Wednesday, June 11, 2008 | by nathan

Sometimes Local News Has A Point To Make

I never, never, never pay attention to the "scare stories" on the news - "THE HOUSEHOLD PRODUCT THAT IS KILLING YOUR CHILDREN!" "GO OUTSIDE AND TURN OFF THE GAS!" "WHY WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE OH MY GOD OH MY GOD!" 

That’s why when I heard that there was a salmonella outbreak in tomatoes affecting 16 states including my own, I paid it little attention. I grow my own tomatoes, I thought, so there’s nothing to worry about.

Then, yesterday morning at 6:15 a.m., I woke up, ran downstairs, and ejected at least 3 internal organs from my body. I spent the entire day sweating, puking, then sweating a whole bunch more, and puking again. I called my mom the pharmacist; she said it sounded like salmonella poisoning. I don’t think I had any tomatoes, but it sure as hell came from somewhere.

Effing just great. I’m feeling a tad better today; I made myself a smoothie about an hour ago and so far it has stayed down, though I can tell my body is still trying to make up its mind. Brian’s so sweet; he brought a television up to the bedroom so I wouldn’t have to lay all sweaty on the leather sofa downstairs. Regular posting, etc. will resume once I feel better.

Thursday, April 17, 2008 | by nathan

Blowin’ In The Wind

Oklahoma has been living up to its reputation lately; the wind is sweeping down the plains like a mother. I stayed home from work yesterday because when I woke up I felt pinned to the bed by centrifugal force, the way you feel after a night of really hard drinking. My head had been throbbing the night before but I’d managed to get to sleep; when I woke up it felt like I’d had brain surgery and they’d left the saw in. I tried to get in the shower and get ready for work - I really did - but I just couldn’t seem to manage it.

Having allergies really is the worst; you’re not contagious, so usually if you’re suffering from an attack there’s still really no excuse not to go to work, but you spend a whole lot of your time feeling sort of vaguely sick and congested. I’ve tried every medicine, prescription and over-the-counter, and found them to be of some help, though not a great boon. Allergy shots didn’t seem to help much, and when it gets really bad the only thing that really helps me to breathe is Afrin, which can be addicting if taken more than 2-3 days in a row. Exercise really helps, as it does for everything.

Have you noticed that? Have you noticed that in every single "scary medical story" they do on the news, it’s always like, "NEW RESEARCH SHOWS THAT PEOPLE WHO EAT ORANGES ARE 6% MORE LIKELY TO GET COLORECTAL CANCER!!!!!    … except unless they got regular exercise, then not so much."

I feel like my body just works better on a fundamental level when I’m getting regular exercise. I’ve been to the gym once this week, as we’ve been trying to get our backyard sorted out and that hasn’t left time for much else after work. Monday night I put down two cherry tomato plants, six bell pepper plants - two in each color: red, yellow, and orange - and jalapenos. I planted two mint plants in pots and put my first strawberries in the ground last night. Brian, meanwhile, has tilled the grass from our flower beds and cut down some very ugly bushes and weeds and pioneer trees we had going back there. Talk to me in two months when I have more vegetables than I know what to do with and see how much I like gardening.

Anyway, my allergies are better today, thanks to a nice little cocktail of pain killers, antihistamines, and nasal sprays, and the sleep-of-the-dead brought on by Advil PM last night. Here’s hoping yesterday was the worst of it.

Monday, February 11, 2008 | by nathan

Swolley Eye

Take a close look. See how my right eye is all swolley? I’m opening it real wide here for the camera, but trust me, it’s true, it happens often, and it hurts a lot more than it looks like.

Tuesday, February 5, 2008 | by nathan

The Abs Diet Audiobook

I really, really, really hate diet books. I do. I hate them so much that I’m not even sure why I gave this one a chance, except that I subscribe to Men’s Health magazine, which I love, and I’ve been frustrated with my efforts at the gym of late.

The science makes a lot of sense here, I suppose, but here’s what bugged me, what bugs me about all this kind of stuff: we all grew up knowing what was healthy, what was good for us, etc. I can’t stand it when "experts" try to tell us that the things we’ve known all along are wrong, are lies, are actually THE THINGS THAT ARE KILLING US. This book engages in less of that than most diet and health books, which is good, but it did just enough that when I was listening to it - usually at the gym, oddly enough - that I’d occasionally have to grit my teeth and try not to scream. Still, I guess I won’t be able to post a real review of it until six weeks from now, will I?

