indestructible superhuman machinery

My brain is on fire! Fire!

And my fibula is not. My fibula is not on fire!

This stress fracture has just never seemed right. I can walk, jump, skip, climb, jog... as long as I'm not wearing shoes that touch my ankle. I don't have a limp. I don't wince when I ascend or descend stairs. How can that be a stress fracture? I didn't get it. And it was annoying the crap out of me to feel so completely fine except when I strapped on my running shoes. I couldn't shake the idea that it was just bruising from breaking in my new shoes.

So today I went to a sports medicine doc, and he made me squat on one leg, squat on 2 legs, flex, and point, and bend, and twist, and nothing hurt. Nothing. The only time anything hurt was when he was jamming his thumb into the outside of my foot. (Incidentally, it is unfortunate that the only way to assess pain is to cause it. I wonder how many times Dr. Sports Medicine has been kicked in the face while assessing possible stress fractures.)

At the end he shrugged and said, "Eh, maybe it's a stress fracture, maybe it's just some bone irritation. You don't seem to be too uncomfortable."

Right! I said. Exactly! This is exactly my point!

So he sent me home with a complicated ankle wrap and a disclaimer: If it's a stress fracture, this ankle wrap isn't going to matter. And he left me with the wishy washy: Try an easy run around the block. See how it feels. Decide if you want to keep training.

I follow directions. I strapped on the ankle wrap and ran around the neighborhood, and I felt GREAT! Which means: I'm in! At least, I'm not out. I mean, yes, there's a difference between 5 minutes around the block and 5 hours around the city, but... the dream is alive. I'm going to keep training.

You know what else is awesome? That I swear I had a sign on my way to the doctor. Only, I didn't recognize it as a sign until about an hour ago.

On the way to the doctor, I watched a young man cross the street. He was wearing an ankle monitor. He looked like someone I would have dated once upon a time. I laughed when I imagined someone spotting an ex- wearing an ankle monitor. And then I wince-laughed that that wasn't an entirely far-fetched scenario for me--that in fact, many years ago, I did see an old romantic interest featured in a "stupid criminals" blurb (no joke). And just last year saw very public news of another old flame's bad decision. And if other previous romantic interests have remained out of jail, it's probably only by luck.

And then I thought about my history of making very very bad romantic decisions, and, in my head, I designed a Bad Decision ankle monitor that would set off an alarm any time you were about to do something stupid. Hypothetically, for instance, declaring romantic partnership with anyone with known and multiple substance abuse issues, or someone with overt holes in his ethical character, would signal the arrival of Dumb Decision Police who would intervene.

And then I went to the doctor, and he gave me an ankle wrap, and it worked, and it was awesome, and I'm going to keep training for the marathon, and as long as the ankle wrap holds through greater distances, I will run a marathon on October 17, and it will be super terrific. I didn't think of the ankle monitor story again until Mark and Bridget said, "Hey, that looks like an ankle monitor."

And so it does. And I hope it's a sign that this is the fix (Universe says, "Hey, Patresa! You need to wrap something around your ankle!") and not a sign that this is the dumb decision that will signal Dumb Decision Police ("Hey, Patresa! Don't be dumb!"). And I'm not going to worry about the 1.5 weeks of training lost and the fact that I never ran the last 2 long runs. I am not going to worry about that at all, because I am obviously some kind of indestructible superhuman machinery.

sorry, body.

I had plans to run the Des Moines marathon on October 17, 2010. My body has made an alternate plan -- my left ankle, specifically (although my knees conspired). Stress fracture. Ankle. Treatment = Stop running.

I know enough not to say a bunch of dumb, irrational crap like: Three months of blood, sweat, and tears, DOWN THE DRAIN! That's just ridiculous. I've gotten all kinds of cool stuff from the process. Plenty of pay-off. Mostly: I'm in good shape; and I've discovered some grit and fortitude I didn't know I had. That's reassuring. I suppose I could channel it toward a different project, something that doesn't crush my bones.

I guess the thing that makes me disappointed is that I don't get that ___________. Whatever. That, completion. Resolution. I don't get to see the final product. I really wanted to know that I set a goal, designed a plan, worked hard for an extended period of time, survived setbacks, and then reached the goal. I know that I *can* do that... I just don't have a very good record with such things. I live a lot of my life in theory, and I suppose that gets a little old. Now, I can *theoretically* run a marathon just like I can *theoretically* do a lot of things.

