because it's fun... - Grab the book nearest you. Right now. - Turn to page 56. - Find the fifth sentence. - Post that sentence along with these instructions on your journal. - Don't dig for your favorite book, the coolest, the most intellectual. Use the CLOSEST.
"'Oh,' the woman said."
Wow, that was a major letdown. ;)
It's in the middle of a fun little sequence, though:
"She smiled at Murphy and said, 'Of course, Sergeant Murphy, I know who you are.'
Maybe half a second after the woman started speaking, Murphy said, 'Hello, my name is Sergeant Murphy, and I'm a detective with the CPD.'
Murphy blinked for a second and fell silent.
'Oh,' the woman said. 'I'm sorry, I forget sometimes.' She made an airy little gesture with one hand. 'Such a scatterbrain.'
I started to introduce myself, but before I got my mouth open, the little woman said, 'Of course, we all know who you are, Mister Dresden.' She put her fingers to her mouth. They were shaking a little. 'Oh. I forgot again. Excuse me. I'm Abby.'"
Goes on for a while, but basically she's precognitive and forgot to let them speak first. Fun little segment.
From White Knight by Jim Butcher (part of the Harry Dresden series).
That is, hey look, I have a christmas present! :) Thank you so much, arethinn - this stuff is *amazing*. So much richer and more complex than any other mead I've had.
Also, holiday treats for kitties in the way of a box and some styrofoam blocks to attack! They're having a ball. ;)
Christmas, but with a caveat. To my mind, there are almost two separate holidays - the Christian thing about the birth of Christ and all, and then the American thing with stockings and trees and toys, all of which stem from far older traditions. I don't do church, I'm not Christian, but I do still want trees and stockings and turkey and mashed potatoes and such.
CSA share! So my friend is out of town and asked if I would like her CSA share this week. Fresh food FTW! Still not sure what all of it is... ;) And really not sure what to DO with some of it, so I come to my foodie friends (yes, I'm looking at you 3catsjackson, and nicodemusrat, and herefox) for help. Please bear in mind that I am BROKE LIKE WHOAH at the moment, and have little in the way of other ingredients beyond pasta, rice, potatoes... that's about it. So the simpler, the better. I also have a blender, but no food processor.
I have a plastic grocery bag full or so of something dark green, leafy, and fairly strong tasting. Looks to maybe be kale, if google images is helping. Seems pretty sturdy, I'm thinking maybe salads (may be kind of strong for that), maybe stir-fry if I can find anything to stir-fry it with...
Another bag full of what sure as heck looks like parsley. Parsley is definitely a strong flavor. My friend says you can make parsley into pesto? I need to look into this. What does one then DO with pesto? All I know offhand is Mom used to use it as a pizza sauce, in place of red sauce... but lacking pizza crust nor anything to put ON the pizza with it... Maybe pasta sauce? Hmm.
Something long, white at the base green at the top, cylindrical at the base with some overlapping leaves at the top... I'm thinking bok choy? No clue what to do with that.
Lots of carrots and potatoes and a few heads of lettuce, I've got those covered. Some root vegetables new to me - kind of round, white on one side, purple on the other - possibly rutabagas? (google images is my friend...) Not sure what to do with those either. But I found a recipe involving rutabagas, potatoes, and cheese, that sounds lovely. (I do have a bit of cheese at the moment) And something about adding a rutabaga to mashed potatoes, interested to try that...
Ooh, and two tiny little pumpkins, not much larger than, say, giant apples. I'm thinking they might be sugar pie pumpkins. I'm debating trying pumpkin pie from scratch with them. How does one get pumpkins out of their rinds? Do you bake them a bit first? What else could one do with a sugar pie pumpkin?
Yes, I am going to google all of this as well, but I thought y'all might have more interesting ideas - and/or more practical ones. You never know what kind of crazy recipes you will find online...
emulating a grown up... So how is it that I'm 32 years old and I don't know how to roast a chicken? I've been pelting a work friend with texts - she used to be a chef and she actually knows how to cook stuff.
I happened to get a box of stuffing from the food bank the other day - which prompted me to finally thaw that random whole chicken I happen to have. The whole mess is in the oven - wish me luck.