Monday, September 17, 2007 | by nathan

My Sleep Is Filled With Fear, but I’m Okay

As long as I can remember I’ve had a lot of problems sleeping. Most of these are due to my severe allergies, which can render me completely unable to breathe in the night, which gives me a strange form of sleep apnea and occasionally keeps me awake.

The worst thing about night time for me, though, is sleep paralysis. There’s an article from Mental Floss linked on CNN that talks about this disorder, which apparently affects only six percent of Americans:

Sleep paralysis

During normal sleep, your brain sends a signal to your body to inhibit your movement while you’re dreaming. This keeps you from thrashing around and possibly hurting yourself.

But when Sleep Paralysis occurs, the brain either switches on your muscle inhibition feature too soon or doesn’t switch it off when you wake up, which can lead to very creepy experiences. In addition to being unable to move, many people will dream while they’re awake — basically hallucinating.

The most common hallucinations that occur with Sleep Paralysis include sensing or seeing another person in the room, being touched, hearing footsteps, floating, or even hearing someone call your name. And for some people, the sensation is so strong they think they’ve had a stroke and are really paralyzed. Episodes of Sleep Paralysis can last anywhere from 10 seconds to a terrifying 70 minutes.

But it could never happen to you, right? Wrong.

Studies suggest that about half of us have experienced at least one episode of hypnagogic Sleep Paralysis, the kind that occurs soon after we fall asleep.

Chronic Sleep Paralysis, however, only affects about six percent of adults. Generally, the disorder is related to jet lag, sleep deprivation, stress or even your sleeping position. It’s believed that supine sleep (sleeping on your back) can make a person five times more likely to have an episode of Sleep Paralysis than any other position.

If you do happen to wake one morning and find yourself paralyzed, try wiggling your toes. The paralysis seems to affect larger muscles more than smaller ones, so a good way to get out of it is to try to make small movements.

If that doesn’t work, check for a crazed Kathy Bates lurching around your room à la "Misery," and make sure your ankles are still intact.

Oh. Yeah. Gosh. Thanks.

Let me tell you the worst, though: I’ll wake up, completely unable to move, and, because of my allergies, completely unable to breathe. So I’m lying there, able to pull in only the tiniest stream of air through my immobile jaw, and unable to move so that I can take a deeper breath. It only ever actually lasts a few seconds, but each time feels like hours and hours. When I finally can get a breath I usually go right back to sleep, only to have it happen again an hour or so later. And since I naturally sleep on my back most of the time, apparently I’m more at risk for it than most. Fun.

And yes, I have dreamed while awake, and it’s terrifying. But it’s nowhere near as bad as waking from a dream where you’re drowning, only to find that you kinda really are. 

Wednesday, August 15, 2007 | by nathan

Looking For A Good Home Remedy…

….for horrible acid reflux. I really don’t want to go running off to the pharmaceutical companies for this one. Anybody? I’ve been drinking club soda, and it helps, but I’m so burpy! Anybody?

Wednesday, August 1, 2007 | by nathan

The Full Moon, August, and The Histamines! The Histamines!!

August is my least favorite month. It probably has something to do with that classic dread of summer ending (in the academic sense). Also, August is the most oppressive month weather-wise in Oklahoma, with very little rain - which is bad for allergy-sufferers like me - and pounding heat that is frequently near 110 degrees. By the time August ends every year, I hate summer, and I am ready for it to be over.

Today is the worst. I got to work feeling randomly panicked, and this feeling has grown over the 3 hours I’ve been here. It’s coupled with a bad headache and some feelings of nausea and dizziness, so I think I’m going to take off early to go home and lay down and deal with it. I’ll take an antihistamine and veg and hopefully feel better by this afternoon.

Also, apparently, we had a full moon, and we all know that makes people nuts. 

It’s my mom’s birthday today. I sent her some flowers and am taking her to dinner tonight; she expressed a desire for Mexican food, which is always wonderful for curing a bad mood, at least for awhile.

Monday, July 30, 2007 | by nathan

A Challenge: Who’s In?

I decided I want to form a team to walk in the Oklahoma City AIDS walk. I’ll be the team captain, but I need some people to walk with me. We’ll raise donations, have fun on a beautiful autumn day and do some good. Who’s in?

