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Submitted by courtnee in public - 03.25.10 - 9:03 pm Sometimes it hits me that I’m really going! I get this wave of awesome that sweeps across my skin, and permeates into my core. I get this happy, calm, purposeful feeling.
Lots of good things going on for me now. It’s the 25th and I am stable, focused, energetic. I think the maca is helping me, the awareness and attention as well. I’m finally well after a massive sickness, in which I discovered whole heartedly that I will indeed survive being bedridden ill without a partner to care for me. I’m connecting again with my body, my focus, my dreams (literally) and my rhythm. Remembering that I do know how to love myself, and that I’ve done it before.
One of my favorite massage clients got me this journal and pen as a gift, after I shared with him my plans to get a journal specifically for my trip to Europe. It makes me smile. It’s been really nice to soak up the support and favorable responses to my doing something so fulfilling for myself.
Additionally, I’m reading “The Wise Wound” by Penelope Shuttle and Peter Redgrove. It took a bit to get into, it’s written in a manner that diverges from my aesthetic. I can tell it’s making a huge difference in how I perceive myself as a woman, and how that relates to my experience of life.
If every person, male or female, read this and took away a few nuggets of perspective, I think the world would be a much more reasonable place. Even better if every person had the inclination to read empowering things like this.
I’m even beginning to enjoy being alone! No wandering eye! I can spread out on my whole bed! I have to wash my sheets less often cause I don’t have another person mucking up the bed with me! I sleep soundly! And I LOVE waking up with my cat, who sleeps under my arm religiously, like a wing, sharing my heating pad with me.
This is about the time when someone has come along to fuck it all up, historically. Some tasty, emphatically irresistible obstacle course to frolick within. Not this time. I’m off the market until 2011, and that’s if you’re lucky. It may even be longer than that depending on how much fun I’m having.
It’s a relief to be connected, again.
Submitted by courtnee in public - 03.02.10 - 1:48 pm
I had the amazing opportunity to observe surgery last Friday. One of my clients is a foot and ankle surgeon and invited me to observe one of his operating days, when he had a set of cases that were varied and interesting. My day started at around 6am, scootering to the surgery center in the rain.
Over the course of 5 hours, I observed a lateral ligament reconstruction, excision of a ganglion cyst with decompression of the tibial nerve within the tarsal tunnel, a bunionectomy with proximinal crescentic osteotomy, and a cheilectomy.
You can find videos of this stuff on youtube, so I wont’ get into the gory details of surgery much here. I’m only about 2 years out of Cadaver lab, and I still remember a lot about that experience. The layers, tissues, joints, that kind of thing. The surgeries themselves were compelling and interesting, though I found myself most struck by the simplistic humanity of what I witnessed.
How amazing is it that we can cut into living people, while they are awake, and perform excessively invasive procedures on them, chisel away hunks of bone, tie off and cauterize veins, snip through layer upon layer of tissue, not only without killing them, but in a manner that eventually leaves them more efficient than they were before? Watch someone perform a bunionectomy and let me know. I think it’s pretty fucking unreal.
The eventually part of all this is what hit home with me, once the dust settled and I had some time to integrate what I’d experienced. By about the 3rd surgery of the day, it struck me that I was witnessing a physical representation of what I do to myself every time I sit down in my therapists chair, or read about dismantling and remapping my psyche. I’ve lived my life expecting not to have to be in a cast after that, or in a walking boot, or to have to wait a year to get my mobility back. I expect to tear into myself and rip fused, vital parts of my structure apart and not be injured or have to pay my dues.
Over the years, I’ve started gaining trust in my body. Recently, when I realized my skin sensation was dulling, I chose to change my perception from being broken, weak, and hobbling on the brink of collapse to being resilient, strong and capable. Because, let’s face it, my body is amazing, weird tweaky things and all. I am able to do astounding things with it, even when not taking into account the damage I’ve done over the course of my life.
So what about my emotional body, then? I’ve gained compassion for my limbs, my digestive system, my aching muscles, my wrung out connective tissue – as inconvenient as all that is. I’m fast running out of reasons to resist having compassion for my aching, heavy little mind, too.
Submitted by courtnee in public - 02.24.10 - 11:43 am I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve felt awful, crazy, confused, been plagued with violent thoughts, and found that in a week or two I start bleeding and immediately feel better – and been surprised. Surprised that I’d been PMSing for 13 days (isn’t it supposed to be, like, 3?), surprised at how awful I felt, surprised that all that awfulness could have possibly been dinky little insignificant PMS. I’ve been bleeding for 15 years and still, it sneaks up on me, more often than it doesn’t.
Even when I’ve been eating well, even when I’ve been sleeping, even when I haven’t had anything particularly stressful happening in my life – half my month has usually been spent in crazytown.
As a woman, I’ve come to this fork in the road before. It’s well beaten and I can tell many others have passed this direction too. If the road had a sign post, it would probably say something like “On to a different Level” in one direction, and “Play again” in the other.
I’ve passed the levels “Birth Control” and “Androgen inhibition”, I’ve passed the “Antibiotic” level to deal with the cysts I develop on my face and many other levels in addition to these – and yet somehow, I find that I end up in the “Play again” level again, over and over.
My cycles have been historically difficult. From being irregular and debilitatingly painful, to excessive and often uncontrollable feelings of anger and depression, I’ve generally learned that the one thing I can count on is not being able to expect how my cycle will effect me or when.
I get ovarian cysts as well, so I’ve tended to watch for physical symptoms which are sometimes absent completely. Meanwhile I’ll be walking around my life in a 10 day anxiety attack that I have no explanation for. Irritations and small inconsistencies become major, deal breaking issues. I stop wanting to work, I am tired constantly, I am angry, I am depressed, I withdraw, I lash out, I’m tense and uncomfortable, I pick fights. And eventually, I destroy my relationships.
I’ve thought myself crazy or otherwise deranged for half of my life, and/or that the world is a terrible place full of awfulness and the people close to me are raging fuckheads. Until I’ve, often seemingly randomly, bled and thought “What the fu— OH. … ….. Ooohhhh…”. Then I get about 12 days of solace.
