The chronic malcontent muses while jogging: Don't try this at home

Today for the first time this spring, I put on my jogging togs and headed for Mt. Tabor Park. As I marched up the hill, I tried not to notice how tight my running shorts were or how my belly bulged over the waistband. I plodded up the main staircase, admiring my black polyester (or are they nylon) pants with the modest belled bottoms and racy white stripes, thinking these pants will be around until the apocalypse. I made it to the top of the staircase. I only had to pull the band of my sports bra out to give my lungs some room to expand twice on the way. Progress!

The cloud-filtered early afternoon sunlight was warm, and I was overdressed: long t-shirt, short jacket, long pants, baseball cap. Ready to start trotting. Any moment now.

Finally, I urged my legs to a trot, first trot of the season. Argh. I was aghast at how creaky my ankles and knees felt. The pain reminded me of my vegan debacle, from which I thought I had recovered. Mentally I reviewed my diet. Have I been eating enough protein? I've been doing protein smoothies almost every day, plus my usual eggs... hmmm. I heard Bravadita's voice in my head: Americans eat too much protein, more than they really need (those selfish hogs). So, add in my broccoli and maybe I'm getting 45 grams of protein a day? I don't think that's enough, sorry, Bravadita. My joints are telling me I need more protein. And probably more water, too.

As I trotted down and around the hill, feeling every little sinew between my hips and ankles, feeling every scraping bone and twinging muscle, I lamented the loss of strength, stamina, flexibility...and even as I lamented those prized assets, I knew if I really wanted them badly enough, I could get them back. At that point, gravity sucked my facial skin into a sinkhole somewhere around my knees and my brain along with it. Save that conundrum for a rainy day.

Still, I had to count my blessings: the vertigo was bad this morning, but it calmed down while I was finishing the final edits on a small job, an insubstantial treatise on the casual carpooling phenomenon now occurring in San Francisco. (Who knew! People are so amazing.) My jagged jogging didn't seem to stir the accursed ear rocks up much, I'm happy to say. I'm going to try not to move my head much while I type this and hope for the best.

After my choppy scoot down and around the road, I walked once around one of the reservoirs, admiring the deep green water, noting the occasional floating cup lid and tennis ball, and then headed up one of the dirt trails toward the northeastern flank of the mountain. As I walked, I began to feel sad, and then I remembered why sometimes I don't like to go walking: Walking gives me time to think, and when I have time to think, I feel sad.

First, I grieved the loss of my mother (she's not dead yet, she's actually doing better, but that doesn't stop me from indulging in the wreckage of the future). Then I grieved for the plight of people suffering at the hands of terrorists. Next, I grieved for the plight of animals suffering at the hands of mean people. Finally, I grieved for the plight of the planet, weighed down by humanity's greed and selfishness. All this grief I felt as I sauntered along the dirt paths wearing polyester (or nylon) pants, listening to an mp3 player that I charged with electricity generated by coal plants (and maybe some hydropower—this is the Pacific Northwest, after all). And now I'm blogging about my sadness while enjoying a cup of tepid coffee (think I'll heat it up in my microwave) and listening to Ultravox's Hiroshima Mon Amour on Window Media Player. Oh, how I suffer.

Pre-worrying solves nothing, but planning and action can help ease my fears about the future. I fear my mother's decline and eventual demise. I fear the impending earthquake and tsunami. I fear my landlord will evict me this summer so he can triple the rent and I'll have to move in with my mother. I fear my crappy car will croak; it's a Ford, after all—found on road dead. I fear I'll never finish my book (I'm almost done). I fear ridicule for my attempt to write a screenplay (but I submitted it to a contest anyway). I fear I'll soon be size extra fat instead of just medium fat (I still went jogging).

Nobody knows the future, except for the one thing we all know and don't want to talk about: We all will die. We don't know when, we don't know how, but we know we can't escape it. The essential, mind-blowing question is (and has always been), how do we want to live until we die? You know what they say: A life lived in fear is a life half-lived. Do I want to get to the end and realize I was a bystander in my own life? How many of us just trudge through our days without letting ourselves feel anything? I know that's what I do. I don't feel much rage anymore—I go straight to sorrow.

I don't like to feel sorrow, so I avoid feeling anything. But I've learned that the sun only comes out after I feel the sorrow, after I acknowledge the pain of living life, after I let myself feel the feelings. Then I can shrug, take a nap, have a blueberry smoothie, and get on with the business of living.

A life in the day of the maternal parental unit

Earlier this week, I took my maternal parental unit to the dentist for a teeth cleaning. Maybe I should say tooth cleaning. I think she only has one or two still holding down the fort in her jaw. (She reminds me a lot of Granny Clampett from the Beverly Hillbillies.) When we walked in the door at the clinic, a horde of white-haired old ladies sat around the waiting room, attended by walkers and canes. My mother marched up to the window, muscled one old gal aside, and pulled a wad of knitted blanket out of a paper shopping bag.

“Here's what I've been working on!” she declared in her foghorn smoker's voice. For a second, I got a glimpse of what my mother used to be like before dementia started to narrow her world.

The two receptionists and a hygienist rushed over to admire her work. A few patients toddled over to look, too. Mom has been knitting lap robes (or baby blankets?) out of leftover yarn. She donates her handiwork to a charity. Her color sense is unique. I have a particular garish blanket I'm rather fond of: orange and red stripes. Whatever you are picturing, it's worse. Today's blanket was tame by comparison: lavender, purple, turquoise, plus a variegated yarn that mixed all three colors. Stripes, of course. I think that's all she can remember how to knit.

