I’ve been scouring my MP3 collection, looking for nice, thumpy, fast-paced songs to drive such necessary times in my life and have assembled a list that I think will work for now, but hey — I’m always up for suggestions.    My requirements are pretty strict — has to be catchy, mindless, and a solid beat.   But the biggest requirement is the tempo; there’s a lot of great songs out there that aren’t fast-paced enough.   That’s why Black Eyed Peas’ I’ve Got a Feeling doesn’t make the cut — while thumpy and catchy, it’s too slow for a good motivational pace.    Remember — we’re trying to get my ass MOVING.

Here’s the list I’ve assembled so far:

ABBA – Lay All Your Love on Me
ABBA – Mamma Mia
Adam Lambert – Whataya Want From Me
Bowling for Soup – Girl All the Bad Guys Want
Bowling for Soup – High School Never Ends
C & C Music Factory – Everybody Dance Now
Chumbawamba – Amnesia
Chumbawamba – Tubthumping
Crystal Method – Bloodbath Dance
Daft Punk – Da Funk
Daft Punk – Harder Better Faster Stronger
Dire Straits – Money For Nothing
Disturbed – The Game
Enigma – Matrix Theme
Fallout Boy – Dance Dance
Fallout Boy – Sophomore Slump
Green Day – Basket Case
Green Day – Burnout
Green Day – Emenius Sleepus
Green Day – In The End
Green Day – Warning
House of Pain – Jump Around
Jason Derulo – In My Head
Jay Z feat Alicia Keys – Empire State Of Mind
Jimmy Eat World – The Middle
Jock Jams – 1,2,3,4 (Sumpin’ New)
Jock Jams – Boom Boom Boom
Jock Jams – Cheerleading Competition Dance
Jock Jams – Gonna Make You Sweat
Jock Jams – I Like to Move It
Journey – Eye of the Tiger
Ke$ha – Blah Blah Blah
Ke$ha – TiK ToK
Kelly Clarkson – Since Youve Been Gone
Kris Kross – Jump
La Roux – Bulletproof
Lady Antebellum – Need You Now
Lady Gaga – Telephone
Limp Bizkit – Rollin
Madonna – 4 Minutes
Madonna – Ray Of Light
Madonna – Revolver
Matrix – Can You Feel It
Michael Jackson – Beat It
Muse – Supermassive Black Hole
Nickelback – Animals
Offspring – Keep Em Separated
Offspring – She’s Got Issues
Orianthi – According To You
R.E.M. – It’s the End of the World As We Know It and I Feel Fine
R.E.M. – Orange Crush
R.E.M. – Shiny Happy People
Rammstein – Du Hast
Real McCoy – Another Night
Real McCoy – Run Away
Rhianna – Pon de Replay
Rihanna – Hard
Rihanna – Russian Roulette
Snow Patrol – Hands Open
Survivor – Eye Of The Tiger
The Killers – Somebody Told Me (Mylo Remix)
Tom Cochrane – Life Is A Highway
Train – Hey Soul Sister
Vengaboys – Boom Boom Boom
Vengaboys – Kiss
Vengaboys – Up and Down
Vengaboys – We Like To Party

What do you think?   Got any good suggestions for ones that I’ve missed?

P.S. — Yes, I know some of this is really old-school, clicheish, or simply mind-numbingly dumb.   SUCK IT.   This is for sweating purposes, not an artistic expression.

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2010. | Permalink | 8 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

This is not to say that I don’t get hungry, but in thinking and meditating on my relationship with food, my body, and my weight, I’ve come to the uncomfortable realization that perhaps I don’t really, truly, know what it’s like to be hungry.   That perhaps what I consider to be, “hunger,” is really just a farcical symptom brought about by my mind and not my body — hence, I eat when I don’t need to, or more than I must when I do.

What does hunger feel like for YOU?   There’s different types that I feel, of course, and many I can identify, ranging in intensity from, “I’m bored” to “I’m going to pass out if you don’t get me something RIGHT NOW.”    But I’d say the typical hunger that I feel is neither of the two.

Just a snack?

When I generally feel hungry, the sensation starts in my mouth, which I think is a great part of the problem.    It’s hard to describe, but it’s like my mouth needs to eat — does that even make sense?   I can feel the sensations of biting, chewing, swallowing, and the tastes and flavors that come along with the process in my mouth.   Not physically, although sometimes it waters or otherwise, but mentally.    I have a mental sensation of needing to physically use a part of my body.   I guess that’s the best description.

That’s the typical hunger and the one that appears at “regular” mealtimes.    It’s what I typically act on, even if my stomach is not sending the, “Uhm…food, please?” message yet.    This may be very problematic.

If I let hunger go long enough, I eventually get to the pain-in-the-tummy sort, that kind of hunger where you feel EMPTY and the ache starts to be so bad that if you don’t do something about it, you’re sure something bad will happen.   It’s that crampy-style of hunger.    That for me is very rare, but I get it occasionally.    What’s even more disturbing is that if I ignore it long enough, it’ll go away, but that doesn’t mean that my body isn’t needing food, it’s just stopped complaining about it.   If I wait too long, I won’t feel hungry, but I’ll get lightheaded, dizzy, aches, etc. until I give in and eat.     How am I supposed to work with this when it isn’t consistent?

Here’s a big problem: I don’t know what’s normal.

That is, we as humans say, “I’m hungry!” but nobody really knows what that means.   I know for my friend Paul, his hunger is insane — when the man’s hungry, he’ll eat the varnish off woodwork.    But I don’t know what his hunger feels like vs. mine — and maybe mine’s not normal.    Maybe at every meal he feels like he’s going to keel over and die if he doesn’t eat Right.  Now.

I need to find out what’s normal.    But how?

Well, I’m hoping for one that you’ll comment and describe what your typical hunger feels like to you, the sort you have when you need to eat a meal on any regular day.   Does it hurt?   Ache?   Where do you feel it, in your belly, in your head, in your mouth?   What other sensations do you have, do you feel dizzy, like you’re going to pass out, or is that only when you get extremely hungry?   How fast does it go away when you finally eat?  What happens if you ignore it?

I’m hoping by exploring this topic that I can try to get a better hold on my own bodily sensations and what they truly mean vs. whatever my mind is concocting at the moment.   In this, maybe I can learn what my body really needs vs. what it just thinks it wants, which is a huge step towards doing the right things for it and me.      Thanks for playing along.

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2010. | Permalink | 7 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

I didn’t even know at the time that what I was experiencing had a name; I had had quite a few moments in high school where I would suddenly get extremely hyped, very nervous, shaky, and unable to control my senses, but it would go away eventually and I’d shake it off.

That was, until senior year, last period of the day, band rehearsal, and I suddenly felt very nauseous, very ill, and excused myself to the bathroom.   It went downhill from there.  Every sensation I would feel would seem to double back on me and cause yet another, stronger one to take its place.   My panics are always health-related — I’m sure I’m going to die.  Heart attack, usually.   I thought it a pretty crappy place to die, surrounded by 1960s era tiled walls and the all-familiar smell of school bathrooms, that beautiful funk of industrial cleanser and teenagers who can’t aim for beans.

A dear close friend, bless him, came and found me in the men’s room and drove me home and stayed with me as I got worse and worse.   Eventually my parents arrived home and called 911.  I felt so silly but I couldn’t get up off the floor by then, heart pounding, sweating buckets, mind spinning, speech slurring.  I remember the technicians tending to me and lifting my big hulk off the floor and out the door and into the idling ambulance.

A 95mph ride 30 miles north to the hospital amid rocking IV bags and tubes and my heart still trying to escape and run amok in the fields surrounding us.   I remember suddenly having to pee so badly I ended up convincing a dubious responder that getting a bottle to do it on the ride, right now, was imperative.   At the time it seemed so incredibly ironic — here I was, dying (or so I thought), and suddenly my body insisted on taking a leak.   Someone was laughing at me, I swear.

The bustle of an E.R.   EKG.   Little strips of paper with my heartbeats captured for posterity.   Docs poking and frowning and shaking their heads over bushed eyebrows and clipboard wielded like swords.    Flabbergasted sighs.   “There’s nothing wrong with him!” as if I was a fruitloop.  By then I was calmer, the monster was leaving.   I kept telling my mother, “I know it was real, it happened!  I swear.   It was awful.”  She believed me, bewildered though she was.