As I age, the pattern is regulating, yet I’ve still been living as though I have no indication of what’s going on or why. Does that seem sane to ANYONE?
It’s seemed ridiculous to me to ‘blame’ my problems on something so stupid and inconvenient. And in a sense, it is stupid to do that, cause I’m gonna have problems like anyone else whether I PMS or not, and I’ll continue to have problems after I hit menopause or have someone rip my fucking junk out of me.
However, with that stance, I’ve easily forgotten how susceptible the emotional body is to hormone changes, and how little control I actually have over it.
Maybe looking at the emotional more like the physical issues is what to do next. I can’t just glare at my guts, say “Stop cramping and hurting, you stupid whining motherfucker” and expect that to change anything I’m experiencing. And it took a while, but I’ve learned not to do that. I can put a heating pad on my stomach, and I can take pain killers, and I can take a bath, and I can ask someone to rub me – and sometimes I even do! And that usually helps. What reason is there, really, that I can’t learn to do that with my emotions too?
I’ve spent a lot of time, effort and money trying to figure out the physical issues surrounding my period, mainly the cystic acne because I think it makes me look like a real dumbfuck. And I’ve spent a lot of time gaining skills in dealing with life’s little issues, fixing the problems in my life and generally getting my shit together – but not this. This, I still think I’m supposed to be bigger than for some reason.
Well, I’m pretty sure acting like a fucking psycho and alienating my strongest allies makes me look like a dumbfuck, too. And I’m not bigger than the mechanism that drives me. I’ve gotta figure out how to be a part of this process rather than the angsty, reluctant observer.
Does the focus in my life have to revolve around my PMS? Yeah, for a while, I think it really does.
First stop – Maca.
Submitted by courtnee in public - 02.07.10 - 10:49 pm Updated 2/10/10 – My initial labs are normal. Now to decide which of time, or more extensive testing are the better option. I’m going with time, and a short vacation to San Francisco.
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I seem to have something like a glitch in my problem delay mechanism. Or maybe I am too hard on myself when I’m being measured and reasonable about things before I decide there’s something going on. But I’ve had something going on for a little bit now and I’ve recognized it as a potential problem and started to talk with people about it today. So, time for a braindump.
About 6 weeks ago, while I was receiving a massage, I had a strange sensation, like my skin was half numb at my hip. I could tell there was pressure there, but the sensation wasn’t right. Later in the night I realized it was happening at my knees and the tops of my hands, too.
Since then, I’ve noticed that superficial sensation has remained dull, and changes/spreads seemingly randomly. My forearms are almost always blunt feeling, and often slightly tingly and dense. Last night, I was feeling numbness and almost a vibrating sensation all the way down my leg from my hip. Right now my neck is dull, too, but my face feels right.
I’ve been almost constantly cold for 3 weeks. Not “You live in a basement and it’s winter” ‘cold’, I mean my hands are often fridged through the second leg of a massage in a heated office with a table warmer when they’re normally up to temp by the time I’ve finished my first upper leg ‘cold’. I sleep with a heating pad at my feet most nights. When I lay on my side my low back is often annoyingly cold, despite the covers.
I’ve waxed twice since that night at the spa when I noticed this, and it hurts less. A lot less. I can feel it, but it’s simply nothing like waxing has felt for the last 2.5 years. Wouldn’t mind hanging onto that symptom, actually..
I hadn’t much mentioned it since the first time I noticed this. It’s subtle compared to the raging infections and crazy shit I normally end up worried about. And I’ve been so incredibly busy and stressed. I was thinking of trying to find a neurologist or something, but first I want blood work and a fucking day off.
Honestly, I’m scared. I know too many people with things like MS and Celiac not to consider those things. I’ve put my body through a lot in the time I’ve had it. I think part of me is just waiting for the shoe to drop and for this resilient, triumphant facade to crumble away. I know it’s probably a pinched nerve and shit circulation. I know that. It’s silly but.. honestly, I’m still scared.
It’s probably nothing. But I wanted to throw it out anyway and not carry it alone. You know, in case it’s not nothing. Or something.
Submitted by courtnee in public - 11.07.09 - 11:43 am Since about the age of 22, upon attempting the Depo-Provera birth control shot, I have had severe cystic acne. The breakouts have changed over the years. I used to get a few deep nodules on my chin and cheeks that took months to heal, every few months – so I usually had 1-3 I was nursing at any given time. Most of the time when I left them alone, they just hurt like hell but generally didn’t pose too much of a cosmetic problem.
Now I get a couple breakouts a year that are very severe acne conglobata, generally on one cheek at a time. They quickly develop into a pus-filled network of abscess’s that take about 6 months to heal to scarring. In the last year I’ve had one on each cheek.
In addition to what happens to my face, I also get ovarian cysts, usually monthly, and have high androgen levels – both things indicative of PCOS. After tweaking and trying just about everything under the sun, my acne breakouts appear to be largely controlled by 100mg of Spironolactone a day to inhibit my androgens, and heavy supplementation of Vit A, D and Zinc.
I’ve not gone the accutane route. That shit freaks me out. I have tried all kinds of prescriptions, topicals, antibiotics, supplementing and home remedies attempting to avoid that option – but this combination, at least for now, seems to be working. Which is really nice. It’s hard to convey to someone who doesn’t know, how painful and maddening it is to have a constant festering wound on your face and how much it hurts – and that’s aside from managing the cosmetic aspect.
So what about the scarring, then?
I couldn’t do a thing about it until I started having calm periods in between breakouts. Once that started happening, however, the scarring left behind was much deeper and long lasting than anything I’d had before due to the type of acne I’d developed. At the suggestion of a coworker, I’ve been pleased with the results of TCA peels.
There is a ton of research to be had on the subject via the wonder of google. I am not one to shy away from experimenting with my body, even when there is some amount of pain involved, and I’m very body aware. So, I’ve done these peels at home. I do not advocate everyone do this. If you can’t follow directions, for instance, or can’t be accepting of a negative result if you screw yourself up, suck up the dough to get it done by a pro. For me, I’d usually rather have my fate in my own hands than those of someone else, even if it means I don’t have anyone to point a finger at if things don’t go my way.