I missed the part where it says "stuff loosely to allow for expansion". This could get interesting. And I still have roughly twice as much stuffing as I have chicken body cavity, though the box says to just put it in a greased pan and toss it in the oven for the last 45 minutes.
Which would be great except for the part where I have NO FREAKING CLUE how long to cook this chicken for. What is the last 45 minutes of an indeterminate baking time?
Fortunately she remembered to mention drippings and fat, which I hadn't thought about. Changed my plan from a cookie sheet to a stoneware casserole dish. No oven fires for me today.
pouting Yep, it finally happened. Actually, I'm surprised that it took over a week. Someone on the dating site was messaging with me and then abruptly quit - and when I sent him just a cheerful update type message, he wrote back that the new picture I'd put up was very different from how he expected me to look (translation: I'm too fat for him), and yes he knows it's shallow but there it is.
Jackass.
This is what I expected from the start - but it still hurts. A lot.
costume - cheers and rawr So we got our costumes for the dance recital this week. And ours is just incredibly gorgeous. Leotard base, but with this lovely flowing dress over it, gathered beneath the breasts and then full and flowing down to just above the knee - very flattering to my bulges. All in swirls of blue and purple with accents of green and yellow - sounds weird, but trust me, it's gorgeous.
And I'm realizing - while I know how to sew in general, I've never tried to sew sequin strips onto my costumes before. Mom always did that. And this has flesh-toned elastic straps which are adjustable, and then when you adjust them, there are slightly wider strips of purple sequins to sew over them. I do know that sewing elastic is different than regular sewing. I am assuming that I should zigzag, as I read was good when sewing spandex and such - but the straps are awfully narrow. I'm not certain I'll be able to do so. And also, I'm not even certain the machine will play nice - the sequins /mostly/ lie in one direction, but not uniformly, and I'm wondering if the presser foot will snag constantly and make me crazy. Or do I need to hand sew it? Do I have to worry about the needle piercing and destroying sequins? Doubtful, but I just don't have any first-hand knowledge here.
Random musings So my doctor wants me to be consuming large amounts of probiotics for a while (ie several months) - see if my colonies are just low and maybe that's why I have all these random skin fungal infections. Makes perfect sense, don't know why it never occurred to me before.
So I've been eating a lot of yogurt. Read this nifty idea where you get a quart of plain yogurt and split it up into an ice cube tray or two and freeze it, then pop the cubes into a ziploc in the freezer. Then when you need to make some more, you thaw one into your milk and you don't need to buy an entire new quart every time. (which is rad, since you can't get plain yogurt in a small pot, and you can only start a new batch from the old one for so long before the strains get too weak to make yogurt out of)
In the meantime, I'd gotten a kombucha scoby from a friend of mine at about the same time. So I've been learning to brew kombucha. Pretty simple, make a very sugary tea, bring it to room temperature, add the colony and give it a week or so to ferment. Pour off, make sure you keep the jar about 10% full, add new tea and start again. Take what you poured off, let it sit for a few days at room temp, then chill and drink. The jar I'm brewing it in gives me about two bottles a week, which isn't much, but there's only one of me.
Well, kombucha scobies produce babies every time you ferment a batch. So I offered up some of the babies on a local yahoo group, and the lady who asked for one mentioned that she makes water kefir. I've heard the term, but the only kefir I've encountered before has been milk kefir. So I asked her if we could do a swap, some kefir grains for a kombucha scoby. I didn't know anything about making water kefir, so I'm learning now. It ferments a lot faster - 24-48 hours as opposed to a week! So I suspect I'll be drinking a lot of that. It wants a lot more than kombucha wants, too. Kombucha just wants tea and sugar. Kefir wants minerals in the water, though from what I've read you can add baking soda and calcium if you have soft water. I don't know how hard or soft mine is, but I don't feel the weird squeaky/residue sensation I get with very hard water, so I assume it's been softened to some degree or another. Some people use clean eggshells; I'm hoping to be able to get some nice fresh eggs from one of the moms at the dance studio within the next couple of weeks (probably after next paycheck, I'm a bit broke right now). In the meantime, I chopped up a bit of one of my calcium/magnesium supplements - it's food-based rather than lab-created, so it should work, right? It needs sugar to eat, of course, and I am out (used my last in the batch of kombucha I started on Sunday) - so I used powdered sugar. It's the ONLY sugar I currently have in the house. Memo to self, trip to WinCo tomorrow (powdered milk, too, for the yogurt). It likes dried fruit, I have some dried cranberries on hand, we'll see how that tastes. :) Something I read also says it likes lemon slices, so I have a few floating on top. Hoping this will work!