I think that's all I have to say about that. I'm going to drink wine and eat chocolate chips straight from the bag for the remainder of the evening. I am going to be happy for all the marathon runners who survived training. And I will volunteer for the race and will yell helpful things to the runners (like, "Watch your step.") and smile supportively and hand them cups of delicious water (I refuse to participate in Gu, however. That stuff is disgusting.).

Over and out. 10-4. Word.

solitary particles

I think that maybe if I write some words, my legs won't hurt so much. Maybe that's what builds up in my muscles, in the ligaments around my knees, in the crooks of my ankle joints--words. Maybe all the running shakes them loose, and they bonk around in my frame making messes and swelling things up. Maybe I'm running to distract myself from writing. Maybe I write to distract myself from participating. Maybe it's just my big hairy ego that gives such a big dumb crap about running a marathon. Maybe my big hairy ego is a big stupid asshole.

Maybe I haven't been stretching enough. Maybe I got overly confident about the glucosamine and the Zyflamend. Maybe I thought my knees were a-double-okay, and so I stopped rolling out my IT bands. Maybe over-confidence makes you all stiff and sore and slow and dumb. Maybe confidence is best balanced with a little healthy fear and trembling. Maybe people should stop giving insecurity such a bad rap.

Lonely horrible miserable business today's run was. So cold and wet and spitty. What I think I have loved so much about running, even the long, tough ones, is the liberation of flinging myself into the universe. Shoes and music, white lines, yellow lines, cars carrying strangers. I don't have to talk to anybody, don't have to constantly examine the things that come out of my mouth or the banners that loop through my head. Don't have to read anybody else, except drivers and whether or not they're going to barrel over me. (I have learned that there are people right here in my city who truly do not care whether I live or die. I'm sure I must have known this before, but when SUVs push you into ditches, it's surprising.)

But what I think is peculiarly true about the things we love the most is that they are the most delicate. These are the things with the greatest potential to shift and turn, to become the things that hurt us the most. Maybe that's not right. Maybe they are as they are, and we are the ones who shift and turn. Maybe that's not quite right, either. Maybe the things we love most are as colored squares on a Rubic's cube, and it's a simple case of circumstantial rearrangement. The blue used to be next to yellow, then the cube turned, and the blue--still blue--sidled up next to red.

I'm not sure that makes sense.

At any rate, today, liberation, me, my shoes, yellow lines, white lines, strangers in cars, felt vulnerable and menacing. Something in my left ankle exploded. My knees felt stiff. My hands went numb (Note to self: Gloves.). Every layer of clothing was soaked and chilled. I think when the body hurts, it's easy to forget it's being driven by soul, and that soul is hard-wired to everyone and everything else's soul. That is to say, I think sometimes when everything hurts, it gets much too easy to feel like a solitary particle vulnerable to the elements. And I don't like that very much, if you want to know the truth.

electric wriggling ball of stuff

I found a thick and intimidating spider scrambling across the carpet to the wall next to my red readingwritingandthinking chair today. I believe in the souls of things, that they are sacred and important, and we should do our very best to not tread all over them. ...But spiders flip my shiz. Snakes are cool. Spiders, not so much. (Actually, I do think spiders are kind of cool, but in the same way poltergeists, are. I don't want either one of them in my living room.) (I don't really want snakes in my living room, either, but.. I don't know where I'm going with this.)

At any rate, I saw the spider, spontaneously revisited my vow to go gently on the earth and do my very best to not tread all over souls, then grabbed a shoe, said, "Thankyouforyourserviceandpleasegoodjourneytoyoursoul," and I killed it dead. Squished it and its soul.

I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Spider. One day I will cancel my fear of spiders and live with you harmoniously. But not today. Today I will kill you.

Next, I will write 3 paragraphs about my skill for camouflage:

In this first paragraph, I will review something that happened to me very very (very) frequently when I taught at the community college, which is the same thing that happened to me very very (very) frequently when I worked at the gym. I had taught at the college for 3 years, and in that 3rd year, teachers I had been seeing in lounges and hallways, some I'd already been introduced to, often approached and re-introduced themselves and welcomed me to the staff. I'd been at the gym almost a full year when members often commented, "Oh, you're new." And I would smile and say, "Nope, [first name], I've been here a while."

