Sciatica - a pain in the ass My new self-diagnosis for my knee pain is that it stems from my sciatica. I notice that my knee starts acting up more when I'm sitting down and the pain moves around my knee. It doesn't stay in one place. Kind of like my attention. Now it's just below my knee on the outside, near the hamstring. It's making me crazy, this not-so-slowly disintegration of my body. I feel like there's always some sort of discomfort going on. But at least I still have my great wit and a full head of hair.

I'm reading Augusten Burroughs' "Dry" and so far (p. 85) it's a page turner loaded with humor and emotional depth. I just really love how he writes. It's deceptively naturalistic and smooth. It's how I wish I could write. How I may have actually written for about a day and a half, several years ago. A time when I felt no body discomfort, arose at 7am to run in the hills, had a healthy breakfast of oatmeal and organic fresh-sqeezed orange juice, wrote in my journal for an hour, and tended to the garden -- all by 11am. I would have attended a yoga class and then gone to the gym as well, before heading off to work (part-time) at 3pm.

Now, the thought of getting up at 7am with a feeling of purpose seems as likely as waking up at 7am as a woman. (I do get the lovely benefit of waking up at 7am with a woman most mornings, though I'm usually the one who is awake.) I guess this is what they call "getting older." Even though my quadriceps seize up when I go running for a distance longer than a block and a half, I can stay in downward-dog for about 30 seconds before my arms start shaking, and my 6-pack abs have long since been hidden away behind a protective layer of gluten -- I'm convinced that a month of healthy eating and 3-4 days/week on the Precor will get me back to my old self. Now if I could figure out where I misplaced my will power and discipline....

The part that seems impossible is laying off the dry cereal. It's not sugary cereal, it's "Back-2-Nature Hi-Protein Crunch" and "Flax/Bran Flakes." But it feels like a cheat. Like drinking wine instead of beer. I was gonna say "like drinking Coors Lite instead of Guiness" but that would be a wrong analogy. It's more like eating Haggen Dazs instead of Edy's.

Mmmm.....Ice cream.....  ¶ 10:27 AM

  Mini For Me....eventually So, it looks like my Mini is going to cost about 1000.00 a year in auto insurance. And since I'm keeping the truck, the insurance for that is 550 a year even if I use it less than 1000 miles a year! I'll have to decide if it's worth 600 bucks to keep the truck.

So it's going to take 3 more months to get my car:(. Because of the new convertible Minis that are coming out in September, regular Mini Coopers are being scaled back in production. So it's supposedly being built in June and will be delivered in August. I'm trying not to think about it which is difficult since everyone I know asks me about it. It feels like 6 months ago that I ordered it.

Hopefully I don't lose my job and then have to beg all my friends for the funds for my monthly payments.

By the way, the new Ben Kweller album is really weak. It's a huge disappointment as I'm a big fan. But the new Mirah album is excellent (I always think egg salad when I say/write/hear that word) so get off your asses and get it. She's sort of a spunkier Suzanne Vega.
  ¶ 2:16 PM

  June something 2001 OK, this is me being just plain odd. A little free form creative writing to break up the whining and complaining that fills most of my journals.

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Funky ass shit mofo ain't dat da truth. Your life's a mutha fuckin' movie. A movie of the week. And Valerie Bertinelli is playing your wife.

I'm lucky - damn lucky I met you and come to be your friend. Cause all I have to do when the world starts crowding me in, starts pulling me under, is think of you and your life and soon enough I can breathe free again, can see the flowers bloom again, can feel the fingers of hope trail down my spine. Fingers I'd once thought were the claws of the devil.

I hate to be so damn selfish. You ain't that bad really. I mean there's a chance I'd still be your friend even if your life was pulled together. I mean, you're not stupid, just dumb. Or cursed. Though I don't believe in bad luck following a man around like a black cloud. Sometimes I look at you and just wonder. You must've done some bad shit in a past life.

But who'm I to talk? Maybe you're happy with the hand you been dealt. I myself would've preferred two and with 5 fingers attached, but you seem to be ok with your stub. You found a way to hold a bottle now didn't you? Ha!

There I go again, putting you down to life my own self up. You don't mind that I do this, do ya?

I do appreciate your friendship. Really I do. Before I met you, life was a journey from one sad memory to another, one depressing story followed by another depressing story. I only dragged myself out of bed because my upstairs neighbor makes a high-holy-hell racket every goddamn morning. Banging pans and stompin' shoes and blasting that damn opera shit. They say rock and roll is the devil's soundtrack; I'm just about positive he prefers opera.   ¶ 10:58 PM

  May something 2001 I purchased a journal from a bartendress on Avenue A in New York. She was a friend of a friend and made journals on the side. Made 'em from old books with ridiculous titles like, "The Go-Getter: A Story That Tells You How To Be One." I have two of these journals. For my first entry I had my friend Todd Schindler write down things I need to check out, book and music-wise. And some words of wisdom. Here's what he wrote:

Get Donnie Hathaway music
Julio Cortezar - Blow Up and Other Stories, Hopscotch
See "Tickle Me" (Elvis Movie)
Sigur Ros
Thom Jones
When you want ideas, just imagine you have cancer.

He had to end it on a down note, but hey, it's good advice none-the-less.
The only thing on this list that I have done is get Sigur Ros. I haven't read Julio Cortezar and I only read a couple Thom Jones stories in collections. I liked him fine though I wasn't overwhelmed.

I'm about to finish "Life of Pi" by Yann Martel and it's really great. I'm totally sucked into the world of Pi. It's the best I've read in a while.  ¶ 10:50 PM

  back again, but it's rerun season So, I thought that it'd be fun to rehash old journal entries from my past. The rare few that aren't all whiny and complainy. I've edited them more maximum enjoyment. Here you go....

10-07-02

Here's an idea for a simple word game. It's called: Prefix/Suffix. Items: A coin, a die, 3 minute timer and two stacks of "prefix/suffix" cards. The coin has "prefix" on one side and "suffix" on the other. On the 6 sides of the die are: 3-5, 5-6, 6-7, 4down, 7up, and "free." The stack of prefix cards have prefixes on them and the stack of suffixes have suffixes (I think it's spelled prefices, suffices but who knows). The idea is that a coin is flipped, a die is rolled and that decides what words need to be created. The numbers tell how many additional letters can be added. 4 down means 4 or less letters can be added. 7 up means 7 or more letters must be added. For example: If the prefix is flipped and a 5-6 is rolled and the prefix card, "Pro" is picked, then all teams have 3 minutes to list all the words they can think of that start with pro and have 5 or 6 more letters. So producer, produced, protract, etc.... All original words (that aren't repeated by the other team) are worth one point. The "free" means that words of any length can be created. First team to 100 wins. Plurals are not allowed.  ¶ 2:51 PM