Roths Hate Doctors

I’m not sure why, but my family has a history of avoiding doctors. When I was a boy, I remember that my mother hobbled around on a sprained (broken?) ankle for days (weeks?) before going to get it checked out. When I was a freshman in college, I broke a finger while playing touch football, but just dealt with the pain for days before I finally sought medical attention.

There are many other such examples in my family’s history. (Remember my knee injury?)

Well, after my recent head injury, I headed down this same path again. After getting conked on the head on Sunday, I didn’t go to the doctor. After experiencing dizziness and nausea on Monday, I didn’t go to the doctor. After being unable to sleep Tuesday night because of neck pain, I didn’t go to the doctor. I didn’t even go to the doctor yesterday, despite almost getting killed because I couldn’t turn my head far enough to see a car on a cross-street.

Yes, I was stupid.

Finally, today I went to the doctor. He scolded me for waiting so long. “This isn’t anything to mess around with,” he said. Then he looked me over. He checked me for dizziness (I had a little more of that today), and he checked my range of motion. In the end, he told me his diagnosis: “You have a muscle spasm,” he said. “One of your neck muscles is switched on and doesn’t want to let go. And it hurts.”

What does he want me to do about it? The same thing I’m doing already: Take naproxen (Alleve), do some neck exercises, and just take it easy. And next time, go to the doctor as soon as I get hurt — not wait four days.

A Conk on the Head

Seven years ago, I spent about two weeks living in utter agony from the pain of “frozen shoulder”, or adhesive capsulitis. The condition came on suddenly, and for more than ten days, it felt like somebody was digging a dagger into my left shoulder even when it moved a tiny bit. It was during this period that I felt the most intense pain that I’ve ever felt in my life. (Probably a consistent 6 or 7 on the pain scale.)

Well, tonight I’m experiencing pain that’s even worse.

Last week, Matt gave me his old elliptical trainer (which was very kind of him). On Sunday night at book group, I recruited some of the guys to help me haul it upstairs. Midway up the steps, a piece of the machine fell and conked me on the side of the head. Ouch!

I didn’t think much of it at the time. Yes, it hurt, and yes I got bump on my head almost immediately. But it didn’t seem like a big deal.

On Monday, though, I had some dizziness and some nausea and more than just some headaches. “Crap,” I thought. “Concussion.” I paid close attention throughout the day and evening, and fortunately the nausea didn’t become severe; I decided I didn’t need to see the doctor.

Today, the nausea and dizziness mostly subsided, only to be replaced by some soreness in the neck. (The headache was still there.) No big deal. I had editing to do on The Book, so I plowed through the work. Tonight the pains in my neck and head were severe enough that I bowed out of the bowling trip I’d planned to make with the guys.

I went to bed a little early.

I woke whimpering and crying about an hour later. SO MUCH PAIN! No matter how I turned my head (and I couldn’t do it without literally using my hand to lift my head by pulling my hair), it felt like somebody was trying to saw my neck off with a dull knife. “Kris,” I gasped. “Do we have any painkillers?”

We don’t. I’ve managed to make it downstairs to my new recliner. I’m sitting upright, which helps, but the pain is so intense I have no idea how I’m going to fall asleep. No idea. And it’s so difficult to concentrate that it’s taken 30 minutes to write this simple stream of consciousness piece. Please please please let the pain go away.

I guess I’ll watch Mary Tyler Moore reruns until I somehow manage to fall asleep…

The Orangutan and the Hound

Now that I plan to write more at Foldedspace in the future, one topic I’ll expore over and over is animal intelligence. As many of you know, I’ve long been fascinated by animals and their cognitive powers. Though I don’t think they have human intelligence, I think they’re much much smarter than most people give them credit for.

I actually kept a blog called Animal Intelligence for a number of years, but it wasn’t something I could maintain; it was just too much work. Over the next few months, I’ll gradually incorporate some of my favorite pieces from that old site here at jdroth.com. But I’ll also introduce new stuff, too, such as this video from National Geographic:

Surya the orangutan loves Roscoe the dog. These two spend a lot of time playing together. This is a great example of inter-species friendships, one of my favorite animal intelligence sub-topics.