I bought a tiny bottle of 100% TCA off ebay with instructions for maybe $14. The bottle has lasted me about 9 peels and barely seems to have a dent in it, partially due to the dilution of 50% I’ve generally used. I’ve experimented with both lower and higher percentages, and find this to be a good one for my face. I cut my TCA with mainly with lactic and glycolic acids rather than just water – they are mild enough for me to do so. Some times I will do lighter peels if I’m performing or have something important happening, other times I do deeper ones to get quicker results in exchange for an uglier peeling time.
My favorite peel was one of my first, which was deep enough that the peeling was all one piece which got dry, dark, and sloughed off all at once in the shower a week later. It was ugly, but not fussy, dry enough to cover with makeup while on vacation after the first few days (in which you constantly keep the burn lubricated with bacitraycin), and effective. The lighter peels tend to peel like sunburn and have flakiness, but the color change is less severe. I think that peel was actually 100% TCA with marathon rinsing after a couple seconds – when I dilute the TCA I leave the solution on my face longer and often layer it over the course of a few minutes.
Yes, I put 100% TCA on my face. No, I didn’t keep it on longer than about 5 seconds. No, I didn’t die. I also don’t recommend it. If you aren’t quick you can really screw yourself up. Once I did a quick spot peel when I was in a hurry, using 100% TCA on a q-tip. My face was red spotted for 3 months. Read some of the TCA forums. I got off lucky.
My typical TCA peel looks something like the “age spot” example at http://www.tcapeels.com/
My scarring is much worse than the example, so I am doing multiple peels over time. The most often I peel is 3 peels two weeks apart, then a break for a month or three. I started my 4th set of peels today, which prompted me to write this up.
There aren’t a lot of pictures out there of my facial scarring without makeup, and I lost all my snapshots for the last few years in a drive crash not long ago. Here is one photo from last may, that shows the scarring on my left cheek after two TCA peel sets:
I thought maybe it might be helpful for people who deal with this to know that a) There is hope in finding some relief eventually and b) Even seemingly glamorous people who spend time in front of cameras and live audiences go through this, manage this, and continue to do what they love despite it. No doubt about it, acne sucks. There’s also a lot more to life than acne sucking.
Good luck.
Submitted by courtnee in public - 08.14.09 - 11:05 pm I’ve been trying to say “yes” more when opportunities come my way, partially to get out of my funk and partially because it’s adventurous and kinda the only way to live, really. I met some cool cats at my Pink Door gig last Sunday, and they invited me to come out and try climbing once for free. So, of course, I said “yes!”.
I went on wednesday, up in ballard at Stone Gardens. It was really fun, and challenging for me. Much harder on my forearms and hands than I expected. They are still quite tired and cramping now and again.
I’m not sure how much I will continue to go, but it was enjoyable. I am getting better about enjoying doing things I’m not actually good at, but it still helps to catch on quickly, which I did.
I kinda look like a freakin spider or something. :)
Submitted by courtnee in public - 05.15.09 - 8:56 am Many may recall the spectacular story of my ripping all three hamstrings in my right leg and mildly stress fracturing my ischial tuberosity attempting splits on the silks in April of 2004.
As a refresher; I was not warm, stretched to the max (which was far from representing an actual split), and my right hip (the front leg) popped, giving way to the weight of my torso. The tearing of my leg was audible throughout the entire practice space, I’d guess 6,000 square feet of warehouse. I was on crutches for 3 months as I recall, and it took me quite a long time to get back into aerial. When I did, it was to perform my first show ever, with The Cabiri for Trolloween in Fremont.
Now I’m working up to something at least resembling splits as a bit of a life goal, particularly in the silks. From my recollection, this is the best by front splits have ever been – and oddly enough, my ‘good’ splits side is still my right. Here’s where I’m at now, I’m pretty stoked:
Silk splits, May 2009
Flexibility has been by far the most frustrating aspect of aerial for me, as I’m bendy by typical sedentary American standards yet not nearly as limber as most circus artists. Silks have historically only been for ‘bendy’ girls in my mind (along with hoop) until about a year and a half ago when I said fuck it and moved from rope to silks performances even though I didn’t fit my own ideal of a good silks performer.
With some time, patience, kindness to myself and body awareness, I’m slowly coming along and much less hurt than I used to be. I’m very proud when I look at this video. Thanks to Bev for taking it.
Submitted by courtnee in public - 04.10.09 - 12:25 am Two things I want to post about.
One, is that I am effin BLONDE. Like, EFFIN blonde. Dreadful Jonquil of fiercelocks rocked the lift on my hair. It was amazing. I am unlikely to attempt to go blonde at home again. After 15 years of futzing with orange haystack hair and damage control, it is clear to me that the best person to bleach my hair is not me.
Two is a first in my life, at least that I can remember. I’m pretty gurgled up from the aftermath of what I believe to have been an attack of the allergens. While leaning forward, doing something normal like flipping the switch on my awesome electric teapot or something, I snorted out a bubble. A big one. And it stayed. Long enough to get this snapshot of it.
NOTICE: racy, lengthly, or outdated content ahead »
Submitted by courtnee in public - 10.26.08 - 12:15 pm I spent literally all day in bed yesterday, sans an hour or so attempting to get some records filing done. It was some kind of full body ache hot/cold flash wretched stomach thing where my spine in particular was so sore I could barely roll over in bed. Near as I can figure it, it was from receiving a long awaited massage late the night before and not drinking water.
So there you go – when I say drink water after a massage session, I mean drink water – cause you never know what kind of crap or funky virus will end up being accelerated by massage work.
I feel some better today, though weak from not eating at all. Yuck.
Submitted by courtnee in public - 10.14.08 - 2:03 am I’ve been mucho kinds of sick the last week or so. I got the death that’s been floating around lately, my body is blowing up with cysts (ovaries, face, labia), and I’m bleeding for the first time since july.
