AFO Leg Braces, EZ Pass, Blowing up Balls, Jeans! and Summerfest Looms

FUN WITH LEG BRACES
While maintaining balance isn’t quite on the horizon yet, walking without tripping, falling, shuffling and general exhaustion is on the far horizon ... I finally have an appointment with an orthotics place for an  AFO brace.  I’d never heard of those before.  Apparently, their sole purpose in life is to hold my left foot up as I can’t seem to manage that on my own, and make the whole “struggling to learn to walk again” a bit easier.  The neurosurgeon is the one who is supposed to figure out why I can’t feel my lower legs anymore and struggle so hard for balance when I try to stand unsupported.  Once I get the brace cast to my left leg, it should take 2-3 weeks to receive it.

And naturally, I’m looking at yet another road trip on May 9th that may knock me for a loop if the brace doesn’t arrive before then.

FUN WITH NEW HAMPSHIRE EZ PASS.  (NOT):  I have never used EZ Pass.  Simple reason:  never needed it; used the commuter rail.  Now, looking forward to May 9th, I realized I needed one.  Simple enough, right?  Dead wrong!

No matter what variation of my address I put in the online application, it came back as a non-recognizable address.  I tried every variation I could think of, and it continued to reject it.  Tried the mailing address.  Tried the house address.  Tried “Rd” instead of “Road”.  Tried omitting “Road” altogether.  New Hampshire EZ Pass didn’t recognize any of them – and I think I should know what my own address is; I get mail at that address every day!  It’s not as though I was mis-typing the bloody thing!  By the end of this hour-long exercise in blood pressure-raising frustration, I was ready to throw heavy objects at the computer screen.  Who writes these online applications???  Fire them immediately!

As it was, when they open in the morning, they are going to get railed up one side and down the other.  Idiots.    Flagrantly ill-bred, illiterate, malformed idiots.  Nothing like wasting hours of people’s time, is there?  I could have waited in line at 2,000 “CASH ONLY” toll booths in all the time they wasted singlehandedly on their idiotic website.

FUN WITH BLOWING UP BALLS:  So I had two exercises I was supposed to also do at home ... exercises with leg weights (5 lb. each) and the balance exercise ball (56 cm diameter).  The ball exercises were actually beneficial during physical therapy ... for one, they loosened and elongated the spine area, and two, they helped me learn how to balance my lower legs on top of the ball, which required a certain amount of abdominal control.  Went to a local department store sporting goods area and bought them both.  What I hadn’t realized is that I would need to use a hand pump to blow up this rather large ball.  (I’ve never blown up balls before – what did I know?  I must have thought it self-inflated or something.)  Started around noon ... and was still pumping air into that thing when I went to bed that night ...!  Woke up the next morning and went, “Ow!” – apparently, my elbow joint was a little cranky from the workout. I fully expect to do major damage to myself with this ball, so stay tuned for future emergency room visit details ...

FUN WITH JEANS:  So once I started getting the blood sugar under control ... I was going from normal to hypoglycemic in mere seconds; it was frightening ... I stopped needing to use as much insulin as I was taking ... and the weight started dropping off of me.  Part of me was thrilled with that ... the other part was looking at the doctor’s weight loss records in some concern and suspecting that the weight was coming off faster than it should have, because at some point, it is definitely NOT a healthy development.  Meanwhile, the level of exercising I was doing increased, in an effort to get my legs working again.  Combination of the two:  I started running out of clothes!  I’d really had no idea how fast inches and pounds were dropping – I don’t have a scale at home since I learned that you come to depend way too much on a scale, and even the slightest variation can drive you nuts.  I did know that nothing I had in my clothes closet fit me anymore.  I had been thrilled a month or so earlier when I’d unpacked my skinnier clothes from the storage shed and they fit perfectly again, but even they were looking baggy now.

Fortunately, the weight loss slowed down to more reasonable levels, and I now had to find some clothes that fit.  I had thought at one point of sewing my own clothes, and even that wasn’t working.  I started a test sundress in the size I thought I would need ("test dress" meaning a dress made of muslin, so I wouldn’t waste good fabric on it if it didn’t work out) – and when it came time to try on the thing before finishing it, it was too big!  Stared at it.  Said, “You have GOT to be kidding me.”  Am now going to have to take it in, before I can even think of making it for real.  Was thoroughly annoyed at the time spent with nothing to show for it, and went about measuring myself again, mumbling under my breath.