Now, in the second paragraph, I will tell you a story about what happened last week in the cafeteria of my current job, where I have worked for 1 year and 3 months. The man who makes the deli sandwiches, L, to whom I have said hello at least 137 times, and who has made me at least a dozen tuna salad sandwiches, said, "Oh, hi. What's your name? You're new here."

Finally, in this paragraph, I will note as I have many times in the past, that I would make an excellent spy, because I apparently blend very well with my surroundings. I mean, sure, if it happens once, maybe even twice, you could argue that people are thick-meloned and don't pay attention. But if it happens 10 times, by 10 different people, you really ought to take a long gander in a mirror just to make sure you are actually present in your body, and that it wasn't snatched and replaced with a stranger's.

Now that I've talked about that, I guess I'll just ramble on about how creative I've been the past few weeks, and like I've really squeaked open a hidden pantry. Songs are coming out. A new tale-telling venture is hatching (which I will keep secret until I am sure I won't self-sabotage, as that is kind of my way of things -- to self-sabotage, a very special trick I've been perfecting since I was about 22.). A cool work project is lighting my noggin on fire. In passes such as these I get a vision of myself, and I like it. I'm buoyed by it. There is even some spirit of creation in the marathon training, which I can't quite put my finger on.

At the exact same time, there's a little undercurrent of Holy Shittedness. And I think I have a better understanding of why I keep the reins so tight. Every time I nudge the door open, all this stuff, this exciting, electric, wriggling ball of stuff, starts barreling toward the light. Although I know it's good, and it's liberating, and it's as it ought, it's alarming. So I gasp and kick shut. Typhoons just aren't sustainable.

Mr. Ebu-Pants is laying across my legs. I feel his motor running, and I love this cat. His is my favorite feline soul.

today is cool, and so are you.

Things about today that were cool:

I wore a print with a plaid and shiny sneaks. I don't know what it is about dressing oddly that makes me so joyful, but it does. (Sometimes I accidentally dress badly, and that doesn't make me joyful. There's a difference between odd that works and odd that doesn't and is just uncomfortable.)

I had a really nice run in crisp, morning air, and my knees didn't hurt very much, and I didn't hack loogies all over Des Moines, and I was a little faster than usual. It was kind of zen-y, and I love the poop out of that.

I ran the last mile doing laps around a high school track while a marching band was practicing on the football field in the middle. It kind of made me feel like I was 16 again, which actually was not cool. Frankly, I really sucked at being 16. I sucked at being all ages that ended with "-teen," and really did not like it at all. So while running my laps and listening to bells and drums and tubas, I thought about the business of age. I thought about how I would like to take some cosmic white-out and just cover up my life from about age 13-26. Twenty-six, I think, is when I started to pull it together and stopped doing so many asinine, self-destructive things. I wouldn't want to erase it; I know enough to understand those years contributed to who I've become (and I kind of like her and her imperfections, even though they can be aggravating from time to time-- This realization is the cool part.).

I wore the racer back tank that shows off my tattoo. Here, this is vanity. Or is it? I don't know. But on days when people can see the carolina chickadee on my back, I feel a little bit cooler (even though it was only to the gym).

I walked to the river and sat on the Simon Estes Amphitheater stage staring at the water and the bridges and the people and the cars and the sky and the trees over lunch. I haven't done that in a while -- just sat with myself without music or the company of a person or task. I really love what my brain does when I unlock the box and let it fly around and touch stuff. I love the observations I make, and the questions that form, and the superfly peace I feel when I'm swimmy.

I discovered VIA from Starbucks, which has eliminated my need to drink the ass-coffee brewed up in the office during my afternoon lull. I do not think this needs further narrative.

I spent the entire day working on a project that excites me. It's a presentation I'm giving at our HIV conference about how to reconcile right and left brain thinking to make data analysis more than just a bunch of math. And I'm using Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor's book, My Stroke of Insight, as a foundation. And I have to tell you that I love this human, what she gives, the sense she makes, and the thousand different colors that explode in my melon when I read her words or listen to her talk:

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princess pride does the opposite

I have this working theory about ego and behavior -- that any time ego is telling you to do something, you should do the exact opposite of that thing.

