Julie R. Neidlinger: Lone Prairie Art Works

New running shoes.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 5 comments link this post

My friend Erika told me I should get new running shoes. She was at the house this past weekend shortly after I'd been running. I think she could tell by looking at my shoes that they needed to be replaced.

She asked me how long I had them.

"Um..." I knew I was in trouble. I've know you're supposed to get new shoes at some certain number of miles run or time (kind of like changing the oil in the car) and I'd had these shoes for three years. "It's been a while, but I'm not a real runner," I said.

That was my excuse. For some reason, to me, "real" runners are marathoners. Since I only do a mile or two every day or so, it just doesn't compare.

Erika had a pointed expression on her face and I just felt guilty. I knew she was right. My left foot is notoriously flat and it's been giving me grief for months. My ankle and knee are starting to hurt, and I catch myself walking around on the outside edge of my left foot after running. I know my shoes are shot and that running as much as I have been lately in worn-out shoes has been causing the pain in my left ankle/foot.

Today I went to the store and worked with the sales clerk and found a pair of shoes. Erika had suggested Asics, and since she's a "real runner" and worked in a store and had training on what to look for in a shoe, I figured she knew what she was talking about. The sales clerk took one look at my left foot as I removed my street shoes and said, right away "Ooh. That's flat. You'll want these; more support."

I hated to do it, in a way, because shoes are so expensive. It's one reason I wear the same pair for three or more years.

I put those babies on and was amazed. For once my left ankle wasn't sliding inward, and was as upright as the right. The shoes are a lot different than what I'm used to (heavier, higher ankle). I walked around and my left leg felt completely different. Straighter, or something.

I'm going to try them out on a short run in just a few hours. I want to get used to them by the 20th, when the 5K commences here in Bismarck. It rained today and is a little sloppy out, but no reason to not get out and put the shoes to work.

Labels: friends, health

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Lose weight, fast and easy!

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 3 comments link this post

The title to this blog post is going to bring in a lot of hits from Google, and leave a lot of people disappointed. I like to be a disappointing blogger, though.

So.

I've lost some weight recently. It came off pretty fast. I'm going to reveal to you the secret Julie Neidlinger Summer 2008 Weight Loss plan so that you, too, can experience this.

Go to Nicaragua and take a bunch of really strong antibiotics to combat an ear infection that you get down there. This will cause you, about a week after arriving back home, to have a digestive system that totally malfunctions because it was completely sterilized, and that will rebel for a month and a half afterward, meaning every possible thing you eat (except yogurt, which gets really old really fast) makes you feel as if your insides are twisted and you want to die. This becomes a great incentive to not eat (eat and feel like death vs. just not eat) and also makes all food completely unappetizing. Then, even as you start to get a little better, your stomach shrinks and eating one sandwich leaves you feeling like you ate a huge Thanksgiving dinner and you are full for the day.
Live in a room with a small fridge and a toaster oven. A minimal kitchen such as that makes eating more of a duty to stave off hunger than a pleasure. Food becomes simple, low prep, and not much. This isn't really such a bad thing.
Have limited funds and find ways to make one turkey wrap last for two days. Find ways to calculate your "daily food cost" and keep it low, such as by drinking water (free) before you eat and finding you're not that hungry after all.
Sign up for a 5K prior to all of this, and realize that you had better start running or face shame on race day.

Essentially, it's the age old tricky combination of (here it is, the great secret!)... fewer calories, more exercise.

A handful of almonds fills me up to uncomfortable at this point. And going out for a run in the evening is about the only thing I have to break the monotony of sitting in my rented room alone, either drawing or studying in silence. This summer is turning out to be a weight-loss dream. A few more months of this, and I'll be able to fit decently into the cute shirt I bought at Dollywood this past May.

(Yes, I won't tell you anymore about that, since it shames me to use the words "decently" and "cute shirt" and "Dollywood" in the same sentence.)

I believe the antibiotic in question was Cipro.

Labels: food, health, my life, summer 2008

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The run.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 6 comments link this post

Last night's run was incredible, mainly on the level of humidity. I also may have gotten West Nile Virus, but only time will tell on that one. The breeze died down towards the end...shame.

I lost about four pounds from sweat alone, I think. Wow.

I also noticed, as I ran by a park bench, an empty Vodka bottle. I know it was empty, because I stopped to check.

I heard Vodka makes a good antiseptic.

Really.

That's the only reason.

You know I don't drink at all.

I'm a clean freak. That's the only reason. Really.

It was a good run, though, and I'm sure slave-driver Anna would be pleased at the ground I covered and the speed at which I did so.

Nothing like a good run to clear the mind, clear out the stress, bring the mood back up, and inspire a couple more embarrassing cartoons.

But man. Humidity. Killer.

Labels: friends, health, summer 2008

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Safer with a companion.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 4 comments link this post

I live with in easy walking distance of a fine park and walking/biking/running trail. Last night, I headed over to run, finally having my running shoes with me, deciding I'd better get in some kind of meager shape so I don't drop dead at the 5K here in Bismarck this September.

