bruceb

"Gafiate" is one of my favorite words out of sf fandom. It stands for Getting Away From It All. That's what I'm going to do for a couple weeks, maybe longer. Here's how I figure it...

I've been online more or less continuously since the early '90s, and in that time I've built up a lot of expectations—both in my mind and in others'—about who I am and what role I play. I've been that guy who doesn't have much of a life going on, who's around kind of all the time and at erratic hours, who's sometimes giddy and sometimes despairing, on and on. If you're one of my regular readers, you know the drill. By no means all of these expectations are bad, you understand, as I see them now.

It's just that they're anchored in states of mind and body I have been in, rather than what I'm in now.

This last week was full of big surprises, from great to horrible. This coming week will be, too. And probably the week after that. And then the pace of shocks will settle down, I hope, but there'll be consequences and correlaries and all sorts of other stuff too. This is, it's dawned on me, my work right now: this is my obligation, to myself and to all the people who've helped and cared about me over the years, to take the fullest, smartest advantage of the opportunities I have right now to understand what's going on and what I can and should do about it.

Lots of you go quiet in crunch time and its equivalents—getting a big program done, finishing a thesis or dissertation, traveling, and like that. I generally don't for more than a day or so...but then I haven't had an opportunity like this in many years, either.

I may write some journal entries, comments on others' journals, and like that. Or maybe I won't. I will share important personal developments when they're ready to share. Beyond that? I'm off to the injecting, inspecting, detecting, infecting, neglecting, and selecting, as Arlo so rightly puts it. :)

PS: I will be dealing with e-mail more or less as usual, and if you want to know what's up, share funny links, or anything like that, my mailbox welcomes your correspondence.

I've had some really happy-making developments lately, most of which I've been sharing only with select folks. But this is a good time to do an update for the rest of the world.

A lead from anaka  led me to a counseling service here in Seattle that turns out to be just what I need for help with my psychological backlog. And a referral from them led me to a physicians service that will do the same for my physical health. In my first session at the latter, the nurse practitioner said that he was frankly surprised I haven't had a stroke yet, once he looked at my blood pressure and some other symptoms. I'm now on medication for hypertension, and waiting to hear the results of testing for diabetes and some other stuff, and about to contact some recommended vascular consultants for what's apparently bad circulatory problems in my chronically weak left leg.
 
Not to get melodramatic about this, but it looks like the chain of contacts Michelle set in motion has saved my life. Everyone who's happy to have me around, say some thanks to Michelle. :) 

Under the circumstances, I'm freshly appreciative also for the impulse of recent months to disengage from sources of stress and distraction. Expect me to do more of that as I see what else is coming up. There's going to be more testing and then new treatments, and also coming to terms with legacy. (For instance, I have to reevaluate symptoms I've thought of as indications of allergic reaction and see which of them were actually hypertension manifestations. And there'll be more of that.) Not to put too a fine a point on it, too, there's a lot of emotion involved in this—I'm accustomed to being sick and miserable, but not to having anything that is urgently life-threatening. That's a whole new mess to reckon with, and has had me in rather the emotional yo-yoing all by itself.

In this situation, I just do not need to spend any time or feeling at all on twits ranting about disliked games and movies in terms of rape, or expressing their unhappiness in terms of assault and battery, or whining about how requests to warn readers when their ventures into fiction contain things that tend to trigger memories of physical and mental trauma are eeeevul politically correct censorship, or any of that stuff. I'm sticking to people I find interesting and not alarming or revolting. But I'm drawing my boundaries really tight just right now, and if you notice me not responding to you, all it means right now is that I just didn't feel up to dealing with it, not that I think you are also one of those gratuitiously stupid and vile fools. I'm pulling back from things that would usually be fine, too, but that just aren't for me at the moment.

Despite the tone of some of this, I'm actually really glad to be getting good help, and I look forward to having more good news to report in weeks and months to come.

*sigh* Up a pound.

I do have a cold at the moment, so I'll see if it comes back down during the week. I'm eating right and getting as much exercise as is feasible.
 

 I'm taking a break from daily tallies of my weight. I noticed that I'm sort of obsessing over fairly small variations, and after all, Weight Watchers encourages taking weekly figures as more useful and significant anyway.

Down 0.4 pounds, after a lot of yo-yo-ing. I need some stability in this routine, and hope that stress relief on other fronts will help.
 