For instance, sometimes Princess Pride gets an injury. Sometimes the injury is deliberate: Person A, who makes all kinds of decisions based on ego and doesn't give a poop, insults and condescends and degrades. Sometimes the injury is accidental: Person B, who is awesome in 1,000 different ways, injures Princess simply by being awesome. (In which case, it isn't actually Person B who injured Princess, it was Princess's alter-ego, Insecurity, who turned and injured from the inside.)

At any rate, I have had fleeting moments of clarity when Princess received an injury, and I made myself do the exact opposite of my most immediate urge -- most immediate urge being to injure back -- to insult, degrade, belittle; and the exact opposite being -- to compliment Person A or B on the accomplishment in question.

In those moments in which Princess has suffered injury, and I have done the exact opposite of my most immediate urge, I have experienced a 100% rate of improved fuzzy bunny feelings. 100%. I cannot think of a single time that I implemented this scientifically-approved strategy without positive effect/affect.

On the flip side, I can think of MANY times in which I did NOT implement this strategy, that Princess was injured, and I followed my most immediate urges. In these cases, I have experienced a nearly 100% rate of worsened feelings. Maybe not immediately, but always eventually. I say "nearly 100%" because there are so many times, I'm sure I've lost track and cannot report this statistical analysis with a spreadsheet or a color-coded bar graph.

Now, here is where I reiterate this other working theory that I have that says there is only one system, one cycle, in existence, and it repeats itself in varying forms and at varying scales. That is, our personal, biological systems and cycles mirror systems in forests and oceans and politics and tupperware production and cat mating rituals and how televisions work. Therefore, if we get to know one system (to me, it makes sense to start with self. But you could also start by studying trees, if you'd prefer.), we will have enough understanding to apply elsewhere.

After careful self ego Princess Pride injury do the opposite study, I have concluded that we could replicate this on a global scale. There are matters of national security, of course, that must be handled. But I think even that could be handled compassionately. Sadly, it would really only work if everyone did it. And I'm not that delusional. But, it really really makes me love the living crap out of ideas like Stephanie's:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=140441369332304

I think September 11 is as good a day as any to not let Princess Pride run the show. That's kind of what caused the mess in the first place.

(in my humble opinion)

twisty bendy sleeping psyche, continued

More about this dreaming business. I really think dreams are important. The brain is an enormously mysterious electric planet, and how it sorts and problem solves is fascinating to me. I think at any given moment your brain is pulling in... I don't know... thousands?... of sensory messages: sight, sound, touch, smell, taste, and [I would argue...] energy. But you're only conscious of about 7 at a time (Which is very very very necessary. Can you imagine what would happen to you if you were conscious of all 5,689 sensory messages in the space of a second? You would be crazy. Actually, I think that's kind of what "crazy" is. The inability to filter sensory messages, in whatever form.). What does it do with the rest? What happens to your thoughts when you "lose" them? Do they evaporate and cease to exist? Of course not. Most have had the experience of trying to remember the name of someone or something, and you just can't can't can't, so you give up. And then two days later, you are mowing the grass or tying your shoe, and then BOOM, that name just pops up. The question never went anywhere; it just holed up in a study carrel in your brain and researched while you were showering and cooking dinner and having conversations and watching TV and farting in your sleep. That's the magical, layered, deep sea, asteroid field brain.

My favorite theory about dreams is that they have 3 tiers. The top tier is just the brain sorting through all the sensory images it took in that day. Both the things you were conscious of, and the things you weren't. It flips through them, sorts them, puts them into categories, rearranges your schemas, unclogs your short-term memory so it has space to store all of tomorrow's sensory messages.

The 2nd tier is where your brain sorts through your conscious thoughts. All the thoughts that sprinted through your brain that day. All the things you said to yourself or said to others. Where do those go? What questions did you ask? What conscious problems have you been trying to solve? What are you fretting about on a conscious level?

And then the murky bottom tier, my very favorite, where your repressed thoughts and worries and nasty little issues go to hang out in the dark. The answers to your most troubling questions wait, buried. But here they are. I think this is the meat. And I think what the brain does--or what God does--is use the cleverly crafted functions of all three tiers of our brains to help us answer our own questions and find our own right paths. No rules are altered to send messages. Everything is governed by its own natural laws; you just have to figure out what they are and then interpret within the parameters.

