Recently in Health Category

After being sick and basically sleeping 2 days straight I now find myself with insomnia on a night when I have to get a lot of work done tomorrow. Not for the first time, I'm looking for podcasts to put myself to sleep and thought I'm mention some of the interesting finds.

Since sleep is the new water, I better get busy! and have I mentioned to you that audio is the new video? (Also: wool is the new cotton - but that's another post).

Here are some things that look interesting -- although not necessarily sleep related (I say "look" instead of "sound" because I haven't actually listened to them yet).

(BTW, I'm getting more and more dissatisfied with how iTunes handles podcasts -- including, among other things, the fact that it's hard to link to them. I think they are due for an upgrade or some competition.)

The Smithsonian has several podcasts that look promising, especially the American Folkways collection podcast, co-produced with CKUA radio. Each episode is longish (an hour or so). Two bad it's only 24 episodes long!

You know, I like that old time stuff, so maybe I'll like the Woodsongs Old Time Radio Hour Podcast? eh ... after a 20 seconds listen, not so much. It's not old timey enough.

I'm not really what I consider a "Hawaii" person, but I still think I could get into this beachwalk podcast. And she agrees -- sleep is the new water (I also like the dog-action -- I could happily watch a video podcast of dog walks on the beach.)

I'm now getting tired, if not actually sleepy. I'm sad because all I've found are dopey new age relaxation music podcasts. I want more atmospheric stuff, not flutes. More field recordings like the framework field recording thing, but without any jarring metallic grinding sounds in the middle.

I'm going to give "Guided Relaxation (Garden)" a go of it -- I'm psyched about the "5 mins of cricket sounds at the end." Plus, it was "created as a New Year's gift during the oil crisis of 1973-4."

Good night!

Someone should use this slogan for a public safety campaign -- it's available. You know, like, "we all like to hate on hipsters and make fun of the Goth, but no one actually wants to kill one with their car. Visibility: it's the New Black!"

I've been stewing about the need for more visiblity for awhile (2003 -- OMG!! have I mentioned that my 500th entry is coming up??) -- anyway, with the recent publicity around how the switch off of Daylight Savings Time to leads to more pedestian deaths, I've been thinking about it a lot again.

I personally take ridiculous -- that is, easily ridiculed -- lengths to ensure my visibility while walking (not that it works -- I was almost run over today by a driver making a left-hand turn across the pedestrian walk -- grrr). I have a rechargable flashlight, Pica has a reflective collar, and I'm wearing either a reflective vest or my most recent purchase, a reflective yellow rain slicker. And that's during the daylight hours!! LOL! I can't get enough reflective stuff!

But that's me. Not the guy on skate board wearing a black hoodie, black jeans, in the traffic lane on a rainy night. Who I saw. And didn't hit. Thank Goodness.

Someone commenting here says that "The UK tried year-round DST from 1968-1971; apparently accidental deaths dropped by 2,500 over two years." So that's an interesting thought. But in the meantime ...

I'm considering putting some orange safety vests in the can where I put my deposit bottles out because I really worry about the bottle collectors who cruise around on their invisible bikes. And maybe I'll get some for the car so I can pull over and hand them out after I've almost killed one.

But just because of my personal issues, I'm a lot more likely to be able to handle a conversation with a bottle collector, who can't afford a safety jacket or lights, than a hipster, who should be able to invest the $20 or so to live another day, but may not because they are limited by their fashion sensibilities. So, I'll stick to visibility for the homeless and gift my slogan to the world, because it's needed:

Visibility: It's the New Black!!

Also -- visibility products are a great gift idea! Like a fire extinguisher, it shows you care enough to give the gift of life!

We went to go see Sicko this weekend.

Health care is one of those issues that everyone seems to care about, but nothing seems to get done. Sometimes I just can't believe we've let ourselves get as screwed as we are. Personally, I have a job that I have kept over the years in large part because it offers health insurance. It's part time but gives good benefits, although of course the part time status at a low pay rate has meant keeping at least one and sometimes two other jobs in addition to the first. I now have the potential for a new job at a higher rate of pay (with more fun, potential for growth, responsibility -- all those good things) and the best thing argument for my old job is the health insurance (the new one is at a small company that can't offer it). If it turns out I can't get insurance independently because I'm too fat or something, I'll have to make a pretty tough decision.

In another example, my friend Becky emailed me awhile ago from England asking about health insurance -- she was thinking about moving back to Portland after years living overseas, but she's scared of our health care system.

