics that will help?” a simple enough question. his answer was, “well…you could do nothing (a fine start, thinks i) and maybe it will go away in a few weeks or months, meanwhile you run the risk of developing abscesses in your brain.”
was that really necessary??
then the nurse says, “everybody comes in here demanding antibiotics whether they need them or not, and you need them and don’t want them.” and she left.

so i’ve added brain abscess to my greatest fears list.
*sigh*

ok…i’ve been threatening to actually commit my greatest fears to a written list. so this is the start of it, and i guess i will update it as necessary.

Greatest Fears List (in no particular order)

house fires in the middle of the night
electrical fires
electricity in general
explosions
exploding appliances (could be anything)
avalanches
mudslides
tornadoes
magma
falling rocks
airplane crashes
airplanes crashing into the house
meningitis
encephalitis
aneurysms
strokes
losing my right arm
projectiles (could be anything, especially coming off the back of large trucks)
scorpions (i saw this movie when i was little…)
men looming over me in my sleep
poison
poisoning people when i feed them dinner (which is why you clean the kitchen before preparing food, brni)
being stabbed
alzheimer’s
recent additions
brain abscess

i need to focus…narrow things down a bit. while investigating herbalism i’ve come across all sorts of healing modalities and alternative philosophies of health, healing and just being in the world. some of it is way out there and curiously appealing. the ideas of magic, spirit medicine, shamanism, quantum physics (big word for magic) are all interesting and i’ve noticed that they all seem to rely on ‘common’ knowledge, intuition, and awareness of the way nature works. even stuff that sounds totally irrational seems to have, at its core, what i’m starting to see in my head as ‘anima-truth.’ it feels like this because i sense more of the cyclic, spiralling feminine design rather than a direct, linear, cause/effect (masculine) one.

things are just plain rounder than i thought.

so…i’ve been reading 3 or 4 books at a time on all different things, herbs, aromatherapy, tarot, shamanism, reiki, etc. etc. i think i’m spreading my brains a bit too thin. i need to focus on one modality at a time and read the more esoteric stuff on the side.

susun weed says to study one plant at a time. this system probably will work better than my helter-skelter approach.

so…now, which do i study first? where do i start?

‘Begin at the beginning,’ the King said gravely, ‘and go on till you come to the end: then stop.’

thank you Alice.

i’ve been bumping into this word almost daily for a few months now. i started hearing it long ago in a kripalu yoga class, but lately i hear it everywhere. not giving much stock to coincidence anymore, but thinking more about synchronicity, i guess i better pay closer attention to intention. i admit i haven’t been dealing with things in a mindful way, but rather have just been reacting. maybe the universe is annoyed with me and has decided to start nagging?

lovely night last night. i highly recommend tarot/reiki shares.

it seems everything in my life is pointing to shifting my perspective and direction…or possibly reclaiming my original purpose. for most of my life, i’ve turned away from what truly interests me; from what i love; from what i was designed to do. i’ve suppressed the stuff of my gut for the responsible, rational, linear road.

and now it seems, the world is working hard to point me somewhere else. animals have come into the picture to show me a better way. the tarot last night laid this out on my coffee table, cushioned by a silk scarf. it came to me in our talk that abandoning my creative core, my art, is some sort of self-inflicted punishment. an old punishment started by my father, who would take away my paper and pencil when i didn’t conform to his idea of who i should be. now, instead of the ache in my hands, the ache is systemic and i don’t know who i am at all.

so, what to do? i don’t know. drop it all now? move cautiously or with wild abandon? learn to accept the mundane and eek out a private reality? i can get stuck in the planning phase and never move on. that would by typical. but i don’t have that kind of time at this stage of my life. if i don’t move now, i could miss a *real* opportunity. this too, would be typical.

i don’t want to be typical. i’d rather be a wild and crazy crone.

went over to charlie & kim’s for peach cobbler after sushi on saturday. conversation wound around to tarot cards and the i ching. kim retrieved her book of i ching and since i’d never done it before, i threw the pennies to find out about my life. things did not go as i’d hoped.

i have never indulged in getting my palm read, going to an astrologer or fortune teller. there was a reason for this.

so i toss the pennies down six times while kim records them to build my hexagram.

she said, hmmmm. you’re stuck.
i’m stuck?
you’re stuck.
charlie said, that’s the present. what’s her future?
kim said, she doesn’t have a future. she’s stuck.

which is precisely why i’ve never gone to a fortune teller.
*sigh*

more on my unlovely wrist braces….so i tried to modify them by cutting off excess strap material. they have 5 straps on each (velcroed) to adjust the fit. of course, i cut too much off. so…after wearing them for a bit, having my hands swell some, i realized that i had to sew the cut off bits back on. i knew that was going to happen. i mean it always does and yet, i cut the damned things off too short anyway.
when brni came home and saw what i’d done, he said, “this is why i love you.”
i am not sure what to make of that.