I really wish I didn't loathe running so much. If it weren't for my masochistic tendencies, I am certain I would spend my life as some sort of female Jabba the Hut, eating Cheetos and watching General Hospital all day. As it is, the more miserable I am, the happier. So, running.

Shave some time
Anna, one of three supposed 5K running partners at the upcoming event, told me I'd be just fine as far as keeping up with them all if I could shave five minutes of per mile running time.

"Just get down to a 10-minute mile and you'll be fine."

Well.

I know better than starting off too fast, but I kept thinking "cut your time, Julie" and "the pressure to be faster!" and found myself going way too fast for my fitness level as I took off down the path last night. That is why, just short of a mile, I was dead.

Figuratively.

So that I didn't completely beat myself inside with brutal self-talk along the lines of "you lazy bum, you didn't even get past a mile", I began doing some fahrtlek work, alternating between hard sprints and quick-paced walks. I was able to choke my three miles down that way, but I was less than happy. I was running 1.5 miles this past week when I was home, no problem, in easy evening sets. The key, I think, is that I need to remember to start at a doable pace, find my stride, and kick it down later. Plus, down here, it's a new route. At home, I have "markers" that I've grown accustomed to pacing myself and using in the mind game, which running is, essentially.

The fahrtlek idea works well, though, since it breaks up the monotony of running alone and the same way, and still builds stamina.

I certainly can't focus on a 10-minute mile right yet, when I need to focus on being able to run the 3 miles solid at any pace.

Run with others
The sign at the trail head had some general rules, the last of which was a strong suggestion to have a companion since that would be safer, and, oh, it is always safer before dark.

Frankly, in most areas of life, it is safer with a companion. Frodo and Sam. The Lone Ranger and Tonto. Abbot and Costello. Lewis and Clark. Jack and Jill. Ham and eggs.

Not much I can do about that. I don't know anyone here, and I'd have to find a seriously plodding jogger to be my companion. As it is, I still enjoyed running within earshot of the river and on the paved path down and through the trees and park. I even jogged through a tunnel that went under the Expressway just to...jog through a tunnel.

Really, I can't understand why there weren't more people out on that path -- it was a gorgeous evening and the path is fabulous. There were some bikers, walkers and roller bladers, and some people out playing tennis and softball, but there should definitely have been more. I wonder at the number of people who have their MP3 player and headphones jammed in their ears, completely missing out on the sounds of the wind and river and animals and buzzing insects in the trees.

I can't say enough how I really enjoyed the run. I admit that it beats hoofing it down a straight gravel road with pickup and farm equipment traffic, having no shade or variety whatsoever. And, at least with the periodic people that I met on the trail, I didn't feel so alone in my endeavors. It's always more fun to run with a friend, and that was almost like it.

I'll be heading back out there in just a few hours, hoping to make the first mile the steady warm-up, and build up speed from there.

I slept really well last night.

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Labels: friends, health, my life

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Trailing.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 4 comments link this post

It seems I've created a monster.

I mentioned signing up for another 5K (despite my hatred of running) in September here in Bismarck. Now Anna and Toni from work, and their husbands, and possibly more, are going to enter, too.

Well.

Luckily, there's a shirt for it.

Anna and Toni have actually run two 5K's since the Fargo event in May, so I guess they are more serious than I, as well as being in a whole heck of a lot better shape. However, I want to point out that I was the one that got the ball rolling. Now it looks like it will roll over me.

Nevertheless, I've got a map of Bismarck paths and park trails to run in, here in town, and I've scoped out my route to train for the 3 miles.

I'm mainly ashamed at my own lack of fitness and the fact that, when the day comes, I'm going to be left trailing in their dust.

But I do have a map of trails.

Labels: friends, health, summer 2008

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One more time.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 2 comments link this post

Because I can't beat my competitive streak, and I can't stand to hear about all my friends' recent 5K fun and success (which I was not involved in), I find myself registering for another 5K. They are registering, too, from what I understand.

My friends Molly and Lance are also running the half marathon again, at the same event.

Looks like I'll be bringing my running gear with me to Bismarck and finding a place to run.

Ugh.

Labels: friends, health, my life

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The run.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 6 comments link this post

Saturday was a good day.

No, it was a great day. (It had to have been, because it takes a lot for me to ask a friend to take a photo of me in the sweaty, grungy state I was in, and then to post that photo here for you.)

Before I left home on Friday, my mom told me to email them when I finished. I think she was concerned about me finishing.

"You don't have to run, you know. It's OK to walk," she told me. "I don't want you to have a heart attack."

"Mom, I have been running in preparation for the event. I can do this," I told her laughingly.

The morning started off a little bit stressful, since Molly and I didn't get the timeliest of starts and found ourselves waylaid by road construction and then caught up in the piles of cars all trying to get to the Fargodome for the event.