The point is not that I'm particularly screwed -- I'm pretty lucky, overall -- but that even the lucky among us are affected by this issue. In fact, one of the smart things Moore does is focus on people who have insurance, but are still screwed by the system. So why aren't we doing something about it?

It's interesting to me that the disability rights movement seems more effective and active to me than anything approximating a wellness movement. I think of the disability rights movement in part because of something I heard once which was, "we're all one accident away from being disabled"(or something along those lines). Health insurance seems like the same thing -- if we're not actively getting screwed by the system now, most of us are just one accident (or cancer cell, or germ) away from it.

Anyway, the movie was manipulative and pedantic, but is it really manipulative and pedantic if it's true? II laughed, I cried, I fantasized about moving to Canada. It was manipulative and pedantic in a good way. I had an interesting talk about it with a friend last night who says he's turned off by Moore's inflammatory rhetoric, which I understand, but, by the same token, I sort of appreciate getting emotionally riled about something that know is important.

I used to complain about the way Michael Moore sets up some of his targets to look like jerks, but the more he says and does, the more I respect him, and this one has the least to say about individual jerks and the most to say about historic, social forces. I felt like the victims are individualized while the forces that put us there are more-or-less historicized (although it's hard not to see Nixon or Bush being such craven idiots and not want to do some individuals held accountable). I think that's the right way to go about it.

Anyway, I recommend seeing the movie. I learned things, and I left feeling motivated, not depressed. Apparently there are lots of places to see it for free on the internet now. I kind of like voting with my pocket book when it comes to movies, but either way, I recommend it.

Someone should offer an exercise class that would involve projecting old exercise videos like Richard Simmons, Mr. T and Jane Fonda on a big wall and leading a class in front of it. You'd rotate your videos, to keep things interesting, and could constantly update your stash with trips to the Goodwill.

The appeal of it would be that exercise is kind of hard for some of us to approach as a serious endeavor: it's too humiliating. Exercising to outdated instructional videos would allow us to put up an ironic front while still getting some actual exercise.

When I brought up the idea the other night, someone mentioned Punk Rock Aerobics as a possible model, which is a great idea in itself, but a little too sincere for me.

As a historian, I'd like to see how far back we could go. When did instructional exercise media get invented, I wonder? Did they have exercise radio shows back in the 1920s? I'll be Heide would know, thinking back to that project she was doing on Lisa Lyon.

Maybe in some cases we'd listen to records instead of watching videos. And we'd have to keep our minds open for a variety of exercise forms.

(Along those lines, I note that Pole Dancing is trying for a degree of respectability in spite of its history.)

I'm so convinced this is a good idea, I'm betting someone has already done it. If not, maybe I can start leading lunch time sessions at my new office.

Some might say that blurry pictures of my fingernails defeats the whole purpose of this project, but I say it makes it "art." And more flattering -- like boudoir finger photography.

Notice that my fingers are shinier, too. That's from the buffing.

Look what exciting content I have for you now! I may end up moving this to its own domain, watchmyfingernailsgrow.com (available as I type! usually I buy domains before I blog them, but my readership is down so I think I'm safe).

Here are the fingernails on my right hand as they look on Sunday. They have been recently chewed. I bought a new nail file and will attempt to stop chewing them and take pictures on a regular basis.

I should make this a pay-per-view feature.

I was driving home from The Dalles last night and as I got about a mile away from home, that old factoid about most accidents happening a mile away from home occurred to me. My first thought was that I should drive more carefully.

My second thought was: automakers should use GPS technology to instill an alarm in your car that would go off as soon as you were within a mile from home.

Since some accident statistics break things down with statements like, "Another third of car accidents take place within five miles of the home, and an incredible eighty percent of auto accidents take place within 20 minutes drive of the home base," there would be various levels of alarm.

When you were 20 minutes away, it would say: "Proceed with caution. You are 20 minutes from home."

When you were 1 mile away, it would say: "DANGER!!! DANGER!!! ENTERING CRITICAL ZONE!!!" or something.

I generally think engineers are missing some great opportunities for more interesting automobile applications.

Still in the car, I also started thinking about how the bathroom was supposed to be the most dangerous room in the house. (As it turns out, I'm wrong about that -- it seems that it's considered the second most dangerous, after the kitchen, but in any case ...). So this made me think that maybe there should be a motion-sensor alarm in the bathroom that would warn you: "BE CAREFUL!! YOU ARE ENTERING THE [SECOND] MOST DANGEROUS ROOM IN THE HOUSE!!! DON'T SLIP!! DON'T FALL!! WATCH OUT FOR HARD SURFACES AND WATER!!!" etc.