So, there we go. Three different sources of probiotics. They're all different cultures, so the combination should cover pretty much everything, right?
If nothing else, I'll have some new and interesting things to drink. :) About to get involved in a raw milk group again, so maybe I'll see if I can also track down some milk kefir grains. Though on a few water kefir groups, I've had people say that milk kefir is harder and they killed the milk kefir while their water kefir grains were fine. Funny, from what I recall, all milk kefir grains want is whole raw milk, which I could provide it... (Jersey milk too, yum!)
why I love my Diana So they scheduled a staff meeting for tonight. The only freaking evening of the week that I really don't want to be available. Rescheduled from another night because someone else couldn't make it, but of course MY schedule isn't nearly as important as anybody else's.
No, I'm not bitter, why do you ask?
Well Diana noticed when I was cleaning at the studio today that I was limping. She didn't say anything about it, I didn't know that she'd noticed it. I didn't happen to mention to her that I wasn't going to be able to go to class tonight. No apparent reason, I just didn't mention it.
I just went to check my email and found a message from her, saying that she'd noticed me limping and was worried because I wasn't in class and wanted to know if I was okay.
Those little moments of being seen mean SO MUCH to me.
there may be hope for me yet So the chiropractor I see does these wellness presentations on Thursday evenings. I pushed myself back to third call priority today (usually I'm first on Thursdays) because of the pain I've been having, so I didn't get called in, which meant I could go. Turns out that tonight was also an open house at the facility, and I learned about all the other things they offer. I knew that they also offered massage; what I did not know was that they also have saunas (yes, two), a steam room, and a flotation tank. The saunas and steam room were open tonight for just $2 (towel fee). I've never been in either, but I've heard they're really good for you, and figured, hey why not, this is the time to try it, right?
Then I found out that they're clothing-optional (which I'd expected) - and co-ed (which I hadn't).
It took some nerving up - but I tried it anyway. Just the sauna - the steam room is across the way (the facility is in two lovely old houses with adjoining yards) and the towels were small and, well, I'm just not that brave. I know full well that nobody there would care at all - but I do.
It's funny - I do breastfeeding support, sometimes I'm checking on my clients' perineal tears - I'm quite familiar with the female body. My knowledge of the male body is somewhat more theoretical, but still - it's not that I have issues with bodies or nudity. I just have issues with /my/ body. Plus I have all my weird emotional stuff around dealing with men - which tends to get much more overwhelming when there is nudity involved.
And you know what? It was fine. Getting undressed in the very open locker room was the hardest part. (did I mention the very small towels?) I'm glad I didn't run across anybody in there. Spent a few minutes locked in the toilet just nerving myself up. When I went into the sauna (after the required shower), there was one woman and one man. And it was fine. The place has very clear policies including not only "no sexual advances" but also "no staring". The woman left not long after and another man came in. And it was fine. I did keep a towel over my lap - which is kind of ironic, since female genitalia (aside from breasts) is rather more discreet than male - but it didn't matter. They didn't - and I still didn't find it weird, or find myself wanting to stare or anything.
I'm sure that a large part of why it was fine was because it was quite dim in there. Not much to see anyway. Which was rather a relief, because my (probable) Tinea Versicolor flared up recently - the infection is gone, but the discoloration (which is ALL over my torso) takes weeks to fade, and makes me even more self-conscious than I am normally. So knowing that my blotchiness was much less evident definitely helped. And of course the people who were there were all very respectful. I had some really neat conversations. It was good. I'm thinking I'll have to see about making this a regular thing. Both for my physical health and my emotional health, I think it would be good for me.