Molly, who was running the half-marathon, needed to be there for the start at 8, and it was getting close to that time. We weren't going to get there with much of an opportunity for her to decompress and get prepared. We parked in the lot of the Fargo Air Museum, dashed across the street, and I promptly lost her in the massive crowd.

I do mean massive. Solid humanity, everywhere I looked.

I started to look for Anna and her mom; Ann was on "team Lone Prairie" and was there to run the 5K with me. The masses of people, however, was crushing and made it impossible to pick her out. After looking for her for a while, I figured I'd just have to meet her at the end of the run and do this by myself.

The marathoners went first, then the half-marathoners. Slowly the crowd moved forward as the start began, loud music and announcers and Sen. Kent Conrad waving from a platform. I found myself in the mass of other 5K runners moving forward into place to start running behind the half-marathoners, and decided I'd just stop trying to find Anna and get set to run on my own.

The start was quite different from me running alone on an empty road. There were walkers and people pushing strollers, and movement of all speeds. For the first mile I spent a good deal of time dodging in and out of the walkers and trying to find a way not to get caught up in some kind of traffic jam of participants.

It was a blast. It went by fairly quickly, it seemed.

The strangest things encouraged me as I ran those few 3.1 miles: the different body types and ages and how absolutely ANYONE could do the 5K either walking or running; Jared (the Subway guy who, according to my friend Lew, "sure get famous for just going on a diet" -- Subway was one of the many sponsors), who was standing on the curb and cheering on the runners; the silly mascots in costume (Little Caesar's and a Buffalo from a restaurant); the cheering and screaming people encouraging the runners, waving signs, and making all kinds of noise; the little kid banging on pots and pans and hollering "go!"; and the people blasting music from their driveways just to keep things up-temp.

The spectators are really a huge part of it.

I kept my steady, sl0w, slow pace, picked out another runner who was right around that same speed, and kind of used her as a pacer right up to near the end.

And...I finished. I was given a little medal, turned in the chip on my shoe that told me my time, grabbed a bottle of water and a banana, and waited around on the floor of the dome.

I had a great time, and my only two goals were: 1) finish 2) finish before any half-marathoners came in.

I met both goals, but the second one...barely. About five minutes after I crossed the finish line, one of the runners from Kenya, Sammy Malakwen, came flying into the dome, sprinting and putting my running to shame. It was amazing to watch him come running down the ramp and into the dome on the huge jumbotron screen. 13.1 miles in the time it took me to run three!

Later, as I was out front waiting for Molly and my other friend, Lance (they were running the half together), the winner of the half was standing near where Anna and I were. I started talking to him, and congratulated him on his win. He was really nice, and Anna and I must have talked to him for over 20 minutes. (Of course, he gets bonus points for asking if Anna and I were in high school or college, which clearly, we're not.)

After Molly and Lance came running by us at the front of the dome, we said goodbye to Sammy, our new friend. Anna, using her cell phone, took a photo of me with him (as you see here) and then we went inside. I later ran into him again, inside the dome, and he asked me to send the photo to him. He is really a very pleasant person and it was interesting to hear him speak about how impressed he was at the variety of ages of the runners. There were quite a few runners in their 60's and up, and he said that that is something you would not see in Kenya. He also talked about his running and how much he trains.

The vibe inside the dome was amazing, a kind of dull roar of noise and triumph and rushing endorphins. It was cheering mixed with the noise of the announcer and all the music and the food and the booths on the floor of the dome. Thousands of bodies, pressing against each other, filing by the free food tables, wearing medals. Hollering when the winners of the marathon crossed the line. The runners who ran for charity or competed in special wheelchairs or, even, a man pushing his friend on a kind of stretcher who had had a stroke. It made me happy.

It was a really fabulous morning. The weather had cooperated until later in the afternoon, when the wind started to pick up, but all in all: wow.

There were moments I felt a little silly for being so darn proud of my three miles when people were rushing in after whizzing through 13 and 26, but in the end, I'm pretty happy about it. I ran it. I didn't stop. I finished. I got a medal. I had fun. I met some new people. I felt like I was a part of something.

Running with people is fun.

It takes a lot for me to say that, since I don't generally like being around great quantities of people, or people in general.

It is so much different than running by myself down the gravelly, hilly roads. I definitely want to do it next year even though I still have to say: I hate running. But I loved the event and can only say it was positive all the way around.

UPDATE: Here's my race info (yes, I said I was a very slow runner), and here is Anna's info (yes, she beat me by 3 minutes, which means I'll never speak to her again).

Labels: friends, health, my life

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The same invisibility.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 1 comments link this post

I sent a photo to a friend recently that showed what I looked like about four or five years ago. I was much, much heavier. My friend hadn't known me then, so it may have been a little surprise. I'm not skinny now, by any means, but I do look different.

There's the usual "wow, you worked hard!" and "you look great now!" and, of course, "you are so different now!" kinds of comments when people see photos from then (which is nice and encouraging), but there's something I never really tell anyone: to me, there is little difference.

It's all about invisibility.