I've been wanting to take another daytime walk already, and now I have. Behold the proofs! (17 pictures.)

 

Down 0.6 pounds. Which I'm content with, given that it was up several pounds just a few days ago, thanks to heat and stomach problems. Onward and upward, or downward, or whatever it is.
 

This is a graph of steps I've taken each day as measured by my pedometer, from May 15th through June 5th:


I know it's hard to read the shrunk-down scale indicators. The vertical scale is from 0 to 10,000 steps per day, with lines at 2,500-step intervals. The blue is total steps taken each day, and the green bars show the number of steps counted as "aerobic", which is to stay, taken in continuous stretches of 10 minutes or more. It's in those that the real calorie consumption goes on.

What makes me happy about this tonight is that the green bars are going up over time. It's not a huge movement, but it is noticeable, at least to me. I'm walking about the same total distance each time I get out for a walk, but I'm getting more benefit from it.

Good stuff. 

Down 0.2 pounds. *sigh* But this is a case where the weekly snapshot doesn't tell the whole story. On Thursday, two days after the last weekly number, I was down two pounds. Then I got hit by a day and some of nasty detoxing effects from the fat burning, followed by a couple of days of nasty reactions to the spike in temperatures we got on the weekend. I'm coming back down from that - a graph would show a nice slope, and since I seem to have a good routine for keeping myself cool as may be right now, I expect the slope to stay down, and that the week 3 snapshot will show the overall picture better. This is like doing a mileage calculation with a flat tire. :) I also find that I've taken two inches off my thighs, and one off my chest. No change yet in waist, neck, upper arm, or calf measurements. But of those...my arms and lower legs are in pretty good shape overall, and I already knew that the belly bloat complications at waist level would likely be slowest to improve. I'm doing well on the process, too. I ate good foods in good amounts this week, and genuinely didn't feel any real urge to go do something stupid and diet-breaking. So I can keep that up, with a modification on amounts to avoid another nasty fat-burning-triggered detoxing ugh, and look for good results.

I'm feeling this first extended warm spell more than I did last year. But then there are at least two things different this year.

#1. I have neighbors downstairs again, and inevitably their activities generate some heat.

#2. I have weight loss and everything going on, so that uses up resources that my body could have used last year to cope with the temperature change.

With that in mind, I've temporarily moved my working space out of the office and into the bedroom, using my lovely laptop table and surrounding stuff to set up a comfortable nook right near the air conditioner in here. I don't expect to need this all summer, but it's helping right now. Moving the portable gear takes less than half an hour to get it all unhooked and reconfigured, so I can do it as the fancy strikes me, really.

Yesterday was pretty grueling. We've got a warm spell going in Seattle, and I never deal well with those - any big temperature change throws my body for a loop, and I have to experiment some to get the most effective cooling routine going. On top of that, I had the nasty reactions I get much of the time from fat burning, as old trapped junk is released and makes trouble on its way out. I finally got some decent rest and am doing a lot better today.

Scale check this morning shows me that I'm looking at a week 2 loss of 4-5 pounds. That makes me really happy...but it's more than my body can really handle with reliable safety. I have to make sure to use up more of the optional weekly points Weight Watchers allow. It may even be necessary to use up all of them and tap points earned through exercise. Because I really don't want to go through more weeks where days like yesterday feature prominently.

I would like to note that I feel there is something like irony in this. What a complaint to have! :)

 It's gone through warm and into what I find hot today. Up from a so-so nap and hungry, I went in search of something to eat, and had snacks of some kind in mind. But when i moved to the next level of wakefulness, I found that I'd assembled a cup of peaches in water pack, quarters of a big fresh apple, and some nifty low-fat soy nut butter. Oh, and a glass of lemonade. This is a whole plate's worth of eats, practically a supper, and it's a grand total of 6 Weight Watchers points.

I am always prone to neglecting fruits and vegetables without firm prodding, so I'm feeling really pleased about this.

My new habit of logging out of IM in the evenings and not logging on again until after getting morning work and stuff done is paying off, I think. As is my new habit of fixing a substantial meal for myself about 1 am. It's a time I am virtually always awake, and eating a real, good, healthy meal then seems to be paying off in better sleep when I do get to sleep.

Now to see what I can do about the quality of my rest during daytime lying-down times.
 