Unfortunately, the loss in inches was not consistent ... as always, I tend to lose inches from the extremities first and the core last.  And that meant:  I was two different sizes, depending on which part of me I was buying clothes for.  Jeans that fit perfectly in the legs and hips didn’t close at the waist; jeans that closed at the waist were too loose and baggy in the legs and hips.  Drove me nuts, trying to find anything that fit.  Was all over the place trying to find some decent jeans.  And finally found them – at Walmart of all places.  Was shuffling back to the register on my rollater with my exercise ball and ankle weights and passed right by the jeans area.  Stopped.  Said, “Hmmm.”

Came home with a pair of Levi Strauss Signature “Modern Skinny” jeans – and discovered they fit!!  No way I was trying to fit into a dressing room with the rollater – had to wing it.  Finally – a pair of jeans that fit.  Don’t know how long that will last ... like I said, I’m still losing weight and inches ... but for now, you’d be amazed how happy a good pair of jeans can make a person feel, after they’ve been shuffling around in loose, baggy and unflattering ones for so long.

As I said, being taken on a road trip on the 9th to Summerfest, which is on the beach ... I truly needed a good pair of jeans for that.  Ahhh, life’s simpler pleasures.

NOTE:  No, the photo is most decidedly NOT me ... you couldn’t put me in heels like that and expect me to last longer than two-tenths of a second with my balance issues, trust me  (can we say ‘Wobble, wobble, wobble, CRASH!’, boys and girls?)  Those are the jeans, though.  Now ... if I could only find them in a boot cut, I’d be in ecstasy:  reason, I’m worried that the lower leg brace won’t fit under those.  Argh!  Wouldn't that just be my luck?

New York Tales from the Cutting Room Adventure

At one point, a young, random New York guy on the other side of 32nd Street passed by the long line of people standing outside the Cutting Room.  He thought it would be funny if he hauled out a lighter from his jeans pocket, flicked his Bic, waved it back and forth and yelled, “Free Bird!”  That actually was pretty funny, and we all burst out laughing, but what was even funnier:  he then proceeded to burn his thumb on the lighter and threw it into the street with a yelp and a few words that shall not be repeated here.    (And that we found truly hilarious!)  Only in New York ...!

I had lunch at a place down the street, Sarabeth’s.  The waitress came up to my table and I looked up.  Then she gasped.  “Ohmigod, I LOVE your poetry!  I read it all the time – can I please have your autograph?”  I almost hated to break it to her that she had mistaken me for someone else, but apparently, I look just like a famous poet.  She did tell me who she mistook me for, but the name has gone right out of my head.  But now I know what it feels like to be a celebrity and have someone in awe of meeting you – even if they’re meeting the wrong (and considerably less awesome) person.  So she did get my autograph - when I paid the bill - but I suspect she wasn’t all that thrilled with it.

Just went through my annual spring ritual of finding my fragrance for the year.  If these were the olden days, I would have skipped merrily through the meadow, picking flowers and placing them oh so delicately in my little wicker basket to brew a cologne worthy of my irresistible self.  Since these AREN’T the olden days I was reduced to reading online descriptions and throwing darts at a dartboard, hoping I would inadvertently hit on something worthy of my ... considerably lazier self.  And the winners for this year are:

Mystic by Marilyn Miglin is a chypre (which, as you all know, is “the name of a family (or concept) of perfumes that are characterized by an accord composed of citrus top-notes, a middle centered on cistus labdanum, and a mossy-animalic base-note derived from oak moss and musk, and fall into numerous classes according to their modifier notes, which include but are not limited to leather, florals, fruits, and amber”) (thank you, Wikipedia) Floral fragrance for women. Mystic was launched in 1998. The fragrance features apricot, iris, sandalwood, lily, patchouli, jasmine, marigold, lily-of-the-valley, narcissus and vanilla.

