tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3638006152754319382024-03-13T13:35:27.893-07:00The DiabuddhistAnastasiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16010243676609381335noreply@blogger.comBlogger17125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-363800615275431938.post-23376259477493275462010-06-29T18:33:00.000-07:002010-06-29T22:13:12.914-07:00CODAI was finally out of my mother's reach, but I was traumatized and still inconsolable over my father's death. Most of what happened in my life between 1981 through 1995 was ugly. It would take too long to relate everything that happened, so I'll be as brief as I am able.<br /><br />In 1982, I married the kid who took me to California. We eventually made our way back to Brooklyn and then to Western Massachusetts. We separated in 1984 and divorced in 1985. Why? I was screwing his brother behind his back.<br /><br />In 1984, I started dating a guy who was even more mentally and physically abusive to me than my mother had been. When we first started seeing each other and I told him how my marriage ended, he laughed and said, "I'm your punishment." And I was so demoralized that I fucking bought it and let him terrorize me for a long time. I finally got out of the relationship, but I still have physical scars to this day. I never took legal action against him because I was too frightened to do so. <br /><br />After this, I was with an absolute gem of a man whom I married in 1990. He treated me kindly and with love. He had first been a friend to me and had seen me through the horrific end of the previous relationship. By this time I was becoming someone I recognized very clearly---I began to verbally and physically abuse this man. It enraged me when he just stood there and took the abuse, or when he grabbed my wrists to stop me, just as my father used to grab my mother's wrists to get her to quit punching. However, unlike my mother, I was always horrified over the abuse I doled out; that's when it occurred to me that I wasn't quite as far gone as I thought I was. I started counseling, but I never was able to admit to my psychologist what I was doing to my husband or to myself. As if I hadn't already fucked things up enough, I decided I wanted an open marriage, and brought another man into the house to live with us for a time. I watched myself destroy my marriage, and I didn't know how to stop doing so. I felt cut off from everyone and everything. I also felt ashamed of myself for hurting my husband, and incapable of knowing what a real relationship was like.<br /><br />In early 1995, my husband bought a computer and we both joined America Online. I started making Internet friends with whom I had a lot in common: we had shared interests in music, books, cooking and many other things. It occurred to me that meeting people in this way could be a new beginning for me. Very gradually at first, I began to build friendships with others. I liked hearing about people's everyday lives because they seemed so normal to me. Even though they most likely had skeletons in their closets, these friends had more stability in their day-to-day existence than I had ever had in mine.<br /><br />One of these friends was a musician like me; we also had matching tastes in music. We would spend hours chatting via private messages and comparing our CD, tape, and vinyl collections. At one point, my husband watched the interaction between me and this friend, and said, "You're going to marry this guy." I laughed.<br /><br />Damn if he wasn't right.<br /><br />Over the next year, "this guy" Matt and I fell in love. Right then, I swore that I would be a different person---that I would never abuse anyone again. I have kept that promise.<br /> <br />My husband and I split up. <br /><br />I moved back to California again so I could be with Matt. We were married in 1998, surrounded by many of our online friends.<br /><br />From that year to this, there have been so many different challenges: miscarriages, the loss of a pregnancy at five months' gestation, chronic illnesses, misunderstandings, the passing away of friends and family, growing apart, and then growing closer again. We both sought therapy to help us with these issues, as well as with Matt's chronic depression and my anxiety and PTSD. I felt myself becoming...normal. Boring. No longer on the rollercoaster. I loved it. I still do.<br /><br />My mother was diagnosed with dementia and Parkinson's disease in 2005. We spoke very rarely in the last five years; I really didn't want to have anything to do with her. The last words I ever heard her say---in 2007, or thereabouts---was that I had been a total disappointment to her. I shrugged and hung up the phone. My family kept begging me to call her, but I politely refused.<br /><br />So she died (presumably badly) in a nursing home in Florida this past May. My brother Joel was the successor trustee of her living trust. He called to let me know she had "left me something". Fine. After the estate was settled, her lawyer sent me a copy of my mother's trust documents--Anne had left me ten percent of her estate and Joel received ninety percent--along with a letter stating that all assets were depleted because of my mother's healthcare and maintenance costs. No surprise there; at least not to me. However, I think Joel was pissed off about this. We don't speak very much; he and I have had many disagreements over the years, but I believe he thought there would have been something left for him. Consequently, what happened next was something I should have expected.<br /><br />I had always been told that when my mother died, I would receive the jewelry my father had given her. Now, she was completely paranoid about her jewelry, as its value was extremely high. She would have new hiding places for it in the house every two days or so, and she always knew where it was. As part of the residue of her estate (along with any other tangible personal property), Joel and I would have had the right to divide it 90 - 10.<br /><br />So I called Joel and asked him about the jewelry. He denied any existence of it and hung up on me.<br /><br />I was utterly pissed off. I saw the jewelry as all that was left of my father. I knew she never appreciated what he'd given her and, if I had some of it, I'd value it much more than she ever did. And I also wanted <em>something</em> that would symbolize restitution for all she had done to me. I knew Joel was lying to me---he had the goods and wasn't about to give them up. So I decided to retain an attorney in an effort to get Joel to relinquish ten percent of the jewelry. I prepared an outline for the consultation, and then....<br /><br /><br /><em>(here it is, kids---that which you've been waiting for for the last three days!)</em><br /><br /><br />How would I be any happier with that ten percent? Would I be any better or worse off with or without it? How could it make up for all the abuse I experienced? Who the fuck was I kidding, that I wanted it in memory of my father? It would just serve as a reminder of things best left behind.<br /><br />If I was given that share of the jewelry, I would never have real closure in my life. I would never truly leave my past behind me.<br /><br />And, after all, it was just...<em>stuff...</em>a pile of things to which society and economics have ascribed some sort of value and importance which has nothing to do with me getting on with my life. <br /><br />I tore up the outline.<br /><br />She's dead. <br /><br />It's over; it's really, finally over, after forty-eight years.<br /><br /><strong>That</strong> is a bequest far more valuable, much more important, than any tangible inheritance.Anastasiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16010243676609381335noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-363800615275431938.post-81168587236590354802010-06-28T19:37:00.000-07:002010-06-28T22:18:39.270-07:00Setting The Scene, Part TwoBecause I want to keep the worst elements of this story private, I am going to try to be as succinct as I'm able in this entry.<br /><br />I can't remember the exact year this happened, but I think it was in 1970 when my brother Johnny was arrested in Florida and was sentenced to ten years in Starke Prison. This was the event that sent my mother completely over the edge. As the years went by, she became even more abusive to me, and to my father as well. When she was enraged, anything immediately at hand was a weapon with which she could lash out at us: a heavy ashtray, knives, broomsticks, hairbrushes. The worst in my eyes was the time in which during one of her screaming rages she broke an antique Chinese urn that my father had bought her as a gift, and used a shard of it to carve up his forearm as he physically struggled to grab her wrists to stop the attack. In my eyes, my father was sacrosanct, and for her to go after him was worse than her stabbing me in the hip with a steak knife.<br /><br />I believe that in the 70s, it was virtually impossible for a man to admit to abuse at a partner's hands. The term "emasculation" comes to mind. I know my father felt trapped by his love for my mother---she was an absolutely beautiful woman, and he was not willing to give her up---and he must have also felt that if he had admitted to the physical abuse she dealt him, he would have been ridiculed. In addition, when he tried to intercede for me, he suffered more of her abuse. Later, during therapy sessions, I tried to hold my father accountable for not doing anything to help me, but I simply could not fault him for it. He was caught in the cycle and could not see how to escape, just as I could not get out because kids didn't just go call Social Services at the time.<br /><br />When I was fourteen years old, I ran up a $200 phone bill in one month. My mother went berserk and started beating the hell out of me. What's memorable about this event is that it was the first time I decided to defend myself. I threw my mother down on my bed held her down, and began to hit her hard. My father, hearing her yells for help, tore into the room and pulled me off her. My mother went for me again with her fists, and my father---who before then had never raised his hands to me---also started beating me.