My Body Is Rebelling Against Me

Today's blog is a big EFF YOU to my body, so please only continue reading if you want to hear some whining. I never would have supposed that you guys like to read this kind of stuff, but the feedback I got on my last un-sunshiney post let me know that it's OK to use my blog for venting, if needed. That said... it's time for me to talk some serious shit to my body, because it has been slowly FAILING me this past half a year or so. Fair warning: There is some talk of "lady things" in this blog. Proceed at your own risk.

Let's start with the infamous and much-lamented Shoulder/Neck/Arm Pain that I've been battling since late July (which, over the course of the last several months, has transitioned from super painful to simply disturbing, because it's making parts of my arm/hand numb throughout the day). Trying to avoid expensive medical bills from an MRI, I attempted 12 sessions with a chiropractor this fall to see if it would help. It did help... but only because I wasn't using my body for anything strenuous in the meantime. (I'd stopped going to the gym, afraid to aggravate the pain.) Now that I'm trying to workout again, the ache is back in full force and the tingling/numbing is getting worse. Time to see an orthopedic doctor to get this shit solved once and for all. I have an appointment on Wednesday and I expect some damn answers!

Next, remember the Cyst and Infection that took up host in my body back in August? That mothereffer came out of NOWHERE and knocked me down pretty hard, physically and emotionally. Having just moved across the country alone with an absolutely shattered heart, the last thing I needed was an excruciating pain in a very sensitive part of my body to keep me lying in a hot bath tub for a week, sobbing uncontrollably and using up mad electricity to keep that water hot. I didn't go into the details of having the infection treated (because... ew), but that was damn near traumatizing, too. To boot, I've read that this type of cyst is prone to repeat appearances. So there's THAT to look forward to. God dammit.

And hey, now let's talk about some freshly Bizarre Menstrual Cycles that have otherwise been incredibly stable and predictable for the last 10+ years. It's been a damn dog's age since I've been surprised by my period (I track that shit like a boss), but I've gotten it five times now in the last three months... most recently, for 3 weeks and counting. DA fahk?? What am I supposed to do with that?!?!? WHAT IS GOING ON.

In other "falling apart" news, I Freaking Fainted a few weeks ago after experiencing some out-of-nowhere abdominal pains. Now, I'm absolutely prone to fainting, so fainting itself isn't new for me. But it was still a shitty afternoon activity, especially while I was alone at my apartment. Fortunately, I was on my bed when it happened, so at least I didn't fall on my face or anything (which I have done in the past). And those abdominal pains? Probably absolutely nothing because they were gone within 20 minutes of me coming to. They were just enough to scare me into fainting.

Finally (I HOPE), there's been an Ache in My Lower Spine that's gradually become worse since August. Over the last few months, I've continued to try to convince myself that there were logical reasons why my back would hurt in that spot, but I've hit a wall with that wishful thinking; there's no good explanation at this point. I'm going to have the orthopedic doctor I see on Wednesday inspect this, too. Mystery spine pain is terrifying.

I've struggled with anxieties my whole life, but none so much as my health-related anxieties. I'm a hypochondriac (my mother - a nurse - will confirm this with a chuckle, even though I don't think it's funny at all), but part of my toolbox of coping skills involves trying to assure myself that the mystery pains I feel in my body are probably nothing.  And usually, that's right. Usually, they're nothing. But it's becoming REALLY hard to convince myself that I'm totally healthy lately. I feel like I'm actually falling apart.

Complaining is not my favorite thing to do, but you wouldn't know it by speaking to me at any point during the last six months. I feel like I'm the worst person to know, the worst person to be friends with, the worst person to listen to. Now I'm even complaining about complaining. BUT HEY, you asked for it ;)

Thanks for letting me do some body-bitching. Hopefully the orthopedic doctor I see on Wednesday begins to answer at least some of these questions for me...

I hope YOU'RE in good health! If you're not, please feel free to do some bitching of your own in the comments. We can commiserate.

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An Inadvertent Heart-to-Heart

I have been a bad blogger this month. Truthfully it's because my mood hasn't been that phenomenal lately thanks to all of my many aches and pains (physical and emotional), and part of me wants to not bother trying to put on a show of being chipper here on my blog. I don't want to be fake, but then again no one wants to read a blog from a person who is just betching and moaning all the time. (No, I didn't take a poll of the room to come up with that last conclusion, but it just seems logical.) My solution, mostly, has been to just remain quiet and not post much at all. "If you don't have something nice to blog, just blog nail polish pictures every Friday."