(By the way, did I mention that one of my goals is to actually befriend a crow? I think it must be possible; I’ve just got to figure out how.)

Food Rules

Tonight I read Michael Pollan’s latest book, Food Rules which is a short list of 64 guidelines for eating right. These are based on the findings in his last book, In Defense of Food, the thesis of which was:

Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

Pollan’s food rules build on these three main points to create a sort of blueprint for right eating. “Think of these food policies as little algorithms designed to simplify your eating life,” he writes. “Adopt whichever ones stick and work best for you.” (This sounds remarkably like my personal motto: “Do what works for you.”)

After spending an hour reading Food Rules (I told you it was a short book!), I’ve decided to try incorporating the following policies in my own life. Some will be more difficult than others:

3. Avoid food products containing ingredients that no ordinary human would keep in the pantry.
4. Avoid food products that contain high-fructose corn syrup.
5. Avoid foods that have some form of sugar (or sweetener) listed in the top three ingredients.
11. Avoid foods you see advertised on television.
12. Shop the peripheries of the supermarket and stay out of the middle.
13. Eat only foods that will eventually rot.
17. Eat only foods that have been cooked by humans.
22. Eat mostly plants, especially leaves.
23. Treat meat as a flavoring or special occasion food.
27. Eat animals that have themselves eaten well.
30. Eat well-grown food from healthy soil.
35. Eat sweet foods as you find them in nature.
39. Eat all the junk food you want as long as you cook it yourself.
43. Have a glass of wine with dinner.
44. Pay more, eat less. (By which Pollan means pay for quality.)
45. Eat less.
46. Stop eating before you’re full.
49. Eat slowly.
53. Serve a proper portion and don’t go back for seconds.
56. Limit snacks to unprocessed plant foods.
59. Try not to eat alone.
60. Treat treats as treats.
64. Break the rules once in a while.

For me, 2010 is the year of fitness. While writing my book, I sat at my desk all day, ate junk food from the minimart next door, and as a result gained 20 pounds. (And I was none too healthy before that.) As a result, I started this year at 213 pounds, chronic insomnia, and a complete lack of physical aptitude.

I lost five pounds last month, and I have good momentum moving into February. My breakfasts are good right now (1/3 cup Bob’s Red Mill whole grain cereal with flaxseed, 1/2 ounce of raisins, pinch of salt, 2 packets of Sugar in the Raw, and 1/4 cup of skim milk), but I haven’t found a routine with everything else. I want to work on that. In particular, I want to move toward eating far more fruits and vegetables than I do now. (Which shouldn’t be too difficult since that number is near zero.)

This ought to be interesting. I’ve never actually had rules for my eating before. (Have you? Do people actually set food rules for themselves?) Maybe I should print out my policies and carry them with me!

Note: I remember reading the article(s) Pollan wrote while prepping for this book. One of the rules that didn’t get included here (because it’s not about eating) is “don’t yuck somebody else’s yum”. I’ve really tried to adopt this. I’m a notorious yucker of other people’s yums. But I’ve also had fun scolding others for making faces at the food I like…

Learning to Loaf

One of the things that sucks about being productive is that I no longer know how to relax. Once, not so long ago, I was the Master of Slack. If there was work to be avoided, I avoided it. I preferred to relax — and I was good at it.

Now, though, the opposite is true. Perhaps I don’t do as much around the house as Kris would like, but that’s usually because I’m doing work of some sort, whether it’s for a book, a blog, or some related project. In fact, for the past four months, all I’ve done is work. (And complain about working.)

But my schedule is no longer crammed with things to do. Sure, I have my chore cloud, but there’s nothing that needs to be done RIGHT NOW. Yet because I’ve become conditioned to be in this hyper-focused work state, I’m finding it impossible to relax: My body is tense, and my mind is alert. It’s difficult to fall asleep at night. I don’t have the patience to read a book.