“It's beautiful,” gushed Amy, the receptionist. Then she winked at me. I wasn't sure what that meant: It's ugly? Your mom is the bomb? I shrugged my shoulders, as if to say: I know? I don't know, this nonverbal body language is like Greek sometimes.

The door to the inner sanctum opened. The smiling young hygienist was ready to take Mom back for her cleaning. I was astounded: With all these people waiting, she walks in the front door, and the entire place rolls out the red carpet for her? No waiting, plus heaps of praise...I guess there are a few benefits to being 86.

While Mom was having her two teeth polished, I went to the store nearby to forage for food for myself. I bought my usual four vegetables: onions, zucchini, broccoli, and mushrooms. I got some cauliflower for good measure, and then, because I was feeling peaked and stressed, I got some organic chicken breast and a package of organic beef chunks. I don't eat beef very often, maybe once or twice a year. I heard Dr. Tony's maniacal laughter in my head: eat beef, it's good for you! This is the same guy who thought back-to-back colonics was the answer to all life's problems. (I'm here to tell you, it's not.) Beef, though, might have some nutrients I could use. I loaded up my bag of groceries and went back to the dental clinic to pick up Mom.

I was early, or she was late, so I had time to sit in the empty waiting room and wonder how long my groceries could survive in a closed car in intermittent sunshine. Eventually I heard my mother's voice coming closer. I pulled out her checkbook and paid her bill. As I wrote the check for $151 (with the discount), I thought, they should charge her by the tooth. By rights, the bill ought to be about $44. But dental school loans are massive, I know. And all those dental hygienists who went to those nasty for-profit career colleges will be paying on their loans for the rest of their lives. Someone's gotta help them, I guess. Might as well be the elderly... let 'em feel useful.

She lollygagged, saying goodbye to everyone. Who knows if she'll still be alive in six months? Hugs all around. As we were strolling out the door, she turned and said, “Let's stop at Bi-Mart. I need some bath soap.”

At Bi-Mart, she was waylaid by the displays of flowering annuals, arranged enticingly in the sun along the path to the door. She told me to grab a cart. I followed her along the wall of flowers, thinking about the $30 worth of chicken and beef sweltering in the trunk of my car and looking at her scrawny backside, noticing her thrift store denim jeans were at least two sizes too big for her tiny frame. Her pant legs seemed to be two different lengths. Her butt, hidden in folds of faded blue denim, looked like a little round rock. Suddenly, trundling after my scrawny pepperjack mother seemed hysterically funny. For a moment, everything aligned and life was good.

Boring story short, eventually I dropped her off and made it home. The meat was fine. I made beef stew and ate it with mixed feelings: I wish my health did not depend on occasionally eating the cooked flesh of dead animals. And boy, did that stew taste good.

Mumbo jumbo, hocus pocus, and naturopaths—Oh my!

Do I have the word sucker written on my forehead? I guess there's one born every minute, and I'm it. I fear my naturopath thinks I'm an easy mark. I love Dr. Tony, but I suspect he sees dollar signs instead of my face when I walk in the door. Another payment on the student loans, that's me. Is he taking advantage of my gullible, trusting nature? Am I just stupid? Maybe I'm just open to unusual experiences?

I went in yesterday for my tune-up. I'm used to the muscle testing now. He reads me like an open book he's read every two months for the past three years. He uses me now as a demonstration model for new students. I never know who will be watching me get worked over by the Doctor. Yesterday it was a geeky guy wearing poindexter glasses and a bright fuschia shirt: I was like, dude, tone it down, I'm trying to chill out here. I didn't say it, I just shook his hand politely and launched into a graphic description of my major complaint: constipation!

I lie on my back on the table, with my butt in a hole and my head canted awkwardly on an uncomfortable leather pillow. I hold my arm straight up in the air while Dr. Tony pushes on it and mumbles to himself. I can tell when he's found something. He gets excited and makes a-ha! noises. Then he laughs maniacally.

He consults his book of Chinese medicine. I can just imagine what it says: “For female round-eye with constipation: give snake spit!” He sends the student out to the other room for some lachesis. Sure enough, it's snake venom! A few granules on the tongue, and I'm good as new. Right. Well, a few more tests, just to be sure. Wait, what's this? My emotions are causing my digestion problems? Abandonment? Crying? (I couldn't figure out who I felt abandoned by and I said so, but I didn't have the guts to tell him I wept over Davy Jones.) I fall back on my usual MO: I don't need no stinking emotions! Just give me an extra dose of snake spit, Doc!

After some acupuncture and an admonition to drink more water, I stagger out of the place a half hour later, a hundred bucks poorer with an appointment to do it again in two months. When I get to my car, I check my hat to make sure no one has surreptitiously slapped a sucker sticker on it when I was having my out-of body-experience. I wouldn't put it past a guy who wears a bright pink shirt. Then I go home and go to bed.

Actually, in all honestly, I believe I'm alive today because of Dr. Tony and his hocus pocus muscle testing. Three years ago he told me with a kind smile, “Eat meat or die.” I didn't want to eat meat, but I didn't feel ready to die quite yet. So I finally started eating chicken. Then some salmon. And occasionally some juicy red free-range grass fed beef! (Yech.) I can't eat soy or rice or beans, and it would have taken a truckload of broccoli to get enough protein to rebuild my saggy atrophied muscles. If I want to live, I have to eat real food. That means protein. Three years later, my muscles have returned, I've lost a lot of extra weight around my middle, and I have the luxury of worrying about repairing my digestion through emotion management. How cool is that!

I owe Dr. Tony my life. Maybe that is why I lie passively while he experiments on me. Maybe that is why I don't care about being oggled by geeky naturopaths-in-training. I don't care if he somehow managed to magically have the word sucker tattooed on my butt. It may be mumbo jumbo, but it worked for me.