Hiromi_X

Yesterday, the temperature went up to 101 degrees with a humidity of around 20%. In the shade, it didn't feel too bad because of the wind. Although I tried to avoid it, I got stuck in rush hour traffic in the afternoon. The heat, amplified by the asphalt and the heat generated by the cars around me, was immense. I was in full gear, too. While I can't imagine riding around in intense sun without being fully covered, heavy leather boots, a nylon jacket, and a full-face helmet doesn't quite have the heat protection dynamics of, say, Bedouin clothes. I was absolutely baking, but because of the low humidity and wind, I arrived at home without having sweated much.

I had been drinking water all day, and felt okay when I got home, so I didn't hydrate. I ate dinner and went about business as usual, but around 9:00, a weird torpor set in. And then after 10:00, my head started pounding and the pain intensified over the next several hours. I figured I was dehydrated and kept drinking water until my urine ran clear, but the pounding in my head kept waking me up during the night. Right now, it's almost 3:00 pm the next day, and the pain *still* hasn't fully gone away. I still get occasional stabs of dizzying pain in my head.

I remain committed to living a car-free life. But I'm still used to the complete freedom of owning a car, and haven't yet learned to fully compensate for the consequences of not having one. So, I have learned that:

1) I need to carry a water bottle with me, like bicyclists do.
2) Since I don't have to commute to work during the rest of my stay in Texas, I should avoid riding during rush hour if at all possible.
3) I need to think of different ways to dress that combine safety and heat protection.

I'm also surprised at my inability to bounce back quickly. I mean, I drank water last night, but the headache and weakness remained. Of course, I realize that people get weaker as they get older; I just didn't expect it to happen so soon. I'm still in my thirties for chrissake! The other night, I got really tired swimming laps, whereas in previous summers, I adapted to the exercise very quickly. Being ill right now, I'm going to indulge in some self-pity. I am struggling to learn to age gracefully in terms of my appearance, but this other stuff really sucks.

Posted by Hiromi at 3:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

I wanna be a carefree motherfucker, but life keeps kicking me in the ass.

For fucked up reasons I won't go into here, I can no longer get health insurance through my employer. I've never not been without health insurance. The thought of not having any is damn scary to me, so I've been shopping around for individual insurance. As a result, I've been spending more time than I'd like filled with teeth-grinding fury and righteous bile.

Cheap insurance is cheap for a reason. It sucks. For someone with a number of "pre-existing conditions," most of these aren't an option. I take damn good care of my health. I've exercised regularly since I was a kid. My diet's pretty damn good; I even eat quinoa for chrissake. But I do go to the doc fairly frequently for shit I can't help, and I'm on a number of meds, so a policy with a $5000 annual deductible -- the ones that I can afford have ridiculous deductibles -- isn't going to cut it.

Jesus.

To me, health care is a fucken right, just like education is a fucken right. I'm well above the official poverty line, but here I am, falling in the gap between the have's and have-not's.

I can't exactly quit my current job and look for another job that has insurance. For one thing, when you have specific skills, you can't just happily transfer here and there. But it seems that in this country, your worth is measured by your potential income. If you can't afford insurance, well, I guess you can just get sick and die. Or else go into bankruptcy if you refuse to die and instead run up huge medical bills.

Oh, I'm sorry, I'm committing the deadly sin of "whining." In my bleeding heart liberal mind fog, I forgot that I'm the captain of my fate, the puller-up of my bootstraps. It's on all of us, alone, individually. Each and every one of our miseries is a direct result of personal failure. We're not meant to look out for and care for each other. To each his own. Only the strongest survive. Anything other than that is godless communism.

I guess all us sad sacks just need to find a better job. If we don't have the capacity to acquire marketable skills, or if the skills we have don't command a high wage, well, then, too damn bad I guess. We'll get winnowed out. Survival of the fittest and all. After all, the market determines who is fit, and the dictates of the market are no less than holy writ. So maybe we can get second or third jobs. Sad sacks like us don't deserve some quality of life. We're cogs, we're grinds, we're fucken worker bees, who gives a fuck about us.

Posted by Hiromi at 11:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (11)

"DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM???"

You know those ridiculous movie scenes of some privileged person expressing their outrage at their mistreatment with the above statement? I felt like that this morning. I wanted to bellow that phrase at the incompetent morons at this franchise dental clinic. That is not a place I'd normally go. Franchising is a concept which just doesn't sit right when applied to health care in my opinion. Discount healthcare seems a bad idea, but I couldn't get an appointment with my usual dentist until October, and this was just x-rays and other routine shit, so I scheduled an appointment yesterday for today. I was off today for other reasons, so I thought, why not.