But I don't want it to be that way. I like blogging - or at least I did. It's a great hobby, generally. A good way to keep writing, a good reason to hone my photography skills, a good way to keep a little record of my life. In Vancouver it was also a good way to make new friends, though that aspect of blogging has yet to trickle over into my new Boston life.

... The scary part is that my Boston life isn't even really that "new" anymore. I feel like something in my life should have made more forward progress by now, but instead my bedroom still isn't even really finished being "put together." I have stacks of random photos all over my bedroom because my life feels so uncertain that I'm scared to commit to hanging anything onto my walls. There's still no living room furniture in my apartment. Part of me feels like I'm relying on my friends too much for stimulation, rather than working on making myself feel more complete and capable and self-sufficient. I should be taking up some new hobby, like the guitar or meditation or yoga. Actually, don't even get me started on the topic of physical activity like yoga, because it's just a reminder that I'm unable to workout due to the neck/shoulder/arm/back pain I've been dealing with since the summer. My life this month has been a series of trips back and forth to the chiropractor in Cambridge, twice a week, an hour each way, for 15-minute appointments that may or may not even be helping. Only over the last few days have I been able to fall asleep without pain medication or muscle relaxers.

This still doesn't even cover all the things going through my mind lately. It's really been a rough week/month/year. Making it all just a little bit rougher is the fact that my 30th birthday is just a few short weeks away. Six months ago, that wouldn't have been a big deal to me at all - I'd have felt pretty decent about it, like my life was ready for me to turn 30. Now I feel like everything is off-track, like I'm entering my 30's in a panic rather than a party. It doesn't feel like a cause for celebration, that's for sure.

Believe it or not, I started this post with the intention of just sharing these pretty fall leaf pictures. Apparently I needed to share some feeeeeels, too. Hope you guys don't mind. I don't have a tidy conclusion to my stream-of-consciousness blah's or an easy segue into my leaf pictures, but... um... here, look at these now:

Have any cheerful thoughts or gigg-worthy memes or videos to share with me to relieve me of some of my Debbies? Please, for the love of god, leave me something to smile about in the comments below.

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My Long, Serious History With Justin Timberlake

IT'S HAPPENING PEOPLE.

Two of my all-time favs - Justin Timberlake and Jay-Z - are going on EFFING TOUR TOGETHER. It's almost like they're doing it JUST for me. This is like the last 14 years of my musical life mashed together into one concert experience, and my mind has practically just blown right out the side of my head about it all.

But before I hyperventilate or just drop completely dead, I'd like to go back to the beginning for a moment or two... and reflect on the origins of my fandom.

I still remember the first music video I ever saw Jay-Z in... It was Foxy Brown's "I'll Be" and I was in 8th grade. It was around the same time that Jermaine Dupri's Life in 1472 album was out, with Jay accompanying him on Money Ain't A Thing. I was a little late to the Jay-Z party, having totally missed Reasonable Doubt and In My Lifetime, Volume 1... but by 9th grade, I'd copped Hard Knock Life, Volume 2 and was totally versed in "Hard Knock Life" and "Can I Get A..." In fact, I relished the latter coming on over the speakers at high school dances because I could school everyone on every lyric from Jay's to Ja's.

Becoming a fan of Jay-Z was easy for me, since I'd been a fan of hip hop since about 2nd grade. I had the 1992 Kris Kross Totally Krossed Out cassette, watched plenty of BET (my parents had blocked MTV on our televisions), was a fan of Queen Latifah, Zhane, SWV and En Vogue, and could not get enough of the "Nuthin But A G Thang" music video. Man, what a party that looked like.

Boy bands and Justin Timberlake fetishes, on the other hand.... those started out as more of a joke. It's time for this story to take a dark turn, as we delve into a detailed account of my long, serious history with Justin Timberlake. Hold onto your hats.

Oh sure, I dabbled in NKOTB as a youngster... I owned an NKOTB sleeping bag and a set of "I (heart) Jordan" earrings, but I was really too young for them to have any real lasting impact on me. I was like four years old.