<br /><br />It was a betrayal, of course...but as I said earlier, I couldn't really blame him. I still can't. I know he was horrified at what he had done, and I wasn't going to push him for an apology. <br /><br />My brother Johnny got out of jail in 1977, presumably for good behavior. However, this didn't help my mother in the least. Her abuse took on a new dimension for me when she began to sharpen her skills at mental and verbal demoralization, which were in some ways even more horrifying to me than the physical maltreatment. You can duck a blow---you can see the windup happen and at least try to get out of the way, but you can't look in someone's head to see what their next words will be. She once forced me to sit at the kitchen table to eat dinner while holding me down in the chair and hissing in my ear that the food was laced with arsenic and that I was to eat it all so that my father would come home and finally see me dying. When I would come home from a date, she would force me to take off my underwear so she could check it for "suspect stains". <br /><br />Five months before high school graduation, the bottom truly fell out. In January of 1980 my father was hospitalized. A week later I confirmed with his doctor---who was also our family friend---that my father had chronic lymphocytic leukemia. However, he also told me that my father had had it for ten years but had been in remission until then, and that he had sworn the doctor to secrecy so that no one would know but them. <br /><br />On March 23, 1980, my father died. I remember screaming to God in front of my entire family, asking why He didn't take my mother instead. She heard me, but did nothing, and I think that was when she started to fear me a little. She avoided me throughout the wake and the funeral. I was inconsolable and felt completely unsafe, totally vulnerable.<br /><br />She sent me to college in September. I wasn't ready, even though it meant getting away from her. I sat in my dorm room and looked at the walls and did absolutely nothing. I failed the first semester. I was failing the next semester. I had no idea what to do, and a slow, quiet panic built in me. Near the end of second semester, we were called into the dean's office for counseling. The dean told her I had not attended a single class. I can't even recall if I was expelled or not, because what happened next pretty much erased the memory of that meeting.<br /><br />My mother and I left the counseling session and walked to the lot where she'd parked. She got in her car, but wouldn't unlock the door for me. I watched her hit the gas hard and begin to drive out of the lot.<br /><br />Fine, I thought. Later, bitch.<br /><br />And then she spun the car around and drove straight at me. I stood there, shocked. I remember thinking, "Fuck! She's going to hit me if she's not careful. Wait a sec...she <em>wants</em> to hit me. Holy shit, she wants to <strong>KILL</strong> me!" <br /><br />As she got closer, I saw she was smiling maniacally. I turned and ran to get out of the way, and I fell on the ground. She missed me, but not by much. I got up and started pelting down the lot, and she came for me again. I dodged the car. I fell down again, she tried to hit me again, I ran, she followed. Finally I tripped and fell just as I was getting out of the way one last time, and her tire grazed my foot.<br /><br />I don't remember what happened next, or if I was really expelled. Then the semester was over and I was back home for the summer, making plans.<br /><br />I'd met a boy the previous summer at Rockaway Beach and he had moved to California to work for a large company. He had come back to New York six months later for additional training and was planning to return to work in early August. He asked me to go with him. I agreed. Much of the summer was spent in tossing various personal items out of my window at three AM while he stood below, catching them, putting them in his car, and taking them to his house so they could be packed for the trip to California.<br /><br />Somehow, my mother got wind of the plan and called the cops to assist her in kicking me out of the house. My boyfriend met me outside and we drove to his place. I had been saving my clothes to pack last, I had nothing to wear but what I was already wearing, and had no money. His family kindly donated some clothes, and he bought me some sneakers.<br /><br />A week later, my mother called my boyfriend's house. She had found his phone number in my phone book. His mom answered the phone to my mother's yelling, and she immediately read my mother the riot act for being rude and abusive. I got on the phone, and my mother demanded that I come back to her house because my uncles--her brothers--wanted to talk to me and my boyfriend. Today. <em><strong>Now.</strong></em> <br /><br />I don't know why I decided to go, but my boyfriend and I got in his car and drove over there. We were met by my uncles, who started grilling my boyfriend. My mother just stood by, hurling irrelevant abuse. My uncles asked what did he think he was doing, told him how they were going to stop him from taking me, etc. He answered them very respectfully, and when they found out what he did for a living, they paused and told my mother that he seemed nice and that he appeared to have a promising career. My mother was shocked, and began screaming at them to kill me and my boyfriend. They ignored her and took my boyfriend with them to talk outside the house on the stoop.<br /><br />I was alone with my mother and I knew what was coming. She turned to me and lunged---and I was so tired of this, so goddamned tired. I decided I'd finally had enough and I didn't really give a shit about what I was going to do. I caught her wrists and threw her down to the slate kitchen floor. It was like wrestling a rabid dog; I literally saw her foam at the mouth. She bit my arm, and I just beat the hell out of her. I finally got up off her; she was crying, cursing, and spitting at me. She rolled over on her side and vomited. I felt completely detached as I watched her retching. Although shaky from adrenaline, I made it to the front door. My hands and arm hurt badly. I kissed my uncles goodbye and walked with my boyfriend to the car. He and I left for California about two weeks later.<br /><br /><br /><br />More tomorrow.Anastasiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16010243676609381335noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-363800615275431938.post-54155124665618423902010-06-27T16:51:00.000-07:002010-06-27T18:43:27.354-07:00Setting The Scene, Part OneMy mother, Anne Radosti Calkins Carosone Sasowski Redington, died on May 11, 2010 at the age of eighty-three, from complications of dementia and Parkinson's disease. I was at work when I got the news via Facebook. Before I could stop myself, I grinned and exclaimed, "Holy shit! My mother's dead!" My co-workers turn to stare at me, aghast. I quickly packed up my purse, told my supervisor what happened, and took off for five days of bereavement leave.<br /><br />Bereavement, my ass. How do you mourn a parent who tried to kill you?<br /><br />Anne was born in 1926 on the Lower East Side of New York. She was a very private person---but also notoriously prone to lying---so I could never be certain that whatever she told me was true. She claimed that when she was a baby, her parents gave her away to her Aunt Giuseppina (Josie), who operated a neighborhood numbers racket. Anne said she became a numbers runner before she turned six years old, and that Josie would often hand her twenty dollars as pay, telling her to "go buy candy".<br /><br />When Anne was eighteen, she married a man named Johnnie Calkins. She said he died of renal failure on their honeymoon, and soon after that, she married a Mr. Carosone. She had two children from that marriage: my half-brothers Joel (Joseph) and John. She told me that Mr. Carosone was an alcoholic, was physically and verbally abusive to her, and had thrown her out of a second-story window; some of her ribs were broken in the fall. She decided to divorce him, and took the kids.<br /><br />She insisted that she scrubbed toilets to keep a roof over my half-brothers' heads, but I find this unlikely. She had once mentioned that she'd been employed at Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn for a time, but I can't verify whether this is true or not. What I <em><strong>do</strong></em> know for certain is that during the time she was raising Joel and John, she met my father, Stanley Sasowski. <br /><br />My father was born on New Jersey Avenue, Brooklyn, in 1915. His family was very poor. When Stenley was a young man, he worked for the CCC in Tennessee and sent money back home to his family. He then came back home and lived in his car to save money to purchase what was to be a series of body and fender shops in Brooklyn. He married, and a few years later divorced his wife because she was mentally ill. He had a son of his own from that marriage: my other half-brother, Stanley Junior, of whom he had custody.<br /><br />In 1960, Stanley and Anne married. I was born in 1962. All of us lived in East New York in Brooklyn, right by the old Piels brewery. One of my earliest memories was sitting on my father's lap while my mother taught me to read out of the Dr. Seuss Dictionary. I was about two years old at the time. <br /><br />When I was four years old, my father purchased the burned-out shell of a mansion in a residential area about a mile away from our home. The building was known as "The Haunted House", and my father restored it. Within a year, we had moved in. <br /><br />Very early on, I remember my mother screaming for no apparent reason, and being brought along to evening doctor visits for which my mother had appointments. I also recall my father telling me that Mother was "talking to the doctor", so later on, I concluded that she was seeing a shrink. <br /><br />When I was about six, everything seemed to go haywire. Stanley Junior was in the Marines and was serving in Vietnam. Johnny graduated from high school. Johnny and Joel kept getting into trouble. I learned a new word: heroin. I watched a drug dealer beat the shit out of Johnny in front of our house while the entire neighborhood watched. I saw the dealer try to beat up my father while my mother was hysterically crying and on the stoop. My father was covered in blood. Terrified, I hid in the broom closet---but then left the house and careened into the boulevard, nearly getting hit by the oncoming cars. As soon as I was across, I ran into my best friend's house and into her mother's arms. <br /><br />I stayed there for a couple of hours and didn't want to go home that night, but my friend's mother coaxed me into it. She brought me home, and my mother started in on me with her fists. That was my first memory of being beaten severely.<br /><br /><br /><br />I'll continue this tomorrow.Anastasiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16010243676609381335noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-363800615275431938.post-37853193180302544372010-06-26T18:40:00.000-07:002010-06-26T20:13:12.862-07:00I Got My Ass Kicked Today, And I Enjoyed It.I've been holding out on you guys. Worse, I've been holding out on myself. Perhaps that's what needed to happen, but it ends here.