Plus, my skin feels sooooo soft right now! Massage (therefore yummy oil) yesterday, sauna today... My skin is a happy organ. :)
update Heard back from the chiropractor today - she'd been out of town and out of cell range. She wasn't in the office today, but her husband was, and they squeezed me in with him. Exam and x-rays today, then he wants to see me tomorrow and Friday for work. Kind of wondering if it would be really weird if I switched to seeing her now (since I know she's in tomorrow) - he's nice enough, just my random emotional issues in regards to dealing with men. *sigh* She said she'd call me to check in tonight, so I'll bring it up if she does. If not, no big deal - had a massage today, and that really helped to settle some of the emotional stuff.
"Pain is scary..." (Jayne Cobb, Firefly, pilot episode)
Yes, Jayne. Yes it is. Especially when one doesn't have health insurance and really doesn't know what caused it or what to do about it.
So my left hip has been acting up for the past week or so (week and a half?). Generally nothing major, just hurts if I move it the wrong way - but of course, I'm not certain what "the wrong way" actually is. And when I catch it at the wrong angle, it hurts like hell.
But, of course, it was acting better over the weekend - enough so that I actually forgot about it (I know, I'm a freak)... and went to my dance class.
Which was, apparently, a really bad idea.
That night and most of the next day (Monday night/Tuesday morning), it was excruciatingly painful. It wasn't so much a problem of catching it at the wrong angle as it was that there was no RIGHT angle. I could barely walk. The pain slooooooooowly eased off during the day, to the point where I felt able to go and shower around 3 pm (already barely able to stand, and now I'm going to go stand on a wet and slippery surface? um, no, thanks). And when I was very gingerly hoisting it up and bending over to wash it, something popped, just a TINY bit. I wasn't even sure I'd really felt it - but since then, it's been back to the way it's been for the past week or so.
Which is reassuring, yes? Well, it is. But not as much as you'd think. Because something is STILL wrong. And I haven't the faintest idea what. I've had knee and ankle issues forever, of course, due to my dancing, but I've NEVER had hip problems before. There is no old injury that could be flaring up. And frankly, what it feels like is that it's just slightly out of the socket and the muscles that normally hold it in place are spasming.
The really fun part about that, of course, is that even if I had insurance, I wouldn't know who to go to in order to get it back INTO place. My first thought was chiropractor, but I don't actually know that they do hips, per se. We have a massage therapist attached to the birth center who is also a chiropractor - since I know her, I was hoping there was a chance I could have her work on me for a more affordable cost. But I called her early yesterday (around 8:30 am) and it's now past midnight and she never called me back. :/ Someone I work with recommended someone else on my Facebook, but since I don't even know if chiropractors deal with potentially subluxated femoral heads in the first place, I'm a little shy of calling up a complete stranger to say "okay, so, I don't know if you do this, and I have no insurance and not much money but you don't know me from anybody but can you cut me a deal anyway?". Call me crazy, but it feels a little weird. Otherwise, I don't know, physical therapist? Sports medicine? I don't know anybody in either field. Osteopath? Seems like something that Dr. Goering might do - but from what I know, his practice is always full - and I don't actually know him, I just know people who know him. Doesn't give me much leverage.
Last night, it hurt so badly that if I'd had insurance, I would have gone to the ER. And probably tried to wake someone up to take me, since I really don't think I could have worked my clutch. Ironically, it is less painful tonight - but I'm having more stress. Probably because I didn't really sleep at all last night - but I napped quite a bit during the day, so I'm really not sleepy. When I went to bed, I took tinctures for sleep, pain, and anxiety - but they didn't do the trick. When I got up just now I took another dose of those plus some of the three more anxiety ones I have steeping - they're only 3 weeks along, so not "ready" yet (4 weeks minimum, 6-8 is more "done"), but I figured they might help a little bit, at least. Hoping they'll kick in someday, I really don't want to get my sleep schedule totally blown to hell two days before my main on-call section of the week.