The same thing that made me overeat is the same thing that makes me more and more uninterested in food now: the desire to disappear. I didn't make a change beyond how I shifted an attitude as it applied to food. There's no real difference.

I've said it to friends and even on this blog, that I'd like to disappear. It's usually taken as "disappear off the grid for a while, on a wee bit of a vacation."

No. I mean, disappear.

Be invisible.

If you're invisible, being ignored isn't such a big deal; it's to be expected. There's a certain peace about it.

Being heavy was a paradox. I was larger in actual size, yes, but I found I was invisible. People didn't see me. I was, perhaps, just another "fat person" and I wasn't noticed. There was something to that that I liked and took comfort in. It allowed me to find a way to live through the things that made me unhappy because, in the pit of it, I could say "I'm invisible, it doesn't matter." Being ignored made sense and I could easily lay it on my weight instead of any other more painful and less superficial reason. I've lost some weight but there is still an element of being ignored going on that now bothers me more than when I was heavy because it shouldn't still be there. I'm no longer defined (in my mind, at least) as invisible, on either ends of the scale, so now feeling as such is actually a kind of acute hurt. I don't actually know what to do with myself; it's like the invisible man suddenly put on a suit and can be seen for who he is.

To be invisible, you need to be really heavy, or nothing to you.

Note: This post was pre-written and published as scheduled. Read more about this here.

Labels: food, health, personal, women

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Corn syrup is not natural.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 0 comments link this post

While looking for a meal replacement bar, one must be careful. I generally lean towards Kashi or Clif/Luna because they contain better ingredients. For example, the Balance Bar claims it does not contain high fructose corn syrup. However, if you read the label, it contains: fructose, corn syrup. Granted, it wasn't high fructose corn syrup, but it was corn syrup. I don't know if I'd call attention to the lack of high fructose corn syrup with those not-much-better ingredients. That is, unless people don't read the ingredients anymore.

And then there are the claims of "all natural ingredients" which should not include corn syrup, though one of the bars did exactly that. Look at the history of corn syrup. Not natural.

I don't know how these companies can get away with labeling stuff like that.

Thinking about buying whole wheat bread for health? Better read the label. Most "whole wheat bread" is about the same as white bread with a little whole wheat flour tossed in the mix with molasses to make it brown. Seriously. Read the label.

If it doesn't have "whole wheat flour" as it's first ingredient, don't even bother. "Enriched whole wheat" flour is not whole wheat flour, either.

No wonder we have this video.

Stinkin' labels. Took me 25 minutes to compare and contrast brands before I decided on a snack bar.

Labels: food, health

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Professional guinea pigs.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 1 comments link this post

A friend sent me a link to a Wired magazine article that talked about people who take part in medical testing. It's a great article, a fascinating look at the world of medical testing. Fargo, North Dakota gets a brief mention, which is, I'm certain, a reference to Pracs in Fargo.

I do studies at Pracs in East Grand Forks, MN.

This friend asked, in his email with the link to the magazine article, how I came to do the medical studies. Anyone who lives in the eastern North Dakota and/or western Minnesota is very aware of Pracs. They run commercials on TV all the time. That's how I heard of it. I wonder, though, if people who aren't familiar with it are curious. I've noticed a lot of Google hits on people doing searches about Pracs and what it's like to be in a study, so I figured I'd just tell you my experience in general.

First, I look on the website to find a study I qualify for, and then I give Pracs a call to set up a screening. I drive to Pracs for my screening, and answer a very comprehensive set of questions on a computer which ask me nearly every possible thing about my health that I could imagine. Some people lie, of course, so that they aren't disqualified for the tests. If you, for example, tell them you get migraines or are allergic to aspirin, you'll probably be done with any further efforts at being in a study. I am not a sickly person, and don't have a history of anything alarming or allergic, so I'm good to go.

Next, after the computer questions are finished, they call you back into an office, measure your height and weight (can't be too heavy or too thin), have you leave a urine sample, and then set you in a room with a representative who will take your temperature and blood pressure and tell you about the study. Then, you have an ECG and have about four tubes of blood drawn for various purposes.

A brief physical with a doctor happens next. Since I live so far away, they are very good about setting me up an appointment on the same day. If everything is in order, my name is added to the list of study participants.

On the day of check-in, there are more people than the study actually requires. These people are called alternates, and you don't know if you are one until the next morning when the study begins. Check-in means the staff goes through your bags and bedding to make sure you're not trying to sneak in food or anything else that's prohibited. Then, you go back to the large bunk rooms and pick a bed. I always try to get one in the corner away from the door and with an outlet handy so I can watch movies on my DVD player. Most studies require a urine sample at check in to look for drugs. Also, women usually have to have blood drawn for a pregnancy test.

Early the next morning, your blood pressure is taken. If you are in a study where you are given breakfast (a high fat, rather nauseating breakfast) you'll eat that (and eat ALL of it). If you are in a fasting study, you won't be eating until lunch time. People are assigned numbers and called up to prepare for dosing. If your number isn't called, you didn't make it into the study. You get some money for your time, and are bumped up to find a replacement study to participate in, if possible. If you do get in the study, you take the medication as directed. Everything is timed, at that point.