<br /><br />I need to post this for many reasons. <br /><br />Yesterday, Matt and I took the day off to see Rush get their star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. It was the most fun I'd had in a long time. Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson were funny, humble, and charming (Neil Peart was not there because he was on his way to New Mexico to get ready for Rush's upcoming tour). Billy Corgan of The Smashing Pumpkins was one of the guest speakers, as was Donna Halper---the woman who, while working at WMMS in Cleveland, Ohio, put Rush's "Working Man" on her regular playlist. The blue-collar hard-rock fans of Cleveland loved the song, and their appreciation led to Rush's record contract with Mercury Records. The band, grateful to Donna for "getting the ball rolling" (in their own words), acknowledged her on their first and second albums. <br /><br />In her speech yesterday, Donna referred to herself as Rush's "big sister". That statement stayed with me--and today it made its way into my life and touched me directly in a way that I never could have imagined. This is what happened.<br /><br />When Matt and I got home yesterday after the festivities, I went online to check out a particular Rush fan site that I frequent. Some individuals had posted a few incendiary things about Neil not being at the event, that he was a dick for not going, and the like. One of the fans then posted a statement that Donna had made elsewhere in response to the bashing and in defense of Neil, who is a very shy individual. Donna mentioned her own issues with shyness and tried to convey what it is like to speak to a crowd when one is so patently uncomfortable in doing so.<br /><br />Donna's defense of Neil and her compassion for him prompted me to send her a message and a friend request on Facebook. I thanked her for her words and support of Neil, and mentioned my own issues with shyness and the fact that I have PTSD (yeah, I know I never told you about this; more on that later), which makes me really uncomfortable around many people.<br /><br />This morning, I went online and frequented the sites I usually visit daily. When I went to Facebook, I saw Donna had added me as a friend and that she was available to chat. I sent her a chatbox as follows:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Me:</span> Thank you for EVERYTHING!!! Yesterday was so much fun. XOXO You don't have to respond to this if you don't wish to.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Donna:</span> You're a silly goose. I wanted to respond. I sent my phone number. Call me.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">...huh?!</span><br /><br /><br />At that moment, I realized that I had a couple of new messages in my Facebook inbox. I checked them, and they were from Donna; she had sent them about a half hour before I had sent her my chatbox. There it was: one of the messages was a request to give her a call.<br /><br />I know that those of you who know me personally know that I'm the one who crawls into a corner and falls asleep at parties and that I'm not really good around people, for all that I'm a funny wiseass online. You're familiar with my intrinsic shyness, so you probably know what it took for me to pick up the phone and dial the number. And when Donna answered the phone, I panicked. <br /><br />I don't remember when I started crying, but I do remember that Donna encouraged me to really look at myself, which is something that I've always been terrified to do. We talked about my shyness and diabetes and fibromyalgia and PTSD, and her shyness, and Judaism, and the both of us having had life experiences that would curl your hair. She asked me what I wanted to do. I told her I wanted to write. And the answer was really so simple that it almost sounds ridiculous: she said, "So, do what writers do."<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">POW.</span> <br /><br />I was reminded of one of my favorite Peanuts comics, in which Charlie Brown is at Lucy's psychiatry booth for the umpteenth time. And Lucy gives it to him straight:<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Charlie Brown:</span> What can you do when you don't fit in? What can you do when life seems to be passing you by?<br /> <br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Lucy:</span> Follow me. I want to show you something. See the horizon over there? See how big this world is? See how much room there is for everybody? Have you ever seen any other worlds?<br /> <br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Charlie Brown:</span> No.<br /> <br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Lucy:</span> As far as you know, this is the only world there is, right?<br /> <br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Charlie Brown:</span> Right.<br /> <br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Lucy:</span> There are no other worlds for you to live in, right?<br /> <br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Charlie Brown:</span> Right.<br /> <br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Lucy:</span> You were born to live in this world, right?<br /> <br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Charlie Brown:</span> Right.<br /> <br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Lucy:</span> Well, <span style="font-weight:bold;">LIVE<span style="font-style:italic;"></span></span> IN IT, THEN!...Five cents, please.<br /><br /><br />It's in my hands. I can stew in my shyness and my fear of being ridiculed, and I can point a finger at everyone who's fucked me over...or I can point that finger at myself and take responsibility for me and my actions. I can do, I can live, I can be.<br /><br />Donna kicked my ass today, and I love her for it. I am proud to call her my friend and big sister...and I am proud to have decided to do, and live, and be.Anastasiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16010243676609381335noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-363800615275431938.post-65748014765537844892010-01-24T15:56:00.000-08:002010-01-24T17:50:28.609-08:00Oinking One's Way To A Middle Way.Hello. So. Where have I been? Not here, for sure. Why? Got no excuse, but I'll tell you what's been going on:<br /><br />One morning about a week after my little hootchy-cootchy on the Metro Red Line Hollywood station platform, I was completely unable to get up out of bed. Everything hurt. I called in sick to work. I figured it was just a flareup of fibromyalgia or some such until I started feeling really feverish. I took my temperature and it was 100.9. The fever got higher as the day progressed, and that's when I started thinking that this wasn't fibro.<br /><br />By the late afternoon, I felt as if an entire mountain range had grown wheels and had run me over. I'm not exaggerating: when you lie in bed and you have to pee, and you feel so shitty that you actually start thinking you'd much rather piss the bed than even <span style="font-weight:bold;">try<span style="font-style:italic;"></span></span> to move so you can get to the can, that's the kind of feeling it was. At least with fibro, I've been able to crawl to the bathroom if I needed to. Anyway, I did go pee, but only when my husband got home from work and basically almost carried me to the can.<br /><br />Two days later, my husband took me to Urgent Care. I'm not much for emergency rooms for stuff like this, and my own doc is always full up because he's a great guy, so it's hard to get a same-day appointment with him, much less a same-week appointment. So the Urgent Care doc takes a look at me, takes my temp, and said, "H1N1...go see your own doc."<br /><br />Okay!<br /><br />So I went to see my own doc. He was kind, and decided to let me in to see him on that same day. He met me and my husband at the back entrance to his office, where he and two of his staff were positively swathed in masks, and who can blame 'em? They gave us masks to put on, too. And by this time, everything hurt---hair, teeth, internal organs, lymph nodes, muscles, bones: <span style="font-weight:bold;">everything<span style="font-style:italic;"></span></span>. I couldn't breathe deeply at all because doing so triggered an epic cough, and I'd keep coughing until I started retching. By this time my husband was also feeling ill, but he didn't have the same crushing exhaustion I had, or the fever, or the coughing.<br /><br />The doctor did swabs of my nose, and of my husband's as well. We were sent home with scripts for inhalable antivirals and narcotic cough syrups and were told to come back in a week. <br /><br />What I noticed about being this sick is that my fever also did lovely, spectacular leaps into the first five triple digits...and stayed there...until it crashed down to about 101. The bed was sweat-soaked constantly. The delirium was fun, too. At one point, I woke up to my rapidly-moving hands; I was back in my chef days, making trays of ziti!<br /><br />We went back to the doctor's a week later, and he confirmed that I had swine flu. But wait! Not only did I have swine flu...I also somehow got Type A flu at the same time. My husband tested negative for everything. This blew me away, of course, because of the communicability of H1N1.<br /><br />My doc was concerned about how the illness would affect my diabetes. When it comes to communicable diseases, diabetics are always in the "high risk for complications" group. I had been testing my blood as I usually did, but now I saw numbers I never thought I'd ever see: 450, 510, etc. It seemed impossible that my blood glucose could ever get that high. I was unable to really do much except keep taking my diabetes medications at the same dosages I had been taking them before I got sick. But the levels never seemed to go down. What was also worrisome is that I wasn't physically able to cook the foods I'd been making to help me maintain good blood glucose levels. I was very weak, and my doctor decided to put me on disability until further notice. <br /><br />People very kindly pitched in to help. My in-laws brought good, home-cooked meals for me and my husband, and friends did some shopping for simple foods I could eat. And I just lay in bed...which, after a week, starts to suck a kind of suck that's almost intolerable.<br /><br />Two and a half months later I was pretty much recovered, if still weak...but I went back to work. Two weeks after that, I had bloodwork done and got the results. My white count was way high, and my A1c was at...14.