Questions Outside my Pay Grade

People stealing my ideas! I already had this idea! http://franciscojaviermosquera.jimdo.com/

Basically, the idea is, in countries that are net exporters of drugs, make it totally legal to produce drugs and make it a state owned enterprise. Then let the net importers of drugs figure out what to do. Do they want to diplomatically negotiate? Import the drugs as pharmaceuticals? The developed countries (net importers) can figure out what works for them, and the lesser developed countries (net exporters) will no longer be plagued with domestic insurgency and terrorism.

And now some guy in Colombia is sending me nasty-Tweets via Twitter to ask me why the United States government is ignoring him? That kind of question is WAY outside my pay grade.

Pain in the Neck

Have you seen the Celebrex ad? “Bodies in motion tend to stay in motion?” This week my body hit a bump in the road. With the fear of gym overcrowding hanging over my head, I had stopped going to the gym in the morning. I was going every day at 1:40 p.m. (no one there at that time!) and doing 45 or 50 minutes or intense cardio. My goal was to reach 5 miles every time I set foot in the gym. Because of the time constraints of leaving the office in the middle of the day, I had stopped doing my physical therapy and stretching routine. I don’t know if the lack of stretching or Murphy’s law is what set off this problem in my upper back and neck.

On Thursday, I ran into the bathroom just before we left to attend the Surgeon General’s “Call to Action on Breastfeeding”. I was pulling up my pants when I got a sudden stabbing, throbbing “don’t move” horrible pain in my neck. It felt as if it were some sort of muscular spasm. I took my Ultram but to no avail. The pain was still there an hour later as we rolled into the George Washington University auditorium. It must have been bad because all four of my colleagues said the same thing when I walked in: “Are you okay?”

Yes, I was okay…no I really wasn’t. I ran into and out of the auditorium. That Amanda Bookmark was right. There was no signal in the auditorium, which made Tweeting out the messages impossible. I had to go outside and Tweet what I was hearing on the webcast. After the event was over, we went back to the office but I couldn’t leave. Dr. M was supposed to come and give an in-service on the Affordable Care Act. Of course, since it was evident that this was just NOT MY DAY, she couldn’t find us and was half an hour late, which meant that she didn’t finish her presentation in time for me to go see Dr. Kim the acupuncture specialist.

That night, my Darling Spouse gave me a massage….and every night since then. I’ve been doing my stationary bike and physical therapy exercises slow…ly….. religious…ly I don’t want to sustain this sort of injury again.

Dark Clouds Hanging Over Our Heads

The dark is taking over his mood again. I never know if his dark brooding is meant to block me out, or if he feels so bad, that this is the only logical way to act.

They say that part of the process of recovery from love addiction is seeing your partner as he/she truly is. If I were to stop and observe what he does, what I could say is this. He does not seek out information for self study. He does not decide on one vocational goal and stick with it. His ideas seem to jump from one to the next, without predictability or logic. As far as I know he does not pray or meditate or try and get in touch with his higher power. He seems to really hate living in the United States.

What does this mean for me? What does it mean for us? I can’t fault him for wanting to have a job. Everyone wants to have a job. However, you can’t argue for Marx’s theory of work utility in his case because clearly he is unwilling to take any job that would be available, but rather insists that he wants a professional job. Who can blame him? Not me. He deserves a job where people treat each other with decency. But yet he seems to be unable or unwilling to do what he needs to do to achieve his desire: learn English. I have repeatedly suggested that he should not work, but rather dedicate himself to studying English. But his hatred of living in the United States seems to block this idea and he is overwhelmed with the fantasy of making a quick buck and moving back to Bolivia.

I don’t want to move back to Bolivia. There are pros and cons to anywhere you live. Sure, in Bolivia you can take naps everyday and no one seems to get too upset about work never getting done when it is supposed to be done. You can spend all day drinking with your friends and then stumble home and have a nurse come to your house and give you IV ativan when you wake up the next day with the worst hangover of your life. But I don’t want to live that way. I want to feel like my life matters, I want to be intellectually engaged, I want to keep learning for the rest of my life.

Maybe our desires and goals are incompatible. Certainly I can’t make him into someone he’s not just like he can’t make me someone I’m not. Nothing he could say or do would ever convince me that I want to spend my life drinking with my friends or even worse being home with a bunch of babies while he is out drinking with his friends. Does that make either one of us bad people? No, I don’t think it does. Does that mean we aren’t compatible? Only time will tell.

Battle of the Bulge

I had been pretty good about keeping my New Year’s resolution to not go to the gym because of my fear of overcrowding. Tonight I went in and there were mad people everywhere, so I came home and rode my bike and did my physical therapy exercises.

This past week I ran into a colleague in the kitchen and she and I struck up a conversation around overweight and weight loss. The Jenny Craig commercials are starting to drive me batty and we were discussing why people want a quick fix for their overweight and how we trick ourselves into thinking fad diets can work. She really is religious (it would seem) in her adherence to her diet. Every time I am in there with her she is mixing salad greens with non-fat cottage cheese and non-fat dressing. I, on the other hand stray from the path. This past Thursday night I made hamburgers and since that didn’t satisfy my craving I made a follow up visit Friday night to the local Five Guys. Ummmm, umm, umm! It was like I died and went to burger heaven! Every delicious bite with extra pickles bursting in my mouth. I heard that as you age, your metabolism slows down and let me tell you, I am not looking forward to that! Saturday, I made pancakes for breakfast and then we made roast leg of pork for dinner. Mr. J got out his marinade and “meat tools” and got his leg of pork worked up to garlicky perfection. I did force myself to bike for 30 minutes on Saturday, but I had taken of Friday and I also took off Sunday. Mr. J. loves watching television, so I have to fight that temptation.

“Come snuggle with me,” he says.

How can I resist that kind of temptation? Another 5 minutes on the bike? I’m not so sure I really care that much. The battle of the bulge, people. I keep fighting it day after day.

Start the New Year Right!

2011 is off and running and I am afraid of everyone else’s healthy intentions. I am afraid of gym overcrowding. I am looking forward to gym drop out.

Every year I see the same thing in my gym. January first there are more people there than I have ever seen before. The locker rooms are impossible to navigate, the lines for machines long. That state of affairs continues for the first two weeks of January, and then right around Martin Luther King Day, there is a drop off. Something about the three day weekend makes people’s spirits give out. They give up, back away, let go, throw in the towel. That is when I get my gym back.

So my New Year’s resolution is the following: stay away from the gym for the first 17 days of January. I have a stationary bike, a couple of workout DVDs, and a list of physical therapy exercises. I am gonna work on those for the time being. Having the gym all to myself makes me want to go more. I can count on solace, and on having an elliptical with my name on it the rest of the year.

Health expercts argue about what is the best way to adopt a healthier lifestyle. Today while I was pedaling on my bike someone was on CNN saying that it is better to make a “big” change so you get immediate feedback about your behavior. Still, the Centers for Disease Control have taken the approach of promoting “Small Steps” as the secret to lasting adoption of healthy habits. What works for you? What makes you tick? I am a creature of habit and I like being left alone when I am sweating. That’s why you won’t see me in the gym until Jan 18th :)