I was so delighted with my ideas that I reached into my bag and got a pen so I could write them on my handster while driving 50 miles an hour down Portland Road.

Someone visited here looking for "creative ideas for telling someone your pregnant", so I thought of a good use for the World's Ugliest Public Sculpture. Feel free to cut & paste this into your emails for a DIY e-card!

This is revised to show "Self Satisfaction" and "Self Loathing" outcomes, as well as anticipation and regret.

Maybe you could use this to chart your feelings about different foods, and thereby coach yourself into having more appropriate feelings for more appropriate foods. Especially if you had fetishes or disorders.

I really need a better title for this, and will welcome any suggestions, but here is my theory: Foods that have a flat line on the "Time Between Anticipation and Regret" scale are better for you. It's kind of like that Victorian idea that you don't want to overstimulate yourself or you'll go crazy. As you can see in this chart, in the case of donuts, there is a very steep curve going from perhaps not even thinking about a donut to "I really want a donut!!!" and from there to "O! why did I eat that donut?"

With carrots, on the other hand, it's a pretty flat line. Most of us are neither all that psyched about eating a carrot nor sad we did so. If anything, maybe there should be a little uptick at the end because we are pleased with ourselves for having eaten the carrot (and I should change the high end scale from "Anticipatory" to "Anticipatory/Satisfied"). I'm not really much of a chart person, and it's a work on progress, but I'll bet I could sell a few diet books based on this concept.

Maybe you could use this to chart your feelings about different foods, and thereby coach yourself into having more appropriate feelings for more appropriate foods. Especially if you had fetishes or disorders.

But for now, I join Spine in saluting the carrot!.

Kathy and her friend called me one night from a bar to tell me a couple of ideas. It was late, and I've lost my notes, so the only one I remember is a new form of excercise called, "Pirates" (pro-nounced, pi-ROT-ees) You do excercises like "swab the deck" and "walk the plank." Brilliant.

As is often the case, the only real competition for the word space, "pirates + pilates" is Halfbakery.

(Kathy -- email sometime and remind me of your other ideas and your friend's name so I can credit her.)

Lorrie had the idea of airport gyms, which turns out to be one of those ideas that's sooo good, someone already had it -- at least, kinda. Actually, the current incarnation of the idea seems to be web directories of gyms near airports -- not really the same thing, is it? What she had in mind was a chain of gyms clubs that would be IN airports. I wonder why it doesn't exist?

My gym idea was to start calling places that cater to women like Curves gyns instead of gyms.

Here's another nice idea: a workout podcast. It would be like an excercise tape, only it would be issued by the club you go to and would consist of groovy music with suggestions for what to do next and someone shouting encouraging slogans at you.

Also, I would like more hipster gym-wear. I think athletic garb is really ugly. I'm tempted to buy one of these cute spendy katamari damacy t-shirts just so I have something groovy to wear.

The short story is, I've joined the gym. I'm at that phase where I want to talk about my "work out" and the "sauna" all the time. Very annoying. But fun! And I sure do like that sauna. Time to go right now!

UPDATE

I'm a lazy blogger, and only just now got around to checking for workout podcasts. Here are some google tells me about:

• Some lady named Marina
  
• some other person
  
• yet another workout podcast.
  

You know what? I'm still being lazy. I'm not listening to these or anything. Suffice to say, workout podcasts exist.

I have some big holes in my backyard that need to get bigger. First I had four little holes in a kind of faery circle around a slight indentation in the yard. Then the holes got bigger and bigger, and the indentation got deeper and deeper, and the drunk guy from across the street came over and pointed out that there is a pretty good chance that what's going on here is rats are burrowing up from an old septic tank that was disconnected but somehow not completely disconnected, through piles of rubble thrown into the hole to fill it, up into my backyard. I haven't actually seen the rats, but you can clearly see the holes. So what I have is a rat circle, not a faerie circle.

One hole is even bigger than normal right now because Javiar came over and started digging on it yesterday when I wasn't here. I know this because the drunk guy across the street told me. The drunk guy is actually pretty smart, although he's also a crackhead. I'm thinking of starting a neighborhood watch and making him block captain because he really knows what's going on around here. The hole is now so deep I got worried about the upstairs neighbor's poodle falling in -- really, a horrible thought -- so I put Pica's couch fence around it. This means I'll be leaving the couch at Pica's mercy today, but I'm hoping she's old enough to be trusted not to maul the furniture anymore.