Fast forward to 1999 when I went to an 'NSync concert with my friends Rachel and Patrice and my sister Mallory. Rach was obsessed with boy bands at the time, and the rest of us thought it was hysterical. When 'NSync was set to perform in Albany, NY, we thought we'd entertain Rachel by going to the concert with her.

JOKE'S ON ME, as it turns out, because I was immediately turned into a teenybopper during that show. The dancing. The heartbroken pop songs. The outfits. It was all too much. I blacked out and woke up with an 'NSync t-shirt on and a self-titled 'NSync CD clutched tightly in my fist.

From there, things deteriorated pretty rapidly.

I listened to the CD constantly. I'd bring a CD player into the bathroom with me and play the album while I showered. I was buying Tiger Beats by the dozen, scrutinizing entire racks of teenybopper mags for seriously a half hour before deciding which ones to buy. Soon, friends were giving me those ENORMOUS jumbo pencils (super popular in the late 90s/early 2000s) with 'NSync pictures on them and I had my mom rushing home from work to record Rosie O'Donnell appearances for me.

And Rosie O'Donnell was really just the tip of the "TV appearances to record" iceberg. There were stacks upon stacks of VHS tapes in my house, each with the same threatening message scrawled across them: "*NSYNC TAPE - if you tape over this I will KILL you!!!!"

.  exhibit A  .

I wasn't joking either. Ask any member of my family.

Each tape was also meticulously labeled with details of which performances could be found on it:

.  exhibit B  .

My one 'NSync CD somehow turned into fourteen 'NSync CDs. Yes, fourteen. You may ask, "'NSync had FOURTEEN albums????" To which I'd reply, "They've got even more than that if you're digging into their expensive import albums and singles released overseas in Sweden before they were even famous in America."

.  yikes  .

My bedroom walls and ceiling became covered - and I mean COVERED - with 'NSync pictures and posters. It was a big room, too, so there were a lot of freaking pictures. (I shared the room with my little sister, too, the poor thing. She had absolutely no identity in the bedroom except for the lone Britney Spears poster that I conceded to allowing on the ceiling. Sorry, Markie.)  God knows how much money I spent on magazines and pictures to hang up on my walls and inside my locker. Oh yeah, inside my locker, too. You think this addiction stopped at the door of my home?! Nope. Everyone who knew me knew I'd become freakishly obsessive about this boy band.  I was doing 'NSync-based projects at school, amassing a nice stockpile of 'NSync-inspired ceramics, short stories and essays.

.  i made this  .

This was all pre-Facebook, obvi, so Internet chatrooms were the proper outlet for me to compare myself to other girls in terms of how "serious" each one REALLY was about 'NSync. And there was a hierarchy, ladies... so if it's the year 2013 and you're not writing a blog about 'NSync then I'm pretty sure it's obvious who the "Queen of That Shit" is.

Other Internet-related 'NSync fan activities included reading legit fan fiction (you have no idea the seedy underground involved in this one, people), searching out the very best photos of the fab five (and using every expensive ounce of ink inside my parents' printer cartridges to print out what must have amounted to hundreds of them - please see above and below examples), reading chat transcripts from AOL-sponsored 'NSync/fan chats (pre-Twitter, this was your only chance to interact online with a celebrity), weeding through fake Justin Timberlake AIM accounts, and trolling eBay for ultra-expensive concert tickets.

I ultimately ended up at nine of those concerts, by the way. Many of which I paid an insane eBay price to see from the world's shittiest seat.

Once in 2001 I made my mother drive me to Long Island, NY to see 'NSync perform at the Nassau Colosseum and then threw an absolute FIT on the highway when we got a flat tire and would only end up getting to the performance two hours early, rather than the five or six I was aiming for. In the parking lot that day, I participated in a radio-sponsored dancing contest for front row seats and backstage passes. I didn't win.

Speaking of dancing, did I mention that I knew the choreographed dance moves for all their songs and am pretty confident I could still perform them to this day, thanks to the wonders of muscle memory? Because that's true. 