NOTICE: racy, lengthly, or outdated content ahead »
Submitted by courtnee in public - 10.08.08 - 4:13 pm
Submitted by courtnee in public - 09.04.08 - 12:46 am This is a very fertile, active time. They all are really. I’m noticing it a lot in circumstance right now.
I’m bursting with creativity, especially in my wigmaking. I just completed an order (style wise, still needs some finishing touches) that really has my eyes sparkling for making more kickass hair for people. I have three more in the works.
Obsidian is tremendous. It’s a tremendous social challenge, to lead how I wish to lead rather than how habit would direct me to. It’s a tremendous creative challenge, to bring into reality what I’ve created in my head as snippets and sensations of atmosphere. It’s a tremendous gift. To me, to the cast, to the studio, to our audience. And it’s so much damn FUN, too. Even figuring out the challenges.
I’m noticing that it may be such that while I’m intelligent and analytical, I tend to only ENJOY being those things when it’s cause for realizing my artistic side. I may be more in my element with artists than with ubergeeks. I never would have really considered that, until this project, and seeing so many people just.. get me. Just get where I’m coming from. It feels awesome. Thank God there are so many art/geek fusions in Seattle.
I’m training my replacement at work. In doing so, I’m realizing just how much I care about my job. I’ve discovered that I actually hold some passions for medicine. I’m not sure why this hasn’t occurred to me in this way before, especially considering I spent 18 months and +$15,000 in massage school recently, but there you go.
Strangely, I’m also realizing that it’s unrealistic for me to rely on a private massage practice in any substantial financial way. My body simply cannot do 8 hours of table massage a week. I actually feel rejuvenated by the realization. It’s been stressful contemplating how to possibly make a living at massage full time.
Speaking of medical stuff – The pap and STD screening I urgently scheduled recently came back abnormal. I went in for my biopsy today, and not only am I Batman, apparently I have a cunt of steel as well. Rather than the typical wham bam cough and punch-tool, the thing held onto me like a fucking rabid terrier mouth molesting a sock. In two tries we still hadn’t gotten the sample, and I had catapulted from mild mannered adult (I’d done amazingly well, for those who know me – no one holding my hand, either!) to quivering big-eyed ouchie sorta-laughing child. MEW! Life is hard. I’m fine now. Getting up at 6am to make the appointment was worse. I’ll just keep telling myself that.
Someone I had a drink with recently said something that’s been touching me ever since, about how my photos don’t do me justice; in that I have a kindness and vulnerability about me that doesn’t come across. They added that they felt the opportunity to see it a privilege. Wow. Hard work does pay off. What a lovely compliment and attestation to the hard work I’ve done.
Now piss off. My guts hurt and it’s time to go.
Submitted by courtnee in public - 05.01.07 - 11:11 pm I am delirious with fatigue, on my last nerve, sick to fucking death of lecture, sick to fucking death of feeling squeezed for time, squeezed for money, squeezed with responsibility and still feeling like a failure, barely passing my quizzes or getting enough practice hours in while my hands slowly rot and fall the fuck off. Which is painful, might I fucking add.
Fuck being a better person. I want some fucking spending money and decent sleep during the week. What the fuck am I doing this for. Who the fuck cares anyway.
Still no blood but I know I’m going to any minute, I catch whiffs of myself periodically throughout the day these last two and my tits are about halfway to acceptable size. Once that finally fucking happens I have the blinding cramps to look forward to for a couple days, then maybe a week or two of some sense of normalcy (HAHAHAHA) before it all starts over again.
Ha. Ha. Fucking ha, god, you sadistic goatfucking wad.
I’m going on another pill, I’ve decided, since I’m too much of a chickenshit little abused weakling to manage to get a IUD stuck up my cunthole without flipping my psychotic shit like a pussed out little braindead fucking whore. With this one I only choke on clotted hateorade once every 3 months. If my skin manages to survive the hormonal assault and I don’t end up face down in a pool of my own rabid oral foam or on a clock tower picking you fuckers off with a rifle it may just work out pretty well, really. That’s what I’m hoping anyway.
Oh, and I’m still fat in the gut after dropping 6 pounds this week, starting a liver cleanse, and taking the stairs. I guess my time has just come to look how I fucking feel. Which is somewhat like a prolapsed asshole, in case you were fucking wondering.
Why? Because shut the fuck up. That’s why.
Submitted by courtnee in public - 02.28.07 - 11:39 am I’m slacking a bit with my reading and note taking.. partially because I have so much other stuff going on, and I’m excited about moving into my own place this weekend.. partially because my body is injured and doing weird shit like busting ovarian cysts open and creating pain in my joints, and partially because what we’re learning about now is pretty gross and blegh and I sorta wish I didn’t have to know it. Oh, and getting 95% on a quiz I expected to barely pass while being so uprooted probably has something to do with it too – I want a break, so I’m giving myself one. Hopefully I don’t pay for it later.
Other than having to memorize the longass official latin brainiac names for every communicable skin disease known to human fucking existence, I like where things are going. My pressure and stability in my hands is coming along and I’m finding that swedish strokes are part of my soul now, so I can play more with the sensitivity and intuition aspects of massaging than how to make frictions work for me without blowing out my hands. Nice stuff.
It’s a good place to be when you come upon an opportunity to massage Brian after class and pounce on that shit like a hobo on a porkchop. :D
Whaaaat’s that you say? You thought you had a massage scheduled at the school tonight but it turns out you don’t? Well, I had a dinner of roasted/salted soybeans and dark chocolate there babycakes, and I’m high as a kite and can’t sleep anyway, so let’s GITTER DUNN!
I decided that I would use the opportunity to work on my weakest link – head and neck. Head and neck is an interesting one, I really love to do it and feel it’s of the most connective massages you can do for your clients, but the strokes are hard to learn correctly and by far the hardest group of swedish moves on my poor little hands. I did great, Brian filled in some gaps, gave me some pointers, and showed me a trick or two they don’t teach anymore, thanked me for working on him, and gave me a ride home. Rad.