Sometimes when I go to bed, I ask a question (I think I've said this before.). I don't always know who I'm asking. And I'm not sure it's important the name I give. God? Spirit Guides? My brain? Because if nothing else, it brings the question into my conscious mind, and then I go to sleep and let my brain start sorting things out in its found-art kind of way (whether it's doing this all by itself, or God sets it to motion, or Spirit Guides are leading... I don't know.). I did that a couple of months ago and then dreamed of old dogs nudging me down dark paths and a dinosaur stomping on my house. Last night, thinking about this week of crazy dreams, I asked, "What do I need?" And I got Night 5:

Night 5:

Part 1: K, close friend from high school, disappeared. She just packed up and left her family, and no one knew where she was. The rest of that crew of high school friends were all a'twitter, and we couldn't agree on whether this was: a) worrisome (i.e., She left because she went bonkers, and we had to find her and get her help.); or b) awesome (i.e., K, a snappy soul who is better suited to glittery dance skirts than navy blue pant suits, I've always thought, left because she finally wriggled free of all the wrong things.). (NOTE: Dear high school friends who know who K is: please don't read too much into that. K has a lovely family, and I don't think she is stuck under all the wrong things. K likely represents something else entirely in my dream. I'm not much of a literalist even when I'm awake. End of note.)

Part 2: I'm at work, and my boss has a shower in his office. (What the hell?) I am wrapped in a towel and sitting at his desk waiting for him to leave so I can take a shower (It's remarkable to me how things like this are not strange at all while dreaming.). His desk is backed so close to the wall that there is very little room. I look down and see that I am sitting in thick layers of filth -- trash, dirt, debris. It's awful. Hideous. I am pushing it around with my foot, trying to find the floor. I see there is a vacuum next to me, so I start cleaning up the garbage. Then, I uncover some hardened dog poop. And my boss and I try to figure out how dog poop got into his office.

So apparently, I may or may not need to disappear (it might make me sadly bonkers, or it might make me wriggly), and I need to clean dog crap out of my boss's office.

Last night was Night 6. I didn't ask any questions. It's been a long week, and I was exhausted. My streak of BIZARRE DREAMs may have ended, because, the only thing I remember was less of a dream and more of one image on loop in my mind -- resizing rows and columns of spreadsheets. And that is very very real, I'm afraid.

too much sodium

Dreams decidedly dark this week. Disturbing. Started innocently enough,

Night 1: A party. A trainer I know from the gym sits at the head of a long table, pulls out a guitar, and begins to expertly play and sing a song I wrote many years ago about a troubled father-son relationship. Presses me to perform, to take the guitar and finish the song. Everyone is watching, insisting. I refuse. They just keep pestering and staring and pounding the table.

Night 2: And I am driving Chrispy to a house in Cedar Rapids. We arrive, and I suddenly realize I am dropping him off for a date with CM, a woman I went to high school with who became an opera singer. They have fallen in love. Chrispy is europhic. CM is smug. Her mother speaks an exotic language. I plead and scream and thrash around the house. They don't care. They just keep giggling and pawing at each other. Later, after their date, CM chases me down on a dark street and taunts me, teases me about taking my husband. Bystanders think this is my fault and that I have somehow victimized this sweet and lovely opera singer. They snarl at me and try to defend her.

Night 3: My family has gathered in our old dining room in Ft. Scott (This is one of the most frequent places I dream about, which I think is weird. What is it about that dining room?). It is lined with plexiglas, and a crowd of young boys begins to throw scrap boards with nails. They throw bricks. They charge the plexiglas, and it shatters but doesn't break. They are killing each other, leaving each other in bloody heaps on the ground outside the window. Then it's over. The survivors come inside, and they have nowhere to go. We have to educate them. One young boy has dreadlocks and stares at me, sad and silent, dirty and bleeding.

Night 4: I am hiding in an oddly configured bathroom stall with an unknown baby in a stroller. I am trying to get as far away from people as I can. I look up and realize there are more people, that the stalls are arranged like seats on a bus, and they are all looking at me. Staring. There is a man on the opposite end of the stalls, and he looks familiar, but I can't place him, and it makes me anxious. A woman named Vickie invites me to a ceremony, and I am suspicious.

Tonight will be Night 5. I am going to line my body with pillows and white sage smudge the bed. I might be insane. Regardless, I am very sleepy.