Portable inferno

I ended my day as a piece of wreck... the trip to and back from downtown surely didn't help.

By the time I got back to the upper west side, the pain and discomfort in my entire body was really driving me nuts-- although I am nuts.

Then, I bumped into this old neighbor... when I must be in an absolutely incoherent state under the influence of pains and suffering.

At some point, this thought that's been in my head for the longest time finally found its voice...

"Hell is where I am-- even if I were to run to Europe or the Caribbean....  I can't run away from it because carry my hell with me wherever I go."

On a second thought, having to carry my own inferno all around with me-- no wonder I can't carry much weight and I move slow? 8-O

Yes, there eventually comes to a point when I use the H word.

Human Barometers

The good thing about the Internet is that you eventually will come up with a good enough combination of key words to find the alike.

Make no mistake... there is nothing wrong for you to be "not like me."

It's just... sometimes you want to find people who are like-headed or like-other-parts-of-bodied.

So I spoke of my never-ending descending from an airplane disorder- something far worst off than excruciating pains along... and my intuition is that it's occurrence has to do with something in the air...

Most importantly, no one I spoke to so far had any inkling about what I was trying to describe...

Only to find out... so well has it been documented... my descending from an airplane disorder...

1. http://www.steadyhealth.com/ringing_in_ears__stuffy_nose__pressure_in_head_t101276.html
2. http://www.steadyhealth.com/Daily_Pressure_in_Head___Part_2_t200727.html
3. http://www.healingwell.com/community/default.aspx?f=31&m=338714&p=6
4. http://www.prohealth.com/me-cfs/blog/boardDetail.cfm?id=1335004

In another website, one gentleman actually completed a study of n=1 to document the correlation between barometric pressure and his back pain....

http://www.robsworld.org/barometer.html

What I figured based the sharing of my people so far?

Nobody really knows how to get it resolved.

"Where is Dr. House?"  So holler the human barometers.

Nice trees

So, I told my boss today that I like being with the trees.

He asked me, "Why?"

I might have responded, "They make me feel good."

Then, there came this other question... "How?"

I thought for a few seconds and might have answered with something like... "I don't know... maybe some chemicals they released into the air?"

After I got home, I revisited the question of "how"... and thought... in addition to Oxygen, stuffs like phytoncide, perhaps?

My American Boy

Finally saw my American husband the other day.... I was all excited about seeing him again but he was all aloof... apparently paid me no mind.

One trick that help keeping our relationship for all these years is that we never fight... might have something to do with the fact that me no understand his American English and he no understand my Taiwanese English either.

Estelle - Music - More Music Videos

On numbers

Did some simple data analyses today... oh... that made me feel really happy...

Numbers are nice.

They tell stories... sort of... for instance, it is a horror story they tell when they don't go along with your hypotheses.  8-O lol

Yet, they are like those nice doggies... some are large and others are small...

They come in all different shapes and forms....  walking around all happy, minding their own business and looking mighty curious at points...

When they look at you with eyes so very innocent, it is as if they were asking you... "What do you think about me?"

Yet, usually, it is at the point when I am facing those innocent eyes do I say...

"Also... this is the difficult part... from my eyes-- your story to tell.  How on earth could I know whether this is really what your story entails?"

Au fond du temple saint

Marc and Scott sang the nice duet "Au fond du temple saint" from Les pêcheurs de perles by Bizet at Caffè Taci with Iya on the piano.

Sorry if the beginning of the clip was too going all different places... tried my best to hold my hands still... .

Back

I think my lumbar-- lower back--- is hurting really bad...

Well, maybe not "I think" but I feel. 8-O lol sigh

Although-- the good news is that the head is not feeling like eternally in a descending airplane finally.... Ain't it so very wonderful!  8-O

Since a picture is worth a thousand words...

Among the pains in cervical, thoracic and lumbar, lumbar shows me its exceptional grumpiness today and gets the first prize.

Thoracic is not too happy about the loss though since it had tried it best.

Since cervical has been doing a pretty consistent job, it doesn't quite care all that much which place it lands at anymore. 8-O lol

I am indisposable 8-O

It took me years for me to come to the realization that-- oops... I am 100% disposable.

Then, whether it was yesterday or the day before, it occurred to me that... oops... maybe that claim of 100% disposability is false.

All things I can do can also be done by the others except for the process of recovery-- regardless what to recover from-- though this is the only thing on this planet yours cheapskate dell'inferno can't wait to pay someone else to take the job over.

Outsourcee needed... outsourcee needed... Anyone out there taking the job?  8-O lol

Today I floated for the first time

Today I floated for the first time... or... more accurately... I swam the breaststroke without sinking for the first time since 2007.

I had tried to do it many a time before.

Yet, because of the permanent damages to my shoulders and possibly the problems with my neck as wel,  every time I tried to swim... I sank because my shoulders couldn't quite handle it.  As a result, I had to use floaters to keep my body above the water so that I don't turn into a floater myself...  8-X

Although I didn't go too far or too long, today I floated without the use of a floater for the first time and swam the breaststroke without sinking.

The funny thing is that... despite of the fact that I am making it a routine to walk about 60 Manhattan blocks everyday, I have been feeling dead tired after coming out of the water.



Then, that greedy part of me came out and said... "When might it be when I can, again, spending the whole day swimming if not simply floating in the sea?"