And actually ... once I had it on, it immediately brought me back to the days of walking into the “Enchantments” shop in lower Manhattan – an experience everyone who has ever been in there can relate to ... it is probably the best-smelling place on the planet.  So, with the name of Mystic on the bottle, how could it help being an “Enchantments”- reminiscent fragrance?

The other one was Ed Hardy Skulls & Roses for Her, “a warm, sugary fragrance made of strawberry, violet leaf, honeysuckle and caramel.”  This one everybody buys for the wonderful packaging and then probably sticks with for the scent:  absolutely lovely, and you wouldn’t have thought those four scents together would be so nice, but they are.  (And I love the skull!)

So there you have them:  the 2015 “Let me capture and tie you into unbreakable love knots with my irresistible scent” winners for the year.  Believe me, you’ll be the first to know if either one of them works.

Physical therapy:  lied through my teeth ... well, no, I didn’t lie (EXACTLY) – I just left out pertinent information.  Just said I had tried standing without support for a long period of time.  Which was true – I had – I just didn’t provide any details on exactly WHY I had been doing that, or how.  I still got the hairy eyeball, but didn’t get thrown out of physical therapy as “uncooperative”, which is what would have happened if I confessed that I had gone against every single instruction they gave me.  Turns out I had seriously strained the muscles around my foot, ankle, back and shin bones, which directly contribute to one’s ability to maintain balance.  He could physically feel how strained they were.  His only crabby comment?  “Well, at least you can’t blame ME for that.”  I looked properly ashamed of myself – which I sorta was, but not entirely.  I had just REALLY wanted to see the ... yeah, I know, go ahead and shoot me, I just REALLY wanted to see The Cowsills.

The Cowsills 50th Anniversary Concert, Il Volo Hits the 2 Million Mark; I Collapse

In one of those amazing synchronicities that always knock me flat when they happen:   I had a few cd’s on hand, ready to be imported into i-Tunes and listened to.  One of them was more of a curiosity than anything else, which is why I hadn’t rushed to get it loaded.  So I finally get around to throwing it in the drive, and start listening to the first cut.  Eyeballs popped open.  The entire concept of the first song was another version of my C’era una volta counterpoint to “Paradise Lost”, although perhaps darker than Volta, but the concept behind it was still unmistakable.  The first time I have ever heard anyone even come close to the concept.  First comment:  “Holy (bleep)!”

And the singer/songwriter?  Jason Cowsill (son of Bob), The Shape of the Journey cd.  I never expected it to be as good as it was, but it really was astonishing.  I should apologize to the guy for letting him sit on the “To be listened to when I get around to it” pile for so long.  Reminded me of Bill Miller, too -  and everyone knows Miller is a long-time favorite of mine.  Only wish:  that he’d printed the lyrics on the liner.  As it was, I had to sit there with one ear literally glued to the speaker to catch every word.  A bit annoying, actually.  But even so, it had me sitting there, seriously impressed with how close he came to the same vision I had of the birth of everything.  And all this time I had been thinking I was the only one who had that image of the REAL “big bang”, so to speak, in my mind.

And while I’m learning new things ... I learned an important piece of information about dandelion tea:  it can taste differently depending on who’s selling it to you.  Drank one batch of them from one supplier; just drank another cup from another one;  they tasted differently.  One tasted more “earthy” than the other, if that made sense.  Both tasted good; just ... different.  So, is that because the earth the dandelions were grown is has a different “flavor” to it?

Despite the fact that I woke up a few mornings ago to discover sleet, ice and snow all over the ground (you don’t know the details of my reaction to THAT discovery – none of it is appropriate for this blog), it seems to me that now is about the time to start growing the seeds in my little seed grower contraption.  You’re supposed to start them – depending on the plant – some 4 to 6 weeks before transplanting out of doors, so this is about right.