Back at the tables, everyone sits and isn't allowed to sleep or wander about freely until lunch. They play movies and you can read and do homework or other stuff during this time, but you have to sit up at the tables for a number of hours. I was in a study where they made us sit there for 12 hours, though you do, of course, get to use the restroom when needed.

Depending on the study, your blood draws could start ever 10 minutes or be every half hour. It varies, and the draws become further apart as the study goes on. The blood draws are timed and the phlebotomists move down the lines of tables as someone calls out the time. You swab your own arm with rubbing alcohol towelettes before they get to you.

When lunch rolls around, they bring you your food. You'll have the same food for the length of the study, including the next weekends. They make sure you've had all your liquids and check to see what you've eaten. You'll still have timed blood draws throughout the day (and sometimes through the night) but you can usually go back and sleep or hang out on your bed during the afternoon. They provide you your evening meal, and often a snack before bed.

The next morning you have a blood draw, have your vitals taken (blood pressure, possibly temperature), and can leave, depending on the study. I was in a study that had us stay for two days instead of just the one. Most studies have return draws, which is why I stay at my sister's house. You come back and have your blood drawn at certain times depending upon what the study calls for. The last weekend of the study (usually there are at least two, sometimes more), after the final return draw, you may have an exit physical with a doctor. Then, the money is yours.

From what I was told once, during a study where the man running it took the time to just tell the group of us various things, Pracs is a company that doesn't test high-risk medication (those studies have significantly higher payouts, obviously, because of the increased risk). Personally, I will not do any study that is testing hormone-related medication, though those are offered. They also check with the local blood/plasma companies to make sure no one is donating either of those, since it is against the rules to do that within 30 days of a study. You are also not allowed to do a study any sooner than 30 days after the previous one. There are a number of people I start to recognize in the studies now that I've done about nine or ten studies, which means there are a lot of people doing what I'm doing to earn money on a semi-regular basis.

As far as bad stuff that has happened, the worst, for me, was passing out in a bathroom and whacking my head on the hard floor. It was after a 2 a.m. blood draw that went bad and took multiple tries with the phlebotomist moving the needle around in my arm. I didn't feel faint when it was over, and was on my way back to bed, stopping in the bathroom to wash my hands, when it happened. I had to get checked out to make sure I was OK. I had a huge lump on the side of my head for about two weeks. I've also gotten dizzy from some medication. But, generally, it doesn't bother me much. The passing out part has happened maybe once each study, where someone gets faint or light-headed and has to lie down, particularly during difficult draws. Some people also have thrown up. The worst, really, is when the people drawing your blood have a difficult time, which happens periodically for me. When they start moving the needle around, it tends to not only hurt, but make me feel nauseated or light-headed. On the other hand, some are so good you don't even feel them doing it at all.

Most of the people in the studies are college kids, but there are a surprisingly high number of people like me who aren't in college and are just looking for ways to earn extra money. There are a lot of teachers that do the weekend studies as well.

Now, regarding the finer philosophical points of doing something like this for the money...I've talked about it a bit.

But not much.

I don't know what to say, other than it is what it is: a means to an end. In particular, it covers my Nicaragua trips, which is an extra expense I could not otherwise afford. If I didn't do the studies, I would not have the money to go. So, I can fret and worry about what I'm doing, but in the end I am a pragmatic.

One line in the article touches on an aspect of how I feel about doing the studies which may or may not make sense to some readers:

It's peaceful here, away from the hustle-bustle of home and work. This is guinea pig life at its finest.

When I am in a study, I calm down. There is a schedule on the wall, timing my entire day down to the minute. I kno what will happen when, and I don't have to worry about anything. And, I don't have to feel guilty about not working hard enough. I don't have that nagging guilt I get when I sit down to read a book at home, or step away from the computer to take a break. In the study, I can sleep and read all day and I know I am earning money. Since most of my days are a struggle with me trying to get things started, done, and find new ways to earn money, all in a mild panic, having a scheduled list of what I am to do (which will result in earning money) is very good. I can take a step back from the self-imposed rat race and competition born of mild panic that most freelancers and self-employed people know.

And there you go.

Labels: health, my life

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Pooped.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 10 comments link this post

Warning: This post is crude-ish. Just so you know.

Nurses talk about anything, with no embarrassment.

I have a nurse friend named Molly who likes to talk about bowel movements. She works in a nursing home and bowel movements (B.M.'s) are a big deal.

She is my roommate in Nicaragua, and would always let me know how things were coming along in that department.

I can almost understand it, in that context. Things get bound up in Central America, for us potato lovers from the North. But when does it end? And, better question, why is she second-hand telling me of the B.M.'s of her church friends? And, even more so, why does she know about the B.M.'s of her friends? Whole air spray industries are built on the concept of disguising the fact that you just did the deed.