I was worn down.  Tired.   All I wanted to do was sleep, to forget for awhile that I had endured it.   “Panic attack,” came the final thought from the doctor shortly before I was released back to normal society.    He said it with the demeanor of someone holding a dirty gym sock, as if it was all in my head.   Well, maybe it was and maybe it wasn’t, jackass, but would you like to trade?

Research on my own later — hrm, maybe this isn’t so uncommon.   Signs that pointed to what I had been doing wrong — too much caffeine, too little sleep, too much stress, heavy class load (9 classes, 7:30 am till 3:30pm with hours of practice afterwards).    I had simply pushed myself beyond and the whole of me gave up and said, “Fine!   Screw you.”

I still get them.   They’re not as frequent nor as awful because now I know and I can usually talk myself out or at least keep busy with something, anything, until the sensation passes.    I am my own best therapist when nothing else will listen.   I always fear that they’ll escalate again into something terrible, but so far, the beast has stayed at bay.   I have a feeling that he’ll always be there, waiting for the opportunity to snatch again, but for now, he is tamed.    And I am calm.

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2010. | Permalink | 3 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

I’m not talking about needing to legitimately eat, I’m speaking of that feeling you get that says, “I’m not hungry, but I desperately want to be chewing on something…anything…”

Well, ok, maybe you don’t get it.   I have to assume not everyone does, because some of you are thin as a rail from simply intaking only what you must and that’s it.   Trust me, this is not an affliction that you want.   You are, in the nicest way possible, a lucky bastard.

It’s probably the hardest non-exercise-related item that holds me back from being fit and trim.    I used to think, “Hey, I just like the taste/texture/smell of food, ok?   Some people like books, some like movies…well, I’m just a goddamned FOODIE.   No problem, right?  They have a whole freaking TV network just for me!”

Turns out it’s a HUGE problem because it means at any point in the day I may get a fantastic urge to shove something in my gob for a snack.    The problem is that the resulting caloric intake is far beyond what I should be ingesting and couple that with a sedentary job and bad exercise schedule (until recently), you end up looking — like me.   Overweight and far too many squeezy parts.    Good if you’re a teddy bear, not so much if you’re a 32-year-old guy.

Here’s the really frustrating part about this — eating something?   Yeah, it only solves the sensation for awhile.    Immediately, certainly, and then for a bit more, but it drops off after awhile and I’m back where I started.    The only tried and true way, besides willpower to stop it, is to eat until I am stuffed full — at that point, something else kicks in and stops the sensation and I go back to normal, albeit feeling like a whale because I’ve just ate when I didn’t have to.

It’s much easier to ignore if my defenses are strong — when I’m well-slept, not stressed or pressured, have had good exercise, love from my family, and generally feel good about myself.     Step on any of those or trod on many and it becomes easier and easier for me to fail to resist the urge and instead solve it by grabbing something to munch on and moving on.      Thus, when work has hammered me down into the ground and I’m working insane hours, it’s been a long week of only 4-5 hours/night sleep, or any other factors, I gain weight.    And it’s almost entirely the fault of this sensation.

That’s not to say I’m not the person in control, because I am.   I have no one to blame but my own failures.     It does mean, however, that I have to constantly work on trying to figure out the best way to A) prevent it from happening in the first place and B) how to mitigate it when the munchies DO hit me full-force.

I think the first battle is identifying it, which I’ve done and tried to elaborate on with this post.    Secondly, it’s finding and defining activities or mental exercises to avoid giving in to the sensations.    I know exercise helps, but I can’t always burst into “Ab Crunchers for Dummies” during a 3pm meeting at work.    I need to build up my defenses in other ways to make this work.

Then maybe one day I can battle the Munchies every time….and win.

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2009. | Permalink | 3 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

“One, two, three, fuck, five, six…” he counts, trying desperately to keep from bursting into laughter or tears at the effort required and the strange contortions required by the leader.

“Dig within you!” screams the hulking mass of rippling muscle and sweat to the camera while bouncing through another routine at warp speed.     Eyes roll as he thrusts his over-sized bulk into the pattern of the exercise.    He is certain that, if seen by anyone else in the world, the resulting screams and mass exodus would clear the town in short order.     Thankfully, here in the basement, he is only judged by the technology that surrounds him and the unyielding concrete beneath his feet.

“Working out” — what a misnomer.   If it was phrased to be something like, “torture session”, or “sweating party” or even the gentle yet purposeful, “moving your ass brigade” it would make him feel better; unfortunately, modern culture and pop media try to make the activity sound like something that everyone enjoys and does when they are bored because, why not?   It’s working out!    We’re happy when things work out, so why not us?

The activity is a love-hate relationship, being both beneficial to his plump countenance and beating back the effects of a sit-on-your-bum job but also making him feel like the lowest of fools for even trying and completely ridiculous in the conflagrations required to even start to bring about meaningful changes in his body.   “Thin-bodied bastards,” he mumbles as he gazes at the abs of the contracted muscle currently twitching on the screen while hardly getting damp.   “Must be nice.”

This is what, day 3?   5?   8?    He can’t remember, but he’s noticing some differences — there’s always some that come along.    The routines become a bit easier, the puffing of his lungs reduces, he recovers quicker from complete exhaustion.   But the clumsiness is still present, the need to find a way to tell his body to go, “HERE, HERE, and HERE” all at the same time and — god forbid! — in rhythm.   A dancer’s legs, arms…body, he did not inherit.   Ballet never looked as grotesque as it would if he attempted Swan Lake.

He stops briefly as the mentor yells out, “One more set!”

“You must be fucking joking,” he says, incredulously.   He stands there for a minute.   And then, steeling himself, he throws out his fists and kicks high into the air and misses, but keeps going, in the hopes that it’s making a long-term difference….somehow.

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2009. | Permalink | 3 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

Oh, right — THE RICH haven’t, because they can just pay for it all to be taken care of.

This is not to say I don’t like the rich or the Republicans that often represent them.    Some of their work ethic is very admirable — work hard, save much, be smart, frugal, and conscientious and you will reap much good.     Anyone can become wealthy and live in the lap of luxury — after all, that’s the American way and ultimately, I have no issues with that philosophy.

The problem with these ideals is that they break down in the face of major health issues.    Even the best planners, savers, and investors amongst us living on a modest income can be thrashed into a bloody pulp by one large medical issue and the costs it incurs.     Considering that they can run into six figures in a hurry, even if your savings account has a wonderful $20,000 balance in it (which most of us can only DREAM of), it’s simply a drop in the huge ocean of expenses you can rack up for a heart attack, stroke, cancer, or any number of other problems that nobody plans on having.     The birth of my son was $56,000 before insurance alone, with us having to shoulder about $8,500 of that in payments that are still being made.    (We’ll own him outright one of these days, by golly.)

So while the conservatives are saying, “Government running health care is a bad idea; just work hard and you’ll get enough to afford coverage, the system works like it is,” the reality is that even with hard work it may not be enough.    You may get coverage, but at such a huge price that you cannot afford it, and likely you will earn too much to be eligible for “poverty” status and the coverage that provides.    You could get coverage denied because you have a pre-existing condition or because you develop a condition that the insurance company chooses to not cover.     Maybe you’re switching jobs and the coverage will drop in between, leaving you exposed and vulnerable.   The drugs for your particular condition may fall outside the blanket of your prescription plan and rack up thousands of dollars every month.  If you’re lucky and receive coverage you can afford and it kicks in to cover your problem, you might be slogged with paying a high deductible, copays, or your insurance can hit the lifetime cap and all assistance dries up for everything now-and-forever.

Any one of these situations is enough to throw a reasonable middle-to-lower class person into despair; many have had to struggle with several blows for a single situation.   The fact is that these are more the norm than the exception and we all know someone who has dealt with the hassles of at least one of these is testament large this problem looms over our society.

I don’t begrudge the insurance companies for being a business and making a profit, but at the same time it’s the point of the entire system that has been lost, and that point is caring for a real human’s health and well-being.    People are being analyzed, economized, and marginalized due to numbers, not needs.    Uncle John’s cancer treatment has become a fiscal decision, not a best-tool-for-the-job selection.   The pregnant mother in between jobs can’t get maternity coverage for herself and her baby in the month in between because it’s not a good risk profile.    Because it’s a drain on the bottom line, the lifetime cap slams the door on the couple with the bouncing baby boy with the genetic disorder who has used up all the benefits and now has no coverage for his intensely-expensive needs.