I love school.
Submitted by courtnee in public - 01.21.07 - 10:21 pm I’m getting into the coursework aspect of being back in school now, reading memorizing and learning stuff about the mechanics of the body and the studies of it and everything. I’ve been feeling out of place and overwhelmed with it, being that I didn’t already know the differences between Anatomy, Pathology and Physiology, or the names of all the body cavities and abdominal regions, or the metric system, or what catabolism and anabolism is, so I’m scrambling to catch up to most of the class who bothered with high school and some even college.
I’m picking it up pretty quickly and realizing I do have a good concept of most of the basics. As I drill myself I am realizing that I’m retaining most of it even though it doesn’t feel like it most of the time. I’ve finished the first chapter about the body as a whole, and now I’m getting into chemistry, which I know a tiny bit already but still expect to have a pretty rough time of. After that are cells. I need to have read about 45 pages before Tuesday, and have comprehended it all. Guh.
School is expensive. I’m paying $13k just to go there, and then about another $3000 to the school for fees and other requirements throughout the program. Then I’ve got all my supplies and tools I’ll need to practice on people, which keep adding up and will continue to add up as I progress through the course. I am also getting some nice-to haves, like a table warmer (eventually) and a couple of large laminated charts of the muscular system and reflexology points. But shit man, I feel so broke.
My arm is already bothering me enough to be wondering if I can finish the program. I knew it would be an ongoing problem, but I was hoping to get through more school before it started effecting my work. I’ve been icing, and stretching, and eating well, and getting.. ok, sleep, and drinking a lot of water, but it’s not fending off the pain.
I realized while talking to my adviser that the key factor in my arm pain in that I’m working way too hard way too soon. It reminds me of my first year of aerials, where I thought I couldn’t do them because of my arms, but then eventually realized that I can totally do aerials, I just can’t do no-leg pike climbs on the rope and not expect my arms to fall apart for a couple weeks.
I’ve put myself on pressure probation for the next 6 weeks, and my focus for my technique work will be the flow and movement of the strokes, not pressure. For months, as well as when I was massaging a few years ago, I have been giving people deep effective work without the muscle memory and training I need to do it safely, and burning my body out. Even with FMS, I would feel the strain for days afterward, but it seemed ‘ok’ because I had time to recover. Can’t afford to do that to myself anymore, never could actually, so time to scale back and hope my practice bodies don’t bail on me from the sudden change in precedent.
We do arms on Monday. I am going to do the best I can to be the demonstration model. I am so there.
Submitted by courtnee in public - 03.14.06 - 9:18 pm For the last few years, I've been developing my relationship with my body, and adapting different viewpoints on disease and illness than I had previously. For the most part, I figure that diseases are largely psychosomatic and the process of neglect or mistreatment. I think a lot of that neglect and mistreatment comes from eating the SAD (Standard American Diet) which is primarily improper food combinations that have been deep fried and processed to the degree that whatever life force the food once had, it's gone by the time you eat it.
I've gotten to the point where I eat mostly fruit and raw eggs. I experimented with an entirely raw diet for a while but didn't find it suited me very well. I've all but eliminated pasta and potatoes from my diet which has helped me immensely in feeling and looking better, I eat my meat raw and stay as far away from pre-packaged/processed food as I can. The results have been staggaring.
But I still get sick from time to time. And I know I'm not getting colds or viruses, I'm just getting sick. Sometimes it's emotional and stress related. But other times, I can't pin it down.
After some nudging from people who have done it and a fuckload of research, I decided to try the Lemonade Cleanse, a 10 day fast of lemon juice, maple syrup, cayenne pepper, and water. To supplement the fast and keep the bowles moving, it is required that you drink a laxative tea morning and evening, and optionally partake in a salt water flush every morning. Here is my story.
Thursday, March 9th
7:15pm ——————————————————————-
I decided to make a drink to see what they tasted like and am quite pleasantly surprised by what I will be ingesting for the next 10 days.
Call me crazy but my throat already feels better after one.
The tea they suggested is really good too.
My last treat for the evening? Bananas dunked in Trader Joes Honey flavored greek yogurt.
See you on the other side…
Friday, March 10th I started the fast.
Saturday, March 11th
9:57am ——————————————————
I am pretty loopy today. Lots of typos and disconnections. But otherwise the fast is going well. A few people read through the page I linked last night and proceeded to pick apart the guys ideals. He feels that calcium is good for lung health, that lemons and limes are the best food on the earth, is religious, etc. I consider his personal beliefs, many of which I don't agree with, to be separate from the actual fast, which makes sense to me. So, just wanted to point out that just because I'm doing the fast, that doesn't mean I agree with all the dribble on that page, and hopefully curb some people from bothering to try to discredit the fast based on that. I'll discredit it on my own by doing it, thank you very much.
Besides, everyone knows that raw egg is the most nutritious food on the planet. Duh ;)
I'd also forgotten how hot my stomach looks when I go a day without solid food. Hubba hubba.
8:05pm———————————-
I've been cramping and feeling uncomfortable today, so I decided to try the salt water flush tonight. It sounded terrible and not for me, but I had decided when I started this that I would try it once so I knew exactly what I was choosing not to do. Basically, it's drinking a quart of salt water, which then flushes your system within an hour or so.
My colon is so friggen clean you could eat off of it. But I am so fucking sick I pretty much want to die. Well, maybe not, but I am rather exceptionally uncomfortable. Probably even more uncomfortable than you are after envisioning someone eating off my colon. :P Well, actually, we're probably even. Welcome to my HELL!!
Amazing results, I admit. But the salt water flush is simply not on my list of things to re-do. Like, ever. Never again. Unless you're a masochistic freak like me who tries weird painful shit for the hell of it (One day, perhaps I will share with you my tequila story), I don't recommend it. Personally, I'd rather just give myself an enema.
I found a better link to the basics of the fast I'm doing. Lots less voodoo talk on that one. I'm feeling a bit sicker than is acceptable, but I just realized that I've barely drank any water since I started – Lots of lemonade and tea, but very little water. I suspect kicking that up a couple notches will clear up my sickliness.