Anyway, apparently what we need to do is dig down something like 8 feet, cap off the old septic tank, and fill it with 3/4- gravel. As we dig, we should be careful where we stand because there might be a big deep 12-foot hole that we could fall in. Old shit and young rats would be at the bottom of the hole.

I was kind of freaked out about all this, but then Betsy pointed out it was just digging and maybe it could be fun? I thought, well, maybe it would be a good form of exercise, which led to the following idea:

Exercise classes based on manual labor. You'd have ditch digging, fruit picking, stuff like that to choose from. The instructors would try to teach you how to do the work in an ergonomic way or just shout, "faster, faster" at you like a boss if you lagged. You'd burn calories, anyway.

First session offered at my house this weekend!

p.s. I meant to say, this is very akin to Melissa's idea for Heavy Equipment Driving Camp. Woody rented a little cat thingy this weekend and he agreed that Melissa had a great idea -- everyone wanted to take a turn on his.

You'd think that as loud as I have snored throughout my life (as a child and an adult, alas), I would have had some great ideas about how to stop snoring (or wait, maybe if I'd had some great ideas about how not to snore I wouldn't snore so much ... whatever). Some of you will remember my grandparents' offer to get me pastic surgery to enlarge my nose because they feared I'd never find a man because my snoring was so robust ... alas, they seem to have been proven right. But I can safely leave snoring inventions to a legion of experts.

You've got your No Snore Zone (Did you know that snoring can lead to addictions?). And why didn't I think of the Noiselezz? Or the Silent Nite? The anti-snore pillow looks more like something you'd have sex with than sleep on (not that the two can't be one and the same, I guess). For the sadist (and who wouldn't be, after sleeping with a snorer for a couple months), there's
Shock therapy for snorers.

The hippies have a gentler herbal remedy (is there nothing that herbs can't do?). Or you can try spaceflight as a solution (a little spendy, though). Here's a magnetic snore solution! TWO rare earth magnets, to be exact. "two rare-earth magnets which stimulate blood flow and keep nasal passages clear. It's comfortable and re-usable for months. You know, I think there are some things that just shouldn't be reused. But that's just me. Or, "free" excercises. According to some folks, ANY excercise will help snoring, as a reduction in even 10% of your body fat can reduce snoring by sliming up your neck. In addition to having cloaked my neck in a goodly layer of fat, I do have an enourmous tonsil, too. Oh, lord, hear my cry: I JUST WANT TO SLEEP! Well, I could always try the Nose Brace. And I wonder if they have customer testimonials? Why, yes, they do!. Pretty compelling ones, too: "I must wear my Nose Braces day and night, at work and at home. I cannot be without them." "I cannot function without it." "I don't snore and wheeze anymore." I should definitely try one! And guess what? As an added bonus, "No parts of Nose Brace stick out of your nose. Thus, it is not readily visible by others!" in fact, "In some cases, Nose Brace may actually redefine facial symmetry and improve your appearance." My favorite part of this last website, though, is all the inexplicable winter scenery stock photos). Yikes!

I've always been pretty happy with my nose, but after talking to Alexa the other night, I wonder if I have a deviated septum?
Oh my goodness! -- I didn't know being a mouth breather was such a bad thing. Deepak Chopra is telling me to stop!

Well, fortunately for me, Rachel gave me a neti pot over a year ago (THANKS FOR THE NETI POT, RACHEL!!) and after several painful experiences I finally figured out how to use it, thanks to Dave's example. And boy, is it fun! I can get a real stream of water now pouring out my nostril -- Don't know what I mean? well, here's a neti pot website that, unlike those other snoring sites, probably didn't use stock photography after all, where would you get neti pot stock photography? Where, indeed? Here's a photo that maybe didn't make it into the stock photo book. I have to admire Wes for all he tells us about what came out of his nose (warning: it's not for the squeamish!).

My netipot looks like this and it's my friend.

OK -- that's enough about snoring and my neti pot. I was sort of waiting for this to turn into a coherent narrative before posting it, but I'm feeling sickly and want to get this out of to do file. Plus, I think that neti pot stock photography is pretty sweet.