Let's have a look at the latest installment of the Exrementum Excruciae:

Molly: We went to a movie last night and out for supper. I pooped out all my supper at the movie theater.

Me: You're my only friend who graces me with poop updates.

(She mistook this as an encouragement for more. So...next email...)

Molly: So I get to church Sunday morning and John Doe* asks me what I did on sat-if I went running. I said no, I didn't run but my butt did. I said the poop ran out of my butt. He then proceeded to tell me about his morning---said he had eaten like a fiend on Sat pm--all good food-but massive quantities and he got up Sun morning and before he left for church in the wee hours of the morning he had pooped FOUR times.

I really don't know how to respond. I mean -- FOUR TIMES!!! -- eh? NOT FOUR!!! And the descriptive "running" used in this sense!!! Should I send some physillium? A diaper? A cork? Something double quilted?

It's to the point where I think I'd like to keep a canister of Lysol next to my computer monitor.

Perhaps she'd like to come and travel a local road with a sign dedicated to B.M.'s. Or, better yet, pick up a book on pooping.

(Hi Molly!)

------------------------------------

*Names have been changed to protect the innocent.

Labels: friends, health

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Massage recovery.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 1 comments link this post

It started with a battle.

The last week and a half, my back muscles have been going to war. Some of you politicos might be curious as to which side was winning -- the right or the left -- but I won't reveal.

Regardless, the true loser here, despite earlier claims, was me.

Holy cow. Playing the piano at church last Sunday was a finely synchronized feat of playing steadily between twitching back muscles that caused my hands to splay across the keys. Neither lying nor standing nor sleeping nor waking could separate me from the pain in my back, which is from causes uncertain (a rough paraphrase of Romans 8:38-39, applied personally, which is probably heretical).

I decided to schedule a massage.

I don't make massages a regular part of my life. Too expensive, and, inevitably, I end up having to talk to the masseuse during the massage (as annoying as having to talk when I get my hair cut) when all I really want to do is have the massage in silence, pay the bill, and leave.

But, the Great Back War was too great.

I flipped through the Yellow Pages and made an appointment. Everything seemed in order, and the woman was skilled, experienced, and very professional. In the past I've always selected, when asked if I liked "light, medium, or heavy pressure", heavy. Evidently the masseuse I've had in the past didn't have strong hands.

I swear to you, I am a walking bruise. Even if you can't see it, I am.

About halfway through the massage I remember thinking "I'm paying for this torture?!" Oh. My. Goodness.

"Julie, you could have said something," you might be thinking. My response would be that that would be acknowledging weakness. Periodically, U.S. Army slogans flit through my mind such as the one that says pain is the sign of weakness leaving. And also, I don't like to admit I made the wrong choice, which, in this case, was selecting "heavy" pressure.

I should be really strong.

Just touching my forearm is almost unbearable. I feel like I was repeatedly smacked by a meat tenderizer. I think my shoulder bones and back ribs were turned to gel.

Oddly, my back, by the time of the scheduled massage came around, had settled down into a kind of truce. The massage, however, has incited violence again in more guerrilla-like battles and I now have a painful back but in a different way.

I was talking to one of the participants in the medical study where I spent the weekend, explaining my sort of slouched, constantly-moving position in my chair.

"Man, it sounds like it was brutal," he said.

"I think a need a massage to recover from my massage," I replied.

From here on out, I'm going to be selecting "light" pressure.

Labels: health, humor, my life

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Not a road, but an avenue.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 4 comments link this post

I get a magazine called Women's Health. My nephew was selling magazines. I thought such a magazine would apply, since I am a woman, and I would like to take care of my health.

This magazine is nothing more than a kind of Maxim for women with a few articles about vitamins and health tips thrown in for good measure. It is even worse than Glamour or Cosmopolitan -- it sells itself as a magazine about health when it really is about selling women some kind of lie.

Beauty tips? Filled with lists of products that are overpriced from every company imaginable, leaving me to wonder at the kind of payola going on in the background for these companies to get their $45 makeup brush featured in a magazine that purports to be about keeping women healthy and fit.

Every other issue seems to be filled with toy-related articles (toys not found in children's toy stores, let's say), whether rating or joking or suggesting them. The latest issue featured some lame article on when guys reveal secrets and what to do if your guy reveals he has herpes. The answer? Something really great like "make sure the relationship is series before sleeping with him."

Every photo of every woman is of a woman tight, taut, muscled, lean, toned, and airbrushed to beauty perfection. I commented on a friend's blog about how I enjoyed Richard Simmons' exercise tapes because he used real people of all sizes and abilities; instead of discouraging, the entire experience was encouraging. He wasn't selling perfection.

This magazine does nothing to make me feel healthy. It makes me feel pretty awful about myself, mainly. It makes me feel fat and tally up the zits on my skin. It stirs me into a panic about what I am and am not eating, and what kind of exercise I'd better try. It tells me to focus on myself and myself only. It tells me it's healthy to forever continue to improve myself to a point of obsession -- there'd be no more magazine if the need for continuous improving stopped! -- subtly suggesting I'm not OK as I am, helping me feel guilty about things out of my control by coming up with new lists and exercises and faddish over-priced exercise gear that I need to pursue for that month in order to be that mythical active, "healthy" woman.