The physical hunger is trivial. Mostly what I'm going through is unsettled stomach that feels like my typical indigestion, (I suspect because I'm not keeping up on my water intake like I should be) which actually makes me not want solid food. The lemonade is already getting old, though, which concerns me as it's only the second day, and I have very .. stark .. reactions to foods I've simply had enough of. If I get much more sick of it, I'll start gagging every time I 'eat', and I don't think I'll stick with the fast for long if that starts happening.
As far as the assburglars you supposedly shit out when cleansing.. I'm very skeptical of it. However, I'm just passing liquid at this point, so none of that for me on this cleanse, and my supporter who's done it before has not mentioned it.
If I do a different type of fast the next time it's time to cleanse, I will probably do a colon cleanse kind so I can keep eating and not make it such a shocking ordeal for my system. Probably do each kind once a year. When I get around to the other one, I'll surely write about that one too, and if I do shit out any monsters, I'll totally post pictures
I'm shooting for the full 10 days, though currently I'm a bit weary of training while my shits are liquid and urgent. If that doesn't clear up soon (it's supposed to) I will need to settle for 5, I've got shows coming up that I need to practice for.
10:52pm ———————————————
Thanks to corvida for pointing me to this episode of This American Life. Skip to 23 minutes for the following, and exceptionally interesting (if you find my fasting posts interesting) segment about one eloquent and well spoken mans 20 day fast experience. His focus was enlightenment, whereas mine is physical detox; his story is rather touching actually.
Act Two. Life in the Fast Lane. For millenia, people have tried to reach a spiritual promised land by fasting. Jesus did it. The Buddha did it. Monks and saints and new age gurus have done it. And now, on the radio, This American Life contributor David Rakoff tries it. He does a 20-day fast, to find out if it brings him any form of enlightenment. (25 minutes)
Sunday, March 12th
5:45am —————————————————
Apparently, I no longer need sleep. Down at 11:30, up at 5am. I have a pretty busy day, it'll be a good test I suppose, and a good first shot at slipping in naps during the day.
9am ——————————————————
Supposedly it's important to bathe a lot while fasting, but so far I've been feeling less of a need to shower. My skin isn't as greasy and I'm sleeping much cleaner, not waking up in night sweats and am generally just feeling more self-sufficient in regards to hygiene. Without food getting stuck in my teeth there is no fuzz, though I'm still brushing and flossing like normal since I'm sure this stuff is murder on my enamel. I took a long bath this morning anyway while the house warmed up, and it was good.
My breakout on my chest and chin from the pringle-fest last weekend is clearing very obviously, but my eyes are dull and my lips are thin. I am in good spirits but sleepy most of the time, and my muscles frequently tingle as if they'd just started to fall asleep before moving them. While getting out of the car yesterday and the tub this morning, I got that half-cramp half-tickle feeling in my calves, and I get it in my hands as well. My hands and feet are even colder than normal, and for the most part, I feel pretty weak.
I am not hungry.
11am ——————————————————–
I just passed a small amount of brown plastic-looking stuff. It reminded me of when I got my cervical biopsies, and just didn't bleed very much, and then after about three days I passed this long rope of plastic-looking blood/tissue and it royally scared the shit out of me. They didn't warn me about it.
That was just the waste buildup from two tiny puncture wounds in my cervix after 3 days. So when considering, 'are those pictures REAL?', I thought they really might be, because I can't imagine what 26 years of intestinal buildup would be like..
Sure enough, that's pretty much what this stuff looked like, though a fraction of the size and girth and much less scary. It was a rather small lot of thinnish strands about 4-6" long, nothing to REALLY write home about, but it does answer some questions, and probably gives me a lot more interesting crap (hah) to look forward to.
At least I know it's working. Now I'm ready to FEEL it working.
1:45pm ——————————————————–
I just realized that I have neither sneezed nor coughed at all today. I've also toned down the pepper and noted that my stomach doesn't react adversely to the drink when I have very little pepper or none at all.
8:22pm ————————————————-
I am >< this close to ordering a pizza.
Grrrrrr. No, I'm not REALLY serious. However:
I have been feeling starved since 5pm, and I've drank more of this fucking lemonade and teas than I could keep count of. Within 5 minutes I'm in hunger pains again. I've basically just been waiting until it was late enough to go to sleep without being up at 3am dealing with this again.
I am pissed and cranky and I want a fucking pizza, even though I don't eat fucking pizza, and if this shit isn't over with fucking soon this fast can go fuck itself in favor of a colon cleanse where I don't FUCKING STARVE.
In all honesty, if I'm still feeling like this tomorrow night I'm likely to break the fast (the right way) at the 5 day mark, which I had already decided would be an acceptable length if I had problems or couldn't train. If 3 is really the breakthough day, then tomorrow should be better.
Monday, March 13th
I woke up at 8am ready to quit the fast. I wrote a long post about why I was breaking the fast early and my reasonings and my experience with it. Instead of posting it, I went and took a shower, and made a decision.
11:30 am ———————————————–
Rather than sitting here talking myself out of continuing, I'm going to spend the day normally and do what I need to do, damnit. So far, I've either been too excited about, or too effected by the fast to just forget I'm fasting and live somewhat normally. With that being the case, even with a variety of viable reasons to quit now, I suspect that I would not feel good about breaking the fast at this stage, having not -really- given myself a chance to adjust to it.
If that was the hump, I think I'll be fine from here on. Tomorrow is the halfway point. Looking back, I don't feel like I've been doing this that long. I just need to get the fuck over the fact that I'm fasting and quit making it such a big god damn deal. In the grand scheme of things, this is cake.
Mmm. Cake..
12:30pm ——————————————–
I have a rather staggaring headache, and my face is breaking out a little. But my lips are the right size again!
7:00pm ————————————
Training was fucking awesome.
