Top Ten Things I Learned by Having Pneumonia Last Week

10. There are approximately 4.2 million judges with their own courtroom TV shows.
9. People will sue each other in TV court for any damned thing, no matter how trivial.
8. Let’s Make a Deal just isn’t the same without Monty Hall.
7. My bed is really comfortable, even after 18 straight hours.
6. Pneumonia will drain the energy right out of you, making it difficult to even walk eight feet from the bed to the toilet.
5. Nobody who hasn’t had pneumonia can truly appreciate just how awful it makes you feel.
4. In spite of taking a whole week off of work to get over it, I’m still exhausted and barely make it through the day.
3. Naps are good. More naps are even better.
2. W and N are virtually incapable of managing without me, especially when it comes to getting places on time or even knowing where they are supposed to be at any given time.

And the #1 thing I learned by having pneumonia last week:

1. Until you get on antibiotics and start recuperating you don’t give a damn about numbers two through ten because you are too busy fantasizing about someone coming and shooting you to put you out of your misery.

Unconscious Mutterings: Week 398

I say ... and you think ... ?

1. Singapore :: Sling (even though I’ve never had one)
2. blah blah blah :: Yada, yada, yada
3. Stall :: Restroom (I’m pretty sure my friend Val would’ve said “horse”)
4. Bowls :: Toilet (sorry, but that last one influenced this one)
5. Entrance :: Exit
6. Antique :: Old
7. Elizabeth :: Aunt
8. Hook :: and Eye
9. Width :: Depth
10. Photo journalism :: worth a thousand words of regular journalism

So. . . . . . . . . . . . .

I’ve been reading the newest book by Geneen Roth, Women, Food and God. I’ve been a fan of Roth’s books for a while now. She basically takes an approach to weight loss that is focused at the emotions and feelings that contribute to overeating rather than trying to control food itself. I like her approach because I recognize in myself that there are psychological/emotional issues that are at the heart of my eating problems. Eating for me has nothing to do with physical hunger or staying alive. Eating for me is comfort, a friend, a way to soothe the boredom, a way of asserting my independence, a way to try to quiet the demons inside me. In other words, I have an addiction and my drug of choice is food.

Anyway, her newest book deals a lot with the spiritual side of us and also with what she calls The Voice. The Voice is that internal dialogue people keep up inside themselves. The Voice generally is like a tape playing over and over lessons learned from childhood, perhaps from parents, perhaps teachers, perhaps peers, anyone that ever may have criticized you or set you straight on a particular matter. My Voice is particularly cruel, though I don’t believe any crueler than many others’ Voices. The Voice reminds me over and over that I will never be good enough no matter how hard I try. The Voice demands that I acknowledge that I am a failure at all that I do. The Voice reminds me of all the ways in which I am less than, flawed, not up to par.

Roth’s book speaks to the ways in which one can silence The Voice. One of these ways is when a feeling arises to take that feeling and inquire with oneself about the feeling. Rather than stuffing it, ignoring it, eating it away, take it out and look at it, observe it, see how it feels. I have been trying the last few days to do this thing, and it is hard. It is so very hard sometimes, and yet when I am successful at doing it I find it to be a very freeing experience. By taking the judgment out and letting it be whatever it is, the feeling loses its power. I become the powerful one, the one in charge.

I have learned through the years that I cannot be trusted to make my own choices when it comes to food. I am now trying to unlearn this. I am now trying to listen to and give credence to my body. For years I have seen my body as my enemy. I have fought the good fight, clamping down with iron will against eating the things my body says that it wants. Then finally (and this always happens sometime, sometimes sooner, sometimes later, but always sometime) I get tired and pissed off and at that point I go in with a “Screw you!” attitude, and I eat. I eat and I eat and I eat. I eat beyond the point of fullness. I eat without pleasure. I barely taste what I’m eating. But I eat. Screw you world who doesn’t want me to eat. Screw you! Take that. And then comes the misery, the stomach ache, the heartburn, the added poundage on an already overweight body. The food, the eating, it is all just a symptom of a much deeper more profound problem. Without addressing that deeper problem there is no diet, no nutritional program, no exercise program, no surgery, no pill that is ever going to help me lose weight.

And yes, I know this is all territory I have covered before. I’m just still trying to get it transferred from head knowledge to heart knowledge, ya’ know?

And It Begins Again. . . Maybe

It’s a funny thing about boundaries and taboos. It is scary, sometimes very scary, to cross a line, to step over a boundary, to go into forbidden territory. However, once you’ve gone there it’s even harder not to go back. There is something about having done it, having crossed the line already that makes it easier the second time and the third and so forth.

That’s why it’s important to think long and hard about it before making that initial leap. It’s much harder to go back than it is not to go there in the first place. So my advice to you is don’t go there. Don’t step across the line. Don’t cross the boundary. At least don’t do it unless you really think you want to keep going back there.

So what does this have to do with my life right now? What has me thinking of such wise and philosophical advice? My dark side. I have a dark side – a deep dark side with deep dark thoughts. If you’ve read this blog for a while you certainly know that.

Right now I am in a sexual drought. M moved away in the spring. J hasn’t contacted me in a long time, and since he almost got caught the last time we were together I don’t think we’ll be getting together anytime soon. In short, I am sex starved. When I go through a sexual drought my mind wanders into dangerous territory. Sometimes, too often some would say, my body follows my mind and wanders too.

At this time I’m in the mind’s arena only, but if the opportunity were to present itself I have little doubt that my body will follow. It isn’t just if an opportunity arises. I am working pretty diligently to find a willing partner, maybe more than one, maybe several. I’m not just looking for straight vanilla sex either. I’m on the prowl for down and dirty, a little kink here, a little perversion there. I’ve been trolling some of my old haunts, and found some new ones, on the internet to see what/who I can find.

So desperate do I feel for carnal pleasures I even emailed BJ the other day. I did it not because I want him back (I don’t) or that I’ve never gotten over him (I have). It’s just that he is one of very few people in the world who I trust 100% in a sexual way. I know him. He knows me. We know each other’s most perverse perversions. I know he would take care of me in the manner I want if we were to try living out some of my fantasies. He and I have conversed a bit, and there is definitely a possibility that we will be getting together to play one of these days.

And all the while the little cricket on my shoulder keeps whispering to me, “Danger Will Robinson! Danger!” (Wait a minute. Did I just mix a metaphor? Why yes, yes I did. That’s what happens when you have a prolific post with no proper ending.)