Yesterday, I tried to spend a lazy Sunday. I remember fondly the lazy Sundays from my youth, lounging around the trailer house with the funny pages, playing outside with Jeff and Tony. I also remember having nice lazy Sundays when Kris and I first moved into our house in Canby. But I haven’t had one of those in a long time.

So, yesterday I loafed on the couch (or tried to), petted the cats, read a book (or tried to), and watched a movie with Kris. It was nice. Today I tried more of the same. I walked down to the gym and back — a 5-1/2 mile round-trip. I drove out to the box factory, and then stopped at my favorite pizza parlor on the way home. Eventually I made my way up here to the office where I had vowed to play a computer game. But I can’t make myself do it. It seems like such a waste.

Instead, I’m going to continue my attempts to get into a groove here on foldedspace. I realize that nobody’s really reading anymore, but I’m sticking with the promise I made last summer when I moved this blog to jdroth.com (it used to live here). I intend for this to become an active, vibrant place again, just like it was in the olden days (circa 2004-05). But in order for that to happen, I’m going to have to write nearly every day.

So consider this a bit of practice. That seems like a good use of my time: It’s neither fully productive, but it’s not loafing around, either. Plus, I enjoy it. And maybe if I do this often enough, I’ll find my voice again, and foldedspace will return to its glory days. I think that’d be fun…

Taking the Long Way

Now that I’m finished with the bulk of the work on Your Money: The Missing Manual, I finally have time to do stuff again, to live life. Last night I went bowling with the MNF group. This morning, for the first time since late September, I took a stroll through the neighborhood.

“Hey,” Kris said as I rolled out of bed. “On your way back from the gym, I need you to pick up three onions and a bag of ice.”

“Ugh,” I said. I hate going to the grocery store when I’m soaked in sweat. “I have a better idea. Why don’t I walk to the store.”

“Fine,” Kris said. “But then you have to get me a medium latté extra hot from the Oak Grove Coffee House.”

“Deal,” I said. I pulled on a stocking cap, warm gloves, and donned my backpack, then headed out the door. I decided to take the long way.

Right away I knew I’d made the right choice. It was one of those cool and misty grey mornings we Oregonians are so accustomed to. But it wasn’t too wet. I strolled toward Risley Park, listening to the birds and the squirrels and the train in the distance. I waved hello to the folks who passed by walking thier dogs. I smiled to see so many cats watching from windows, waiting for their people to let them outside.

I walked up the hill at Courtney Ave. At the intersection with McLoughlin, I had to wait for the light. As I did, I listened to the murmur from the old men gathered outside GG’s Deli, smoking their cigarettes and sipping their coffee.

As I crossed the street, I spotted another fellow walking 100 feet in front of me. He, too, was wearing a stocking cap, warm gloves, and a backpack. And he was cutting across the old G.I. Joe’s parking lot as if he were headed to the grocery store.

In fact, that’s exactly what he was doing. I followed him the rest of the way: past the hardware store, down the side street, and across the parking lot to Fred Meyer. “I wonder if he took the long way, too,” I thought. I’d just spent about an hour walking three miles to make a one-mile trip. But I was too chicken to catch up and chat with him.

“I need to write this down,” I thought as I entered the store. I cursed myself for failing to bring paper with me. It seems like every time I leave my notebook at home, there’s something I want to write. No problem. I headed over to the school supplies, grabbed a a notebook, and now I’m sitting at a table in the patio furniture section, writing a blog post.

But I really need to get on my way. Kris needs three onions and a bag of ice (not to mention her medium latté extra hot), and I think I may want to take the long way home.

A Beautiful Day

I turned in the manuscript for Your Money: The Missing Manual on Friday, January 15th (the one-year anniversary of Paul’s death), but that wasn’t the end of the work. No indeed. Right away, I dove into a marathon ten-day editing session. One by one, I’ve gone back over each chapter, polishing the prose and eradicating errors.

As part of this process, I called an emergency meeting of the Woodstock Writers Guild. Though our group hasn’t met for a couple of years, the fellas were kind enough to pitch in last Wednesday, each person critiquing three chapters.