Thursday, June 21, 2007 | by nathan

Here We Go Again…

Some people look good because they honestly enjoy getting out on a basketball course or a tennis court every day. I’m not one of those people. You get me on a basketball course for even ten seconds and I’m going to make a complete ass of myself, prove that I have no sports skills whatsoever, and, when you inevitably start to beat me, I’m going to start seriously, horribly, trash-talking you, so much so that we probably won’t be able to be friends anymore.

It’s rather like playing a board game with me, come to think of it.

Anyway. I’m the most out of shape that I’ve been in - ever, but I’m slowly getting better, because I joined a wonderful gym, and I have a wonderful guy who accompanies me there every evening. But still, that’s not enough for me, see. My parents are scientists, after all, and as I am their child, I like to quantify things. I like to keep track. Charts, numbers, these make sense to me. And so, I’ve decided to start tracking my meals and my cardio workouts through SparkPeople, a wonderful website that’s free to join where you put in what you eat every day (I’m finding myself adding a lot of foods to their library because they don’t have the specific brands of things I eat), and track how much you work out. It has a place for tracking strength training, but I find their system lacking and so I’m not putting that in. But overall it’s a very helpful website, and I’m inviting you all to follow along, and join me. I’ve even set up a personal page - because apparently having three spaces on the web counting this IS NOT ENOUGH.

I’ve always heard people talk about how they get sort of "addicted" to working out, how the endorphin rush gives you a kind of natural high to which you look forward every day. I’m finally starting to understand that, because after I get off the arc trainer or set down the weights, when I’ve showered and steamed off for a bit, I feel unbelievably good.

I sound like such a Suzanne-Somers- L.A.-Weight-Loss- Nothing-Tastes-As-Good-As-Being-Thin-Feels- Margaret-Cho-When-She-Had-Her-TV-Show moron. Someone shoot me. After I manage to squeeze back into a 31-waist jean. 

Monday, May 21, 2007 | by nathan

write it down, in different color felt-tip pens

I just finished making a sort of mini-Uberlist for this summer, a small wishlist of things I would like to happen before Sept. 22, the last day of seasonal summer. That gives me four months. These are things that, for the most part, are much more specific and doable than some of the things on my 2007 Uberlist. I’d like to get back into my 32-waist jeans, for example, and to get another tattoo, and try to get to St. Louis to see my friend Summer before she doesn’t live quite so close anymore.

I always feel hopeful at the beginning of summertime, and this year the feeling is amped up because I don’t have this brick wall staring me in the face where I have to go back to school in August. It’s a nice feeling.

That said, last weekend I mentioned to my mom and brother that I’m thinking of taking the LSAT, and my brother mentioned that he’d begun wondering how he’d do on it. So that very night I went to the bookstore and bought each of us an LSAT prep book. Really all it is right now is that I want to know how I’d do on the test. I just want to see. The idea of opening a law practice with my little brother does sound appealing, but four more years of school - we’d both have to do the part-time program at the law school where I currently work - does not appeal to me at all. 

So I figure what better way to find out if I have it in me than to study for the test? Taking the LSAT isn’t a commitment; it’s just a challenge. After all, with no more classes required of me, it’s fallen on my shoulders to keep my brain active and alive. I’ll do that - for now - by studying for the LSAT, editing this novel I just wrote and getting it ready to send out into the great big world, and readying myself to start writing the sequel.

I’m also getting back to the book project. I have fallen over 2 months behind, but I think I might still be able to catch up and have read 52 books by the end of the year. One thing I would like to do is to read all the Harry Potter novels once more in the weeks leading up to the release of the final book. Those of you who only read important fiction and like to sit around patting yourselves on the back can bite me, and in the interest of full disclosure I’ll go ahead and tell you that last week I read the new release from Michael Crichton, and it was fantastic. Anyhow, does anyone want to do sort of an online HP book club before Deathly Hallows comes out? I’d like to do all six novels in three or four weeks, because I want to have the wheels turning fast for the last one, but I’m not married to that idea.

I joined Brian’s gym two weeks ago, and we have been going together every night, working out together, keeping each other motivated. It’s nice, actually, because one of the things I always hated about going to the gym was that I always felt so out of place there. With Brian around, I know there’s someone on the next treadmill who loves me, and it has become this incredibly fun ritual. I’ve been riding my bike to work every day and eating well, and all of this has me feeling pretty good.

Now, it’s time to get on that bike and ride home, but my comments are open. What are you hoping that Summer 2007 holds for you?