The Cutting Room - Epic Fail

The venue itself could have definitely handled it infinitely better than they did ... we stood outdoors on a long line on 32^nd Street for well over an hour before even coming anywhere near the front door.  By show time (7:00 p.m.) a huge swath of people were still outside, on a line, getting totally freaked out because they thought they were going to miss the start of the concert.  No one from the venue came outside to reassure us that the concert hadn’t started, and was delayed so that they could get everyone indoors.  One person asked about it at the front of the line, and the venue tried to blame the Cowsills for the late start – luckily, no one who knew the family and their discipline and professionalism bought THAT explanation even for a second.  You heard, “That’s bullsh*t!” all the way down the line when that was passed back.  Sorry, Cutting Room – absolutely no one bought your trying to blame The Cowsills for your screw-ups.  Just saying.

Our unilateral suspicion was that they had literally no idea how incredibly popular and beloved The Cowsills were, and were taken by complete surprise at the volume of people who showed up for the concert.  In fact, we all watched as one of the Cutting Room employees walked the sidewalk close to starting time, counting people and then walked back inside with a look of serious concern on his face.  An epic fail on the part of The Cutting Room.

But the Cowsills Themselves?

I would not have missed that concert for all the (pick one):  tea in China, olives in Tuscany, oranges in Valencia, pastries in Denmark, WHATEVER!  That much energy swirling around does all sorts of things to your emotional state ... and I’d been sitting at home, alone, in such isolation for so long, it was almost a shock to my system, not only being back home in New York City – which everyone knows is simply coursing with a powerful buzzing energy anyway - but being at that concert, on that month, on that day.  The emotional impact was exacerbated by the fact that the concert was held three years (minus two days) since my brother Jim died, also in New York ... so if you don’t think that didn’t impact me emotionally, think again.  A lot of emotional things coincided, all at once.  In short, while I basically held it together outwardly; inwardly, I was an emotional high wire, twanging at everything.

As for The Cowsills, THEY were perfect.  Absolutely perfect.  Pitch perfect, note perfect, set list perfect, banter perfect, the whole package.  The audience spent the entire concert in the palm of their (collective) hand, laughing, crying, singing along and loving every minute of it.  They faced a packed room of people who absolutely adored all of them, and would have sat there all night long, if the band wanted to keep going.  The concert felt like it was over way too soon – although they must have put in a good 90 minutes, if not longer, I was not wearing a watch – but I didn’t want it to end, that’s how good it was.  Here’s a small snippet – the one and only Cowsills singing “The Rain, The Park and Other Things” at the Cutting Room, sounding every bit as wonderful as they did when the song was first released.  I'll probably be babbling happily about this wonderful concert for months to come, it was that good.

Physically – well, that’s another story.

I should never have pushed myself to go, as I did.  Woke up this morning to dual leg spasms so bad I actually fell out of bed, crying out in pain, and pulled the contents of the nightstand down on top of me.  Throughout today, spasms all throughout my legs and feet, muscles around my shins are spasming and I know that was from constantly trying to keep my balance without the walker, which I couldn’t bring with me because I had a suitcase; numbness moved up to the backs of my knees and it wasn’t there before, back spasms, the works.

I have spent today going “WTF did I do to myself?”  I don’t even want to know what I did to myself.  Thank goodness I don’t see the physical therapist until Wednesday because he will want to know when this all changed, and I don’t want to tell him what I did to provoke it.  “Stood on lines for 2 hours trying to see and meet the Cowsills, leaning on a cane until I saw black spots before my eyes and knew I was about to faint?”, “I told you not to use the cane until I told you that you could use the cane; didn’t I tell you that?!”  “Yes, I know you did, but ... you don’t understand, I REALLY wanted to see the Cowsills."

I have no defense other than, “I really wanted to go, I’ve been waiting to see them perform live for 45 years!”  I know he won’t care; I’m either going to have to lie, or get railed up one side and down the other.  And I don’t want “She deliberately disobeyed my instructions!” on my permanent medical record.  Because that is exactly what I did.  I’ve been taking muscle relaxers all day to the point where I’m dizzy, and they’re not helping.  Taking Tylenol for the pain, and it’s not even making a dent.  And I can’t even complain about it because it’s my own fault; I did it to myself.  I have two days to make up a whopper of a lie, and I really don’t want to do that, either.  (“*Duh*, I dunno, I just woke up Monday morning, and it was like this; I don’t know what happened, it’s a mystery ...”)  Hopefully, he doesn’t read blogs.

