All Clear

If the definition of courage is doing something that terrifies you, then I'm much braver than I ever thought - over something most people take for granted, so it doesn't count. Good news, I have a very pretty colon, as colons go, and I will not ruin your day by telling the ugly details of preparation. As a funny consequence, seeing the periodontist next week looks easy by comparison. So the moral of these appointments? Eat your fiber and floss your teeth.

Even a Panda Sometimes Needs a Colonoscopy

Tai Shan at our National Zoo underwent a colonoscopy earlier this month. I shouldn't complain about a mere sigmoidoscopy, so I won't. I printed a picture of Tai Shan being brave to inspire me. This is the third time I have agreed to schedule this procedure, and I won't cancel this time. I won't, won't won't....

Ow. ow - ow - ow

Interesting fact about the elliptical exercise machine - the resistance can be set from low to high. Now I know. (But I didn't know the day before yesterday, when I just hopped on a vacant machine in the gym downstairs. Although I wondered why I couldn't make my machine go as fast as the one my neighbor was using.) So. It turns out my machine was set for 'up a steep hill'. My first time using it. Owww-www.

Sleepless, reading The Beggars Trilogy

I've been an insomniac my entire life. When I was a toddler, my mother would put me down for a nap, and once she fell asleep, I would get up and play.

When I was older, I was found sleep-walking. Life is just too intensely interesting to spend much of it laying down with my eyes shut. When I was made to stay in bed, I brought a flashlight with me so that I could read under the covers.

So I was immediately intrigued by the concept in Beggars in Spain, of a society of Sleepless - people genetically engineered to be productive and awake 24/7. Fifteen years after the first publication, Nancy Kress' Beggars in Spain, Beggars and Choosers, and Beggars Ride is still a mind-boggling rich tapestry of futuristic society, with deep characterizations, a plot that twists shockingly right up to the ending, and a piercingly accurate portrayal of thought processes and social dynamics.

The science is believable and has not yet been outdated, (at least not so far as this non-scientist could tell at any rate). It doesn't get in the way of the plot, and does generate musings on social and medical ethics. Like Heinlein, Cherryh, and Orson Scott Card, Nancy Kress uses the contrast between familiar human society and alien society as a vehicle for raising the question of what, exactly, makes us human and what we value in a person or a society. Beggars in Spain won a Nebula and a Hugo award. I give the trilogy my own highest honor: I'm keeping it on my bookshelf, because I will read it again.

Like a trip to the dentist only cheaper -

Take one (former) shopaholic. Give her a Ph.D. in psychology and ten years experience treating over-shopping. Publish her book about how to get free of the vast consumer conspiracy surrounding us, and you have Dr. April Lane Benson and her vital new book: To Buy or Not to Buy.

This is not a comfortable book for me to read. I find my behavior unmasked and as undeniable as my shoulder-length gray hair. Have I used shopping to feel better about myself? Yes. Have I used shopping to avoid confronting a situation I want to avoid? Yes. Have I used shopping as a weapon to express anger? Yes. Sometimes to all of the above, and other questions in chapter one.

Like a trip to the dentist, confronting my negative behavior and the psychology behind it can be painful, but also healing. I love this book, because there is healing in getting the rot out. Dr. Benson offers a way to find authentic happiness to replace the false esteem of keeping up with (or exceeding) the 'Joneses'. She points out the relentless consumerism driving our economy, with tentacles invading our consciousness through stores, malls, television, catalogs, Internet and even cell phone shopping. She uncovers the true cost of credit card purchases, and documents the ways invisible forces demand that we buy "more more more and now now now".

Knowledge is power. Self-knowledge is the power to change. To Buy or Not to Buy is a tool that can enable us to get free of our compulsive shopping. If you are confident that you don't have any shopping addictions, I challenge you to go to a bookstore and browse her book - consider the many ways we can fool ourselves into buying things to fill an emotional hole rather than a material need. I recognized some of my buying patterns in her analysis, and also patterns of friends and relatives.

Our materialistic society is even more insidious than I suspected. There is compassion and not condemnation in Dr. Benson's words. I recommend her book and I will be spending the next three months working through all the exercises. I have two pages of notes this morning, a start to the journal she recommends keeping. There is no such thing as an insignificant cavity - as we all know, sooner or later it will destroy the tooth. I am going to be working on the occasional - but not insignificant - ways that I over-shop, and expect that the result will be good, even if the process is sometimes painful. I want to fix the ways that I over-shop. I need to fix buying things to repair my mood, hold onto love, fit into society, and feel in control.

Grey or Grey - sad either way:

Grey or Grey - sad either way:  fog, mist, indistinct, dismal, pale, cloudy, gloomy, dull, hoary, and also ashen, drab, dusty, mousy, grizzled, smoky, somber. All of which describes both the sky here this past week, and increasingly so, my mood as well. This is the time of year I start daydreaming about running away to live on a sunny, tropical beach. That would not be a southern Australian beach right now, with their record-breaking heat wave last week amid highs over 113 degrees. I'm thinking Boca Raton, Florida, with a forecast of sunny and high in the 70's most of next week, and silky beach sand, tropical water both warm and clear. (Well, I can dream, can't I?) There is a saying here in Oregon - "If you don't like the weather, no problem - just wait a few minutes and it will change." So. I'm waaaaiting.