We need to get our health care system back to one that takes care of people first, profits second;   patients, not liabilities.    This is what the propopsed health care bill is fighting to achieve through some regulations that ensure coverage when things don’t go right and life hands you lemons you are too weak to squeeze for yourself.    In the end, if it costs each of us a bit more out of our paychecks to ensure that anyone and everyone has access to affordable, useful health care in all situations, then I say, sign me up;  I’m all for something that gets us back to one of the most important causes we have to fight for today — taking care of each other.

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2009. | Permalink | 4 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

You can read the beginning of this story here and an update here.

Since this fiasco began, my heart has continued to thump around in my chest, apparently oblivious to the fact that it’s caused me no end of grief and probably countless new charges and line items on my hospital bills which, thankfully, the insurance company gets to shoulder the brunt of.  One has to wonder why your organs don’t have more sympathy to your own plights, especially when they cause it.

On Thursday of last week I finally got the results from both my echo-cardiogram and my Holter EKG monitor that I wore for 24 hours to record my heartbeat.  The echo came back with the following report:  “If you weren’t so fat, we could have gotten a better picture.”  Gee.  Leave it up to a doctor to say something nice, eh?  Actually, the written report said, “Due to the patient’s size, we were unable to obtain a clear picture.”  But I think we all know what was implied here, don’t you?

The Holter’s results were more definitive:  “occasional PVCs”. This does not refer to polyvinyl chloride plastic, as I am more commonly dealing with when I partake in a plumbing project in my basement, but to premature ventricular contractions, a form of heart rhythm aberration.

Normal heartbeats are initiated in the right-hand atrium by something called the SA Node.   This is the “pacemaker” of the healthy heart.   All parts of the heart have the built-in ability to fire an electrical signal to beat their own part, but the SA node is the biggest and fastest, so it usually goes first and causes all the other parts to cascade in order, triggered by the signal from the SA node.  Thus, a normal heartbeat.

In PVC, for some reason, one of the ventricle’s own firing centers goes ahead of the SA node.  This “odd” signal causes the heart to beat backwards for a second, thoroughly confusing the poor thing and making it shake its head around like it just biffed itself on the cupboard door after trying to raise its head to hear what its wife was yelling from the other side of the house.  In essence, it misses a beat entirely, then comes back in with a vengeance on the next one, and resumes the proper course towards the horizon.

Would you like to see my EKG from today and a PVC in it?  Ok, here ya go:

Oh, is that hard to see?  Here’s a closeup of my EKG:  2 normal beats, a PVC, and 2 more normal beats:

They’re one of the most common forms of heart arrhythmia and are usually benign, but of course, I had no idea on mine.  So my doctor scheduled me in for a stress test.

Yup, this is the stereotypical man running on a treadmill with wires suctioncupped to his nipples, except that they are adhesive, not suction, and very tightly on my chest hair, not my poor little nubs.

I did this today at 8am — quite the wakeup!  The nurse informed me that they had to get my heartrate up to a target level, which turned out to be 161 beats/minute, 85% of my max heart rate of 190.  It took me 7 minutes to get there and then I held it for another 3 minutes, running at 4.2mph on a 16% incline.  While this may not sound at all impressive to you folks out there in Jogs-To-Work-ville, it was a heavy breather, and not the good sort, either.

All the while they were taking an EKG and the nurse, a PA, and a resident were watching the progress, both to evaluate the results and in case I were to keel over and assume a horizontal position.

Thankfully, my PVCs decreased as my heart rate went up, and all but disappeared during the highest portion of the test, which is great news.  This is exactly what you want to happen, as it means that the heart’s own pacemaker is overpowering the faulty electrical activity and forcing the regular rhythm, even if the ventricle is still generating the irregular beat, a phenomenon known as overdrive suppression.

In layman’s terms, it means that my heart’s not fucked up.

I have to wait to really call it an “all clear” until my doctor gets the opportunity to review my test results, but that’s probably the case — a benign case of the bumps.  The next task will be to see if it’s worth even bothering to treat them or if it’s simply better to learn to live with them, which I am getting MUCH better at.

But for now, I can live with the knowledge that it looks very positive for me and my ticker.  Three cheers for pumpers that take a licking and keep on ticking.

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2008. | Permalink | 6 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

Unfortunately, because of the weekend, I won’t hear anything till Monday at least, if not later, because people have to read the monitor output and the echo and get an analysis to my doctor, blah, blah, blah….

Meanwhile, my chest continues to jump around like a rabbit on crack and I am trying desperately to ignore it.   I’m doing fairly well, I think, although my resolve and ability to distract myself varies at times.   Oh, to feel normal again…

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2008. | Permalink | One comment. One lonely comment looking for a friend. | Subscribe RSS

Hellloooo, 30.

Saturday night as we raced home from Cedar Rapids after a lovely weekend that had a bad ending (kid puking), I started feeling my heart doing odd things.   After feeling it for awhile, I realized that it was missing a beat every so often.   It would be going along and then there’d be this long pause where a beat would normally hit in the rhythm, and then a HUGE beat would hammer my chest and it’d continue on its way.

Most disconcerting.   But I chalked it up to a lack of sleep, lots of adreneline from the situation, and so forth.   I wasn’t worried.

Until it continued the next day.   And the next.   And the next.

It only happens in periods, of course — an hour here, an hour there.   Never when I’m doing intense work.   Never when I’m sleeping (that I know of).   Only really when I’m wound up (anxious) or coming down from doing something heavy-breathing (not that, you twiddlehead).   To be honest, I’m not really sure of the triggers, only that it happens far, far too often.

There’s no other symptoms of a heart issue, thankfully.   No pain, tightness, sweating, dizziness, nausea, etc.   If there had been, you can bet my ass’d be in the ER quicker than a how’s-your-uncle.  I’m not completely stupid.   I just have these random feelings of emptiness and then a big BOOM as my heart comes back to life.   It really screws up my concentration.

So, I went and saw the doctor today, like any good paranoid patient would, but not before I had researched the possible diagnoses on the web, of course.   Dangerous, I know, but…my curiosity wouldn’t let me otherwise.   In this regard, my suspicions match the doctor’s analysis that I probably have a PVC or PAC — Premature Ventricular Contractions or Premature Atrial Contractions — both conditions that aren’t horrifically serious as long as they aren’t coupled with other heart disease.   But who knows about that?

Doc gave me a look over, listened a bit, popped me on the short-term EKG (didn’t show anything — heart didn’t act up, go figure), drew some blood to check hormonal and mineral imbalances, and then slapped this Holter monitor on me to record what’s going on for the next day.   I have wires crossing all over my chest and little sticky patches that will surely rip a ton of hair off my chest when we’re done, rendering me into a polka-dot painting.   I can pick up 56 channels and my bellybutton can tune in Howard Stern.

Noon tomorrow I can take this thing off (it has a little recorder box that has a countdown — I’m at 12 hours, 45 minutes to go) and then at 3 I have an echocardiogram to look at the structures of the heart and make sure it’s not a blockage, a bad valve, etc.   That should be interesting and nervewreaking all at the same time.

At this point, I’d just be happy to know what I’m up against, to know if I’m likely to drop dead randomly (the doctor says very unlikely, but…), and what my options and possibilities are for treatment, if any.   Sometimes the above conditions are simply untreatable and non-threatening, so you just have to live with them.    Let me tell you — trying to do anything useful when your heart is stopping every 3-6 beats for a pause and then slamming back into gear is damned near impossible.

I dunno.   I’m out of shape, overweight, and just was talking to my wife this past week about us both getting in better shape and weight.   I guess if this is a wake-up call for anyone, RING RING.   Sheesh.

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2008. | Permalink | 6 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

It was originally diagnosed as eczema, but was elevated to an, “I don’t know,” status by the head dermatologist at the Forest Park Clinic in Mason City and we were referred up to pediatric dermatologist Dr. Jennifer Hand at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, to find out exactly what it was, perhaps why it occurred, and what to do about it. So yesterday I took a day off work and we made the 2 hour drive (and tank of $3.60/gallon gas) up to submit Keston to some poking and prodding and hopefully find some answers to his issues.

The trip was essentially worthless and utterly frustrating. The head dermatologist in Mason is convinced it is *not* eczema, yet once we got up there, the Dr. Hand gave him a brief glance and was like, “It’s just eczema. He looks great. What’s the problem?” Which is nice — he was having one of his good days, rare though they be — but it doesn’t give us many solutions for the nighttime itching and his outburst of rashes from seemingly nothing. Also, wouldn’t you do more if the head of the dermatology clinic in Mason doesn’t even know what the hell it is???