I’m the first to admit I’m an idiot who should have known better.  But you have to understand ... I REALLY wanted to see The Cowsills!

Meanwhile, the boys from Il Volo just hit the 2 million mark with Grande Amore, surprising exactly no one because the song is so beautiful.

So there you have it:  a wonderful musical weekend followed by intense physical suffering.  Here’s hoping I get my physical act together before I get yelled at.  And I still don’t regret for one second finally seeing The Cowsills live for the first time in my life, but don’t tell my physical therapist I said that.

Hair Disasters Part II, Killing Boredom and Bob Cowsill Makes Me Think Deep Thoughts

You know your hair is a disaster when you take a photo of the disastrous results and your friend – who has been cheerfully hopeful through your description of the horror – now suggests you look into a wig or extensions.  When SHE gave up on improving the style – which is to say, there wasn’t a “style” anywhere in sight - I knew there was no hope for it.

I have never worn a wig, never expected to ever wear a wig or an extension ... my hair was beautiful just the way it was, if a little straggly at the ends ... and now I was considering it, that’s how big a disaster my hair was.  I can’t imagine that one stupid salon could completely trash someone’s hair, but this one did.  This salon cut aged me 20 years, I looked so bad.  (And no, I will not post the photo here.)

If – a few years down the line – I post something stupid, like:  “I’m thinking of getting my hair styled”, I hope someone will jump online immediately and scream, “DON’T DO IT!”  Trust me, I’ll be forever grateful.

So, I bought my wig, which matched my original hair as much as we could, and I look actually unchanged and okay in it, if I can figure out how to pin it properly. How odd that I had to buy fake hair to look exactly like I did before the hair cut.  It turns out I’m allergic to the hair “cap” that holds it in place – as soon as she put that on me, my scalp started itching so badly, she had to take it off and use pins.  It is not dramatically different than my hair was before the disastrous hair “cut”, other than there are a few more highlights than I had.  I can live with that.  I know I won’t have to wear it for a very long time; once my hair grows back out again, I won’t need it.

They also said (and by “they” I mean the very nice wig lady, her daughter, and a random customer who happened to be sitting in the daughter’s hair cutting chair):  “Don’t ever take any pictures of yourself!” – they unanimously agreed I look nothing in a photo like I look in person – I’m just one of those people who take bad photos – who look good in person and look horrible in photos, I mean.

THANK YOU!!!  I already knew that, but people who thought they were being nice kept saying, “Noooo, you look fine!” while looking at photos of me.  No, I don’t.  I knew I didn’t.  Thank goodness three other people completely agree with me, and were honest enough to say, “Yeah, you look like shit in that photo!”  I felt so relieved to hear that, you have no idea.  For the longest time, I really thought I looked as bad in person as I did in photos, and if that doesn’t mess with your self-confidence, nothing will.

Rule #1 of True Friendship:  if someone looks a lot worse in a photo than they do in reality, don’t lie and say they look just the same.  All you will accomplish by doing that is messing with their self-image.  I could never figure out why I looked one way in a mirror, and like someone entirely different in a photo – in a way that had nothing to do with the face being reversed.  I just take really bad photos.  Thank you, thank you, thank you to those three people who never met me before and had nothing to lose by lying – she’d already sold me the wig, so it wasn’t like they’d lose a customer by lying.

Not only that, they all said that before they knew how I felt about the photo/selfie – their first reaction after the comment was, “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that,” in the fear they’d offended me; I was the one who grinned from ear to ear and said, “THANK YOU!!”  And meant it from the heart, it was so nice to have people tell me the truth at last.  They were right, I take crappy photos.  After I said “Thank you!”, they all felt free to elaborate, “You don’t anything like that photo!”, and “You look at least 10 years older in this photo than you do in real life” ... it was such a relief to finally be vindicated!

The clothes that were altered look great too; I finally look OK, and I may have the courage to face my childhood crush now ... who apparently was into hiding out in tents when he was younger; don’t ask me to explain that photo, I have no idea what he was doing hiding out in a tent, or why he was suggestively inviting drooling and oh so willing readers of a teen magazine to come into it with him.  I just remember sighing dreamily over the photo scotch-taped to my wall when I was 12 and wishing he was within tent-invitational distance.