There's something dismal about that place. My usual dentist works out of a converted house in central Austin. He kept the porch intact as well as other cool features of the original house, including the original wood. The lobby was the living room with nice plushy furniture. The staff are friendly and smart.

The office I went to is located in a charmless strip mall off IH35. The proletariat workers ignored me when I came in. I stood at the counter for a full minute before anyone addressed me. The lumpen patients sat in hard plastic chairs in a dingy lobby with stains on the dreary grey carpet. There were no separate rooms for each patient; instead, they were lined up in chairs like a beauty parlor. The tile was showing cracks. They kept me waiting for an hour. After I said I had waited long enough and told them I was leaving, they rushed me through a half-hearted exam that left me feeling like a dog or cat getting its teeth checked by a vet. The hygienist didn't speak to me. She roughly poked around my mouth and jabbed my gums. She stabbed my lip at one point.

I walked right out after that. I shoulda run out long before, but this was my only day off. Anyway, I know my insurance covers exams with no copay, so I just left. They later left a message on my cell phone that I needed to call back for my "treatment plan". HA! After the way I was treated, do they think I'm stupid enough to let them dig deeper into my mouth? Actually tamper with my teeth? I later googled them and uncovered all kinds of negative customer reviews. No wonder they could schedule last minute appointments.

This is another way I'm a member of a privileged class. Although I don't have shitloads of disposable income, I'm used to living and being treated a certain way. I know that I don't need to be treated that way, and I will not put up with it. I also have the resources (good health insurance, and more importantly, knowledge) to find alternatives. But many people don't. And that depresses me more than the crappy exam I got.

Posted by Hiromi at 5:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (12)

I'm typing this with one hand. I've got horrible computer overuse problems in my left shoulder, neck, and arm. I used to have it in both arms, plus numb forearms, but yoga took care of a lot of that. Yesterday it was so bad that I had trouble falling asleep despite taking meds. I fucking took action and I have a physical therapy appointment tomorrow.

In the meantime, my regular doc gave me muscle relaxants. I've been seeing him for some time now, and he knows about my alcoholism/addiction. After I described my symptoms, he suggested muscle relaxants, and I reminded him of my addiction issues, so it's all good. He gave me samples of a particularly good (non-addicting) one that does not have a generic equivalent.

So I took one, and no, it does not get me high. Unfortunately. Heh. But in any case, my addict brain screamed, "Take some more! Take some more!" Then it whispered, "No one will know if you take more than one. Really, who's going to know?" The compulsion is really strong, but don't no one worry about it -- I'm not going to take more than my doctor said. It just scares me that my brain works that way, and that this is going to be an issue for the rest of my life. Maybe the compulsion will grow weaker with time, but it's there. In any case, putting all this into words will help keep me honest. If I tell someone, even people I can't see, what I'm thinking, then I force myself to be accountable.

Anyways. Next dosage at 7:30.

Posted by Hiromi at 6:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

Sometimes the universe sees fit to sprinkle a little happy on you. I'm going to be on the Big Island for a week in July! Thank you Mom and Dad! It's going to be just the five of us again, plus the two little nephews. It's been so long since it was just us five. It'll be like the times we went about in Hawaii and Okinawa when we were little. I'll make sure we pack onigiris, Spam, and hot dogs cooked with ketchup and soy sauce, with plenty of Cokes in a cooler, like the good old days.

I've always been plugged into Hawaiian culture in one form or another, but I never had the opportunity to really explore nature there. To make up for that, I'm going ocean kayaking again, snorkeling, hiking in Vocanoes National Park, and I'm going to learn how to surf. Surfing's another cheese suit. I used to think I wasn't coordinated enough to do something like that.

There's a teeny logistical issue, though -- the cute summer clothes I bought last summer don't fit anymore since I've gained weight. Since I'm too cheap to buy new clothes, I'm gonna lose five pounds of fat. I'd rather spend money on surfing lessons than clothes!

I figure all I have to do is stop eating buttered popcorn, cut out the challah brulee french toast, cease making fresh fruit pancakes with maple syrup, stop slathering butter on bread, and put a moratorium on trips to Amy's and pints of Ben and Jerry. If I do that, then my usual amount of exercise and healthy eating should be enought to bring my weight back to last summer's level.

"All I have to do.." :::sob:::

UPDATE: Kilauea is erupting! Who knows, maybe it'll be pumpeen when we ova dea.

Posted by Hiromi at 7:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)