As I flipped through the latest issue, the ad you see at the top of this post caught my eye. What a horrible message!

The road to hell may be paved with good intentions, but the road to selfishness and endless pursuit of meaningless and impossible and empty physical perfection isn't a road at all. It's an avenue. Fifth Avenue.

As long as someone can get me to focus entirely upon myself, I will be entirely unhappy and always a consumer ever needing to buy something to fix all these problems I see. Happiness doesn't sell beauty products the way unhappiness does. Focusing on others doesn't sell much product, either. The push to get us to think only of ourselves has a strong consumerist, market-driven benefit behind it. If there's room to improve, there's someone to sell it to me.

Women's Health cares little about women or about their health. It does care, however, about Fifth Avenue, and any avenue available to get me to buy something out of dissatisfaction with who I am.

Labels: health, media, product placement, women

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Racing myself.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 4 comments link this post

My friend Molly regularly emails me with things like "I gotta go out and run seven miles" or "just got back from running six miles."

If I didn't like her so well, I'd just have to hate her.

She's training for the half-marathon in Fargo. She is awesome.

She convinced me (in a sort of "you're going to do this yes you are" way) that I should try my hand at the 5K (3.1 miles). It would be my first experience running with other people.

Anyway, today begins my "training" (ha ha) for the 5K which I will run the same day Molly runs the half and I will probably cross the finish line after Molly despite her running ten more miles than I.

I'm a slow, plodding runner.

I found some online training guides and put them into a Google calendar so I'd keep track of it. Today's training instructions will be easy -- it's less than I normally would do (just .5 miles and a fast walk after it). What was nice, as I started searching online looking for tips on training for a running event, was the realization that there are days when I don't run. I just figured you had to run yourself into the ground and for about a year, here, I was out running my piddly 1.25 miles every day. Which got old really, really fast and made me tired and dread it.

My little running efforts might be laughable to serious runners, but for a person who actually hates running, I think it's pretty decent. So. It begins in earnest. My race is against myself, really.

Go ahead. Train with me. It's all there, on the calendar.

Labels: friends, health, my life

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A list of improvement ideas that I really can't top.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 1 comments link this post

Dan has compiled an excellent --EXCELLENT -- list of ways to improve your body, mind, soul and spirit.

Some of them I've harped on before here at Lone Prairie, but his compilation as a whole is something we could all stand to read. Here are the lists:

Body:

Sleep no less than seven hours a night.
Get up at dawn and go to sleep at midnight.
Stop overeating.
Stop eating bad food.
Get out of the chair and exercise.

Mind:

Read a book!
Learn the basics of logic.
Get out of the Christian ghetto and find out more about an opposing viewpoint.
Kill two birds with one stone and engage another face-to-face about a difficult topic.

Soul:

Learn empathy.
Listen to classical music.
Write music, also.
Write letters.
Cultivate beauty.
Get in touch with the land.
Get out of the house.

Spirit:

Pray more than an hour a day.
Read the Bible intently.
Cultivate Godly horizontal relationships with others.
Ruthlessly eliminate things that interfere with our spiritual lives.
Practice the spiritual disciplines.

Suggestions on sleep, eating,relationships, prayer -- it's all there. With great reasons as to why these ideas make sense. GO NOW. Read the post. Read the whole thing.

Labels: health, links, lists, religion

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Pessimism, depression, and what to do about it, if anything.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 10 comments link this post

I am often told how I shouldn't be.

"You shouldn't be that way. You shouldn't say those things."

Sometimes, to push the knife in and give it a religious twist, it gets tied to some sort of quasi-scriptural word-faith ideal.

"As you say it with your mouth, so it is. Stop being so negative."

Try telling such platitudes, often disguised as helpful or well-meaning, to all the melancholy, pessimistic, depressed, despondent, hopeless people found in the Bible.

"Jeremiah, you shouldn't say those things. Perk up. Things will get better. Stop being so negative."

How should I be? How ought I be? What do you think you're doing to me when you tell me what I should be like or should say or should do? Or should not? What you're saying is clear:

The way you are is not good enough. You're not right. You're broken. You need to be fixed. I can do it for you.

That's really what you're saying, even if you don't know it. That, of course, adds another little rock to the staggering pile I'm already toting around on my back, while a faint voice wonders who really is the broken one in such a world as this.

A post by Brant Hansen, on taking medication for depression, made me rethink this touchy topic. The follow-up post that he wrote further prodded me. It reminded me of a Sunday School class I had taught, and the ensuing discussion.

I'm not going to say taking medication for depression is bad. This would be a statement that would hurt a lot of people I love, a hurt that is fully unnecessary since I don't believe that. But I won't take any medication. Me, personally. Just me, I'm talking about right now.