<br /><br />I almost fell over. Who the fuck<span style="font-weight:bold;"><span style="font-style:italic;"></span></span> has an A1c of <span style="font-weight:bold;">14?!<span style="font-style:italic;"></span></span> I had worked hard last year to get that number down to a good level, and I'd been glad that it had been as low as 7.0 at one point before I got sick. A 14 is for someone who eats a double cheeseburger, fries, and a Coke every day. A 14 is a pint of premium ice cream five times a week after eating a double cheeseburger, fries, and a Coke every day. It was unfair! I didn't even get a chance to <span style="font-weight:bold;">enjoy<span style="font-style:italic;"><span style="font-style:italic;"></span></span></span> the road to a 14. I hadn't had entire pizzas or bags of peanut butter cups. And I realized that at that time, I could have made any of three choices. <br /><br />I'm a natural rebel who doesn't like to be told what to do. It would have been so stupidly easy for me to say "Fuck this. I'm going to eat what I like now. I've been sick and I want to enjoy myself, and my A1c is high as it is, and I just don't want to give a damn for a while."<br /><br />But I can also get very gung-ho when something is very important. This is partly due to my own anxiety issues as well as the human urge to "make things right". I could just as easily have said, "Oh, my GOD! I'm never eating bread again! I will never, ever allow a piece of chocolate to pass my lips for the rest of my life! I will exercise for four hours every day!", etc.<br /><br />As far as what happened, look: I am honestly not trying to put myself on some sort of pedestal here. I'm a real pain in the ass most times. So I truly believe that it was not out of some sort of intelligence, but out of total disgust and resignation, that I told myself, "Shut up." So I just went back to eating what I'd been eating before I got sick. I walked a little bit each day, and let myself have a few fun "cheat days", during which I happily rooted in some chocolate or pizza or some such.<br /><br />On January 2, 2010, almost two months after those results, I had more bloodwork done, and my A1c measured 6.7.<br /><br />It's probably good that I just stopped bitching and just shut up. I should do that more often.Anastasiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16010243676609381335noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-363800615275431938.post-78501549570484997872009-08-19T20:53:00.000-07:002009-08-19T21:05:45.090-07:00SHAKE YOUR ZAZENMAKER!Today I left work and did my usual traipse down Hollywood Boulevard to the Metro train station at Highland. I had my iPod with me, and I was so glad to be out of the office and going home that when I got to the platform, I cranked the volume and did a little <span style="font-weight:bold;">Raqs Sharqi</span>---that’s bellydance--- to a little something called Würm (no, Yesfans, not the studio version. I was heretical and danced to one of the finest interpretations ever: Edmonton, 1984). For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, the old rock group Yes wrote a song called “Starship Trooper”. The third part of this piece is called “Würm”, and it was originally part of another song that the group’s guitarist brought to Yes. It has three chords---G, Eb, C---and they go spiraling up and up for three minutes or so, over and over, till they crash into a cool little climactic guitar solo that pans back and forth between yer ears.<br /><br /><br />Did people stare at me? Yeah. Was my avoirdupois flying around? Oh, <span style="font-weight:bold;">hell<span style="font-style:italic;"></span></span>, yeah. Did I give much of a rat’s? Nope. Why? Because I was dancing again. I hadn’t done it in years, and it felt great. Sit down, kiddies, and I’ll tell you a story.<br /><br /><br />When I was a little kid, I was frail and sickly. I had anemia and had to have blood tests two to three times a week. I missed a lot of school from kindergarten to about third grade, but when I hit eleven years old my health improved and I decided to get active. I took platform and high-diving lessons, swimming lessons, and I also studied ballet. I loved doing all these things, and it was a pleasure to learn new skills and to feel my body grow stronger. I also studied belly dance on the side because it “opened” my pelvis, which subtly aided my ballet technique in turning and leaping.<br /><br /><br />Due to some sudden changes in my life, I stopped doing all these things when I was nineteen. I went through the next decade without much physical activity, but in my thirties I returned to my <span style="font-weight:bold;">Raqs Sharqi<span style="font-style:italic;"></span></span> studies with the same enjoyment I experienced the first time I learned how to do hip circles. I chose a dance name: Shaheen [Falconess], and decided to extend my practice with some props. These were a matching pair of steel scimitars which a Western Massachusetts blacksmith forged for me. I danced with them in all sorts of ways; balanced on my head, shoulders, hips, back, and stomach (I used to flip them from dull inner edge to sharp outer edge on my stomach, which was both great fun and stupidly dangerous).<br /><br /><br />More life changes…I moved to California and married my husband, and stopped dancing. We tried to make babies. This didn’t work. And then in late 2005, my body just collapsed. I woke up one morning and could not get out of bed. Everything hurt, and hurt on the screaming level. Eventually I crawled—and I mean <span style="font-weight:bold;">crawled<span style="font-style:italic;"></span></span>—to the bathroom to pee, crawled back to my bed, fell asleep again, and slept for forty-eight hours. Figuring something was not just wrong but totally fucked up, I went to my doctor, who sent me to specialists, who did a whole bunch of tests and said ChronicFatigueFibromyalgiaEpstein-BarrPsoriaticArthritisProbableLungCancer...<br />...AndYouBetterStopSmokingImmediately...<br />...ButIt’sProbablyTooLateAtThisPointAnyway. <br /><br /><br />Fuck.<br /><br /><br />Additional tests proved that I didn’t have lung cancer after all, but when the docs said That Word, I immediately put the cigarettes down and I haven’t smoked since. I may play with sharp things too much for my own good, but I’m not totally stupid. Why screw around?<br /><br /><br />Anyway, I was so smacked down by these conditions that I needed to use a walker, which wasn’t so bad because it was a bitchin’ candy-apple red and had hand brakes, a basket for my stuff, plus a built-in seat so I could rest if I got really exhausted. However, a few months later I went on disability because I just couldn’t physically make it to work and back. This was completely frustrating, as being at home all day made me stir-crazy. I also had my own ideas about treatment, and I didn’t want to take the drugs my doctor wanted to prescribe; most of my visits were spent in arguments with him over medications with really scary side effects. <br />One of my dearest friends (to whom I owe so much) sent me vast amounts of heavy-duty glucosamine/chondroitin to help me with the psoriatic arthritis; I took megadoses of this supplement daily. I also did a lot of research on fibromyalgia and practiced nutritional healing with garlic, oregano oil, CoQ10 and lysine. At this time I started to practice zazen; I wasn’t able to sit in full lotus position or even half-lotus, but I could sit in a chair and count my breaths. Slowly, and with much patience, I began to walk again; I had a few setbacks, but I could finally get about slowly and go back to work after a year.<br /><br /><br />Since then I haven’t felt nearly as bad, even with the relatively recent diabetes diagnosis…but I haven’t felt as well as I did last Friday night, when I got on a treadmill for the first time in two years and, during a slow walk, decided to run for about a minute. Yes, <span style="font-weight:bold;">run<span style="font-style:italic;"></span></span>. I cranked that basstich up to 6 MPH and almost flew. Sure, it was only for a minute, but damn if I didn’t do it. I can’t even remember the last time I did.<br /><br /><br />So, remembering how good that little run felt inspired me to shake my thang all over the subway platform while waiting for the 4:17 to roll in. As I danced, I watched people laugh, I saw some who were unnerved, and some others were clapping in rhythm to my steps. And it didn’t matter if anyone thought I was an idiot, or if they approved of what I was doing. I suddenly just saw a human family---my human family.<br /><br /><br />The Buddhist term <span style="font-weight:bold;">sangha</span> means “community”, and, as a rule, refers to the Buddhist community as a whole…or it can also mean any group of beings who are at a level of greater realization than are others. I think <span style="font-weight:bold;">sangha</span> is more than that. Those people on the platform---I don’t know if they were Buddhist or not. I don’t know if they were Republicans, I don’t know if they molest chickens for fun and profit, or if they’ve found the meaning of existence. And it doesn’t matter. They—we—all of us—are <span style="font-weight:bold;">sangha</span>. There’s no special membership, no exclusivity. <br /><br /><br />(Yeah, dogs and cats and iguanas and molested chickens and trees and everything in the universe, either “good” or “bad” are included.)Anastasiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16010243676609381335noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-363800615275431938.post-64620876197036720332009-08-09T21:54:00.000-07:002009-08-09T22:41:45.949-07:00I'VE COME BACK...Well. It’s been---what? Five months since I’ve submitted an entry? And here I am, slinking back to my blog like an errant schoolgirl. Bad, bad Tasia.<br />I have been unable (unwilling?) to get past some stuff that’s gone on in my life since March. But now, like the little “dead” guy on the cart in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, I feel fine, and I want to go for a walk. Well, mostly.