I am not betting on a surge of courage when I actually come face to face with the man, but the chances are greater that I’ll somehow find the courage to say more than “Bluh bluh bluh ergle duh ...” than I was before I fixed the hair disaster, anyway. 

But hopefully he’s used to people – who under most circumstances are outgoing, outspoken and confident - turning into blithering fools in front of him ...?  I mean, think about it:  I can face an entire class of students without blinking an eye, yet I completely fall apart at the seams at the prospect of facing Bob Cowsill?  Yes, it seems I possibly could.  Let’s face it, he’s not just anybody ... he’s (wait for the capital letters now) BOB COWSILL.  The same one I created a bewildering shrine for on my bedroom wall when I was 12.

But I was thinking last night – “Why him, of all people?” – and maybe it’s because of who I thought he was at the time when I was still 12, naïve and inexperienced:  at the time, I thought he was handsome, yes (and how!), but also intelligent, funny, thoughtful, poetic, gifted ... if you’d listened to me for all those years, since he and The Cowsills disappeared from public view, trying to answer the question, “What are you looking for in a soul mate?” – the same question you all had to sit through when I started this blog and didn’t even know he was still performing –  that’s what I had been looking for and never found - or at least not yet.  Not Bob Cowsill himself, obviously, but someone who was also handsome, intelligent, funny, thoughtful, poetic and gifted. The guys I got crushes on never lasted because they were none of those things, they were other things.  Maybe just one of those things, not all of them.  The guys who liked me unrequitedly had NONE of those things, which is why I ignored them for the most part.  Bob, in my young and inexperienced eyes at any rate, had it all.

So here was the question:  did the preference already exist before I caught sight of him for the first time, and he just seemed like he fit the bill - or is he the one whose imaginary image created the preference because he was my first crush?  Did every other guy since then have to live up to who I thought Bob Cowsill was, when I was much younger?  I say, “thought” because I never met him, talked to him, interacted with him ... maybe he was actually dumb, unfunny, incapable of deep thought, unable to rhyme two sentences sequentially without aid and not as talented as ... well, no, I can’t say he’s not musically gifted, he is.  And no, I really don’t believe he’s dumb, unfunny, etc., or any of those other things, or someone would have made mention of it by now.  Instead, everyone who has met him has said just the opposite.  He’s funny, he’s bright, he’s charming, he’s witty ... so maybe I had it right, back then.

But maybe he’s also a serious pain in the ass or something.  Maybe he is a “curmudgeon” as his sister Susan said once – although I can’t remember why she said it.  Oh yes, because he put Louise Palanker off for so long about doing the documentary, and was so unwilling to do it at first.  (And thank goodness he changed his mind about that, or I never would have rediscovered them!)  But, in all the successive years, was I looking for guys to live up to a standard of perfection that never existed in reality?

Something for me to think about, anyway.  I’m not at all sure it would change anything.  I would still search for someone who had the same qualities.  Or, if not all, at least a majority of them.

So I am now back to looking forward to the trip to New York.  I love going home ... I am always more energized when I’m home.  The city gives me energy; I feel more alive and more present when I’m there.

I’ve been practicing with a cane and took a major header into the kitchen counter.  Yeah, this is going well.  I’ve been drinking my dandelion tea with lemon and unsweetened cranberry juice ... and have no idea what it is supposed to do; I’m just stubbornly drinking it.  Purge me of toxins or something?  Increases my metabolism?  Makes me grow cranberries out of my ears?  Something useful anyway.  Well, when I find out, I’ll let you know.

And MEANWHILE ... I went back to sewing clothes again.  It took a while for me to unpack all of the fabric, patterns and sewing supplies and put them where they belonged ... but I finally started doing that again as well, while working on “Beautiful Beige” ... which is actually looking quite attractive at the moment.  At least sewing gives me something creative and productive to do ... while reading Paradise Lost and letting it percolate ... while preparing for a trip to New York ... while dealing with doctors, physical therapists and everything else.  Well, at least I’m not bored.