Sigh.

Of course, it started off badly — we were about 5 minutes late so we were rushing, driving through Rochester in the pissing rain, trying to find the parking garage, but that was no problem — we got there and checked in fine. However, when I checked in, the receptionist said, “Oh, is that paperwork for the doctor?” indicating the referral letter and the sheet of all Keston’s prescriptions and diet. I confirmed that it was, and she said, “Oh, ok, I’ll take that and make sure she gets it.” I thought that was nice, so we settled down into the very pretty and subtlety-lit waiting room.

But when it came time to see the doctor, we asked if she had seen the paperwork and she’s like, “No, what paperwork?” She sent the nurse after it, but the receptionist had run off to lunch and the nurse just came back and shrugged her shoulders. The doctor seemed unfazed by this and although we said we could wait for them to find the papers, she just said to continue on, she knew what it was and didn’t need to see the referral (which, in that letter, the doctor in Mason explains why he thought it *wasn’t* eczema). So we had to explain what was going on from memory, his entire history and meds/foods/etc. even though we had written it all down already (my wife has been extremely organized with it all, bless her).

So she weighed him (22lbs now, good thing we got the new car seat today) and briefly examined him and then she pulled out a sheet of suggestions for handling eczema and listed everything off, but we’re already doing everything on the sheet so she was like, “Oh, well, you’re doing good then. Carry on.” We did get another different antihistamine to try at night and yet another OTC skin cream but that’s about it. She said that Keston is nothing compared to some of the kids she sees whose eczema is so bad that they stop growing and get sepsis and staph infections. Which is nice enough to know that we’re not an extreme case, but we still feel like the poor sod shouldn’t have to wake up every hour or two at night itching and tearing up his skin.

So we left feeling very much like we had just completely wasted a tank of gas and an office copay. We went off and did some mild shopping and poking around Rochester, stopped to get supper at TGI Friday’s, decided we didn’t like the look and prices on the menu, and instead ended up at Famous Dave’s. As we did I kept getting madder and madder about the situation and now I’m really pissed about it. So I don’t know what to do at this point, but I think we got fucked and someone’s going to hear about it.

I mean…if we’re doing all we can for Keston and there’s nothing up with him but the eczema and so forth, fine. I can deal with that and we’ll keep on doing what we’re doing to control it. (She said most kids grow out of it by 1 years, but then they usually get asthma…joy.) But if it isn’t, I’m going to feel really bad that we were blown off and, at the time, I didn’t have the balls to tell the doctor she was being a daffy bitch (and or hunt down the stupid bint of a secretary and give her what-for for losing our goddamned paperwork).

Sometimes I envy Type A’s ability to speak up at the moment, whereas I always think about what I *should* have said at the time and then kick myself later. Hindsight…GAH!

For those of us around the Midwest, Mayo is touted as being one of the premier health care centres around, garnering the business of presidents and international dignitaries and handling thousands of cases a year. While I realize that my son’s skin problems are probably small potatoes in the the large scheme of things, don’t we deserve a fair whack at the resources as well, especially if we’ve been explicitly referred there?

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2008. | Permalink | 14 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

I hate NY resolutions. You all know that.

The only reason I’m going to lose weight and get healthier again is because it’s the right thing to do. I’m 30 after all, time to quit fucking around and get down to business. Time to get rid of the gut, or at least reduce it to a mild amusement instead of a place where BBQ sauce stops. Time to feel better, fit into clothes that actually look good, and to get myself to a point where I can last at least another few decades if not a half century. My wife and son deserve a husband and a father who will be around for a long time yet. I never really thought about it till I had a son, but now I’m deeply frightened by the idea of my son not having me around. Is that my ego speaking?

The nice thing is that I have awesome motivation this time around — and that makes it sound like I’ve been around a lot, which I have, who hasn’t? — as the YMCA in Charles City is holding a “biggest loser” contest from now till the 17th of March and I joined a team of four men (my boss included) to compete in it. We’re up against one other team at CBM so there’s already a lot of goading going on and so forth.

To track my results I’m using the PC version of FitDay — FitDay.com is an online calorie tracking site that you can use for free, but they also offer a downloadable program for $20 that is supposed to be better. So the other day I ordered it, and it was definitely worth the money. Not only can you do all the functionality of the online program (counting calories) but you can track measurements (weight, sizes, etc), other nutrients, exercise, and a slew of other options as well as generating some pretty reports, graphs, and so forth for your amusement. Well worth the dough.

I weighed in at the YMCA at 289 pounds and my own scale shows 275 (yes, it’s not accurate, but at least it’s consistent). I’m looking to try to lose 3 to 3.5 pounds/week or so in the 11 or so weeks I have to do this program, but then to continue onwards after. Ultimately, the only promise and requirement I’ve made to myself is that whatever I gain I’m not allowed to gain it back. Anything else is free game — if I plateau, if I fall off the bandwagon of exercise, whatever — as long as I’m not gaining it back, I’m allowed a few slip-ups. But gaining it back means I’m falling back into the hole and I just can’t let that happen again.

So far in two days I’ve come below my calorie restriction for both times — I’m allowed 2,312 a day and I’ve hit 1,680 and 2,071. Both days I’ve done 30 minutes on the treadmill followed by lifting 15lb dumbbells (have there ever been smartbells?) in various ways and crunches, which I absolutely suck at. (13 at a time, folks — that’s my big accomplishment) All during this I’m listening to my new MP3 player (Samsung Sansa 2GB) which helps so much, I’m curious how I did it before without music. My plan right now is to do treadmill Mon-Fri for 30 minutes, weights after are optional on Tue/Thu, and the weekend I have to work out, but can be flexible as to what I end up doing because I hate getting bored. I might transition into Tae-Bo once I get my stamina back, we’ll have to see.

I’m not about to start talking about this a lot on here but I did want to write about it this time because writing it in a public forum makes it more “real” and if it holds me more accountable, so be it.

I have to be healthy and stick around — I’m my best source of amusement.

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2008. | Permalink | 10 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2007. | Permalink | 8 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

If I really think about it, I’m amazed that I’ve come so far physically.

Yes, that is an actual picture of yours truly. The first is at the height of my dorkiness, a high school junior of 17 with more acne than skin on his face, glasses the size of the Arecibo radio telescope, a dippy haircut, and a shirt and tie for school pictures. Is it any wonder why I never got any dates and buried myself in schoolwork and music?

The acne was the worst of the entire experience and I shiver just to think about it now, 13 years later. If it wasn’t for a wonderful drug as a collage sophomore, I’d still have eruptions on my mug and quite possibly would still be single and living in a dark cave or similar. I’m not degrading those that have acne — rather, I have nothing but the utmost sympathy for them, because I was there once. It’s terrible. But it does have a marked impact against your social interactions, no matter how people like to act like they’re “good people” and don’t take notice of it.

It was about the time of this picture that I started seeing a dermatologist and taking rounds of antibiotics to try to combat the problem of my face. I did quite a few different types, going from mild to stronger and stronger, but nothing ever really took care of it. I showered twice a day, scrubbing vigorously, and would often wash my face independently in between. Each morning and night I would park myself in front of a mirror to pop the crop of zits that had grown in previous hours. With a pin in hand, I’d open up each one and squeeze it out, dabbing it afterwards. It was messy, it was gross, it hurt, and I hated it, but I had little choice unless I wanted to go around with a bunch of whiteheads blinking on my noggin like so many “DORK” signs.

There were days I simply wanted to rip my face off because it hurt so much and it frustrated me to no end. I was embarrassed; who wouldn’t be? But at the same time, what do you do? You just keep on plugging through life, hoping that the person talking to you would ignore the fact that you are hideously riddled with oozing sores. Girls? Ha! Right. “C’mere, babe, and kiss THIS!” Mind you, I was an immature nerd at the time, but even if I had a slight chance, she was probably afraid of infection.

Fortunately, after a bunch of futile rounds of drugs, the fates lined up (in other words, the family got good enough insurance) so that they could put me on a drug called Accutane (generic: isotretinoin). Simply put, it was the miracle worker of my skin.

The doctor explained it like this: As we all know, the oil glands are the ones that plug up when you have acne. Apparently some people (myself included) never develop the larger pores in the skin that comes with puberty. As such, mine were plugging up left and right because they were too small and dirt/bacteria irritated them easily. Accutane goes and stops your body from producing oil. You do this over a period of time by increasing the dosage until the oil stops completely. For some reason, once the oil has stopped flowing, the wells (pores) relax and open up, naturally making the hole larger. When you then go off Accutane, the oil production resumes, but with new, larger pores, they stop plugging up. Et voila — no acne.