Though, might need to first make sure I can walk in and out of the sea water before worrying about the swimming thing.... lol

Anyway... nice!

something midway

I came across Mr. Alighieri, who was hanging out with Mr. Maro, as I took a rest midway of my walk.

In many a word, so attempted him on hell to describe... which I had listened to years ago...

Yet, perhaps, someone else's hell is easily forgotten.  I don't recall much what exactly happened.

Then, I resumed my walk trying to get back home.

20 something blocks and many more micro-stops later, I took another extensive rest to recuperate... a la bar... amongst friends..

So I spoke of my encounter with Mr. Alighieri and his hell...

20 something blocks later... words... oops... mostly forgotten...

So I inquired my company--

"What are the first 3 sentences?  Like something about midway, life's journey and dark jungle or bushes?"

Only to realize later- forgotten was what has been lost.


INFERNO
CANTO 01
Dante

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
mi ritrovai per una selva oscura
ché la diritta via era smarrita.

MIDWAY upon the journey of our life
I found myself within a forest dark,
For the straightforward pathway had been lost.

Japan

Just because things aren't in the News doesn't mean that all is fine.

Haven't heard much about Japan in the aftermath... months after...

Good luck!

Quiet dignity shown in post-tsunami Japan

More Fukushima Worries: Internal Contamination

What I am most afraid of nowadays

I knew this discomfort before... something far worse than aches and pains along...

Then, I was stuck by it almost all week last week and it got back again these two days...

Feeling as if the head was to explode and-- an invisible wall-- at least two feet away from the outside world.

The pressure is high inside of that skull of mine-- so tight-- and so aggravating the discomfort.

Somehow, the high pressure seems to have invaded the territory for da peanut-size cognitive capacity of mine... making it even more difficult to perform cognitive processing.

The ear-ringing- bang bang bang- was coming back to stay as well...  And, many a time, the banging did come back to revisit.

Even headache also come pitching in to the potluck.

Worst of all... no meds can help alleviating any of it and nobody can tell me why it happens.

What could I do?

Live with it.... I guess... since what else could be the alternative? 8-O lol

What I am most afraid of nowadays... worst than pains and aches along. 8-X

You don't understand still-- based on my descriptions?  That's fine... not only limited are my words... I wouldn't have understood it either before...

How I walked on April 15th

As I was browsing through some old pictures, I came across some clips I asked my sister to take when she came to visit on April 15th.

I had wanted to show these clips to my doctors because I simply could not and still can not understand why my body moved the way it did or... does.

Didn't really get the chance to show my doctors...

Although my condition in this clip is far better than how it was in the January, February or even March, I was still having quite some issues in the moving department.

It didn't look good and I didn't feel quite so well either.  Yet, I kept on moving and moved some more.

Today is July 4th.... two months and half later... the pains and discomfort have, hopefully, lessen... though some days things are still really bad.

Can't tell you whether my walking looks better now than then either... 

One thing I know is that.. I can now walk for longer distance-- for instance, I walked from 111th down to 93rd street and back today... one more block from yesterday.

All else I can do not... one thing I am trying to do now is to build more endurance one step at a time.... till hopefully, one day soon, I can be uncaned again.

The art of losing

Came across this movie called "In her shoes" earlier today when Cameron Diaz was asked to read this poem about one art- the art of losing.

An art, don't know about you, I surely have acquired a fair amount of proficiency in although can't quite say whether I have mastered.

Nice poem- simple words.  clean thoughts.

The Art of Losing
In Her Shoes at MOVIECLIPS.com

One Art

Elizabeth Bishop

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster,

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three beloved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

-- Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) a disaster.

How do normal people think?-- revisited

Something gets me really bewildered is... why do the search engines lead people to this old post of mine when seeking out for an answer about how do normal people think?

Sometimes I feel really guilty because it feels as if the title of the posting is misleading... mislead people to believe that da click might take them an answer of some sort.

One thing I know and I recall is that-- about two years ago or maybe since even longer time ago, I desperately want to know how normal people think so that I might be able to train myself thinking like a normal.

Two years later, I still don't know how normal people think.

Yet, I have entered a state within which I don't quite care about how them normal think anymore--- though not quite sure whether it is a good thing or a bad thing... 8-O 8-X lol

Pour quoi?

Well, first of all, can normal people give me an answer when I pose this exact question to them?  Don't quite think so.

Second, even if the normal can tell me exactly how they think, is it feasible for me to train myself to think like them?  Don't quite think so either.

Third and last, how is it my business how the normal think when they don't quite give a rodent's behind about how yours abnormal thinks other than, plausibly, them people studying about the psychology of the ab-normal?

Thus, the solution unfolds so far concerning "How do normal people think?"

I give up on wanting to be normalized as well as the pursuit to entertain the thinking of the normal at this point. 8-O 8-X lol

I do envy the normal, though, to a certain degree, because- call it ab-normal-centrism if you wish-- the question of "How do normal people think?" seem to bear so much more at the questioner's end than "How do abnormal people think?"

(A posting that I have been drafting in mind for months.)

Huge accomplishment for the day

My body wanted to walk... so I walked today... from 111th street to 82nd street along Broadway.

Had to stop to rest once in while, but... today... I got to 82nd street and Broadway.... at which point, my body said... enough...

And... I took my M104 to come back up... lol

Yet, a humongous accomplishment since a while!