<br />Here’s what went on: <br /><br /><br />1.) I found a website that was all about East New York in Brooklyn, where I grew up. The site was created by the nephew of a woman who was one of my father’s tenants; she lived above us in the duplex in which I spent my first three years. The site actually showed the house to which my family and I next moved, and pictures of its history over the years from the early part of the 20th century until today. And my father’s name was also mentioned in the information that accompanied the pictures. This was a kind of setback for me, as seeing all of this opened up a Pandora’s Box of memories which have been difficult for me to handle: things with which I’d not yet come to terms from my past, which involved the physical and mental abuse I received from my mother on a daily basis. <br /><br />2.) I got pregnant. I could hardly believe that it happened, and after years and years of miscarriages, too. This was not something that my husband Matt or I wanted, and we knew how it would end up, anyway. Sure enough, six weeks in---miscarriage. <br /><br />3.) My cousin Alicia died; she was 50 years old. She was my father’s sister’s daughter, and a professor in Merida, Mexico. Apparently she went out for a meal, ate something that caused some sort of allergic reaction, and just-----died. Bam.<br /><br />4.) Matt’s father John was diagnosed with emphysema. Yes, he has since quit smoking.<br /><br />5.) Matt was diagnosed with pre-diabetes. According to his physician, it’s not inevitable that Matt will be diagnosed with full-on Type II diabetes if he immediately improves his diet and loses weight; in other words, he should act as if he already has the disease. I am glad that he does not have to take any meds at this time!<br /><br /><br />It’s been difficult for me to deal with a lot of this, but I am doing it, just as for months I sat around and said, “I gotta get back to my blog”, and one great friend told me, “Yes, you must,” and gave me all sorts of sound reasons to do so. Sometimes it’s difficult to realize that loved ones can help when you’re in a bad way, and that you don’t have to cope alone. True, no one can do things for you, but inspiriting words from friends can soften one’s situation.<br /><br /><br />I am proud to say that Matt is taking better care of his health now than he ever had. He diligently reads labels and is eating more simply, and understands more about simple carbohydrates and how they affect his blood sugar levels. <br /><br /><br />Two weeks ago or so I decided to become a vegan. Here are some links that discuss the benefits of a vegan diet for diabetics:<br /><br />http://www.pcrm.org/health/clinres/diabetes.html<br /><br />http://diabetes.webmd.com/news/20081001/vegan-diet-good-type-2-diabetes?src=RSS_PUBLIC<br /><br />(Please cut and paste; the "insert link" tool on Blogger isn't working. Sorry!)<br /><br />I was very excited to learn about this, and I have been easing Matt into eating this way little by little. Due to my past years of being a vegetarian/vegan chef, I’m already familiar with vegan replacements for basic ingredients like cheese, cream, milk, and eggs, and there are so many substitutes for meats, poultry, and fish out there. ..and not just the tried and true tofu, either! I recently purchased some gorgeous vegan “shrimp”; I had tried them about ten years ago and found them delicious. I plan to marinate them in lime juice, cilantro, olive oil and fresh garlic, and to serve them with zucchini, chives, and roasted red peppers over brown rice. Yum.<br /><br /><br />Of course, with the choice of going vegan comes the inevitable political ramifications of doing so. I am all for animal rights and for eating cruelty-free and for buying cruelty-free products to use in my home…but I will not stop taking my medications because they have been tested on animals, nor will I donate any animal product clothes I currently have to charity. I am not in the financial position to give things away to replace them with others: to do so would not be sensible. When my Uggs and my wool cape are destroyed from use, then I will purchase cruelty-free replacements for them. Some will say that this does not make me a “true vegan”, and that’s OK. I can’t afford to be impractical in a lousy US economy and while living in California when I can barely afford to shell out the copays for my meds. Lawsy!Anastasiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16010243676609381335noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-363800615275431938.post-43208394971701394752009-03-02T18:05:00.000-08:002009-03-04T15:04:01.774-08:00TASIA MacARTHUR: I HAVE RETURNED.Okay, okay. So it's not as dramatic as that, but I'm back...and I'm glad I am. I have a new laptop, bought at a price that almost made me cry with joy. Dmitry kindly found me this cheap Toshiba on NewEgg, and it was so unbelievably inexpensive that I was actually able to pay cash for it. Amazing! I just loaded Firefox and Thunderbird on it, and all is froody. Go Mozilla!<br /><br />I hope everyone has been well, and that February treated you kindly. I had a pretty eventful and fun month. Before I get to that, how do you like the new banner and logo? Aren't they the dog's bollocks?<br /><br />My friend Bill designed the banner. Bill is a multitalented man; he's a great graphic artist, but he's also a sa-<span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">moooooooookin</span>' guitarist. He's got an exquisitely developed feel for music, a tone that few musicians possess, and chops out the yin-yang. He also loves cats and has a great sense of humor, so I'm a sucker for him. He's been an online buddy for three years; we have not actually met, but I hope that will change soon.<br /><br />Here's a shot of Bill at a Yesfans gathering (a gathering of fans of the music of Yes, that is!) in Boston a couple of years ago:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_yktc4rfhJzw/Sa8InUkbWWI/AAAAAAAAADw/xnI3-uAIlFg/s1600-h/BillGuitarreBoston.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 246px; height: 320px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_yktc4rfhJzw/Sa8InUkbWWI/AAAAAAAAADw/xnI3-uAIlFg/s320/BillGuitarreBoston.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5309471957322520930" /></a> <br /><br />My friend Jen designed the logo. She's another one of my massively talented friends...she's done caricatures and cartoons of Yes and Rush that have made me laugh until I'm in agony. We share the same sarky wit, except she's even more brilliant at it than I am. Here's an example, taken from a conversation we had in Borders yesterday morning:<br /><br /><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold"><br /></span><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold;font-size:130%;" ><span style="COLOR: rgb(51,0,0);font-family:lucida grande;" >Jen:</span></span><span style="COLOR: rgb(51,0,0);font-family:lucida grande;font-size:130%;" > T, check this out: </span><span style="COLOR: rgb(51,0,0); FONT-STYLE: italicfont-family:lucida grande;font-size:130%;" >The New York Times</span><span style="COLOR: rgb(51,0,0);font-family:lucida grande;font-size:130%;" > reported that the Catholic Church has brought back indulgences! Can you believe that?<br /><br /></span><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; COLOR: rgb(51,0,0)font-family:lucida grande;font-size:130%;" >Me:</span><span style="COLOR: rgb(51,0,0);font-family:lucida grande;font-size:130%;" > </span><span style="COLOR: rgb(51,0,0); FONT-STYLE: italicfont-family:lucida grande;font-size:130%;" >What?!</span><span style="COLOR: rgb(51,0,0);font-family:lucida grande;font-size:130%;" > I wonder what the Vatican's said about it. You think there's anything posted on the Holy See's website?<br /><br /></span><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; COLOR: rgb(51,0,0)font-family:lucida grande;font-size:130%;" >Jen:</span><span style="COLOR: rgb(51,0,0); FONT-STYLE: italicfont-family:lucida grande;font-size:130%;" > (without missing a beat)</span><span style="COLOR: rgb(51,0,0);font-size:130%;" ><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"> <span style="font-size:100%;">Yeah. A Paypal button.</span></span></span><br /></span><br /><br />I roared laughing. I'm <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">still </span>roaring laughing over it, even though I later learned that the Church meant plenary indulgences, which aren't sold. So what? It's a phenomenally beautiful bit of wit. I love dat goil. You can see more of her artwork at DeviantArt, under "edgyspice". One of my favorites is a great pic she did called "Fish and Elf", which shows Chris Squire and Jon Anderson of Yes getting stoned. Classic.<br /><br />Here's Jen channeling Neil Peart on Halloween:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3646/3327470862_05c3cce4c3_m.jpg"><img style="float:center; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 180px; height: 240px;" src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3646/3327470862_05c3cce4c3_m.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br /><br />So, here was my February: my husband Matt didn't go on tour with Circa: after all; the tour was canceled. In any case, they are interested in working with him again, so I'm glad for him.<br /><br />Here's the big news of the month: my ex-roommate, maid of honor, and dear friend Scheila Gonzalez <span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; FONT-STYLE: italicfont-size:180%;" >COPPED A GRAMMY!</span>, along with the rest of Zappa Plays Zappa, for Best Rock Instrumental: their cover of Peaches En Regalia. She's over the moon about it, and I'm so psyched for her. We had dinner a couple of weeks ago and she just grinned from ear to ear while telling me what it was like to just---simply---<span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">win</span> that little gilded gramophone. So, here's a video link to my homegirl; it starts at :37....<br /><br /><object width="445" height="364"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Xuum94iLiHE&hl=en&fs=1&border=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Xuum94iLiHE&hl=en&fs=1&border=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="445" height="364"></embed></object><br /><br /><br /><br />Matt and I went to see ZPZ on Saturday night at the Ventura Theater. Don't miss it, if you have a chance to go. These people play their <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">asses</span> off.<br /><br /><br />News flash on the diabetes front: last Saturday I had my eye exam, and the good doctor informed me that I've had no diabetic damage to my eyes in the space of a year. Yay! The uncontrolled blood glucose level visual blurriness I had back in December has resolved itself, too. That said, I became a good deal more myopic over the last twelve months. Funny---I thought myopia improved with age. Guess this is just Nature's way of keeping me young, heh heh heh.