Why snow is scary sh*t

January 16, 2012

…I interrupt the regularly (in theory) scheduled blog post to bring this update: it’s snowed!  Crap!

The thing with winter in Boston is, it’s predictably unpredictable.  We don’t know how much snow we’ll get or when, we don’t know how cold it will be or when, but we know that the majority of winter will involve cold and snow and ice.  That’s just how it works.  Which is why it’s been so odd this year to not get any snow, and to have little cold until this month.

Actually, there was a big storm in October that had everyone thinking it would be a tough winter, and some areas got hit hard, but others got almost nothing, and then it melted within hours.  My area was the latter.  Once I woke up to find a light dusting on parts of the sidewalk.  When I looked out the window an hour later, it was gone.  For me this has been fantastic!  Yes, we’ve had some cold days, but I just bundle up in my kick-ass coat, and all is fine.  Well, I admit to being a bit cold last night in 10 degree weather, but usually the coat is enough.

As for the snow, to be honest, if my body worked the way I’d like it to, I’d probably go skiing occasionally.  I can understand why the skiers are excited for snow.  And I do understand why snow doesn’t bother a lot of people.  Really, I only have two concerns with it.  The smaller one (since I’m not working) is that when it snows a lot (not today, thankfully) I have to find a way to dig out my car.  I can’t manage it myself, and it’s tough to find help some winters.

The bigger issue is walking.  My footing isn’t as steady as I’d like it to be, and a fall could be disastrous.  Simply spraining an ankle would be horrible – because of wrist pain, I can’t use any sort of cane or crutches; I can’t lean on anything.  And my apartment building is not wheelchair accessible.  Neither is my parents’ house.  Or most of my friends’ homes.  I love the old buildings in this area, but it means that most places aren’t accessible.  Ice is bad, but a light covering of snow, which we have now, is worse.  It can be treacherous.  For the first time this season, I’ll be pulling out the super awesome boots tomorrow.  Those things are warm and have great treads.  But I’ll still be a nervous wreck.

So the best part of this winter so far?  Being to walk without the extra fear.  I’ll miss that.  I just hope we don’t get too much more snow this winter.

[Note: This picture is from a storm in January 2005.  I’m short, but it’s still never a good sign when the snow drifts are taller than I am.]

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Posted by chronicrants

Survival instincts

January 11, 2012

My future is looking a bit bleak at the moment.  I’m sure a lot of that has to do with the tinted glasses I’m wearing – I’m so focused on the negatives, it’s hard to see the positives.  So what’s the answer?

I really don’t know the answer, I just know I have to keep moving forward.  That’s all I’ve got.  And for years that’s all I’ve had.  For better or for worse, I just have to keep moving forward, because there’s simply no other choice.  Just keep moving forward.

I’m reading an incredible book right now about life in North Korea.  It follows the lives of several people starting in the 1970s.  I’m up to about 1998 now and I can’t wait to see what happens next.  I know they survive only because they live to tell their stories, but as I read about the famine, about how these people beg and steal, how they eat grass and tree bark and unidentifiable food-type items, how they choose between antibiotics to save a son’s life or food for the family, it feels like a different world.  It is not as if I think there aren’t hungry people in the world, but I’ve never heard first-person accounts like this.  These people went from having three meals a day to not eating for days at a time in the course of just a year or two.  They watched their loved ones starve to death in front of them.  They describe malnourished children with distended stomachs, adults with flaking skin, and I start to cry.  And then I wonder how long I would have survived.

Forget my health problems.  Obviously that would affect things.  But aside from that, would I have made it?  Or would I have been one of the first to go?  I have a steely resolve.  I have a strong survival instinct.  I know this.  I also know that I would want to help others, that I would hesitate to steal or cheat.  But maybe in this circumstance that wouldn’t be true?  I can’t imagine it, and I would guess that no one can.  You don’t know what you’re capable of until you’re forced to find out.  Still, right now, I don’t know that I’d make it.  At the time of that famine I was a teenager, happily going to school, hanging out with friends, dating, researching colleges.  That girl might have actually done ok.  I was even more stubborn then than I am now, and somehow I think I might have been ok for the early years.  Still, I can not imagine how they survived it.

So even though I am depressed and overwhelmed by the potential problems of the near (and long-term) future, I know that I have to summon my strength.  I come from a long line of stubborn folks.  My grandparents have survived an awful lot, and much of it seems to be by shear force of will.  My mother amazes me with the obstacles she overcomes.  I have that same stubbornness in me.  It’s time to use it.  I am not facing war or famine.  Hard as my problems may be, it is really only my own inner demons that I have to fear.  So I just have to remember: keep moving forward.  There’s no other choice.  Just keep moving forward.

 

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Posted by chronicrants

Better than what?

January 8, 2012

After 6 full days, I am finally over my cold.  Sure, I’m still coughing up phlegm, but aside from that I’m doing ok.  I’m finally better.

But that makes me wonder: better than what?

I’m not contagious.  But aside from that, what really distinguishes between the past few days and the several months before?  This week I was sniffling, coughing, and suffering from laryngitis, but that wasn’t the worst of it.  The worst was the fever and the run-down feeling.  But wait, I had those before too!

I was frustrated with this cold, wanting to leave the house.  But aside from being contagious, it was really no worse than a lot of what I feel regularly, and in one way it was a hell of a lot better: I knew it wouldn’t last.

I keep waiting to feel better.  I keep waiting to get my energy back, to feel ready to return to work, to make plans with friends that I won’t likely cancel, to be able to guarantee help to my family and friends when they need it…. to have my life.  So many people were worried about me while I was sick this week; I didn’t know how to explain to them that that was the easy part.  It’s returning to my “normal” life that’s hard, because that illness isn’t about to go away.

 

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Posted by chronicrants

Being sick and single

January 4, 2012

I love being alone when I’m sick.  

I can wear the same thing for way too long.  I don’t have to worry about brushing my teeth or my hair.  I can watch crappy tv shows and movies that I’d be embarrassed to watch in front of other people.

But then, I hate being alone when I’m sick.

I have no one to remind me to change my clothes or brush my teeth (today I forgot to brush until 4pm.)  I have no one to make me tea or make me food.  I have to wash dishes myself (or else run out of clean pots in which to make soup.)  I have no one to buy groceries or pick up medicine for me.  I have no one to sanity check me on my symptoms – should I go to the doctor, or does this seem more viral than bacterial?  I have no one to make sure I don’t do something stupid when I have a fever (about once every other year I get a high fever and get a bit delusional; when it’s 103 or 104 I try to do stupid things like drive, go to work, call business associates, or have sex (yep, a high fever makes me horny.))

Over all, I’d rather have someone with me when I’m sick.  I found myself sobbing today.  My temperature was only 2 degrees high, but that must have been enough of a fever to make me a mess, because otherwise I can’t imagine why I was crying.  It would have been nice to have someone around to reassure me.  My kitchen is pretty bare.  I was going to go food shopping, but then I got sick.  It would be nice to have someone buy food, cook it, and then wash the dishes.  (In the meantime, Chinese food delivery has been a godsend.)  I keep debating whether I should go to the doctor.  This started very suddenly (at 4pm on Monday I felt fine; by 4:30 I was sick.)  I keep wondering if it’s strep.  Most of all, it would be nice to have some company.  Being alone with a CI sucks, but being alone with a bug sucks too.  But on the bright side, at least I know this won’t last forever.

2 Comments | Isolation, Rants, Relationships: Family & Friends & Dating & Sex, Symptoms | Permalink
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