Wonder what the odds are that a chiropractor I've never even heard of before today a) can fix this, b) will give me enough of a discount that I can afford it, and c) would be able to squeeze me in tomorrow, so I can actually walk and not worry about it since I'm the first person on call on Thursday and Saturday...
(oh yeah, and I have ballet and yoga on Friday - I really don't want to skip them, but I also don't want a repeat of whatever-the-hell I did to it in jazz on Monday night...)
oh dear god, will I EVER grow up? So someone initiated a conversation on my work email list about providing coverage for just a few hours and about having personal appointments on days you're on call if you're not the first call priority. Consensus seems to have been that you shouldn't have to cover for less than 4 hours (legit reasons there, but y'all don't care) and that if asked to provide coverage, you get to decide if you just want the few hours or if you want to finish the shift. And that it's okay to have personal appointments scheduled. I worry about the personal appointment thing, though. I have had several occasions where I was unable to get coverage for my shift when I was the first call priority because people had personal appointments they were unwilling to change or cancel. And it's annoying enough when I just want the shift off (like this past weekend when I really wanted to go support my dance studio's performing teams at a really important competition), but it has been a major problem in the past when I have had some actual semi-emergency need (broken toe, strangers living in my house) and really could not come in. So I put out something about that - and bloody fucking hell, I'm fucking SHAKING. See people responding to it and shake harder. And feel nauseated.
Seriously, self, WHAT. THE. HELL.? Am I EVER going to get over this "omfg if I make people unhappy the world will fucking END" bullshit?
Pardon the language, but my emotional reaction to this whole thing is extreme - and my frustration over the coverage situation is high to begin with - and I'm just massively having a day. >:p
I did a handstand tonight So I got really restless tonight. I was really surprised at how restless I was after jazz class - that's a 2 hour long class, and Kaitlyn works us hard. But she was kind of sick tonight, so maybe she wasn't pushing us as hard as usual, I don't know.
I was hanging out at the studio after my class tonight, helping the receptionist's granddaughter with her science homework (over the phone) when Jessica came in. She teaches at our studio, and also teaches PE at a local middle school. I have a yoga class with her on Friday evenings after ballet. So we were talking and I was still just massively restless. At one point, I jumped up so that I had my arms straight and my weight on the palms of my hands on the top of the reception counter - which is about chest-high on me - and was shifting forward onto my hips (trying to hit this position of this lift I learned ages ago, where you are balancing on your pelvis on the shoulder of the man lifting you) - which earned me a definite Look as the studio owner came through and saw me up there. ;) I can't blame her, I'm sure at my weight it's not good for the counter. But still did it again a few minutes later, just restless.
So I'm talking to Jessica and I'm going on again (I think I'd already had the first part of that conversation with her, it seems to be mildly obsessing me right now) about how Kaitlyn has been having the girls do cartwheels across the floor recently. I haven't done a cartwheel since I was probably about their age. And I don't want to try for the first time in a decade or two in front of a group of people who are much younger and in much better shape than me - even though they would be absolute dolls about it if I crashed (seriously, they're really nice girls). It's totally about my own ego, not even about their potential response. So I'm talking to Jessica about this and about how I just don't know that I have the strength in my shoulders to even do it without collapsing on my head. And I say something about how I should probably start with a headstand or handstand like I used to do in yoga in college - but I still don't want to do it on my own (again with the falling on my head), and even then I needed a spotter to get my legs all the way up. I was good once I got balanced, but getting my legs both straight up on the wall was hard. And the next thing I know, we're finding a clear area of wall and she's all set to spot me.
This was actually really perfect. Mondays tend to be pretty busy there, but after my class it's just two performing teams (a trio and a group of 6), and their parents dropped them off hours ago (they have another class before our jazz class) and don't usually come early to get them. The receptionist by now has gone into the owner's office to use the internet to try to help her granddaughter (remember that homework?), so it's just me and Jessica in the lobby - nobody to laugh at me if I screw it up. And I've been doing this yoga class for a couple of months now - I know how strong Jessica is, and I know I can trust her. So, what the heck.