Dave happened to draw the debt chapter, in which I have a section about the dangers of compulsive spending (something with which I am very familiar). “You want to be careful here,” he told me. “It’s almost like you’re giving psychological advice. Besides, do you really know that compulsive spending is a psychological disorder?”

This sort of threw a monkey wrench into the chapter, something I’d have to fix. I put the chapter on the backburner to deal with later.

Then, by a stroke of great fortune, on Saturday I received e-mail from Brad Klontz, a psychologist in Hawaii. He was pimping his new book, Mind Over Money: Overcoming the Money Disorders That Threaten Our Financial Health, which includes a section on compulsive spending. “Let me know if you are interested and I will send you a copy,” Klontz wrote.

“I’d love to see your book,” I wrote back. “But I need it today.” I told him instead that I’d head out to pick up a copy at Powell’s.

I didn’t get up to Powell’s on Saturday — I was too busy editing. In fact, I’ve basically lived in this damn office for the past month now. And for the past week, I’ve been working non-stop to finish my edits. (I have a hard deadline tonight at midnight, though I’m sure my editor would like to have all the chapters before that.) I’m down to my last two chapters now, including the chapter about debt, for which it’d be nice to have a copy of Klontz’s book.

So, late this morning, I managed to squeeze in a trip to Powell’s. I drove up, sunroof open to the blue sky, parked by the Bagdad theater and dashed across the street. Alas, Powell’s wasn’t open. They were closed for inventory until noon. No problem. Since it was only 11:51, I decided to grab a bite to eat.

The Hawthorne district is packed with funky restaurants, most of which I’ve never visited before. One such place caught my eye today: Nick’s Coney Islands. “A hot dog sounds great,” I thought, so I crossed the street to give it a try. The place was perfect: No nonsense, just coneys, burgers, and fries. I sat at the counter and ordered a coney dog and a diet coke. (I’m pretty much living on diet soda today; I need to stay awake to finish my book!)

While I ate, the waitress chatted with me. “It’s a beautiful day,” she said, pointing outside at the sunny streets.

“Yeah,” I said. “It’s gorgeous.”

“It makes me wish it was spring,” she said. “I’m from New York, so I’m used to winter weather, but days like this make me wish spring was here already.”

“Me too,” I said.

Taylor Swift’s “You Belong to Me” came on the radio. The waitress belted it out, paying no mind to me or the other customers. I tapped my foot to the beat.

“Have a great day,” the waitress said as I left. “You too,” I said. I left her a big tip.

I just missed the light at the crosswalk, so I had to wait. “Wanna sign my petition?” asked the kid on the corner. He looked like a beatnik or a Bolshevik. “It’s to stop off-shore drilling.”

I don’t normally sign petitions, but it was a beautiful day. Plus, I had to wait for the light, anyhow. I filled out the form. “Hey!” said the beatnik. “You live on Lee?!? Me too!” That seemed odd since Lee is a very short street. He told me which house he lived in, and I told him which one was mine.

“Thanks,” he said, as I crossed the street. “Have a great day.”

In Powell’s, I picked up a copy of Mind Over Money (along with the new edition of The 4-Hour Workweek and a book about budgeting, all last-minute research material). As I waited to cross back over to the other side, I realized that the man in the sunglasses standing next to me was actually my new friend, Chris Guillebeau.

“Chris!” I said. He looked at me for a minute, trying to figure out who I was. (To be fair, I’m very very scruffy today: Unshowered, unshaven, slovenly dressed — the usual.)

“Hey!” he said as his bus pulled up. “How’s it going, J.D.? What are you doing up here? I’ve gotta catch the bus, but I’ll see you Wednesday night, right?”

“Yup!” I said, smiling as he climbed on board.

Altogether, it was a slightly surreal hour, but fun too. It’s strange how all these connections tie together sometimes.

But now I need to get back to work. I have eleven hours to finish editing my book. I think I’ll do it, but just barely. And if I do, I’ll be able to say today was a beautiful day.