<br /><br /><br />What else? My kittyboy. Most of you know I have three cats, but I'm not sure if you know about one of them: my big, bouncing Brooklyn. He's a humongous black cat with a white patch on his neck and another on his tummy. He's a smooth talker; I call him The Reverend Al Green. He loves women. He immediately hooked me when I saw him at the shelter: a skinny, starving half-grown kitten who walked right up to me and just about said "<span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Heyyyyyyy</span>, bay-beh..." before he jumped, purring, into my arms. I adore him, and I am honored beyond any description that this wonderful creature loves me right back.<br /><br />Brooklyn and I share something very important...we both have our own incurable chronic conditions. Whereas I have diabetes, he has feline hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. This disease of the heart is characterized by a thickening of the cardiac muscle, and will eventually kill him. In the meantime, Matt and I take him to UC Davis' Small Animal Clinic for his workups and ultrasounds, so we can keep track of the disease's progress. It's a long trip, but his care is dramatically less expensive this way than if we were to see a feline specialist here in Los Angeles. The only therapy Brooklyn has is to take atenolol, which is a beta-blocker, twice a day. He also gets lots of love, fresh water, good food, sunshine, grooming, gentle play, and the company of cats and humans. We always pay attention to his breathing and gait; panting could mean the beginning of heart failure, and limping could indicate a blood clot.<br /><br />Matt and I took Mr. B up to Davis for his exam two weekends ago. We were worried what we might learn because we've been so broke that we couldn't afford to commit to the usual quarterly visit and were only able to bring him there once since 2007. However, we were overjoyed to learn that since we'd been to the clinic, there was no significant progression of the disease.<br /><br />There are evenings during which I lie in bed with Brooklyn among the blankets, and I look into his green-gold eyes...and the moment becomes a timelessness that almost brings me to tears. For me, there's no "What if?" or "He's going to die too soon", or "I can't believe I have diabetes", or "Someday I will probably go blind from this disease". And for Brooklyn, there's always the present moment, no matter what. So we cuddle together, and there's just him and me and our eyes looking at each other, and we are both so happy to just be together right then. Each of these moments is a perfect little universe for us, and there's no room for fear or anything else.<br /><br />If ever I had a Zen master, it is Brooklyn.Anastasiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16010243676609381335noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-363800615275431938.post-39878550542612533942009-02-12T09:02:00.000-08:002009-02-12T09:05:43.826-08:00NOT AGAYNE!Hiya, all. My laptop took a turn for the worse and died a peaceful death a few days ago. <em>Requiescat in pace</em>, Inspiron!<br /><br />I'm typing this from work to let y'all know that I won't be blogging until I purchase and set up a new 'puter. This shouldn't take too long.<br /><br />Love to youse guys---and see you soon!Anastasiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16010243676609381335noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-363800615275431938.post-64838802949369105222009-02-04T18:54:00.000-08:002009-02-04T20:45:57.379-08:00LOSS CAN BE GAIN.So, here's what happened yesterday:<br /><br />Got up. Check.<br /><br />Took a shower. Check.<br /><br />Got dressed. Check.<br /><br />Went to work. Check.<br /><br />Sat at desk, unzipped backpack, pulled out carrying pouch for glucometer. Check.<br /><br />Unzipped pouch...<span style="font-style: italic;">hey! </span>Where's my glucometer? It was in here when I tested my blood sugar last night, and I know I put it back. It must have fallen out somehow.<br /><br />Noisy scramble in backpack ensues. No results. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size:180%;">PANIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!</span></span><span style="font-size:180%;"><br /><br /></span> And I mean <span style="font-style: italic;">total</span>, unfettered panic. I just lost it, right there at my desk. All I could think was that my entire day would be shot to hell because I couldn't test my blood sugar. How would I know what my daily glucose levels would be? My logbook would lack more than eight hours of valuable information! There'd be a gap in my record-keeping and the inaccuracy would produce skewed data which would piss off my doctor when I submitted my charts to him at my next appointment! How would I know in the course of the day if I was heading for a hypoglycemic crash? And on and on it went for about five minutes, until I just stopped to think, and...<span style="font-style: italic;">not-think</span>.<br /><br />Why was I freaking? <br /><br />What was all this coming out in my thoughts? <br /><br />Why was I obsessing over this little purple device that had gone AWOL, and the numbers it reports to me six times a day?<br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span></span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"></span><br />Why did I think that I'd be a failure to myself and my doctor <span style="font-style: italic;">and</span> my self-care if my logbook lacked some data?<br /><br />Why does it all have to be "right"? Why do I feel I can't make any mistakes?<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">I don't know. No, that's not true; I <span style="font-weight: bold;">do</span> know. I'm scared. I don't want to make mistakes that can compromise my health even further! If I keep screwing up, those screw-ups can add up. I don't want organ failure or my feet or my legs amputated later on in life! </span> <span style="font-style: italic;">I don't want my already shitty sight to get worse or disappear!</span><br /><br /><br />Stop. Wasn't I taking the best care of myself that I possibly could---eating well and walking and taking my meds, and getting enough sleep, and doing <span style="font-style: italic;">zazen</span>, and hugging my husband, my cats, and friends---and keeping in good spirits? Couldn't I trust all this?<br /><br />Wasn't I perfectly capable of listening to my body so that if I felt the first faint symptoms of hypoglycemia coming on, I could immediately stop the crash with my glucose tabs?<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Okay...okay. I'm going to be fine without the damn thing. It's just one day. Even if it had to be more than one day, I'd <span style="font-weight: bold;">still</span> be fine. I know what I need, and what I don't doesn't matter.</span><br /><br />The rest of the day happened. I ate well. I took the meds. I did my job. I laughed with co-workers. I did <span style="font-style: italic;">zazen</span> in one of the empty meeting rooms. I listened to my body. I wrote down my meals and snacks in my logbook. I felt pretty good.<br /><br />Near the end of the workday, I remembered that the day before I had slipped a sticky note into my glucometer pouch. I'd written a friend's work number on that note, and I wanted to give her a quick call before I went home. I unzipped the pouch and rummaged around in the side pocket where I'd put the note.<br /><br />I found the note...<br /><br />...<span style="font-style: italic;">and</span> I found my glucometer.<br /><br /><br />Dogen Zenji<span style="font-weight: bold;">*</span> wrote in his peerless work, <span style="font-style: italic;">Shobogenzo</span>: "Diligently apply yourself, and whatever arises as 'just for a while'. "<br /><br />I think I might just "get" that, now...<br /><br />...mmmmaybe!<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /><br />*</span><span style="font-style: italic;">Dogen Zenji </span>(1200 - 1253) founded the Soto Zen school. If you'd like to learn more about him, please see this link: <a href="http://global.sotozen-net.or.jp/eng/dogen_zenji.html">http://global.sotozen-net.or.jp/eng/dogen_zenji.html</a>Anastasiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16010243676609381335noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-363800615275431938.post-46718224140415615362009-01-29T17:34:00.000-08:002009-01-29T19:13:17.953-08:00MAYOR BLOOMBERG AND ME: STRANGE BEDFELLOWS!You may have read today that the latest "Hizzoner" of my old hometown has decided to take a stand against salt...<br /><a href="http://cbs5.com/health/bloomberg.war.on.2.920740.html"><br /></a><a href="http://cbs5.com/health/bloomberg.war.on.2.920740.html">http://</a><a href="http://cbs5.com/health/bloomberg.war.on.2.920740.html">cbs5.com/health/bloomberg.war.on.2.920740.html</a><br /><a href="http://cbs5.com/health/bloomberg.war.on.2.920740.html"></a><br />...and, after a bit of reflection, I've decided that I think he's on the right track with this. If US food manufacturers reduce the salt content of foods by fifty percent over a ten-year period, we will probably see healthier Americans by that time. Excess, hidden salt is in just about everything we eat, even in "sweet" foods like cake and candy. On the more obvious side of things, have you ever noticed the sodium content in your average can of soup? It's pretty scary how high that number can go.<br /><br />I know that we are all responsible adults who can, and do, make good decisions for ourselves---and this is why the "nanny state" comment by one respondent to the above article sort of made me a little sad. Let's be honest: as consumers, we need all the help we can get. If someone in our government offers to assist us in acquiring and maintaining good health, why not gracefully accept the offer? Doing so doesn't seem "nanny state" to me (and it's not as if the good mayor is saying, "Hey! There's this stuff we've developed---we're calling it Soylent Green! You're gonna eat it!").<br /><br />We're busy people. It's often easiest for us to purchase ready-to-serve items from the supermarket to help us save time in meal preparation, and these are the very items that are highest in sodium. Some of us would rather have the convenience than the health benefit, but we <span style="font-style: italic;">can</span> have both. Bloomberg's proposal makes this clear.<br /><br />Anyway, Hizzoner's idea got me thinking about the other "hidden" thing in foods: sugar. It's bloody EVERYWHERE. Because it is in everything we eat, and exists in great excess in prepared foods, our population is at great health risk for...you guessed it...diabetes. You can pick up just about any food in the supermarket, read the label, and find sugar in it. Here are some of its other names:<br /><br />Beet sugar <p>Brown sugar</p> <p>Cane sugar</p> <p>Concentrated grape juice</p> <p>Confectioner’s sugar</p> <p>Corn sweeteners </p> <p>Corn syrup</p> <p>Cane juice<br /></p> <p>Demerara sugar<br /></p> <p>Dextrin </p> <p>Dextrose</p> <p>Fructose</p> <p>Fruit juice concentrate</p> <p>Galactose</p> <p>Glucose </p> <p>High-fructose corn syrup</p> <p>Honey</p> <p>Invert sugar</p> <p>Lactose</p> <p>Malt</p> <p>Maltitol</p> <p>Maltodextrin</p> <p>Maltose</p> <p>Mannitol<br /></p> <p>Maple cream<br /></p> <p>Maple sugar<br /></p> <p>Maple syrup</p> <p>Molasses</p> <p>Powdered sugar</p> <p>Rapadura </p> <p>Raw sugar </p> <p>Sorbitol</p> <p>Sorghum</p> <p>Sucrose</p> <p>Table sugar</p> <p>Turbinado sugar</p> <p>White sugar</p> <p>Xylitol<br /></p> <p><br />Read labels, friends. Please. You don't need all this in your food! In any case, the less processed a food is, the better it is for you.<br /></p> <p>Another thing you can do to help minimize the amount of sugars you ingest is to eat foods that are lower on the glycemic index. For those of you who might not have heard this term, the glycemic index is a way to quantify the impact of carbohydrates on blood glucose levels. Certain foods that act as sugars (such as watermelon, grapes, potatoes, corn, white rice) are high-glycemic foods. Most other fruits and vegetables---as well as proteins, nuts, and whole grains---are low-glycemic foods. I love using barley as a substitute for rice; it is an excellent low-glycemic grain choice. Here is a link that's helped me learn more about the glycemic index:<br /></p> <p><a href="http://www.glycemicindex.com/">http://www.glycemicindex.com</a><br /></p> <p>I hope you find this helpful, too.<br /></p> <p><br /></p>Anastasiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16010243676609381335noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-363800615275431938.post-14845793056734211712009-01-19T19:11:00.000-08:002009-01-19T20:51:00.621-08:00PATIENCE IS A VIRTUE....BUT IT SURE TRIES MY PATIENCE TO BE PATIENT!Hiya, peeps!<br /><br />I'm sorry I've been gone so long. There have been a few earth-shattering events here at the Brown household---for one, my husband Matt is going to tour Italy as the auxiliary keyboardist for a band called Circa:, which features ex-Yes men Tony Kaye and Billy Sherwood, as well as drummer Jay Schellen and guitarist Jimmy Haun. Woohooo! It's all very exciting, and Matt's still in shock that he was asked to play. Here's a link for those who may be interested: <a href="http://www.circahq.com/">http://www.circahq.com/</a><br /><br /><br />In the matter of diabetes, the last two weeks or so have been....frustrating, to say the least. My blood glucose levels have been all over the place, although I have been eating well, walking, and taking my medications. I have not lost any weight for over a month. According to my doctor, I will probably not lose any weight until my A1C gets down from 10.2 to a healthier level, like 6.5 or less. In March, I will have my quarterly battery of tests, and I will see if I've improved. If I begin to drop more weight before then, that will be a good indication that I am successfully controlling my diabetes.<br /><br />But lately I've wanted to hurl my glucometer out the window because of those erratic blood glucose levels. My doctor believes that one of my meds must be fine-tuned, so I have spent the last half month trying to find the magic formula in the daily amount of glyburide I take. I am only allowed a certain daily amount of my other oral med, Metformin, which I divide into three daily doses of 1000, 500, and 1000 milligrams. But my doc has allowed me to tweak my glyburide dosage to customize it. He started me off with 2.5 milligrams taken twice a day, and I've been playing with it since then, gradually increasing the amount taken, and adding a third daily dose. The maximum daily dosage of glyburide is 20 milligrams a day, and I'm not even close to that number. Slow and steady wins the race, right? Sure---but, dammit, the "crashes" when my blood glucose goes below 70, combined with the 200-plus highs, are a recipe for misery. Between the downs and ups I feel like shit, I get cranky, I have screaming headaches, nausea, cold sweats, dizziness, weakness, body aches, excessive thirst, and I just want to say "Fuck it", throw the meds out, eat everything in sight....and kick my zafu and zabuton. Hard.<br /><br />And then I remember what I have learned via Buddhist training, about suffering and doing one thing at a time, here and now. So, I suffer. What is that? Well, suffering is part of chronic illness. Will I continually suffer or be in pain? I don't know. Is there a chance that I'll have some moments during which I'll stop suffering? Very likely, but I can't tell you when they'll be. How do I feel now, right this second? Not bad, actually. I'll go test my blood and see what my levels are.<br /><br />Okay! My levels are 128, two hours after dinner. Pretty good there, me!<br /><br />Now, if these levels rise two hours from now for no apparent reason, or if they plummet and I crash out, the only thing I can do is address the issue as it happens at that moment. All I can do is be diligent in maintaining my healthy lifestyle of eating well and walking, and couple that with the trial-and-error process of adjusting the glyburide...and accept that all this is an adjustment period that requires patience. If, in the next few weeks, I just can't achieve a normal rise and fall of blood sugar, I will call my doctor and we will try something else. It's small steps for me all the way. Freaking does no good, and can do me harm, as stress increases blood glucose levels. As a matter of fact, the upset I've felt over the last couple of weeks most likely sent that stack right through the roof.<br /><br />Time to sit.Anastasiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16010243676609381335noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-363800615275431938.post-12351591576136245202009-01-14T19:20:00.000-08:002009-01-14T19:36:16.438-08:00MANY THANKS TO DMITRY, THE MIRACLE WORKERHello, all! I'm back, and the 'puter is running beautifully once more. Dmitry really knows his stuff when it comes to techie things. Me, I'm a Luddite...or, when confronted with anything more complicated than "insert Tab A into Slot B", my tomboyishness flees and Betty Boop takes over. Therefore, I am very grateful for D's assistance, and to show my appreciation of his talents, I plan to buy him a small gift this weekend. Problem is, I just can't bring myself to purchase the one thing I know he <span style="font-style: italic;">really</span> loves: frogs' legs. Yow.<br /><br />It was a very difficult afternoon today---I had an appointment, but mass transit was problematic and it took me almost three hours to reach my doc's office. I'm wiped out as I type, so this entry will end here. I need sleeeeeeeeeeeep....Anastasiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16010243676609381335noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-363800615275431938.post-67107159002390932392009-01-07T19:15:00.001-08:002009-01-07T19:27:05.084-08:00UH, OH....Well, folks...my computer has some issues; in fact, it's funkier than Bootsy Collins and needs lots of work. I am bringing the machine to Dmitry The Mad Russian Genius (my co-worker and friend) who will lay his healing hands on it and make it all better. I'll have it back by Monday.<br /><br />Until then, I wish you all an enjoyable few days!Anastasiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16010243676609381335noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-363800615275431938.post-46846393147423549292009-01-06T18:42:00.000-08:002009-01-06T19:49:01.095-08:00THE DAWN PHENOMENONHi, youse folks! Hope your week is going well. <br /><br />As I started taking better care of myself and adjusting to the oral diabetes meds, I noticed something that seemed kind of odd. My fasting glucose levels (the measure of my blood sugars upon arising) appeared quite high---over 160---when they should have been much lower. I had no idea what was happening, so I went on the Interwebs and did a bit of research. Turns out that this is a common event for diabetics; it's called---you guessed it---the dawn phenomenon. What apparently happens as I sleep is that certain hormones come to visit my liver and make it shell out glucose so I can have some sort of energy to use for when I wake up. At the same time, these hormones hold my insulin hostage so it can't handle the excess glucose, and BAM!...up go the numbers.<br /><br />There are different treatment approaches for the dawn phenomenon, including adjustment of meds, exercise early in the day and not later, and the one that appealed to me the most: a small snack before bed. Basically, I'd been eating my last meal of the day in the early evening and not eating anything after that. My rationale was that if I was trying to lose weight, I shouldn't consume anything after 7 PM. In this case, however, something to eat before I turned in could possibly be more helpful than harmful. I decided to try it out.<br /><br />For the last five days or so, I have had one stick of lowfat string cheese right before sleep. And, wouldn't you know it---so far, so good. My morning readings have been in between 73 and 88. When I see my doc again in two weeks, I'll find out if I've solved the issue, or if he wants to tweak anything else in my treatment. I hope he'll just leave me with my cheese and call it a day. <br /><br />There's another kind of dawn phenomenon I've been experiencing lately, too: during these last few days, I've awakened feeling much better than I have in a very long time; in years, it seems. After the alarm clock buzzes (and after I have swatted the snooze button twice, as is my normal morning habit), I turn it off and simply feel...grateful. Thankful. I can take care of my health, and I'm fortunate to still <span style="font-weight: bold;">have</span> some health for which I am able to care. I have health insurance, unlike so many others. I have supportive people in my life who teach me something each day. Matt is patient and always helps me. Even our three Qats (with apologies to B. Kliban!) are my own personal cheering squad, so I salute these three little purr-factories named Naima, Brooklyn, and Lerxst. Thank you, loveys, for all your comfort and cuddling.<br /><br /><br /><br />Oh! Before I forget, my buddy Timmo thought it would be a good idea to tell you that I pronounce Tasia as "TAY-zhuh", not "TAH-zhah". I think this is because he called me "TAH-zhah" for a year before he figured it out (I just didn't have the heart to tell him, model of tact and politeness that I am). <span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><br /></span>Anastasiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16010243676609381335noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-363800615275431938.post-40819499667078022462009-01-04T13:32:00.000-08:002009-01-04T14:31:37.523-08:00BE NICE, BE KIND...AND BE HEALTHYMany thanks to Pam and Cheryl for your kind words! I am glad you visited---please come back again when you'd like to.