Friday, October 26, 2012

Another chant poem (cuz i dig it!)



“ONLY”
 

Morning hit harder than it should

so it took hours to get myself out of bed

It seems like no matter how well

I think I’ve slept, I’m still tired—

but it’s only fibromyalgia.
 

I took a shower, put on makeup

and then needed a short rest,

had a salad for lunch, though “fatigue”

doesn’t always equal “good choices”—

but it’s only fibromyalgia.
 

For three days last week

I thought my skeleton was on fire,

and today’s a much better day,

I only ache like the flu—

but it’s only fibromyalgia.
 

I was scared when I drove

‘round that familiar corner

and felt lost, hateful when

my brain’s all smogged up—

but it’s only fibromyalgia.
 

Good days I can go to the gym and

still run errands, but not usually,

sometimes people think me a lazy

maker of excuses ( even I call me useless—)

but it’s only fibromyalgia—
 

and that’s not like a REAL thing, is it?

I mean, you can’t SEE it….

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Another poetry prompt: a chant. For Patti.

 
 
FOR PATTI.
 
missed all my appointments
right after you died
just couldn’t care
just couldn’t try
I still can’t believe you’re not here
 
waited all day for my birthday
phone call
for the sound of your laugh
but your voice is gone
I still can’t believe you’re not here
 
and I’m making dinner
the same as before
and I go to the bank
and I go to the store
and I still can’t believe you’re not here
 
 the tether is broken
from me to the ground
and I’m floating away
like a winter’s day cloud
and my heart’s just a sigh
in the midst of a crowd
and I still can’t believe you’re not here
with me.

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Another Wednesday Poem Prompt, (yes, on Thursday...)


 
 
TO DO OR NOT TO BE (THAT IS THE QUESTION)

 

she’s been thinking about things that don’t need thinking

when what she should be is things that need doing

and her thoughts keep leaving when they should be staying

causing daydreams that leave her distracted and wandering

while biscuits are burning and sinks overflowing

and laundry needs washing and mending needs sewing

and yet she keeps pondering the hills that need roving

because trees hide

the better views.

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

WAITING: a poem.




WAITING.
and Fall drags on, saluting death
morbid gala for what was lost
one day at last Winter’s end.
and I, holding on with my fingernails,
hope to last next season’s cold,
as I wait
for my aching soul’s
sudden
 Spring.
 
 
jle 2012



Monday, October 08, 2012

Fitness fun with heart rate monitors.


Okay, so admittedly there are days when my Polar FT7 heart rate monitor should read, "stop talking and get back to your workout!" But what if you vigorously chat? Surely extra calories are burned....

I have to admit to having fun with my HRM. I wore it for 24 hours of a low-key, no exercise day to see what my basic activity calorie burn was. (About 64 per hour.) So of course I had to do another similarly semi-scientific experiment and wear it into the Infrared Sauna at the gym.

"It's supposed to burn 300 to 600 hundred calories in the half hour you're in there!" my gym's owner told me. So what do you think I'm going to do? Of course I'm going to wear my heart rate monitor into the sauna, I mean, who wouldn't? (Okay okay, I see your hands--)

So I sat and read and sweated profusely for my 30 minutes.....to the tune of 135 calories burned, which is roughly 4 times the burn of simply sitting and reading without the sauna. It's higher than the basic rate of about 32 calories per half hour, but no place close to 300. The sauna did raise my heart rate, but only to 122. So maybe if I do the workout in the sauna I can burn the 300 to 600?? And get my first ambulance ride to the hospital?

The most revealing thing in my HRM experience thus far is that, like Dr. Gregory House says, "Everybody lies." The sauna people lie. The elliptical lies. Even the treadmill lies. For all the months I've been using MyFitnessPal.com, I had been relying on their database of calories burned for my weight for exercise, or using the numbers from the gym equipment. Come to find out, they all lie. I burn far fewer than their numbers. And the more weight you lose, the fewer calories I can eat to continue to lose, so those extra couple of hundred calories the database or the fitness equipment gave me were welcome, yes welcome indeed, but meant I was eating more calories than would work for losing weight.

So, since I have been using my heart rate monitor, have I now lost many many more pounds, you ask excitedly? And I am forced to answer "no" for I am proof that calories are not created equally. Apparently you cannot celebrate your birthday for the whole month with cake etc. even if it's within your calorie count, and still lose weight. Big fat bummer.

I'm trying to do better--more salads, more lean meats, less lovely cake.....  *sigh*...... So between the heart rate monitor and my conscience, maybe the numbers will begin to move again....once I've lost the numbers from the lovely cake..... *sigh*....

But I'm still not going to be able to resist when my son-in-law the Chef makes creamy, chocolately ice cream goodness. (It was sooo good! Thanks, Luis!)

Skimmer's recap: Maybe "YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!" but if you can, get a heart rate monitor. Eventually you'll quit mourning the death of those extra calories the equipment said you'd shed. Plus, you can semi-scientifically amuse yourself and wear it into a sauna.

Friday, October 05, 2012

I am the "Light Mayo" of bloggers.




I've come to a realization: I am the Canola Mayo, the Tofu Hotdog of bloggers....in the "close but no cigar" blogger camp that sits in the dusty part for overflow campers where there are no firepits.

If I were A Real Blogger I wouldn't skip the entire month of September (as I apparently have,) I wouldn't contain less calories and taste, I would be made of beaks and pig snout rather than soybeans.

Ooooph. My stomach just rolled there, thinking about the contents of A Real Hotdog. But my point is this: I am the Lite Beer, the Fat-Free Brownie, the Faux Finish of bloggers. I'm a semi-close approximation, but to be A Real Blogger you have to, well, BLOG. I go through this from time to time, where Real Life grabs me harder than my ability to write about it.

I think most people would prefer if I were New! Improved! With 25% Less Words! anyway, but probably my not talking for a month at a time would be less enjoyable for them than if I spread those 25% less words out over the months.




Skimmer's Recap: I actually can put up with Canola Mayo, but there is no point whatsoever to a fat-free brownie.

My random poem for the day.



KINGDOMS.


She never looked up.

the cigarette dangled from her fingers

graceful as a Hollywood starlet,

smoke soldiers guarding her head

as I passed

her kitchen table kingdom.

She never spoke.

so I ran outside to the park

where the swings called me to fly

where the leaves waved

dappled sun greetings

smiling at me to stay.

Later she spoke loudly

from boxed ashes in Nebraska

aided by a paid representative

who heaped on me her words

in boxes full of annotated

memorabilia.

I cried hard.

Reading multiple signed notes

 in truest “Mommie Dearest” fashion,

her disappointment guarded

more tightly than she’d ever

guarded me.

I’m learning to look up

from the ashes of my dreams

back to the green-ness of the trees

back to the welcoming sunlit leaves,

to learn to guard my joys more tightly

than my hurts.
 
 
jle 2012