I cannot describe the interior agony of being around an extroverted, upbeat person who simply refuses to stop telling me to perk up, to be happy, to not say the things I say, to stop being pessimistic -- it's like a cheese grater across my brain.

"Just shut up and let me alone, then!" I sometimes scream inside, though I politely nod and smile and agree just to get them to leave me alone and think I'm all fixed. It is obviously too much to be around a person like myself, and I don't want to drag down their day. Pretending works for a short while.

I don't know why I am this way, but I am. It was not a choice. I do not live a bad or miserly life in which such a permanent state of melancholy deserves to descend. I am no better or worse a believer in Christ. I make very concerted efforts to address physical health and adequate sleep and other methods to combat this perpetual fall into emotional tar.

This is how I am.

I would like to be all those things Hansen describes, the way he saw an almost immediate improvement after taking a little pill:

I can think about other people. I think I'm okay. I can sit and relax and fall asleep. I can be on the air, do something stupid -- and move on. Happens to the best of 'em, you know? One little pill, and I'm a better person.

And that, friend, is the disturbing thing. As a Christian, I'm uncomfortable with purely mechanistic explanations for our behavior. Friends say, "What's the struggle? Taking this pill is just like taking Tylenol for an ache." But no. No, it's not. I take this pill, and I'm morally better. I'm not kidding.

But I will not take any pills.

God uses suffering in his people. Clay jars break. He will finish what he starts. I am not going to be left to unravel, but to be woven tightly and finished and beautiful, someday, even if I'm falling apart now. This life is a mess. He holds all things together, truly. I am proof of that.

I am no martyr, no saint, no hero. My life should be easy, which is why all those shoulds that people throw at me do a great deal of damage through guilt. I wallow and self-loath and expertly wield indecisiveness. I can't, despite all the tricks I can think of, "will myself out of it" -- I can't even reliably pray myself out of it.

Most of my life, my days, are spent in a very real desperation knowing that I am absolutely dependent upon God to get me through the next hour. I am driven to almost constant talking to God (which probably frightens a huge number of non-religious people). I have, always in the back of my head, a sort of imprint of an image of something that must be God's hand grasping mine and just keeping me from drowning. Everyone and everything bothers me. My feelings about a person change in a moment and then back again. My reality -- the reality -- is one of feeling a failure, of constant inner-chatter running through my head that makes it difficult to operate in a "normal" way around me. Everything, simple things, end up to be huge battles. This is an exhausting thing, but it leaves no doubt in my mind where my strength comes from.

Pressing forward, toward the final goal, I have help.

My strength doesn't come from the power of positive thinking. It doesn't come from life assessment or goal-making lists. It doesn't come from structured self-talk or avoidance of what's going on. It doesn't come from a self-help book or any "seven keys to success." It isn't neat and tidy and convenient and productive and in line with what works best for society. It doesn't come from the fleeting gift of happiness. It doesn't come from a pill. It comes very much from God.

His word, his hand, his grace, and sometimes the smallest bits of mercy that surprise.

This is not a platitude, or a Sunday School answer.

"You need to get psychiatric help," my roommate told me during one of our spats my freshman year of college. "You're completely unbalanced."

Julie...you are too quiet. You are too negative. You have social problems. There's no reason for you to be sad. You are so talented, that you could be doing so much more. What's your problem? Stop saying that about yourself. Stop being that way.

You stop. You can't fight this for me, and you're not helping.

I can't write well, when I'm in an "up" mood. I don't draw well, either. My music becomes wooden and machine-like. Something is disconnected and the place from which honesty and desperation and invention and random associations come from seems completely gone. I'm happy, distracted by untenable, unattached things, but that's all. Is that what it is to be normal? Happy, maybe in a regular job or something, sated in front of the TV or taking a nap now that my mind has quieted enough so that I can stop mental pacing? That's not normal, for me.

That constant mental churning, pacing, questioning, sorrow -- it is the birthplace of my creativity.

From this unexplainable pit in which I am very tempted to take a shortcut out of -- there are some very, very, very dark times where sitting on my bed and staring at the wall is pushing the limit -- comes some of my better gifts. Do you like what I write on this site? Does it speak to you? Do you think I am "interesting"?

I often wonder at people who don't mind the benefits, but constantly try to chip away at a part of me that isn't their brokenness to fix.

If I were perky and positive, I would write about cats and shoes and TV and not plumb the depths that I'm familiar with already.

From black dirt comes life.

I think, if the options to shortcut through the sharp-edged shadow-valleys, to be lifted over or pushed through with

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New running shoes.

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Lose weight, fast and easy!

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The run.

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Safer with a companion.

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Trailing.

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One more time.

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The run.

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The same invisibility.

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Corn syrup is not natural.

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Professional guinea pigs.

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Pooped.

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Massage recovery.

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Not a road, but an avenue.

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Racing myself.

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A list of improvement ideas that I really can't top.

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Pessimism, depression, and what to do about it, if anything.