Also speaking of concert-related contests, here's a heart-breaking tale:

In the summer of 2003 my friend Jamie and I heard about a contest for backstage passes and front-row tickets to a joint Justin Timberlake/Christina Aguilera concert that would be coming to Albany. The contest was easy enough - just make a cool sign and then come on down to the arena that night to try to win the tickets. Jamie and I made the most incredible banner - not just a sign, a BANNER - using tons of small photos of Justin and Christina to write out the radio station's frequency - 102.3 - in huge, 3 foot tall numbers. For good measure, we added hundreds of cut-out pictures of lips to the rest of the banner - representing the KISS 102.3 radio station. We spent weeks on this thing and it was good.  I've never in my entire life been so sure that I was going to win something. We KNEW we were going to win. There was absolutely no way we couldn't. We told our friends and family to stay tuned, because the next time they saw us they'd be staring at two chicks who just watched Justin Timberlake perform from the front freaking row... and off we went to New York to claim our well-deserved prize, giddy as we could possibly be.

Long story short:  KISS 102.3 gave away the tickets to practically every shitty fan there except for us. In a "salt in the wound" move, the final set of front row tickets was given to a little girl and her mother - neither of whom EVEN HAD A SIGN. THEY DIDN'T HAVE A FUCKING SIGN!!!

Jamie and I were disgusted. Dis. Gusted. The entire thing was a sham. I could not believe that we hadn't won. We literally threw our banner into the back of the radio station's white van (we didn't even want to look at that stupid sign anymore), told them to eff off, and contemplated just driving straight home to Pittsfield with our heads hanging in shame and our proverbial teenybopper tails tucked between our legs. Instead, though, we scalped a couple of (again, super expensive) tickets from some old guy who was out in front of the arena taking advantage of the assortment of devastated contest-losers, and we went inside to see the show. It was great. But it would have been a lot better if we'd gotten backstage or been in the front row. Curse you, 102.3. Curse you.

It wasn't the only time I was slighted in my quest to be 'NSync/Justin Timberlake fan Numero Uno. Lesser fans than myself made it onto MTV's FANatic show to meet 'NSync, that's for damn sure. Don't think for one second I've forgotten about that, MTV. If MTV were a boy, it would be a boy who should be sleeping with one eye open. 

For a year or so of my 'NSync obsession, I pretended that Lance was my favorite. I didn't want to be as generically "into" Justin as every other girl on the planet was at the time. But I knew the real truth. Justin was the cute one. And the funny one. And the one with the best dance moves. And the best cornrows. Wait, what?? Yeah, I stuck by his decision to rock the occasional cornrow hairstyle. Shit, I rocked it myself now and then in high school. Clearly, with the bounty of white flav between the two of us, we were kindred spirits. I had it in my head that surely - SURELY - someone who was as big a fan as I am must at some point meet their idol. Right?? At some point the stars must align and the boy band gods would shine down on me with a beacon of light that would lead me, coincidentally, right into the same {book store / movie theater / mall / NYC street corner / airport terminal} that Justin was chilling in. 

To this day I'm still waiting for that to happen.

And so here we are, fourteen years after my first 'NSync concert, still talking about it. To my family, I really want to say... I'm sincerely sorry for everything I put you through because of Justin Timberlake from the years 1999 to 2003. I hope that someday we can all look back and laugh about it.

Ha... ha... right?

UPDATE: Well after I wrote the bulk of this blog (and bought my tix to the Justin Timberlake/Jay-Z Vancouver concert!) I discovered I won't be able to attend due to some super ultra important scheduling conflicts. And just like that, the dream is dashed!!! Wish me luck in my solution to this issue ;) The quest to meet my idol lives on.

That Shet I Don't Like About Traveling

Having just gotten back from a cross-country trip to/from Massachusetts, I've got some freshies in my head when it comes to some things that really grind my gears when traveling.

This is just some of that shet I don't like about getting from hither to yon:

- Businessmen going through the first class line. I hate them and want to punch them all in the throats. Specifically when they're wearing light colored khakis with a navy blue blazer with gold buttons on the cuffs. That outfit especially makes me want to make you choke on your company-bought smart phone.

- Layovers that are less than an hour long. It's just too damn stressful to get to your connecting flights with a layover that short.

- People who take up more than their 1 single purchased seat. Just because I don't take up the entire width of my seat doesn't mean I need you to help me fill in the rest of the space. I don't understand how on earth you'd think it's appropriate to be in my seat. How many times do our never-met-before bodies need to touch each other before you realize you're invading someone else's personal space in what is already a claustrophobic environment? Totally effing rude. PUSH. OVER.

- People who need to be told multiple times to power down their electronics or put their seats upright. Why can't people follow basic instructions? The flight attendant isn't your babysitter. Do you need her to follow you into the restroom and remind you a few times to wipe ya bum as well??