The treatment wasn’t very fun at times. I had to have blood drawn every 3 months because the drug is hard on your liver. The treatment lasted about a year and a half, but the high dosage (4 pills three times a day) was during the January of 1998. As any Iowan can tell you, the air gets extremely dry during the winter, and this was no exception — now, imagine having zero oil for lubrication. MAJOR dry skin! I itched constantly and everything was cracking. A hot pot sat boiling water almost night and day to keep the humidity in the room up and I still hurt and flaked. To add to this, at the peak of my dosage, I got horribly depressed to the point that they backed it off by one pill per dose, as the drug has been hinted to cause clinical depression as a side effect.

My acne actually stopped about a month before I hit the peak dosage. Without any oil to plug up my pores, it simply went away. It was glorious — I couldn’t believe how much better my skin and face felt because of it. And when I stopped the drug — hallelujah! It didn’t come back! To this day I only get a zit on my face once every few months and zits elsewhere only when I get really dirty or sweaty; on the whole, it’s completely tolerable. My skin has never fully returned to its pre-Accutane oily state and during the winter months I can still get very dry and itchy if I don’t watch it.

I’d love to say that everyone and anyone who has acne can give this drug a whirl, but the fact it, it’s horribly expensive. The pills cost $6 each and I was consuming up to 12 a day at the top of my treatment (That’s $72/day for you math majors.) Thankfully, my mother’s health insurance only charged a small fee for each fill and the rest was covered by insurance; otherwise I wouldn’t have been so lucky.

A pretty face isn’t everything, of course. It has to be coupled with brains, personality, and morals, but it never hurts, right? I, for one, am forever grateful that I had the chance to get cleared up and looking better.

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2007. | Permalink | 7 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

*snork* I hate being sick.

*sneeze* Well, not that anyone really enjoys being sick, I don’t think. I for one, while having seen television programs about sado-masochistic couples that regularly beat the tar out of each other for the sheer orgasmic wailing of it all, have yet to see 20/20 do a special on the habits of folks that get infections because it turns them on so MUCH.

*hack* Ok, so maybe folks like that do exist. They’re called, “childcare workers” and “teachers”. Where else can you submit yourself to a wide array of pathogens in such a short period of time? Third-world countries have nothing on the well-stocked daycare. The walls practically crawl with cities of germs, each finding itself surrounded by a billion friends and waving a banner that says, “Nostrils Or Bust!”

*gak!* There’s something so humble about having your body, normal functionality taken for granted by us so many times during the day, suddenly attacked by an invisible, foreign, microscopic critter that, despite being smaller than anything we can even see, reduces you to a whimpering, quivering plop of goo hoping that if this is death, it come quickly, and would it bring a large hammer to crack me over the head, just in case?

*moan* I sometimes fail to understand the body’s defense strategy in which it decides to flood all passageways with mucus as if the germ was hanging out and having a bar mitzvahs on the surface of your membranes. Trust me, there is no way that anything could survive the amount of crap flowing from our noses in full swing cold season, let alone mount a full scale attack. Those buggers are dug in for the long haul like retirees in Key West.

*blow* The intention, which noble, appears to be misplaced; doesn’t snot take a fair whack of energy and resources to make? How about using those to actually fight the damned cold, make swords for the white cells, anything! Wouldn’t you like to be the cell that gets designated as a, “mucus generator”? Boy, that’s gotta make the senior prom rather uncomfy. “No, Dad, I don’t have a date. I tried to ask Suzie but she got covered in goo and suffocated.”

*achoo!* “The next one will be my last,” you are convinced. “I’ll sneeze, stars will appear, the lights will dim, my brain will implode, and that’ll be it.” Every last spasm and cramp in your body appears to be the death throes of a person beaten into the dust of the ground, barely having enough energy to raise a finger and switch the channel. Maury Povich seems downright inspirational at this point, given you have the mental capacity of a tire. “Cruel, heartless world,” we moan and once again attempt to summon enough strength to crank open the child-proof Elixir of Life, made by your friends and mine at Robitussin.

*sniffle* Still, everyone says it’s the season for colds, as if that’s supposed to make me feel more festive or in the mood to get one. Hell, I know it can’t be a real season because Wal*Mart’s aisles aren’t full of disease-oriented cheap plastic decorations. “Snot-Boy sings a zippy tune about aches and fevers, just press his hand to try it out!” Maybe they’re missing out; after all, a few well-placed items, such as compacting trashcans, portable flamethrowers for sanitizing everything, Brawny Triple-Roll Kleenex, and USB-powered mini-nose-vacs would probably sell like hotcakes.

*groan* You and I, like everyone else, will soldier on through this minefield of bacteria and virii, deterred only by the most severe of ailments, putting on a good face to our co-workers (‘oh, just a little bug going around, I’m fine’), and generally hating every moment we’re even slightly conscious. We will spend our days walking around in a fog and attempting to avoid impaling ourselves on living room furniture. Eventually it’ll leave, leaving a path of crumpled tissues in its wake and a very dazed but relieved person blinking and wondering where the hell they are and how they possibly made it to March without having a seizure.

I wish each and every one of you luck during this time of trials. I raise my tissue to you.

Beam me up, Snotty.

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2007. | Permalink | 5 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

This is not a new concept, as it was conceived in 2004 by Reid Mihalko and Marcia Baczynski as a way to bring people together for soothing sessions of touch without moving past that into the realm of eroticism. “Sounds like an opportunity for an informal orgy to me!” you might be saying to yourself, my astute and perceptive reader, but real, moderated Cuddle Parties do not allow anything of the sort to happen. While there may be some more informal events that result in more than just snuggling next to someone else, the official gatherings are overseen by trained “lifeguards” that ensure any overt sexual energy is safely and harmlessly dispersed without anyone getting wound up too tight. They have quite the FAQ and rules list that details the expectations and questions that arise from such possibilities.

This idea of a group of people getting together merely to touch and be touched has fascinated me for a long time. I have long been someone who has a, “touch tank” that needs to get filled from time to time to keep my sense of wholeness strong, and so the thought of having an event where this takes place in large numbers is rather intriguing. Sure, there’s a part of my mind that embraces the idea of canoodling with some attractive person of the double-X chromosome type, but even Cuddle Party accepts the idea that being attracted to others is all a part of the system. After all, who doesn’t like curling up with a hottie?

It certainly does edge on the realm of “Hippie Land” and approaches the idea of human interaction from a very different angle, but at the same time, it brings to mind a lot of interesting thoughts. For instance, would the human race be better off if we touched each other more? I think it’s pretty damned hard to be mad or upset with someone when they are in your arms. Office politics just wouldn’t be the same if we greeted coworkers with hugs and sat around board rooms on beanbags and sharing a quilt, right? These are extremes, of course, but the thought of letting closeness that is brought out in a Cuddle Party, between absolute strangers, trickle down into ‘normal’ society is fascinating.

Think of the entrepreneurial possibilities for a Cuddle Parlor! I think there would be pretty good money in establishing a business where you can arrive, change into a pair of PJs, and choose some employees to cuddle with. Perhaps you want a half hour session of nestling underneath a warm quilt with an attractive member of the opposite sex, or maybe you’d rather pick a few people and form a puppy pile. Instead of the brothel idea to provide sex to its clients, you’d be providing non-sexual touch and reassurance in a physical way. You fill some rooms with mattresses and quilts, some with beanbags, hang some hammocks, and sleeping bags are available just around the corner. People who are trained to cuddle only, dispel any sexual overtones, and guide newbies in the art of snuggling would be available to help remove the stresses of the world for awhile in a warm embrace. The options are both breathtaking and endless in the same shot.

I think participating in one of these parties would be a great experience; of course, provided that my wife was along and up to the game. (I’m not about to offend She Who Makes Life Worth Living or make her jealous.) That being said, I sincerely doubt that there will be any of these cropping up in the Midwest where people generally follow the beaten path and men are fond of the phrase, “I told you I loved you when I married you; if anything changes, I’ll let you know.” It does, however, sound like something that could more easily happen in a liberal college environment where boundaries and societal taboos are stretched a bit more than in the regular world. (Come to think of it, I think I had some cuddlefest moments back in the day, but they were usually me trying to hang on to my roommate because my knees had become pudding-ified with too much vodka.)