Definitely took a few tries. The first time, I had my hands set wrong - too close together and one farther forward than the other. Couldn't get my balance, didn't trust my strength or balance on one arm alone to reset the other... yeah. Jessica tried to help me get set, but I finally just said "no, I'm not set right, I have to come down". Next try I had my hands set but somehow only kicked up one of my legs - the other kind of collapsed forward, which means that I of course collapsed forward (and almost hit Jessica on the way down! eeek!). Then I just couldn't get balanced, one leg went off to the side.
And then I just nailed it.
Hit the wall, she kept my feet from rebounding off, just had the balance... it was just there. She corrected my form some (stomach in, don't arch the back, tuck your head) - and let go of my legs.
And I had it.
And I held it.
Not for very long, but certainly for a lot longer than I thought that I would have been able to.
And actually, the main reason I had to come down was because my wrists were getting sore - my shoulders were still good. And now, over half an hour later, my shoulders feel a bit warm, like they got worked and have increased blood flow, but not painful.
I think Jessica is right. I think I really haven't realized how much strength I've built. I feel like I'm still barely keeping up in my crazy 2-hour jazz class - but at the start of the year, I could barely walk home when it was over. And climbing the stairs in my apartment building was torture (I'm on the second floor, and there is no elevator). I had to get straight into a hot bath, as hot as I could stand with a massive amount of epsom salts, and soak for at least an hour or I would be in serious amounts of pain the next day. And in fact, I would generally still be in moderate to serious amounts of pain the next day. Would be stiff and sore for another 2-3 days after that, which made doing ballet a little tougher.
Then my baths started getting shorter and less boiling-hot. And the walk home and up the stairs became less of an ordeal - the stairs stopped looking like Mount Everest.
And I haven't even been soaking myself after class for the last month or two. Maybe a hot shower, maybe just straight to bed and shower in the morning (eeeew, sweaty sheets). Maybe some twinges the next day, and the stairs might be rough because I'm just worn out - but not dead-exhausted, impossibly sore, just would rather stay at the studio (sleeping on the hard floor, and I know she turns the heat off when she leaves) than face the stairs, like I used to feel.
And okay, yes, so class is still leaving me sore and panting - but she's been making it harder, also. Warm ups are turning into serious calisthenics. So... Maybe it's not just that I'm not getting any stronger or in better shape. Maybe it's that she's increasing the difficulty as I get stronger and healthier - so the improvement is just harder to see. I think I need to rearrange my brain and take some of that into account.
So I know it's a silly little thing, in the grand scheme of things. But I'm really happy about my handstand (and how it's helping me to rearrange my thinking). And very grateful to Jessica for helping me just get up and do it. :)
Ask my boss for an er. Overcome my secret fear of kittens. Spend more time with my horses. Pay for my babies on time. Cut down on my reading. Be nicer to shada.
So:
1. Huh? Though I would very much like to ask my boss for some health insurance. *sigh* 2. ROFL! Maybe that's the real reason I stopped fostering for Cat Adoption Team? 3. *blinks* I have horses? I'd like to take up my riding lessons again, but I don't have the money, especially since I'm dancing again. 4. Um... I guess I do run out of cat food sometimes? Need to buy it more on time? 5. HELL NO 6. Have I been mean to shada?
Yeah, my body has completely reverted back to couch potato status. Took almost a year and a half to really get to where I wasn't craving junk food, where I really wanted to get out and move, all that kind of thing. Within the first 3 weeks of breaking this toe, I was totally back to wanting chips, chocolate, and ice cream. Totally reverted from *dying* to get to class to feeling like I'm just as glad not to go in because it's just too much work. >:p Something Diana said today got me thinking that part of that is probably masking anxiety - because I'm so far behind in the choreography, and I feel so over my head with the work in that class in general. But still, it's frustrating to lose all of that momentum. :(
Part of me feels like I really need to get back to class *tonight* just because I'm getting so apathetic about everything. But *everything* I read said that the *minimum* recovery time is staying off the bone for *minimum* 4-6 weeks - except for the things that said 6-8 weeks. So I do feel like I really need to at least give it a full 4 weeks. That will put me starting back next week. I'd originally said depending on pain, but pain is such a weird and subjective thing. And given how much the apathy has taken over again, my body would love to throw some psychosomatic pain at me to keep me from having to face the anxiety and work of going back to class.