I've been thinking it would be a great idea to get my ears cleaned out with one of those ear candles. Did you know this is how they cleaned their ears in Atlantis? Apparently, some people think it's not such a great idea. I can't remember if it's in Nicholson Baker's The Mezzanine or The Fermata where he describes cleaning his ears in great detail, but it's really satisfying. I can't remember if he ear candles or not. I want some form of ear cleaning because I seem to be going slightly deaf. On the other hand, it may just be old age.

Besides hearing better, I want the satisfaction of seeing a bunch of wax come out of my ears. There should be body product porn for people like me, devoted to things like ear wax and other things too gross (but also fascinating) to mention here -- you know, blackhead extraction and stuff. Like "The Faces of Death" only considerably tamer. It probably already exists.

I had this idea a while ago:

With fertility drugs, a single woman or lesbian couple wanting a child or children might approach a gay (male) couple also wanting a child or children and offer them the pick of the litter in exchange for stud services (sperm donating). Then the dam (or mother) would pump themselves full of fertility drugs to try to ensure at least twins, if not more. As with puppies, the stud would get the pick of the litter.

This is something I was using as an icebreaker at parties, once or twice:

Say it's the year 2525, and man has to choose only ONE phase of eating. Which one would you chose?

1) smelling and tasting?
2) chewing and texture?
3) swallowing?
4) feeling full and digesting?
5) excreting?

I never really came up with what each choice said about someone's personality, so it's not, strictly speaking, a personality test -- but I thought it was interesting that I was pretty much the only person I knew to choose swallowing. I really like things like tapioca and raw oysters that just slides down. I like tasting, too, and that's what most people chose.

This is something I realized I suffered from after two seperate experiences with my friend and ex-boyfriend Ian.

The first experience was when his father, a doctor, hosted a party at the family compound for a bunch of other wealthy doctors. On the catering menu was barbequed lobster tails. I'd had lobster two or three times before in my life, and LOVED it (once was in Maine, the other time was at Red Lobster, and the other time I forget but I'm sure I must have had it more than twice). During the party, I found myself unable to consume as many lobster tails as was both humanly possible and seemly and so at some point -- very much like Pica and Lita -- I began hording lobster tails in the bedroom Ian and I shared when we visited his folks. I can't even remember where I put them, although I want to say under the pillows (I think that may be Lita I'm thinking of, though). What I do remember was that the next day, Ian encouraged me to forgo the remaining lobster tails given that they had sat out unrefrigerated all night. I probabably still ate a couple.

The other experience was in Germany, where I was visiting Ian while he was on fellowship. The fellowship (a DAAD which stands for something in German) included a trip to a big hotel where all the people who were visiting Germany on the DAAD that year -- 100s of them, from all over the world -- were hosted in a grand event which included music and dancing. I heard the Macarena for the first time at that event and was thought, "wow, what a great song!" and got really confused when all the people from all over the world started doing the dance, which I totally could not do -- I still can't, nor can I do the YMCA dance.

There was also a massive buffet -- multiple groaning tables and cornicopias. Ian and I had just sat down with heavily-loaded plates after one trip through it when I saw some people walk by with steaks. STEAKS! I hadn't seen the steaks. I left my overflowing plate and hurried back to the buffet. Finding that the steaks where already gone (which just reinforced my anxiety), I contented myself by loading up on other goodies. I sat back down before my two full plates, and the two women across the table from us (who were from Kazakhstan, I think) looked at my plates, looked at me, looked at each other, and smiled. I've since been told that any good Soviet would have done the same thing, but I still felt like an ugly American.

I'd had the same experience at a couple weddings Ian and I had attended, too -- there it was more focused on the shrimp platters. I remember thinking, "oh-my-god-look!! SHRIMP! better get some quick before they're gone!" and then, lo! MORE appeared! That really impressed me.

So, my formal description of the diagnosis is: it's the sweaty anxious feeling you have that if you don't get a bunch of the jumbo shrimp quick, you won't get any.

I don't think this idea was really original, and it's kind of Irma-Bombesque, but still, it's one of those things I've said that other people have quoted back to me, so I thought I'd record them for posterity, especially since this topic is on on my mind:

Mary's diet, or, keeping Kosher the Mary way:

1. Don't eat anything that both contains cheese and is deep fried.
2. Don't eat something just because it's free (this is related to my self-diagnosis of suffering from buffet anxiety -- a condition I made up, but I think probably exists widely -- more on this in a seperate entry).
3. Stop eating before you feel physicall ill.

Those are the only ones I remember, but the best diets are simple, anyway.