So, how about you? Do you think you would ever dare participate in one of these events? Do you consider yourself the cuddly sort or would this completely violate your personal space and make your skin crawl?

The world tends to be big, nasty, and unforgiving, but maybe in the solace of a warm room, a pair of pajamas, and the arms of another human, we each could escape for a moment and just be. Maybe someday — we all can.

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2007. | Permalink | 7 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

A lot of people have asked me (as they tend to do) if I have qualms about passing this milestone. In general, I don’t. I realize the aging process isn’t an instantaneous thing, but a linear progression that happens with ever nanosecond of my life. I am not instantly 30, I’m always in the process of aging to 30. And at the same time, I’m in the process of aging to 80. So I tend to not get my feathers ruffled about attaining such a marker in my existence because it is only one of a billion other delimiters — people just tend to notice the nice, round ones.

That being said, the other day I had a few hours of extreme depression wash over me, mostly from my mind considering where I am in life and being a bit disappointed at some things. By now, I had really planned on being more financially secure, in a much better job, and in general being more successful. Some of this has to do with chance; some of it is my own doing (or lack thereof). I sometimes wonder how many mistakes and bad decisions I’ve made that not even I recognize. I’m sure there’s a million.

However, I am also at the same time extremely blessed with a great many things, and I don’t want any of that to be diminished by my short spurt of wistfulness. I have a good house, a decent job, a wonderful wife, and my first child on the way. I could be in a far worse situation and I’m thankful that I’m not.

Since people like to see some evaluation of time, and you all like round numbers, here’s some stats from the past 10 years and what I’ve done and accomplished. This is by no means comprehensive, and by no means perfectly accurate — there’s two things you lose with age, the first is your memory and the second…uh…what was the question?

• I dated 8 women, kissed 6 of them, was intimate with 4 of them, fell in love with 2 of them, and married 1 of them. (does that make me sound like a manwhore?)
• I married my wife, Yolanda, twice — February 28th, 2004 and December 18th, 2004
• I managed to help conceive three children, lost two, and one is making his/her way to becoming our first child.
• I worked nine different jobs, 8 part-time and one full-time, as a groundskeeper, construction worker, webmaster, helpdesk support, computer programmer, and system administrator.
• I lived in 7 different locations — 3 dorm rooms at Luther College, 1 parent’s house, 1 apartment, 1 rental house, and 1 house that I bought.
• I had five different pets, only one of which is alive today — 2 anole lizards, 1 dwarf Russian hamster, one turtle, and one cat.
• I vastly revised my religion and belief system from that of a staunch, conservative Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod (LCMS) Christian to that of a custom, mostly liberal I-don’t-know-what.
• I would like to say I changed drastically physically, but I can only state that I’ve only probably added about 40 pounds to my frame. I have had three serious bouts of dieting and exercise.
• I traveled once to the East Coast, twice to the South, twice to Australia, and numerous times around the Midwest.
• I have flown on 21 flights and been to 11 airports. I have been on three charter buses and no trains.
• I’ve owned four cars — a 1984 Buick Century Ltd, a 1996 Dodge Intrepid, a 2003 Mitsubishi Eclipse GTS, and a 2007 Mitsubishi Galant Ralliart.
• My main home workstation has gone through 5 major upgrades and numerous small upgrades, but has retained the name “Simon” the entire time. I started on a 75mHz processor with 32MB of RAM and a 2GB hard drive.
• I have been in 8 weddings (I think) and attended many others.
• I’ve had stitches and staples in my head once, but no other major health issues.
• I have been in one accident, hit two deer, had a car towed twice, and had one flat tire.
• I have had 7 phone numbers, exactly one cellphone, and three major email addresses.
• I have participated in six different musical groups – choral, barbershop, and concert band.
• I played naked soccer 8 times and streaked 3 times. I have yet to skinny dip.
• I’ve had four roommates if you count my wife.
• Including this post, I have made 162 blog postings.
• I have made more friends than I can possibly count.
• The number of hugs I’ve given and received over the years would astound even me. And that’s a good thing.

Here we go into the next 10 years. I hope you come along with me.

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2007. | Permalink | 5 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

For as long as I can remember, I’ve adored my daily showers. I have one soon after I get up and have one shortly before I go to bed most days, although weekends are a bit more flexible. The morning one dissolves the film of sleep from my protesting eyes, brings my brain back from its wanderings in the woods of fantasy, and gets my body converted into “vertical mode” . The evening one caps off the day, allowing me to relax in the hot water and steam, letting the muscles and nerves that have propelled me through the day to untwist and unclench, allowing me to fall asleep much faster.

Plus, I’m just a clean freak, dontcha know?

The pursuit of a great, warm, powerful stream of water is not without its trials and tribulations, however. There are precious few units anywhere in the world that can produce the sort of pleasure-stream that I really enjoy, so I take great interest in attempting to make my own environment as ideal as possible.

Love can be found on an online dating website because many people meet others that may not in normal circumstances and online dating is a great way to meet new friends too.

To this end, I have discovered a method by which (for now) I can get a really great shower:

1. I buy myself a white Rainmaker Classic II, which is a plastic, low-flow shower head of a decent yet cheap quality, but has no-clog rubber jet nipples and a fairly wide head.
2. I open this up and remove the low-flow, tree-huggin’ hardware — the screen, restrictor, etc. I appreciate Mother Earth and all, but this is my shower we’re talking about. I’ll save water by not giving the grass a drink or something.
3. I then take a 1/2″ drill bit and use it to drill out the inside bore of the shower head until I have a large, straight, high-flow conduit for the water to blast through.
4. Install in the shower and test. Ooooohh….floodwaters from on high!
5. The last step is to make sure my water heater is set very high — right now, mine is kicking out water around 145°F or so. I’ll have to lower that in awhile to prevent anything from happening to my soon-to-arrive child, but for now, it allows me to get 30 to 45 minute showers without using up the heater’s worth.

I can hear you now….30 to 45 minute showers? Yes, on occasion they’re like that, but they’re rarely below 15 minutes on a normal day. You see, I rather like my showers. They’re relaxing, fulfilling, enjoyable. Perhaps it’s because of my loving-water nature or maybe it’s because I don’t get much solitude except in a good, warm deluge twice a day, but for whatever reason, they go long. And I’m ok with that.

This, naturally, drove my parents up a wall when I was growing up. They couldn’t conceive as to what I could possibly be doing for that long besides screwing around. They came up with a system of stomping on the floor to warn me that I was taking too long (the shower was in the basement), then eventually they’d start flashing the lights to let me know I had reached the end of my cleansing journey. At this point, continuing in my bathing was risking having the lights shut off entirely, leaving me to finish in the dark (which I did a few times) and endure a tongue-lashing when I got upstairs again. “What could you POSSIBLY be doing in there for THIRTY FREAKING MINUTES???” *sigh*

So, now that I am grown, on my own, in my own house, and paying my own bills, I have however long of a shower I damned well feel like, and some of them are truly incredible (just ask my wife). We often shower together, which I think is a lovely activity for couples (sexual reasons aside), but results in someone always freezing their ass off while the other one is enjoying the warmth. I have it in my plans to construct a new shower sooner than later and, when I do, it will have double showerheads and controls so we can shower together and both keep our tips from falling off.

So…the question remains: What do I do in such a long shower?

Well, after I get in, there’s usually 5 minutes or so of a phase called, “Getting Wet, Warm, and Relaxed”. I just let the water play over me, making sure it hits all parts, and get the water temperature adjusted correctly. Then I’ll often stand, back to the stream, and let it splay over me for awhile, watching the water droplets fly and rivulets of warmth run down my arms and chest.

After this, I’ll usually start washing, top-down. Hair is first, since it’s so oily anyway, then I grab the bar and soap up with that directly (don’t use a washcloth unless there’s scrubbing needed), then my face (including ears) is usually last. At some point in this procedure, my glasses get washed and re-hung on a hook to drip. And I spot-check various places, including the twig and giggleberries and other nether-regional crevices; I’m a big fan of being spotless when possible.

Rinsing off is a big one. I don’t like the feeling of ANY soap on me whatsoever and will spend a lot of time rinsing to ensure that there’s no possible way that any remains. For this reason and others, things like conditioner, hair spray, lotions, and any other cleaning product that leaves something behind drives me nutty. (Yes, I do wear deodorant and cologne, but that’s about my limit.)

After the rinse-fest might come another period of standing there and letting the water hit me while I think, it depends on how rushed I am at the time. My shower is my think tank — many of these blog postings get their origination in the shower, and I work out a lot of mental issues while under the warming spray. I don’t know what it is about being naked, wet, and warm, but it gets the old brain juices flowing for some reason.

It may very well be a property of the water itself, which I have endless fascination with. I will often fold my arms and let the water build up in the “pond” built against my chest, or let the streams play across my arms and hands, watching how the water flows and follows, eventually to leap away to slam into the concrete at my feet. I’m simply mesmerized by it all.

Finally, when I’ve pruned up enough and feel rinsed and relaxed enough, I’ll make a decision, shut off the shower, and jump out for a toweling-off.

While my shower time may not be typical of most people, I think there are probably a fair whack of people out there that love their showers just as much as I do, if nothing else, for the solitude and relaxation it provides in a busy day. A good, long, hot shower ranks up right there with buying the fluffy toilet paper, in my book. Life is too short to a) take short, cold, unpleasant showers and b) wipe with toilet paper that scours your bits. I’ll gladly pay for the water/gas bill to get a good experience because it’s very much worth to me what I get out of it in mental satisfaction.

Plus, I’m just a clean freak, dontcha know?

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2007. | Permalink | One comment. One lonely comment looking for a friend. | Subscribe RSS

I am what you would call a “breast man”.

The soft rolling hills, erupting forward in a parabolic curve that I cannot miss or ignore, the calling of the siren to the starry-eyed sailor…

I often ask myself, why? They’re just another body part. Nobody gets bent out of shape over elbows — why a breast?

The teasing of the flowery, silky, or lacy straps, rising up the back to the peak before diving sharply downward to cradle the softness within, they tease — always tease — the path of breadcrumbs to the house of treats…I am Hansel, I long to get lost in the woods…

Chemically-speaking, these are not amazing devices. In fact, the majority is made up of fat. I might as well have a prolonged infatuation with a can of shortening for all that amounts to. In the biological world, they aren’t even unique, as other animals have them as well, yet I don’t catch myself watching a cow’s udder as she passes.

Cloth pulled tight across them, the classic t-shirt, the button-up that isn’t entirely, the thin nightgown shifting slightly in the breeze. Each curve of the hill, each hint of the peak, my mind cannot help but become a virtual miner, pulling back the layers in my fantasy, wondering what lies sleeping beneath the layers, the hidden softnesses…

I wonder if much of it comes from instinct, a nod to my more primal urges and needs, those imposed upon me by my animalistic nature. Perhaps this has a great part in my fascination with these features of the female sex and my desire to see, caress, touch, and fondle them. Or maybe I’m just obsessed. Women like washboard stomachs for some reason, why not breasts?

Those who know about breast cancer know a lot about breast health. You can find medical information on breast health on the internet. It is good to know facts on preventing breast cancer.

I am like Santa Claus walking down the street, making mental notes on the good and bad little children. It is well that my inner monologue isn’t published in an RSS feed to the world, for it can be quite impressive at times. The wide array of sizes, styles, and shapes always keep me on my toes. “Oh, how cute”, will be one, and another, “Nice, very nice”, and the occasional, “OMG, would you look at that!” Yes, let’s keep that mental thoughtstream out of the public domain for now.

I have known many pairs in my life, both casually and intimately. From the very small to the very large and anywhere in between, it never ceases to amaze me that they all attract in one way or another. I thought at first that my fascination was only because of a lack of exposure, that once I got used to the idea, it would no longer hold my mind as tightly. Sex was often that way, giving me uncomfortable long nights of imaginations of some time in the future when I was a teenager, leading up to my current state of still liking it as much as I thought I would, but not nearly being so obsessed with it as I was back then. Breasts, however….well, they just don’t cease to ever amaze and confuse.

Hours can be spent with them when the person is willing, adoring them, caressing them, appreciating them in ways that would make a good deal of the general public blush…

I am likewise amused to hear women talk about their own, as of course their attitudes towards them are vastly different. Sure, many find them to be a source of pleasure during sexual acts, but at the same time, they agonize so much over them. How to cover, lift, separate, squish, push, pull, squeeze, rearrange, flatten, plump, hoist, lower, shape, or otherwise adjust. Whether they are showing too much or not enough. How much cleavage? Do my nipples show through? Bra straps peeking out? Mine are too big, too small, too round, too pointy, too flat, too plump, too high, too low, too wide, too narrow, too heavy, too light. Not the right color, nipples are too big, too small, too many freckles. Breasts, to women, are often like shoes that never matches the dress they want to wear, no matter how many pairs you try on.

And, just when you think they aren’t enough work already, add on top of this the need for mamograms, X-rays, self-examinations, doctor exams, biopsies, poking, prodding, feeling, squishing, hurting. The constant fear that the part of your anatomy that makes you look most like your gender might eventually kill you and you might not catch it in time.

Breasts, to a woman, are just one big stress-fest.

I smile internally as I see another great pair walk by, happy for me for the beauty that I’ve seen, happy for the woman that she has such beauty from the outside. I can only muse, of course, about the beauty within, but I can hope…

I think in many ways I appreciate this feature of women all the more because of the strife involved with them, of the concentrations on them that give such huge pressures to women in fashion and self-esteem, and because of the dangers they possess to the unlucky ones.

So, perhaps my attraction isn’t entirely instinctual, but a combination of that mixed with a healthy dose of admiration for a body part that, were it an elbow, just wouldn’t get as much attention.

Author’s Note: This entry is the third round in a Blog-Off run by Courtney Slavin of Five Second Dance Party. Each week we have to write a blog entry centred around one word. This weeks’ word is, “breasts”. To read the blog entries of others that are participating, head on over to The List. The proceeds of this Blog-Off go to support breast cancer research and prevention. And I’m a breast man, so I’m all for it.

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2007. | Permalink | 8 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

For the lazy, the article is best summarized as a look into the oddities of the corporate health plan of Scott’s Miracle-Gro Company in Marysville, OH. This company has completely changed the normal paradigm of a corporate health plan being just another benefit provided by the business to its employees and has instead taken and active and proactive approach to their employees’ health, up to and including termination.

In other words, they are very passionate (like Hannibal Lector passionate) about keeping their employees healthy, and if the worker doesn’t comply with their urgings and recommendations — well, don’t let the door hit you on the ass on the way out. They are tobacco-free and count it as one of the ‘drugs’ on their required drug tests; fail and you are fired.

Not that they haven’t helped the employees out a ton; far from it. They have installed a $5 million exercise center that has almost every sort of equipment and facility known to man to work on your body, offers free prescription drugs, has on-site doctors, counselors, etc. and offers personal coaches for a low fee. Employees either take a health assessment or pay $40/month extra in premiums — $107/month more if they don’t follow the health coach’s recommendation based on that assessment.

It raises a lot of questions, not only about legal aspects but about ethical ones. How much can employers intrude into the lives of their employees? Obviously, they have some stake in what happens because if they are covering the health premium, they have a vested interest in the subject — money. But Scott’s has taken it even farther, essentially saying, “If you’re unhealthy, we don’t want you working here.”

“Five years ago, if you had told me, Hey, you better quit smoking or you might not get a job,’ I would have laughed. Here I am five years later, and I can’t get a job.”

I don’t think there is any doubt by anyone as to whether or not people are getting fatter and more unhealthy; I certainly struggle with it all the time, and the fact is, the amount of pre-processed, pre-cooked, pre-assembled food products available today isn’t helping. My schedule often pushes towards these sorts of meals, too, as it’s very hectic and I have little time to spend several hours cooking, eating, and cleaning up — many days, it’s hard enough to get something microwaved in time, let alone anything else.

My job doesn’t exactly encourage exercise, either — I’m sitting on my butt for 9 hours a day, plus X number of hours at night while I do my evening jobs, totaling somewhere between 12 and 15 hours of sitting per day. More than once have I dreamed about having a mini treadmill under my desk or something.

I won’t go into much detail about the health program at my dayjob, but suffice to say that they’ve made great efforts this year to promote good health and encourage people to move around more than they tend to. It’s still very hard to incorporate into my schedule, but I’ve attempted to take part in some of it. Of late I’ve been bad and have resorted to driving to work and generally not paying attention to what I’m shoving in my gob, something I really must stop doing. After all, this is summer — what a better time to get fit than now?