- People who - despite being seated in the back of the plane with at least 120 people in front of them who are not moving anytime soon - insist upon standing up in the aisle immediately to get their bags from the overhead compartment when we pull up to the jetway. If you're wondering, on my last flight the same schmuck was guilty of BOTH of the last two offenses.

- People who insist upon talking about themselves to the poor stranger beside them for an entire flight. After listening to one particular ass clown rattle on about himself for most of a 2-hour flight, I turned around to glance at his "listener" who was gazing out the window in the saddest way, just trying to ignore the person talking at him. Dude, he doesn't want to hear about your budding music career or your experiences playing at a dry wedding in Pennsylvania or your "affinity for dogs"... and neither do the rest of us. You gotta know your audience, brah. And on this plane, your audience is a ton of strangers who want you to shut the crap up.

- Silver Linings Playbook. Saw it on the TV on the plane. Didn't care for it. I don't like it when movie-makers expect us to believe that two people "fall in love" after only speaking a couple of times. Or, in the case of Silver Linings Playbook, after speaking once. It's lazy story-writing and I refuse to just overlook it and suspend my disbelief when it's the basis of your entire movie. SAWRY.

- People who bring onion-ladden or other stinky foods onto the plane to eat in very close quarters. I only did this one time on a bus a few years ago before I realized it was a bad idea for everyone involved. On my last flight, a woman literally brought sushi to eat. Sushi! Were you trying to win a contest for who could bring the most awkward food onto a flight?? GAH.

- People who use the entire width of an escalator. To stand still. In an airport. Where everyone is in a rush to either get to their next flight or get the fuck home. You're an inconsiderate asshole.

Here's something I do like... a lot:

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That Shet I Don't Like

Here's some of that shet I don't like:

- Neighbors using the hallway as a substitute playground for their small, noisy children. Literally bringing small basketball hoops out into the hallway to play with their kids, as well as staging (and participating in) actual sprinting races up and down the hall. One word: echo. A few more words: Your noise is loud as shet inside my apartment. The communal hallway of your apartment building is not the place for field day, any more than it's the place for me to come out and blast Stankonia from my speakers. Your poor child needs to go outside to have this sort of fun with you. I know we live in Vancouver and it's raining outside - that's why Wal-Mart sells ponchos and galoshes in both yours and your child's sizes.

- Ordering eggs over-medium and receiving eggs over-easy. I've already mentioned how often you can find me at a breakfast place on a Saturday morning, so I run into this problem often. I never knew there were so many uncertain cooks working at breakfast joints. Look, I totally understand if it's your first time frying an egg and you're all, "Ahhh I'm not sure, I think it might be at just about over-medium but gahhhh what if it's just about to be over-hard?! WE GOTTA GET THIS EGG OFF THE GRIDDLE, STAT!" You panic, you prematurely take the egg off the heat, I get an over-easy egg. I can let that slide once or twice.... hell, I'm not a great cook - I'd let that slide at least 3 times because I know you'll eventually get the hang of it and get to be really adept at knowing when an egg is over-medium. But dude... it's not your first day. You're a weekend cook at a breakfast diner - you're supposed to know what you're doing at this point! You should be able to give me an over-medium egg in your freaking sleep. YOU SHOULD HAVE THIS. Go home and practice.

- Laundry. What the feck. Why do I have to do laundry, whyyyyyyy can't it just do itselffffffffffff?

- Cooking. I feel the same about cooking as I do about laundry.

- These bugs. I don't want to alarm you, but I saw a mini-version of one of these the other day in our bathroom. It was small enough that I couldn't make out all of its creepy little legs very clearly, but could still see how freaking fast it moves, which is by far the scariest thing about these bugs. I kind of want to throw up even thinking about it. Blagh!

- Football pre-game shows and post-game shows. Are you kidding me? Three hours of different men in suits just shooting the shet about what might happen later in the big game, then three hours of a football game (with ridiculous commentary throughout, including gems like, "Now, they're going to want to get that football into the endzone here, if they want to score a touchdown"), and then several MORE HOURS of the same suited men shooting the shet about what we all just watched??? It's too much, guys. It's overkill. And it's unnecessarily testing the patience of every woman in the world on Sundays. I'm serious.

And that's that shet I don't like. Here's something I do like - a lot: