Life – Page 3

Much to My Astonishment

Thursday September 15, 2016Change, Life, Live and LearnLeave a comment

I never used to smile at people. If somebody initiated contact, or said hi, I would be polite back, but I was never the initiator, and if there was a smile it was a weak one. I went through life head down (sometimes literally, but mostly figuratively) focused on my destination, or my goal. Amazingly, I rarely got the ever so prevalent, ‘Smile,’ which a lot of women get. Instead, I was called a bitch, or referred to as bitchy. I think that’s because I had perfected my ‘Fuck off!’ vibe. I sent out the aura wherever I went that I was not interested in any sort of interaction, and people must have picked up on it, because I was left alone.

The odd thing is that I didn’t do this to avoid interacting with people. Sure, there were days that I was feeling anti-social, but for the most part I actually craved interaction. I yearned for someone to say hi. To show a modicum of interest in me as a person. To see through my façade and realize how truly lonely I was. But the risk of rejection was too great to face, so instead I made the choice to repel the very people I wanted in my life. I didn’t smile or say hello, because in my head they didn’t want to interact with me. I was an albatross and it was my job to stay away so as not to burden other people with my presence. With my hello. Or with my smile. It was my job to exist as unobtrusively as possible until I reached some place where I had actually been invited. Then, and only then, was I allowed to take up space, interact and smile.

I lived like this for years. I even bragged about the fact that I was able to navigate crowds of people without a single interaction. Then one day I realized how very sad that was. How many interactions and quick greetings did I miss out on? For all I know, I missed a chance encounter with my soul mate because I was so intent on ignoring every person around me. Who knows?

What finally broke me out of this wasn’t any sort of conscious decision on my part. It was because of my dogs. It is damned near impossible to ignore people when you’re outside multiple times a day with the most adorable and friendly dogs you’ve ever met. Seriously, when the puggles were puppies, people would cross the street to come say hi to them. The managers that worked in the office of my apartment complex would stop what they were doing to come say hi. One of the managers even pointed the puggles out as a perk of living there, while showing prospective tenants an apartment one day. Everybody knew the puggles, and the puggles loved each and every person they met. This happened pretty much everywhere I lived.

Wouldn’t you cross the street for these puppies? I would!

Eventually, the people that I would see over and over again, introduced themselves to me and I became Kat instead of simply the puggles’ mama. I began to smile, say hi and exchange small talk. I definitely wound up in a conversation or two that I couldn’t wait to get out of, but for the most part it was pleasant. It was nice to be recognized and to some degree welcomed. I’ve taken that to a whole new level where I’m living now, as I now consider several of my neighbors friends, and on days that my neighbor’s four-year-old doesn’t feed the puggles dinner, I generally forget until just right before bedtime.

Despite this, it occurred to me a couple of years ago, that while I was very friendly when out with my dogs, I reverted back to my aloofness when by myself. Especially at work. Every day for two years I had walked down to the mail room to get the incoming mail at one and then back down to drop the outgoing mail off at five. I saw the exact same group of people almost every day, yet I didn’t know any of their names and had never said hi. So one day, I decided to do an experiment. I swallowed my awkwardness and started to say hi to these people. Much to my amazement, no one was awkward. No one cared that it had taken me two years to warm up and say hello. They all just said hi back, and now on days where I’m not super busy, I’ll even stick around and shoot the shit with some of the guys. It’s nice. And even more amazing to me, is that I have largely become that person who says hi and smiles at just about anybody. Even the ones giving the ‘Fuck off!’ vibe, because you never know.

Not if I Have Anything to Say About it!

Thursday September 08, 2016Life, Live and LearnView all 2 comments

“There’s nothing we can do.”

At the age of 21 those were the words said to me by my orthopedist. I had been diagnosed with scoliosis at the age of 15,and it had developed into a triple curve starting in my neck and finishing at the bottom of the shoulder blades. Five vertebrae had naturally fused together. It was slight enough, that no medical intervention was warranted, yet severe enough that I was in pain every day of my life and experienced muscle spasms at least once a week. When it was really bad my right shoulder would sit 2-3 inches lower than my left shoulder. That combined with several traumatic back injuries, left me in pretty bad shape. Living like that, for the rest of my life was not an option for 21 year old Kat. So when he said that, I was furious.

The fact that he said it in such a supercilious, “what did you expect?” Tone made it worse. I wanted to grab him by the lapels and tell him that that was unacceptable, and he better come up with something to do to help me! Thankfully, I refrained from doing that, because all he had to offer was sending me back to the physical therapist- been there, done that 5+ times – or a radical surgery installing rods in my back to force my spine to be straight. At the time, that seemed like a good option. Now I thank my lucky stars, that we didn’t go that route.

Instead of physically assaulting my doctor, I showed my frustration by storming out of the office. Then I did my own research, and landed on Pilates. I read accounts of people using Pilates to lesson their back pain, and I latched onto the idea like a life saver. I found a studio that was willing to take insurance where I could take private lessons, got the aforementioned orthopedist to write me a prescription and dove in head first. My trainer specialized in rehabilitation and she was amazing. It took a year of painstaking practice and patience, but eventually we got the five vertebrae in my back to un-fuse. It then took another seven-ish months before I could articulate between each one independently.

Over the next three years, I worked my way up from Practicing three hours a week to over twenty hours a week while training to be a Pilates instructor. For the first time in over 10 years, I would have pain-free days. From a skeletal viewpoint, I was doing great. The muscles in my back, however we’re still pretty pissed off and it became obvious that I couldn’t sustain the schedule that I was doing. That combined with the conflicting hours of a new job meant that I had to drop out of school before I got my full Pilates certification.

Fast forward a couple of years, and I was still doing pretty well skeletal wise, but the muscles were worse. It was also around this time that I found myself working as a manager for a MAssage Envy, and I happened to be the only manager that liked deep tissue massages. Therefore, whenever we had a therapist who was applying to be a deep tissue therapist, I took the interview . . . The interview consisting of an hour long deep tissue massage. For a couple of months when we were short-staffed I was getting upwards of two massages a week. Awesome! It was also there that I met an exceptionally gifted massage therapist, who I still go to now. Because of all of that, the muscles in my back finally calmed down enough that muscle spasms became a once-in-a-great-while occurrence, instead of a weekly occurrence. Whoo-hoo! My sciatica Problems also went away. Double Whoo-hoo!

Now this is not to say, that my back is now totally better, but I do get pain-free days and even weeks sometimes. It’s only when I skip the daily maintenance of stretching, Pilates, yoga and skip my monthly massage. I still have to do all of that to maintain, and when I slack off I usually wind up at the chiropractor,which happened last week. But here’s the thing, I wound up seeing a new chiropractor (because he had an evening appointment available) and he did a full examine to start out, including a scoliosis check. To which he reported, that there were no signs of scoliosis left in my back. The triple curve is now totally gone. SCORE! My back still hurts, and it’s something that I will deal with for the rest of my life, but my biggest obstacle is now gone, and I figured that was worth celebrating!

Also, take that Mr. Orthopedist nay-sayer man!

Onwards and Upwards

Thursday August 25, 2016History, Inspiration, Life, WritingLeave a comment

Three and a half years ago I started on a journey that has led me to a place I never could have imagined. After pitching my idea to a magazine and being accepted, I wrote my first Heroine of History article. It was a short biographical piece about Mary Elizabeth Bowser, who was arguably the best placed Union spy during the American Civil War. This was my first attempt at biography, and I loved it. It wasn’t easy, but I loved unearthing her story and telling it.

That is largely how I’ve felt about all of the women that I’ve written about. Those biographies are the hardest things that I write. The research alone is daunting. The Internet is amazing in that there are literally millions of resources right at your fingertips. But anybody can post things on the Internet, so who’s to say what is fact and what is fiction. That’s not to say that books are 100% reliable either. I have read many an erroneous account in a book. I would guess that close to two-thirds of all of my research time is spent corroborating or dispelling facts.

I’m researching Shirley Chisholm right now. Two sources say that she was born on November 20, 1924, three sources say that she was born on November 30, 1924, five sources say November 1924, and a handful of sources don’t mention her birthday at all. Now multiply that by almost every relevant fact about the woman. Half the time I feel like I’m taking a poll: “Was Shirley Chisholm the oldest of four children or the oldest of eight children?”

I spend hours weeding through similar yet varied information, and then picking and choosing which “facts” seem to be the most factual. Then comes the daunting task of telling their story in a way that honors their life. I obviously pick these women because I find them inspirational, so I therefore want to do them justice.

And none of this takes into account the content of the stories. Yes, these are amazing, take-charge, get-things-done, and overcome-the-odds, inspirational women. However, in order to overcome something bad must happen first. So these stories are also full of loss, poverty, abuse, racism, sexism, disappointment and the destruction of dreams. It is heavy stuff.

Yet, they are also the most fulfilling. The more I research and the more I delve into these stories, the more I come to realize that these women have something in common. Regardless of race, social status, background, era, etc., all of these women place their focus on something external. Their communities, the disenfranchised, the downtrodden, those who have trouble speaking for themselves. These women served. They lifted up those around them, and in doing so, lifted themselves up too.

One of the most magical things about helping others, is that it is almost impossible to do so without also helping yourself. I can’t think of a single time that I willing offered and gave my help that I didn’t feel better about myself afterwards. Despite the hours of work and the emotional drain that each of these biographies takes, I feel better after having written them. I feel better after telling their story, after doing my part to ensure that their deeds won’t slip into the darkest corners of history to wilt away forgotten.

I also feel better knowing that I have done my part to pass their inspiration on. Every person needs a hero to look up to, and it’s even better if you can relate to that hero. I had one growing up, and it’s her story that started me down this road in the first place, and so it is in her honor and the honor of every other heroine that has lent me their strength that I’ve decided that it is high time to expand beyond the Heroines of History. What started as a simple magazine article, has grown into so much more. The ball is rolling on two new steps – okay, being nudged down the road is a bit more accurate than rolling – but I am excited for these two new ventures: Through Her Eyes and the Heart of a Heroine Alliance. Onwards and upwards, here we go!

I Just Can’t

Tuesday June 14, 2016Life, Loss, LoveLeave a comment

I am the suite safety warden for my company, which means that in the event of an emergency I am in charge. It also means that every year I have to attend the annual safety meeting. In three years, that meeting has gone from the main focus being earthquake preparedness – we are in LA after all – to workplace shooter preparedness. Everything from what should be in place at a company level to help prevent an incident all the way to what to do during an incident. There is a video – Run>Hide>Fight – the three steps to try to save your life should there be an active shooter. There’s a goddamn video. And please note, that what the video doesn’t emphasize enough, is that while you’re running out of the building away from the shooter, make sure that your hands are in the air, so the cops have no reason to mistake you for the gunman. And put your cell phone in your pocket just in case. Holding something shiny in your hand is probably not the best idea. This meeting was planned well before the Orlando shooting, but its timing was poignant nonetheless.

Last week was all about rape and abuse – Brock Turner and Profiles Theater – and it looks as if this week is going to be all about shootings, and I just can’t. I have reached the point where I can’t take another headline, video clip, Facebook rant or snide comment about hatred or violence or abuse toward a people or person simply because they are different. I cannot take another comment blaming the victim’s behavior, or second guessing the victim’s motive, or spreading advice on how not to be a victim. Not one more, ‘Well, if they weren’t living in sin . . .’ I can’t. I just can’t. The victim’s part in a crime starts when the perpetrator forces their presence on the victim. Not a second before. I don’t care what they do in their everyday lives. I don’t care who they love, how they dress, or how they comport themselves. They have no culpability in the crime itself. How do I know this? Look at the fucking definition of the word. According to Merriam Webster Dictionary:

Victim

1: a living being sacrificed to a deity or in the performance of a religious rite

2: one that is acted on and usually adversely affected by a force or agent

a (1) : one that is injured, destroyed, or sacrificed under any of various conditions

a (2) : one that is subjected to oppression, hardship, or mistreatment

b : one that is tricked or duped

One that is acted on. Their only active role is to try to stop the attack if they can. Beyond that, a victim has no action. Why do you think one of the most common feelings of victims is a feeling of helplessness? Because they had NO PART in the crime committed against them. If they had no part in the crime, they can hold no part in the blame. Until our society can truly grasp and understand that, until our society at the leadership level can stop the moral damning and undermining of certain groups of people, you can give every woman in the US a rape whistle and a can of mace and there will still be rape. You can give everyone in the US a gun to carry and there will still be shootings.

Until it is clear – across the board from political leaders to religious leaders – that all human life is sacred and worthy regardless of gender, race or sexual orientation; until it is clear that the victimizing of a group of people simply because of their differences is not condoned, this will never stop. As long as victims are blamed for the crimes acted upon them, this will never stop. As long as people of influence preach fear and hatred towards those that don’t fall in line with their own doctrines, this will never stop. Until it is known, carte blanche, that acts of hatred and dominance toward others will NOT be tolerated for even a second, this will never stop.

This will never stop. I don’t know how we will fix that sentence, and I don’t know how to live happily in a world where that sentence cannot be fixed.

Where Heroes Go to Die

Thursday May 26, 2016Life, Live and Learn, LossView all 2 comments

It was recently brought to my attention that someone whom I had considered to be my hero when I was growing up, was actually one of, if not the main contributor to the dysfunction of my childhood. Years ago I came to accept that this person fell far short of the label hero. However, in my mind they were most definitely ‘Team Kat.’ This person had my back, they were on my side and every other cliché you can think up. This person’s role in my life had been down-graded, but was most definitely still looked upon with esteem.

Then the PTSD hit, and with it came large amounts of therapy. If I’d been able to afford it, I would have seen my therapist twice a week, but as it was, it was a financial strain to see her once a week. So that had to suffice. This is not the first therapist I have seen. That list is quite long, and from experience I can say that there is nothing better than a good therapist. There is also very little, short of the abuse that sent you to the therapist in the first place, that is worse than a bad therapist. Now when I say good and bad, I mean in relation to how you work with that particular therapist. You can go to an award-winning therapist (does that even exist?), but if you don’t understand each other or you don’t jive with the way that they work, then they are bad for you. Of course, there are also therapists who are just plain bad at their job. I had one that half way through a session I started giving him advice. Yeah, I stopped seeing that guy.

At any rate, through this therapy, I began to discover that I had told myself copious amounts of lies while growing up. Lies to soften the edges of the truth, or to outright hide the truth and allow my young mind to survive intact. Those lies eventually shattered, bombarding me with the truths that I had been hiding for twenty years. Hence the PTSD. As I have sifted through the wreckage, sorting the fabricated from the real, I have discovered that the truth is where heroes go to die. All people have a dark side. They all make mistakes and they all do things unworthy of hero-status. The question becomes, how much of that are you willing to overlook? At what point do you learn too much for your hero to remain a good guy?

In my case, it turns out that the hero status was granted simply because a hero was needed. Therefore, all actions that would preclude that title were ignored and covered up. It was what I needed at the time, so I overlooked the foibles of the person in front of me and imagined the person I needed. When I no longer needed the hero, enough of the façade melted away to reveal a normal person. Almost a Superman, Clark Kent scenario. As a child I had only seen Superman, in my twenties I only saw Clark Kent. So what do I do now that the harsh light of truth has revealed this person to be Lex Luther* all along? Do I allow the truth to act as kryptonite and destroy my hero for good, or do I ignore the truth, allowing the childhood fantasy to persist? Even if only to preserve the memory of having one person on my side. A gentle lie to hide the harsh truth. I can’t decide.

*Okay, that’s unfair. I doubt there were any deliberate plots or machinations going on, but for the sake of my metaphor I’m gonna run with it.

This is Why I Can’t Have Nice Things

Thursday April 28, 2016LifeLeave a comment

I have lived in my current apartment for almost 4 years now, and whenever I am gone, my two dogs get blocked into the kitchen. Before this year, you could count on one hand the number of times that they escaped and ran amok in the rest of the apartment. This year, however, is a totally different story. I’m pretty sure there have been weeks where they escaped on more days than they stayed put. Especially my girl, Zoey. I have no idea what has changed and try as I might to improve the blockade, the damn dog keeps getting out.

I have gone through over 10 gate/blockage variations this year and she has managed to slip every single one of them. Currently I have an $80 gate, made out of steel, attached to the door jamb with two inch screws that requires both hands and my foot pushing up to get it open. I HAVE TROUBLE OPENING THIS DAMN THING! When home, I also have to prop it open as it swings shut on its own. It doesn’t latch, but it does rest in the closed position. Therefore, whenever one of the dogs pushes it open to get a drink of water they become stuck in the kitchen until I come and swing the gate open to let them out. Despite this, Zoey has now gotten out twice. No, she hasn’t jumped over it, somehow that damn dog has figured out how to unlatch and open it. HOW?!?!?!? She is apparently incapable of pawing it open while I am home and it is unlatched. However, should I properly secure it and leave … no problemo! She’s out and digging through my laundry hamper in ten seconds flat.

I even tried securing the gate closed with a strap. On the outside, ie the side of the gate that she is not on. She chewed through it. She somehow managed to reach through the bars of the gate to chew the strap in two. And this isn’t the first casualty! Over the course of this year she has chewed up a basket, a box, a bookshelf, a folding card table, and two wooden gates in her quest to escape the kitchen. The other day I noticed that she is now missing a front tooth. Gee, I wonder how that happened?

The only plus side to this new gate set-up, is that when she gets out her brother is able to get out too. Previous gate incarnations resulted in her escaping, but due to her brother’s much larger girth, he was stuck in the kitchen, where he proceeded to howl and cry until somebody came to his rescue. At least this way they’re both out . . . and running amok . . . how is this the positive side? At any rate, the strap that she chewed through has now been replaced with steel wire. Get through that you little brat! In the event that she does get through that, there can only be one logical conclusion: my dog has been possessed by the restless spirit of Houdini. In which case, I’m screwed.

My Brain is Against Me

Tuesday April 05, 2016Life, WritingLeave a comment

Sometimes I really think my brain is working against me. I will look at the projects laid out in front of me along with all of the other responsibilities I have and decide that I can’t take on anything more. There’s no way. Short of giving up sleep completely and starting to boil down coffee to inject directly into my veins like crack, it’s not an option. Then someone will mention something, like a show they’re producing of individual pieces that they think I would be great for and would I have any interest in getting involved.

Of course, my immediate reaction is, NO! Can’t do it, no way, no how, there are not enough hours in the day! I’d like to think that I’m a bit more politic when I respond out loud, but knowing me . . . probably not. Regardless, I say that I am flattered, but can’t participate at this time. All is well and good and I pay myself on the back for having the fortitude to say no when my plate is already full. Go me!

Or so I think. I can go a day or two, sometimes even a week without giving this opportunity another thought. But little do I know, that my subconscious is chugging away chewing over this offer and coming up with my own piece. This chugging goes along completely unnoticed until one night it pops up to the surface and the next thing I know it’s two in the morning and I have over five pages of material. Clearly my mouth said no, but my brain said yes.

I now have a close to finished piece that would be perfect for my friend Michelle’s show Breaker/Broken, and I have to decide if I go with my initial gut response that I don’t have time for this, shelf the piece and move on with my other projects. Orrrrr, because it’s already mostly done, do I simply put in a few hours work to polish it off and do the show? Obviously I’m going to wind up choosing the latter, because it drives me nuts having something that is almost done lying around. And if I finish it, it would be silly not to do the show, so I might as well throw that onto my plate as well.

Thanks brain! You have officially lost your right to complain about being tired.

My Theater Degree is Too Useful!

Thursday March 24, 2016Life, TheaterLeave a comment

For anyone who has an arts degree, especially in theater, you will get asked to explain what they are good for if you are no longer participating in that particular art form. I find that these questions generally come from people with MBA’s or MD’s or any of those other highly applicable acronyms. Chances are they chose that path for the practicability of finding a good paying job later in life. (For their sake, I hope that also enjoy it.) Because of this intense practicality, it is hard for some of them to wrap their heads around how a theater degree is even remotely useful. I know this, because I just spent half an hour trying to explain this to an accountant. She still doesn’t get it, but then again I don’t get why anyone would want to be an accountant, so fair play. At any rate, this list is for her. Five reasons my theater degree is useful, even though I am no longer doing theater.

In acting classes you spend a lot of time discussing what tactics you can use for your scene, and switching up your tactics to see how it changes the scene, etc. Go figure, that shit is useful in real life. Without even consciously realizing that I’m doing it, when I’m faced with something that isn’t working I immediately start to think of different tactics to approach the issue. It’s not a problem, it’s a puzzle. Thank you Acting 101.
Safety pins are god’s gift to clothing snafus. Seriously, I can temporarily fix almost anything that goes wrong with your clothing as long as I have safety pins. Gaff tape and a stapler help too, but the safety pins are key. Then when we get home, I can fix it for real. Tell me that that isn’t a handy skill. Get it? Handy . . . like hands . . . cause you use your hands to sew . . . never mind . . .
Let’s talk about creative problem solving for a minute. When working in low-budget theater (for the record, about 95% of all theater is low-budget theater) we have to figure out how to create an entire world using nothing but what is lying around, supplemented by a budget that is often less than what some companies will spend on lunch. So yeah, I can figure out how to keep that hall door from slamming and interrupting the investor meeting within the next five minutes. It may not be pretty, but it will work. There’s a reason that my roommate calls me MacGyver.
Time management, not a problem! When you’re taking a full load of classes, working part time and rehearsing a show you figure that out and quick! Otherwise you don’t get to do things like eat or sleep. Or you eat and sleep, but fail all of your classes. As neither of those are good options, you learn to manage your time. Notice how I didn’t mention missing rehearsal as an option? That’s because you get mad prioritizing skills too! Some things have leeway, while others do not. Being able to recognize the difference is key.
I can receive constructive criticism without breaking down, because I received it on almost a daily basis while getting my degree. Trust me, if I can take a professor telling me that I was the “scariest Juliet” she’d ever seen, I think I’ll survive being told that I did a spreadsheet wrong.