<br /><br />I wanted to take a moment to explain a little more about the Intention-Setting Ceremony Matt and I attended at the Against The Stream Buddhist Meditation Society on New Year's Eve, and what it meant for me. Each of us who were there named our intentions for the coming year, and lit a candle. My intentions were to take care of my diabetes and health, to be more compassionate to others, and to not speak evilly of others---this last, of course, means to engage only in skillful speech. No gossiping allowed. And I'm a born and bred Brooklynite who is part Italian, for God's sake. Do any of you know how difficult it can be to keep one of us from jabbering on about someone else?<br /><br />But one thing I learned from gossiping is that it always ended up making me feel lousy. Now, when I say "gossiping", I don't mean speaking with care about a friend for whom you're concerned because they are sick, and the like---I mean catty, useless talking. And yet, even as I nattered on about this person or that, I felt awful. I knew it was wrong and unfair, even if the person about whom I was speaking wasn't a very nice or kind person. It hurt to do it, but I kept right on doing it because it was a kind of addiction in a sense.<br /><br />Gossiping also drags out a whole lot of other feelings, including anger. At least for me it did. I already have a lot of anger in me from a past which I haven't yet resolved, and gossiping just added to the load. I obsessed over other people's words and behavior, and it would bring me to a height of pissed-offness that made me grit my teeth so that my jaw hurt afterwards. And boy, could I justify it: "His politics are all wrong, so he's The Enemy!" On the heels of this justification, I kept renewing this behavior, solidifying it, by being absolutely confrontational with others. Okay, don't let me sugar-coat it: I was a Number-One Bitch.<br /><br />I've already told a few people that I am sorry for the way I have acted. They have accepted my apologies; in doing so, they have treated me better than I had treated them. They have taught me, and I'm grateful for the lesson.<br /><br />And---boy howdy!---besides the cultivation and nurturing of compassion, there are other benefits to ridding myself of the gossiping and unskillful speech habit: in stopping the blathering, I am less angry. When I'm less angry, I'm less stressed. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Less stress means lower blood glucose readings. </span>So, skillful speech to me also means a skillful life.<br /><br /><br />I'd like to include a link to a website at which I'm a moderator. It's called Eunoia, and it's a fun place to be. It also had its day regarding unskillful speech, but it appears that that's behind it now! Here's the link: <a href="http://afunplacetobe.myfreeforum.org/">http://afunplacetobe.myfreeforum.org/<br /></a><br />For anyone who may be interested in Noah Levine and the Against The Stream Buddhist Meditation Society, please visit this link: <a href="http://www.againstthestream.org/">http://</a><a href="http://www.againstthestream.org/">www.againstthestream.org/</a>Anastasiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16010243676609381335noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-363800615275431938.post-50168871814479409792009-01-03T18:53:00.000-08:002009-01-04T14:33:41.155-08:00GREETINGS!Hello, all! I'm new at this blogging thing, so please bear with me. I'm also relatively new at diabetes and at Buddhism, so do let me begin by saying I am hardly an authority on either subject; I'm still learning about them. I'll cut to the chase and give you the story; here's Part 1:<br /><br />I learned that I had Type II (adult onset) diabetes during a routine physical on April 3, 2007, two days after my 45th birthday. At that time, I was in the midst of a year's worth of disability for fibromyalgia and psoriatic arthritis, so the diabetes diagnosis was just another explanation for my feeling like hell. I remember that I was relieved that there was a reason for my excessive thirst and chronic candida, as well as the other charming symptoms of this disease, so I immediately made an appointment with an endocrinologist, took some tests, met with a nutritionist, got my free blood glucose meter in the mail (for those who don't know, the meter companies give 'em away because they charge up the wazoo for the test strips you need to purchase in order to check your blood glucose levels), and started to take care of myself. And then two months into it, I got rebellious and stopped giving a damn...until December 8, 2008, when my vision just crapped out on me at work and I couldn't see anything on my computer screen. Diabetes can wreck your vision, you see, and one of the symptoms of high glucose levels is blurred vision. The bell went off in my head.<br /><br />I left work, went home, dug out my old meter, bought some new test strips, and tested my blood sugar. Now, normal readings for me are 110 or less before meals, and 140 or less after meals. My reading was 300. Scared the hell out of me. Okay, I thought, I can't see much of anything right now. This is REAL. If I don't do something now, I'll be facing things like organ failure and some other fun things down the line.<br /><br />So, it was back to the doctor for tests, admonition, and some new medications (I don't take insulin; I take those old classics called Metformin and Glyburide). The tests revealed that my kidneys were not damaged despite the neglect, and I was so relieved to hear this that I almost cried. However, one test which gives a diabetic patient an average of their glucose level for two to three months--called the A1C--put me at 10.2; a healthy level for a diabetic is 6.5 or lower. Yikes. My triglycerides were off the scale, as were my LDL (the bad cholesterol) levels. My HDLs (good cholesterol) were too low. The only good things I had going for me were that my blood pressure was great from diligently taking my BP meds for years, and that I didn't smoke (I quit three years ago). Oh, did I mention that I am about 90 pounds overweight?<br /><br />Since I went back to the doctor, I have been caring for myself. I have my blood glucose under control. I am eating well and dropping weight. I take my meds faithfully. My vision is still blurry; it will take more time to improve, but even so, I feel better than I have in a very long time. In a few weeks, I will have more tests and see the results of my self-care, and I look forward to that.<br /><br />Okay, here's Part 2:<br /><br />I have considered myself a Buddhist for about three years, although I didn't really do much with it. I practiced zazen (shikantaza, or "just sitting" meditation) on my own, and then for the space of a few months I went to sit with Brad Warner, the punk-bassist Zen master, over at the Hill Street Center in Santa Monica. Brad is a scream, and I think much of the Buddhist community doesn't really understand him because his approach to Buddhism is not what most people, Buddhist or not, expect. Maybe they shouldn't expect anything. Anyway, as much as I enjoyed sitting with Brad, I didn't feel as if he was the teacher for me. This is no slam against Brad; he is a wonderful teacher for so many others, and just because he didn't work out for me doesn't mean he sucks.<br /><br />I continued my practice on my own until about a month ago, when my husband Matt and I decided to visit the Against the Stream Buddhist Meditation Society Center, located on Melrose in Los Angeles and established by by Noah Levine. The first time we went there to meditate, Noah was away, so we didn't have the opportunity to hear him speak or meditate with him until New Year's Eve, when the Center held a New Year's Intention-Setting ceremony and offered people the opportunity to <span class="postbody">receive the Five Buddhist Precepts and take the Three Refuges. Matt and I decided we wanted to deepen our commitment to Buddhism, so we attended.<br /><br />Here are the Five:<br /><br />1. I undertake the training rule to abstain from taking life.<br /><br />2. I undertake the training rule to abstain from taking what is not given.<br /><br />3. I undertake the training rule to abstain from sexual misconduct.<br /><br />4. I undertake the training rule to abstain from false speech.<br /><br />5. I undertake the training rule to abstain from drinks and drugs that cause heedlessness.<br /><br />It will be interesting to see how I---an all too human person!---interpret and follow these rules. What about euthanasia? Abortion? Stealing food if you are starving and broke? Killing in self-defense? White lies?<br /><br /></span><span class="postbody"> One thing about the ceremony that I really loved is that we took The Three Refuges in the original Pali language:<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />Buddham saranam gacchami</span> (to the Buddha [<span style="font-style: italic;">Buddha nature—the ideal or highest spiritual potential that exists within all beings</span>] for refuge I go)<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Dhammam saranam gacchami</span> (to the Dharma [<span style="font-style: italic;">teachings</span>] for refuge I go)<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />Sangham saranam gacchami</span> (to the Sangha [<span style="font-style: italic;">community</span>] for refuge I go)<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />Dutiyampi Buddham saranam gacchami</span> (For the second time ... [<span style="font-style: italic;">repeated for each of the three</span>])<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />Tatiyampi Buddham saranam gacchami</span> (For the third time ... [<span style="font-style: italic;">repeated for each of the three</span>])<br /><br /><br />At this time, Matt and I want to continue to attend meditations at Against the Stream, so that is what we will do.<br /><br />So...how do diabetes and Buddhism combine in my life? Diabetes is something that keeps me in the present moment, at each step of my self-care throughout each day. And in caring for myself every day, mindfulness is present as a big ol' smack upside the head. It hurts so good. LOL!<br /><br />Whew! That's all for now.<br /></span>Anastasiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16010243676609381335noreply@blogger.com3