Bad Hair, Bad Products, Bad Blood and Paradise Lost

WHEN WILL I EVER LEARN?  I just don’t learn, do I?  Again – the hair styling was a complete and utter disaster.  Complete.  Total. Absolute.  I’d jump out the window were it not for the fact that (again) I live in a one-story and it wouldn’t accomplish much beyond giving me a scraped knee.  Went to a clothing store, bought stuff that was too big for me and had to return to the seamstress and have it fixed.  Went to Tallman’s for new glasses only to discover that they were closed.  That closed the window on my getting new glasses in time.  On my way back, stopped at Sylvan Grille and drank myself into a stupor.  Came home.  Cried a lot.

The disaster now required me to find something that will shape the straight-hanging mess into something less awful.  Tried a hair oil that is supposed to help hair keep a curl, thinking I could get the hair to turn under a little.  Instead, I was allergic to the oil itself and spent the next few hours with tears running down my face, sneezing repeatedly and with my nose running like a faucet.  Bought a curling iron.  Haven’t figured out how to do it right, and only ended up looking even more goofy than I already did.

Whatever self-confidence I once had (and it wasn’t much) disappeared in the blink of an eye.  And I will be seeing my childhood crush in exactly 9 days.  Of course I will.  Why strut out of an expensive hair salon looking like a quadrillion bucks when it’s so much more typical to slink out of it looking you were just run over by a leaf mulcher?  I just never learn, do I?

Well, while I battle the utter horror that is my hair, I’m also battling a never-ending round of doctors, appointments, physical therapy, more doctors, more appointments, more physical therapy - and my life shrinks to the dimensions of my appointment calendar – I started reading an annotated version of Milton’s Paradise Lost, which I’m finding inspirational, and I’m only in the Introduction.

I cannot get my head around Milton’s point of view ... by the time he started writing his Paradise Lost, ships were already sailing their way across the Atlantic, depositing colonists on the North and South American east coasts, so he is already aware that there is an entire continent over here, chock full of people who had no knowledge of the supposed “truth” he was espousing, which had originated within a very small tribe of nomads based in a very tiny region of the Middle East – of which, needless to say – none of these North and South and Central American continental natives had any knowledge.  So why – at some point – didn’t that “a priori” truth he was basing his entire epic poem upon stop making logical sense?  The Far East was already well known.  The beliefs of China, India ... they were well known.  Where is his logic?  His “lost paradise” was intelligence?  That isn’t saying much for him and his ilk is it?

From his first book, he is only making reference to Greek and Roman mythology, as though they were the only civilizations with which he had to parry and thrust.  It may be that he looks at Egyptian later in the work, but at least in his first book his entire glance towards Egypt consisted of Moses.  That’s it.  Just Moses.

True, the fact that most historians are seriously questioning the Biblical story of Moses altogether may be a more recent development, and ancient Egypt wasn’t really discovered by western culture until the time of Napoleon, so perhaps I can’t fault him for that as much.  But the other regions?  Makes no sense to me, none of it does.  So much of his initial argument makes no sense I can’t even find a place to start, as far as making a counterpoint is concerned.  Maybe with the original Lilith or something, to squash his Eve?  But he doesn’t focus on Eve so much anyway – Adam is his guy, which, for a man steeped in the toxicity of an extremely conservative, religiously fundamentalist patriarchy – much like the Republican Party of the U.S.! - isn’t surprising.

I have just discovered today that I really love tea made from roasted dandelion roots.  Why stupid suburbanites (the evil “Manifest Destiny” lunatics)  have this passionate need to destroy, slaughter, poison or trample everything worthwhile, I have no idea, but it seems they do.

One thing you should try not to do is allow your blood sugar to drop so far you nearly black out from it – which happened to me when I started feeling gawdawful and discovered my blood sugar was 37.  That isn’t a typo.  Thirty-bleeping-seven.  Drank two glasses of fruit juice pronto and had some toast ... and that was before I could make my way back to the bedroom where I had the glucose tablets.  I was hanging on to the countertop, trying not to let my knees buckle.  37.  Who gets readings like that?  And it wasn’t as though I was doing anything unusual when it happened; my sugars just plummeted for no good reason that I could determine.