No, seriously. From the time I started stretching till two hours later when I made myself quit, it was great. I started warming up and stretching and I couldn't stop MOVING. I was so lean and long and light and loose. My typical crunchy spots were smooth, I didn't have the pains in my shoulders or hips I usually have, and I didn't have to worry about barfing up my lunch while upside down :P
I worked on trapeze with [info]bevsob, as we're doing a singles/doubles act for SEAF, which was perfect for my energy level and where I was at mentally. We made a lot of progress and I'm super excited about the act. In fact, I've decided to can my solo rope act on Friday and do the trap act twice. I was so mellow and focused and smooth, it really was exceptionally enjoyable.
I've only ever felt this way while training once before, last summer when I was revisiting and mending my relationship with drugs. (I no longer do them, but felt a need to resolve my largely negative experiences with them after being in therapy for a while) I stopped in to work out after a short introduction to 2cb, and was no longer under the mild influence, but had a residual calm and grounded relationship with my body. As well, I was easily able to express my sensual side and slow my movements on aerial equipment for the first time that day, which has changed the way I view my performances and my abilities ever since.
I think it may be safe to assume that I have broke through.
10:27pm —————————————————–
Mental note: There is no such thing as 'just a fart' while fasting.
Tuesday, March 14th
1:36pm —————————————–
Fast is going fine, I'm not doing much today since I trained yesterday. Shit out some more weird brown plastic, this time much shorter and fatter strands. Beyond that, I'm mostly splattering out foamy liquipoop. Thankfully the frequency has slowed to 3-4x a day. My asshole is thankful.
6:11 pm ——————————
Ain't no thang. I hardly notice it anymore. Well, I noticed it once, when I spent too much time sitting on this stupid computer and hadn't drank anything for a couple hours. I about fell over and my knees were numb.
I can see weight loss now. Sadly, I kinda like it, even though I certainly didn't need it. I might take some shock jock rib protrusion pictures to express my angst for.. whatever it is I'm angsting over today, but that remains to be seen with a lot of my stuff already having been packed.
Rob is off the lemonade, he went to juice today. I personally feel that he didn't drink enough water or lemonade to sustain himself, but whatever, he's not me and he's decided it won't work for him. Thankfully he's agreed to stay on juice until I'm done so I don't have to deal with food while I finish up. Not bad for someone I'd expected to scoff at me when I mentioned a fast.
Wednesday, March 15th
At day 6, I'm about done. My boobs are shrinking away and I've lost as much weight as I am willing to lose. Training was pretty rough. I feel fine, but tired, and I am hungry. Not 'craving' hungry, but 'uhm, could really use some actual sustenance here' hungry. It's not horrific, but it's not something I plan on ignoring.
I am naturally 5'8" and 118-120lbs. My body fat percentage is somewhere between "ooooh, lucky!" and "too fucking LOW.". I can get to ~125lbs if I'm dedicated to strength training with weights 3x a week. I don't gain weight any other way besides working out, and have a psycho high metabolism. My body is thankful for the break, but is ready to get back to food. I ain't gonna argue with that.
I am satisfied with how far I took my first fast. I feel that going the full recommended 10 days wouldn't be healthy for me, and even if it would give me some kind of emotional satisfaction to go 'all the way', I think it's more important to do whats right for my body than conform to a cookie cutter standard. So, I am settling for 7, a full week, and I think that's totally ok. Tomorrow is my last day, and I will be doing a big fat load of nothing all day long.
I'll post a breakdown once I've been back to solid food for a while and have had a chance to experience the supposed benefits after fasting. Here is my current stand on The Master Cleanser/Lemonade Cleanse:
While I wouldn't call this some kind of religious experience or the most enjoyable thing in the world, the difficulty vs. benefit ratio is currently well balanced as far as I am concerned, though I do think part of that is knowing when to stop. I think the fast is reasonable and much safer than some alternatives, but it is a rather formal and pretty fucking hard core way to go in the grand scheme of options. Next time I’ll do either a juice and broth fast, or a psyllium husk colon cleanse to go with my already pretty alright diet.
(P.S. I am not a doctor. Just opinionated.)
Submitted by courtnee in public - 11.29.05 - 6:09 am There are a number of women I care about who read this journal, so I wanted to talk about this here. Hopefully the information will be helpful to someone.
I’ve become a little concerned (but not much) about my current womanly cycle, which is now going 7 days strong when my usual is 3-4. This brought up the subject of depo in my IRC channel, which caused me to bleed solidly for 4 months straight when I tried one shot back in 2001, among a number of other extremely rancid side effects.
I googled around a little bit about it and started reading other peoples stories, when it hit me. 2001. That was the first year I had this adult cystic acne shit I’ve been dealing with ever since, and it started when I tried the depo shot. I also became more sensitive to foods like pasta and lactose around that time, started having random joint and muscle pain and a number of other ailments that still bother me but to a much lesser degree.
It never really hit me that a shot of that shit 4 years ago could still be resonating in body, but it’s entirely possible. As more time goes on these things become less noticeable, but are still present none the less.
I can’t be sure. All I know for sure is that depo provera is fucking evil. My symptoms while on depo were horrible. Within days of the shot I started bleeding and getting sick. I have always battled depression and this stuff made me totally suicidal. Moving around was like walking in sand. I was fatigued constantly and became anemic shortly after the first month that crap was in my system.
My otherwise clear skin broke out into deep cystic acne that still plagues me to this day. I got migraines with auras, was excessively dehydrated, had digestive problems and became sensitive to wheat based foods like pasta. My libido disappeared. The bleeding didn’t stop for four months, a month longer than it was supposedly due to be out of my system entirely.
I still get migraines very occasionally, and some cystic breakouts, and have to watch my food intake more than I used to, but otherwise have recovered. I caution anyone from ever going on this horrible synthesized hormone as a means to control pregnancy, unless turning into a leaking acne ridden sickly wonder and no longer WANTING sex is how you’d like to accomplish it.
I am not alone in my depo issues, and beware of going on it even if you’ve had a good experience with it in the past; Many people who did fine the first time have horrible side effects when returning to the drug, based upon the personal stories I’ve read at the depo provera horror story site.