Sophistry

Tuesday March 22, 2016Humor, LifeLeave a comment

Anybody that has food allergies or sensitivities is familiar with the trade-off game. The trade-off game happens whenever you see a food that you’re not supposed to eat, but it looks AMAZING. You then have to determine if the pleasure of eating that right now is a good enough trade off to warrant the after-effects of eating the food. Now there are some foods that under no circumstances could it possibly be worth it. I don’t care how good it looks, or how many yummy sounds the people around me are making, I will never knowingly eat gluten. It is NEVER worth it. Now dairy on the other hand . . . there are times that it is totally worth it. Or so Present Kat believes. This is generally how the conversation in my head goes:

PRESENT KAT: Oooooo! Let’s get gluten-free pizza for dinner!

FUTURE KAT: That’ll just make you feel sick tomorrow.

PRESENT KAT: No it won’t. I’ll take a Lactaid and be fine!

FUTURE KAT: That might help with the lactose, but you also can’t have the casein in the cheese either.

PRESENT KAT: Gotcha covered! I’ll take a casein supplement. All will be well.

FUTURE KAT: Even with both of those you’re still going to feel sick tomorrow.

PRESENT KAT: Nah, they’ll totally work. It’ll be fine. You’ll see!

FUTURE KAT: Have you learned nothing? You’re never fine, and you have a big day tomorrow.

PRESENT KAT: But I have a coupon!

FUTURE KAT: So?

PRESENT KAT: It’s for 20% off, but it’s only good for today. So really, it would be fiscally irresponsible not to get pizza.

FUTURE KAT: I’m fairly certain you are now arguing using nothing but sophistry.

PRESENT KAT: Whatever, It’s totally worth it. I’m getting pizza! It’ll be fine.

FUTURE KAT: I’m not so sure.

The next morning.

PRESENT KAT: Oh my god, I feel like crap. That was such a bad idea. Past Kat is an asshole.

FUTURE KAT: Told ya so.

The 10 Stages of Sick

Tuesday February 23, 2016Humor, Life, Top TenLeave a comment

Over the years, I have discovered that I have 10 stages of being sick. No matter what I do, no matter how much I try to break the cycle, when the whole thing is said and done, I’ve gone through these 10 stages.

1 – Hint – I get an inkling that something might be coming on. Maybe I have a tickle in my throat, or I’m achy. Something clues me in that something is amuck.

2 – Blatant Refusal – I declare to my body that it is not allowed to get sick! I have XYZ to get done, and So-and-So coming into town to visit. I am far too important and busy to get sick.

3 – Clarity – I realize that I may be too busy to get sick, but I’m definitely not too important. (Not that I think that matters.) So I shove every herbal preventative remedy I can get my hands on into my mouth. Vitamin C, Echinacea, zinc, chicken soup, you name it, I take it!

4 – Triumph – Take that you stupid cold, my symptoms have abated and I have won! I am superior to your puny germy cells. Who’s your daddy?

5 – Hubris – Once the universe finishes laughing, it bitch slaps me off my feet and I become a sniffling, wheezing, coughing, disease-ridden mass of fever.

6 – Disgruntled Acceptance of Defeat – I begrudgingly accept defeat and drag myself into a doctor to discover that I have something fun like bronchitis, sinus and ear infections, or mono. Good times.

7 – Slow March – I retreat to my couch to snuggle with my dogs, consume large amounts of drugs and juice and binge watch Netflix while the conga-line of germs in my body slowly dies away.

8 – Health – Yes! I’m feeling better! Back to normal life and doing normal things and feeling normal!

9 – Psych! – Nope. Just kidding. That was a fluke. Back to the couch.

10 – Actual Health – Am I really feeling better? Really? I’ll dip my toe in to test the waters . . . after this next episode . . . yeah, one more episode and I’ll be better . . .

I’m on #7 at the moment. Anyone up for an episode of Blue Bloods?