Down 5.2 pounds. Works for me. :)
 

Wow is this stuff good. No, it doesn't taste just like beef jerky, and sensible vegetarian food doesn't try; it has a good, tough, chewy texture and taste of its own. It's also really low in Weight Watchers points. Looks like I've got a new tool in the snack box.

I'm not sure if I said explicitly, but: I actually started full-bore Weight Watchers points tracking last week, using the books I had from my first time in the program, back before my big crunch. So while this is my first week as a for-true member again, it's my second week of doing the work.

Now, I know full well that initial weight loss on any kind of diet is mostly water weight. But then that's still a real loss, if it stays off.

And so: 4 pounds or so.

Is good. :)

Now I'm officially signed up for Weight Watchers. I must say that their online tools are now very impressive, and their mobile page outstanding on my iPod Touch. Looking forward to progress. :)
 

Let me tell you, first of all, about the geography of this part of the Seattle area. Puget Sound is a fjord, running basically north-south. East of it is Lake Washington, shaped by the same glaciers that made the South what it is. There's a partly natural canal that connects the two, with downtown Seattle south of it and Ballard, my neighborhood, to the north. Long hills running north and south fill the space between sound and lake.

West and south of here it's essentially downhill, though there are plenty of local ups and downs. Go far enough from Chez Me and you end up in the Hood Canal or Puget Sound. East, the land slopes up fairly steeply to Phinney Ridge. Its crest is 20 blocks, give or take, from here, with the slope getting sharper as it goes. Up on top is Washington Park Zoo and a nice neighborhood.

In my last good stretch, five-six years ago, I did the walk up the ridge fairly regularly - once a week or so, to shop at the really nice little grocery store up there, and I'd go to the zoo, and like that. Losing the strength to do it anymore was one of the signs of my decline. It's been years since I ventured more than a block or so east of here, because I just couldn't hack the hill.

Until tonight. :)

I headed out on my evening ramble and suddenly felt an urge to give the ridge another try. No, I didn't get all the way up. But I did get half a dozen blocks along, up to the next major street, and then a few blocks up and back home. The last time I went so far was 2004. It is none too soon to go again.

Will I conquer the ridge this year? Dunno. I'm kind of expecting not, and that I'll make progress this year and be up there again next year. But I don't really know—I'll be seeing what I can manage.

It's very difficult to describe just how wonderfully good this feels.

As my regular readers know, I am seldom so happy as when I have a good image. Here goes.

In recent years, let's say that I've been running along on two cups a day of energy—physical strength, mood, mental clarity, everything together that adds up to the ability to do things.

My progress since last winter has upped that to three cups a day.

But doing the long-postponed things I've been wanting to do, including exercise, weight loss, writing, the whole deal, uses up at least two cups of that daily energy. That leaves me with just one cup, or even less, for all the things I had been doing.

And that's why I'm being scarce in places I used to be active, connecting a bit less, and so on. It's precisely because I have other things that I can do.

I see every reason to assume that I've got more daily mojo coming. May even need to get a bigger cup one of these days. :) It's just that I hadn't foreseen some of the consequences of improving just enough to do these new things.

I keep dabbling with this stuff and flaking out about it. I'd like to stick to it this time:

I aim to log out of IM and e-mail each night when I go to bed, and not to log on until I've had at least two hours in the morning to see about breakfast, exercise, research reading, and like that.

I've been approaching this as a productivity issue, and it is that - those morning hours can be really good ones for me. But it's also a health issue. As I track my eating, I see that I'm not far above the intake Weight Watchers recommends for me, but I am some above, and need to cut down a touch. Morning meal is crucial to that. If I don't eat decently early on, I get distracted, go too long without eating, and then overeat. No good. I need to stabilize this stuff right away.

Now, here's how my sleep cycle is working at the moment...

I'm up around 7 each morning because Mom and I are trading wakeup calls. It seems to do us both some good to have that much of a fixed schedule. I'm usually up for a few hours after that, and then I go sleep, with my primary waking time being at night. So there will be days when I log off at night and then am not on until afternoon or evening the next day. Those of you who keep tabs on how I'm doing (and my deep thanks for it): don't worry. If I'm having actual trouble, I'll connect long enough to let someone know, and then again as I'm recovering. No news just means rest and sleep.
 
I do intend to tune up my incoming contact channels. I want people with need to be able to get ahold of me for emergencies. But I don't quite know yet how I want to do that, so I'll be thinking who to give what contact info, and then add a basic "If you need to get hold of me right away" to my user info page here.