Submitted by courtnee in public - 10.15.05 - 6:16 pm I listened to a really fascinating segment on kexp this morning, in the “community forum” portion of Mind over Matters. It was about death and mortality, and how the awareness of which effects the human race and has contributed in a massive way to the state of the world, such as it is right now.
I’m trying hard to find a transcript online but to no avail. There was so much information there that connected with things I’ve been seeing other people taking about – The oppressiveness of most education, the loss of connection between humans, the fact that we are in “the apocalypse” RIGHT NOW and all that lovely shit.
But the gist of what they were saying, and have been spending a lot of time and energy studying and proving, is that the reason we find it so difficult to get on with folks who don’t share our beliefs in how reality is perceived is because it threatens the viability in our approach to internally resolving the matter of our mortality and how we handle that day by day, as opposed to the viability in how we think life should be lived.
Conflict that leads to wars and genocides aren’t so much about about life and liberation and the freedom to live how we want, they are much more about the freedom to believe in our own homey version of death and what it means and what, if anything, happens after. Fighting over territory/food/power happens, we are animals after all. But, we are the only animals on the planet that understand mortality and live with that terrifying, looming fact most of our lives, we are the only animals who war over belief matters and worship methods as opposed to territory and basic survival/reproduction, we are the only animals who make these mistakes and perpetuate our own miseries.
Because, think about it, if I believe that there is no heaven/hell and that I may possibly have a second chance at life, have probably lived a few already, and base my lifes work and choose how I feel I may be important in this world on how I rationalize and manage this eventual fact of dying, a person who believes otherwise and lives much differently would be a threat to my way of life, not because they want to pray seven times a day to some guy I don’t think is listening, but because if they are right in their beliefs on mortality, than I AM WRONG and so is everything I base my life upon.
I think the humans in this world are fear-based because of knowledge, more than of ignorance, and that’s the conscious, crystal clear understanding that we are going to die, so I really wanted to hear more when I noted what the subject matter was.
They conducted many studies where they talked to people in controlled environments and gaged a persons willingness toward violence, mass destruction, nuking other countries, and even voting for Bush, against whether they had recently considered death. People who had not been asked to think about death or something equally unpleasant answered questions VERY differently. When these same questions were asked, such as “Would it be worth it to wipe out a city of tens of thousands if it meant eradicating Osama Bin Laden”, people were much more supportive of the notion if they had been asked to think about their own mortality first.
They also talked about symbols in cultures, and how they are effecting us, and how cultures, particularly ours, are going so astray. When the $ symbol is one of the most important in a society, and children have been being taught this for decades and centuries, it’s a wonder we’re not even more disconnected with the earth and our own species than we are.
They touched on the civil unrest in our society, liberals and conservatives and all that. How the Olde Beliefs are obsolete in the face of science and freer thinking, which is threatening the realities of the Christian Right and so forth, and how this is an even bigger problem due to the fact that no viable alternative belief system has been offered or contrived.
It was an absolutely fascinating, revolutionary piece with lots of very sobering and informative notions and facts. In the quest to understand what the fuck is going on with all this insanity and all this fighting and all this horror, the timing was just perfect and information like this is so desperately needed right now, I’m just really touched.
There was so much more to this segment and I really hope that every human on the planet eventually comes to know of what these people are trying to say.
It got me thinking about a lot of things, including why I’m so conflicted, annoyed, afraid of and obsessed with money and the obligatory need for making it, having it, and spending it has had in my life and our society. I want to be free of the burden of needing and/or wanting money to survive, I don’t agree with its place in our world and I feel it’s extensively evil and causes massive amounts of problems, I don’t understand why it’s become such a big fucking deal, and I don’t know how to master being financially secure.
Even just having this instinct and belief causes more problems and internal conflicts for me; having this misplacement of “$” in the ranks of what’s truly important as a human being presented the way it was really clarified a lot of why I feel and act the way I do in regards to money, why it’s one of the first things to cause unrest in relationships, why I hate owing it to people or asking for it, and why I fucking want it so bad anyway.
And how, we are fighting and dying and suffering over nothingness, over things we cannot prove, over things that ideally would have no bearing on our lives, tripping over our own feet, our afflicted ignorance, our frustration over not knowing something that feels so very important to understand, over our arrogance that we have the answers to the unanswerable, and our inability to just not worry about it. We are all frightened, hissing, spitting, confused children hurting each other over things we will never control.
If only every person were to have the means to understand how truly futile and ridiculously unnecessary war and murder really is – so few of us when moved to express this have the focus to explain in terms that make logical sense, but there are some and hearing about this gave me .. faith, in people, to hopefully figure it out before that is futile as well.
Just really a fantastic way to wake up in the morning. I had forgotten how much I liked waking up at 7:30am on Saturday to lay in bed with my cat and listen to that show.
Here are the few urls I was able to dig up on the guests, their award-winning (and that’s an understatement) film documentary “Flight from Death” about this subject, and the people who have inspired them:
http://www.flightfromdeath.com/ – Site for the documentary
http://ernestbecker.org/ – The mission of the Ernest Becker Foundation is to bring advances in social
scientific theory to the public in efforts to reduce human violence.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nietzsche/ – “He believed in life, creativity, health, and the realities of the world we live in, rather than those situated in a world beyond.”
Submitted by courtnee in public - 10.06.05 - 9:28 pm So I’ve been off the antibiotics for my face since I got back from NY. My skin has been just fine until about four days ago, when suddenly it became red and sensitive, slightly dry on my upper lip and chin, almost like it was burned slightly or something. When I would rub a cheek on my pillow trying to get to sleep and shifting in bed, it would have an after-hurt sensitivity like sunburnt skin tends to if you accidently rub it.
I don’t go out in the sun, and I wear sunscreen pretty much religiously on my face.
Now, I can feel a number of cysts forming under my cheeks.
*sigh*
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One of my favorite massage clients got me this journal and pen as a gift, after I shared with him my plans to get a journal specifically for my trip to Europe. It makes me smile. It’s been really nice to soak up the support and favorable responses to my doing something so fulfilling for myself.