However, the situation at Scott’s is obviously one of the extreme and perhaps concern. How far can the health “recommendations” and evaluations go? What if they find a mentally unstable person — can you require counseling? Schedule antidepressants for the perpetually down? How about bad or troubled marriages, could a company evaluate something like this and strictly advise a revision of your sexual life? Wrong religion — here’s a new Bible and a corporate preacher to help you through it?

Obviously, I’m sliding down a pretty slick slope here and the quagmire goes pretty deep from there, so let’s not get tangled too deeply in the “what ifs”; however, one has to start considering where, if anywhere, the lines exist to control this sort of thing, and if these sorts of regulations and controls are allowed for health care, how much farther could they go with other things they have invested interest in?

Say for instance my vacation time. Since my corporation provides it as a benefit to me, they clearly want me to benefit from it. Much of what I benefit from it is the simple notion of not being at work 24/7/365 — it’s a morale issue. But what if the company wanted to make sure I was getting a “good” vacation? If I chose to sit at home for a week on the couch, eating Cheetos, drinking Mt. Dew, staying up all hours, and watching The Best of Debbie Does, do they have a right to dictate otherwise?

Clearly it is not and will not be a cut-and-dried issue for a long time, and you can bet that the bad health trend, if it continues, will only make companies consider the above sort of strictness or give up the providing of health benefits at all, which leads to all sorts of other issues. You will see employees subscribe to these tenants as they appear and/or protest and fall away, and don’t even get me started on the unions — I can’t imagine the wrenches that throws into the works.

So, until then — if you have health goals, keep working on them, and I’ll try to get off my lazy ass and work on mine, because you never know — it just might help you retain your job someday.

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2007. | Permalink | 2 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

We had an appointment yesterday morning and her levels are down quite a bit — now in the 100′s instead of the 400′s. We’ll have to wait another week or so and have another test to see where it is at. After this, we wait until she has another full, normal cycle and then we can start thinking about what to do next.

She had a bad reaction to the Methotrexate — massive cramping, like, couldn’t walk it was so bad. Since we were going to Chicago on the weekend (more on that soon), we called the doctor and got her some big-ass naproxen tablets to take for pain and she was able to make it through the weekend fairly comfortably. The doctor said that should go away soon and she is feeling better already. Here’s to more of that.

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2006. | Permalink | No comments....YET! Make one! | Subscribe RSS

I was scared. You would be, too, if it looked like you had shat liquid crayon into the porcelain receptacle.

However, thanks to the great and wonderful Internet, a search on Google revealed this page that explains that FDA Blue #5 turns feces bright green due to the metabolism of the dye. Well, as it turns out, two days ago I ate a bowl and a half of Bubblegum Scream ice cream, a bright blue and purple ice cream made to look like Sully’s fur in Monsters, Inc. Well, it contains copious amounts of FDA Blue #5, so….:) Now you know.

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2006. | Permalink | No comments....YET! Make one! | Subscribe RSS

Well, it’s not a bad episode, but my cheeks and forehead are flushed and I’m feeling restless as well as cold — not something that I have much. It’s times like these that I wish there was a Heads-Up Display (HUD) for the body — a bunch of guages or something that would give readouts on things going on in your body so you could try to figure out what in the fuck is happening. The doctor saw nothing last time and the blood tests came back all normal and fine, so there doesn’t appear to be any easy diagnosis for these. And this is the first episode I’ve had in, like…well…a while. Several weeks, I’d say. So THAT’S good, at least. Just be nice to have a better readout.

And so, I haven’t done much more than complete my massive cleaning spree that I started yesterday. It’s probably the first one we’ve done that hasn’t been prompted by guests arriving. This one is just for ourselves and our own sanity, I guess.

So, no Tae Bo today, as much as I really need to, due to always taking Monday off, but maybe 2 days break isn’t so bad, either. I don’t know.

Off to bed earlyish, so if it’s something like a virus, I can get a head start.

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2006. | Permalink | No comments....YET! Make one! | Subscribe RSS

I hear you laughing. Kiss my rosy white-boy cheeks, mister.

For the longest time my wife has been begging me to motivate the both of us to exercise, eat right, etc. The fact is, both of us need to drop weight. I’ve gained back all the weight I lost pre-wedding, which wasn’t *tons* as such but a lot of it was stuff I gained in muscle and lost in fat and how it has switched places such that now I have a gut again and am a lot more wimpy. So I need to lose that and more, since I never really got down to what I wanted back then, anyway.

So, we’ve been using FitDay to track our calories, which has been really hard since we never knew what we were eating and what calories it had, so it’s definately opened our eyes to what we’re putting in our mouths. Did you know a single bagel is 300 calories? I used to eat 2 for breakfast every day. 600 calories before I even barely got started! Plus the cream cheese. I’m only allowed about 1800 calories/day in order to lose the weight I want to lose, so that’s 1/3 of my entire day gone right there….which isn’t undoable, BUT — considering that breakfast is usually one of the smallest meals of the day….so now I eat a bowl of GV MultiGrain Flakes with milk for a total of about 460 calories instead.

We’ve been exercising although we have yet to settle into something truly effective and useful. We have an old treadmill that we use, but it has two speeds — granny and caffinated granny — so we can’t make much use of it for a Real Hard Workout. We’re thinking of buying a good one, but we have to try to save up for it or something. In the meantime, we’re doing that and also lifting dumbells to exercise and that does some good. Tonight I had my first shot at getting back into Tae Bo by running the Advanced tape and working out to it. It royally Kicked My Ass. But, in a good way, as it felt like I definately had a workout. So, I hope to do that more often.

We’ll see — we’re committed to doing this. We want to go back to Australia in June/July/August and we both want to look good, have money to spend, and do a lot of activites while we’re there, including going out in public and dancing, having fun, etc. If we’re fit, we can do that without feeling bad. Yay for goals, eh?

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2006. | Permalink | No comments....YET! Make one! | Subscribe RSS

And maybe it is. But if it is, it’s really sensible bullshit. Yolanda brought the book home from the library and I decided to read it as well, what the heck…might as well know all about this latest trend.

Well, it’s revealing. The guy who wrote it is, as far as I can tell, a good cardiologist. This has been a field-tested, doctor-monitored diet from the start. It is sensible…it doesn’t make demands that real life can’t deal with. It has a lot of escape routes — if you screw up, that’s ok. It’s life. Get back on the horse and keep trotting. The book even admits that some people fail and the reasons why. It makes no bones about being a quick fix — it isn’t. It’s a lifestyle change of eating.

Well, I decided that if nothing else it was worth a shot, right? I’ve been overweight since probably 12, but I didn’t really start to stack it on until I got my current job out of college. Since then, I’m in a desk job where I sit in a rather comfy chair and stare at the screen for 9 hours or so. This is not what they call, “excercise”. It’s a great pity that typing doesn’t render a lot of burning of calories, because if it did, I’d have lost a lot by now. Unfortunately, that’s not the case.

So, I’ve stacked it on slowly but surely and just put up with it. Now I’m up to a rather large number and it’s quite depressing. So, it’s time to change. My wife has had problems keeping hers under control since shattering her ankle and the resulting long period of recovery when she was younger, so it makes sense for both of us to go on it. Thanks goodness for her, if I didn’t have her support and such, I’d be screwed. It’s much easier when you have another person to support and bitch you out if you even think of cheating on it.

So, I’m doing well so far. The first phase (2 weeks) is the hardest because you basically cut out every single carb except those tied up high-fiber veggies and such. So my eating is essentially meat, veggies, cheese, and not much else. It’d get boring to do for 6 months, but for 2 weeks, I think I can hack it.

If any of you readers out there have more questions about this diet, I’d be happy to try to field them. I’m not saying I’m an expert…I’m a newbie, trying for a new way to do things, and hopefully a healthier me.

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2004. | Permalink | No comments....YET! Make one! | Subscribe RSS

I went downhill skiing with Dad yesterday at Wild Mountain in Taylors Falls, MN. Excellent day for it! Great, powdery snow, good trails, and it snowed while we were there. No colder than probably 20 or 25F so my jeans and blast jacket were more than adequate cover.

However, being out of shape and employed with a deskjob during the week, my legs are killing me today. Oh well. A day of good clean fun is sometimes worth the hurt.

Yolanda finally went to the doctor after me begging her to go and found out that she has strep throat, an ear infection, and a sinus infection all at once and was *this* close to being hospitalized. Great. Glad she finally went, now she’s on antibiotics and will hopefully be making an upswing.

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2004. | Permalink | No comments....YET! Make one! | Subscribe RSS