are you KIDDING me? So I've come down sick *again*. That's the third time in two months! I usually don't get sick more than three times all winter! Between that, the fact that I had the flu for the first time ever, *and* that I've broken a bone for the first time ever, I'm really starting to think nutritional deficiencies. Nothing else makes sense - my stress level is no worse than it was last winter, job is the same, dance is - okay, more intense, but still not new, NOTHING is different - except that I'm eating a lot worse, and have been for at least 5 months now. Finally got a clue and picked up some prenatal vitamins at work - I had originally planned to take half the dose, to make them last longer, since I'm not pregnant, but since this cold has hit I've decided to take the full dose for the first month, see if that helps...
babying vs caring? So I don't think I've mentioned it here, but I broke a toe about a week and a half ago. Stress fracture, not a traumatic break (and this will become an important point later on). First bone I've ever broken - which is probably surprising, considering all the dancing I've done, but that's neither here nor there. When I'm home, I'm living on my couch - got my laptop out here on a chair and the modem on the floor, with rather silly amounts of books and knitting projects and such scattered around. ;) Had to work quite a bit last week - did a 24 on Thursday, which resulted in much pain and visibly increased swelling and bruising on Friday. Got called in again on Saturday, and after 8 hours I passed that shift off. It's been *much* more painful this week. I ascribe that to the fact that the "shock" has worn off and the pain is fully registering now, the soft tissue trauma/healing is really starting to come through (always much more interesting than bone damage, bones are much simpler cellular constructions), and also I'm at the point when most of what I normally do to myself would have healed already - so it's getting harder to remember to keep taking my anti-inflammatory and arnica and all.
Various people have asked me why I'm not back dancing yet. What I keep getting told is "well, dancers just tape it to the toe next to it and keep going!". Couple of relevant factors here, though. For one thing, a large part of what I'm working on now internally is finding the boundary between pushing myself enough to not just let myself wimp out when I need to push on vs when to stop because I'm going to damage myself in some way. And this is where the *type* of break becomes relevant. Yes, I have lost 40 lbs. I'm still carrying 90 extra. That's a lot of extra weight on the bones and joints when doing weight-bearing exercise, like dance. And this was a stress fracture. Stress fractures are funny - they are caused by doing too much weight-bearing exercise. But the only prevention is to do weight-bearing exercise. Some makes your bones stronger, too much causes stress fractures. And the heavier you are, the easier it is to get stress fractures. So given the weight I'm still carrying, it seems to me that I really "should" give it the full 4 weeks (which is the minimum healing time listed for stress fractures in toes) before I go back to my insanely intense weight-bearing dance class. But of course, when people *say* things like that, it triggers my "competitive" nature, if you will, the one that says "oh, you think I should start again now? well, I'll start again YESTERDAY!". Which makes it hard to think logically. But the fact is that I probably ought to even think about modifying the amount of what I'm doing, on top of giving a full 4 weeks healing time. (especially so considering that I have no insurance and no money - I got lucky, the bone is *not* displaced, and it *is healing nicely - but I absolutely cannot risk re-breaking it and displacing the bone or otherwise causing serious injury)
It's extremely hard for me to not be dancing. Quite frankly, I tend to start crying when class time rolls around and I can't go in. I love my classes, I love my teachers, it's doing wonders for my physical state *and* my emotional state - but between how much I really cannot risk causing serious damage and the fact that it is a stress fracture, with all that that implies, I really think I need to be smart and hold off. My Monday night class had to get rescheduled next week, and I've heard it's on the following Saturday now, which would be just over 3 weeks after the initial break - I'll probably try to go back then, but just for warm-ups and conditioning, nothing that will require much pointing of toes or standing on toes - still minimizing the trauma. And that's just the first hour of a 2 hour class. Trying to play it smart. Just wow, I'm more frustrated over that comment than I realized I was (especially since it came from someone at the studio)...
