Better than fruit salad

Yesterday I spent a lot of time looking up kidney inflictions online and trying to decide between kidney stone and UTI. They kept saying UTIs make you want to pee all the time, but then they say you have to drink lots of water and juice, and well duh of course you are going to pee a lot if you are drinking way more liquid than you usually do. Sheesh.

There was nothing wrong with my bladder. Really my kidney just hurt like a motherfuck, to the point where taking off my shoe and leaning in certain ways and walking is nigh-impossible. I had high aspirations for Sunday, but instead it turned out to be sit and watch movies day. I had been craving Garden State lately, and now that I think about it the last time we watched it was when Anthony was sick and immobile on my futon at the previous apartment. Perhaps that movie will become the Sickness Standard. That’s fine. Plotless, pretty, and strangely comforting.

THEN

I went to the doctor this morning, and turns out there is nothing wrong with my kidney, as far as the half-assed examination could tell*, but rather I pulled a muscle all along my spine. Don’t ask me how I pulled a muscle all along my spine, because the only strenuous activity I’ve done lately had nothing to do with my spine or exaggerated twisting. Ahem.

*They definitely had an agenda for me to have a UTI. I answered about 8 questions about urination. No, I do not have discomfort when I urinate. No, I do not have an “abnormal frequency”. I even had to go pee in a cup, which made me a little nervous since I had gone right before the visit and I was not sure I could deliver the goods. Since I had been looking at this stuff online I knew that really I was more of a candidate for a kidney stone (high protein diet, slightly dehydrated) but no one so much as mentioned it, and no one listened to me when I offered it as a suggestion.

I shouldn’t diss them too badly, really I think I was a little flustered about my weight**, and I got to see my favorite person there. She told me I had “really good muscle flexibility” for someone who had a muscle issue where I did. “Flexibility” is not usually a word people use to describe me (I’m rather brittle) so that made me a little smug, like I’d achieved something. She also was nice and called my back thing a “spasm” rather than a “pulled muscle,” and made me feel like I had a real thing. She even prescribed muscle relaxants which I was very reluctant to take, but my abiding memory of last week was my INTENSE SHOULDER PAIN from all the stress and the hunched-shoulder sitting I’d done. So I thought, why not. I feel a little shady though. I will probably only take one and then hide them from myself.

**Sigh. It grieves me to talk about this. Bear with me here. See, I don’t own a scale because really, I don’t care. I’ve never had weight issues, real or imagined. Historically my metabolism is so fast I can barely keep vital mass, much less any extra. I’ve always watched what I eat, but that’s because I have hypoglycemia, so I have to eat very carefully, and frequently, or else I pass out or start to attack people. But there’s that thing that happens to people: metabolism slow-down. And I think mine is happening. Because suddenly, my normal eating habits aren’t working. Suddenly, I can’t seem to get it right. When it’s time to eat (at the multiples of three, yo,) I’m not hungry. Or I’m RAVENOUS. And nothing gets fixed. If my sugar is off I can’t seem to right it, and the slightest thing will get me off balance. Not good. So when I saw my numbers today, really it was more of a verification of what I already know. Okay, eat a little less. Check.

So my little serving size experiment has expanded to real food. I have a few websites bookmarked about how to approximate non-packaged food items, which be fair, includes a fair percentage of my diet. We (we?) have also brought the food pyramid on board, and will structure meals according to both the serving sizes and recommended servings per group. ‘That last bit is kind of fun, because those serving recommendations always seem to be excessive. 6-11 servings of bread/grain/pasta daily? I only have three MEALS in a day! you might shriek. But don’t forget: you’re obeying those serving size rules. It’s a bit like changing bra sizes — I will be simultaneously eating less and more.

ENOUGH ABOUT THE BODY, LET’S FOCUS ON THE MIND

No real pre-finals stress yet. Check back in two days.

Actually, things have been mighty blissful here. Ever since my Dustin Hoffman dream things have been fun and interesting and happy. Dustin Hoffman most be my totem animal.

TOTEM ANIMALS, MY EVER GROWING LIST:

- Wolf
- Tapir
- Bird (like demi-parrot type bird, pet bird. Either that or a finch)
- Crocodile
- Dustin Hoffman

Oh I couldn’t possibly go on. Art show, having coffee with a new friend, thoughts on the Omaha shooting, and an exciting money-related thing. But later kidlets, later.