Don't Know; Not Sure I Care Much

 I don't know what's wrong with me. 

i can't sleep and I can't stay awake. I lie in my recliner day and night like a giant sloth. I do very little, and nothing holds my interest. I usually read or write or work puzzles or do some kind of busyness. But it seems to be too much work to hold up a book, or to hold up my blob of a body and type or write.

It's definitely asking a lot of myself to do dishes or sweep the floors. Or go to the store.

Or put things away.

Or anything besides  nothing, as I wait for the next round of sleep to bless me with unawareness.

Yes, this all sounds like the old demon Depression. I'm already drugging that and it's been working. Or I thought it was. 

Anyway, I don't think that's the problem, but that particular demon can be a great deceiver.

This feels different. I don't really know how to explain it, but it feels like a metabolic malfunction. But when I see doctors, there is nothing provably wrong with me. Everything is testing out fine, and within my established norms. 

I try to keep myself busy, which is quite a trick when doing nothing. When I have plans, when I can help, I do so, with pleasure. 

And I really, really really wish I could go for a long walk on these quiet nights. 

But I can't.

The Job Search

Who ever knew that finding a job, any job, would be so difficult? I may as well be hunting for unicorns or the Loch Ness Monster. If I were doing the latter, I could probably get sponsors and a budget.

I never completely dropped out of the job search. I regularly would put in applications, and there are a few online places that, if they used paper, could paper a room with my monthly re-apps. But while Rex was alive, he was my priority. Although he was not, until the last few months, so bad he couldn't be left, he was edgy and fitful about any work I might find -- not wanting irregular hours and preferring no driving at night, and all sorts of impossible conditions in a tight job market. Plus having to work around his Dr appointments and the days when he couldn't be left. (Of course, he thought he could; he'd be all right. He'd just not eat or drink until someone came home again.)

Anyway, I never completely quit looking, but I wasn't aggressive about it, either.

Well for not quite three weeks, I have been aggressive.
The result has been the same -- I remain unemployed..

I am surprised. I don't want any executive type position.
I don't want a specialist position.
I don't want a licensed position.
I don't want a certified position.
I just want a job, any job. I will be there, on time if not early. Any time, day, night, or in between. Overnight. Back when I was working, that would have been a bonus. Someone to be depended on. They were treasures, the Old Reliables.

I want to be an Old Reliable.

There have been a few -- very few -- interviews.
I believe the "Old" may be the problem. No on wants Old.
Combine it with fat, and youthful hirers see only Losers.
Darned kids don't know anything, do they? Every company family needs a Mom (or Gramma). Every company family needs an anchor, someone that can be called and can be counted on to be there.

It's winter now. I think there may be some learning this hard lesson as weather keeps the inexperienced at home.

But will it be in time for them to hire me?
They can only hope so.

Oh No! FAT!

There's an obesity epidemic in the western world! Our overfed under-motivated sedentary lives are making us all fat! What can we do? What shall we do?

First, panic, and run screaming to buy up every diet book you can find and of course the must have "Lazy Person's Way to Exercise Without Doing Anything."

When reading and eating three or four lo-cal cakes instead of one (real) cake doesn't work, we can then go online and sign up and join in on mailing lists, guide blogs, support groups, "Your Diet Plan", and sit a little longer in yet another chair.

Next, go to the doctor and get pills that will make sure you exercise because you will have to run every time you need to go to the bathroom -- and that will be often!

Watch television programs like "The Biggest Loser."
Or even the race and survival shows and smirk at those who fail at feats when you can't tie your own shoes without panting. Not to mention the way that race to the toilet leaves you gasping.

Or, better yet, why don't we all quit pointing at other people, quit blaming this or that, quit eating super-size when large is more than enough.

Let's put down the phones and tablets, turn off the television and the computer, and go outside. Take a walk around the yard. (Maybe even push a mower instead of riding one while sitting on our fat asses.) If we have time to do it on a machine, we have time to do it for real.

Throwing worry and money at the obesity problem will not solve it.
Giving money away to publishers, to pharmaceuticals, to doctors, to manufacturers will not help.
If walking uphill is your exercise of choice, you can probably find one to walk up. The cost is nothing, the benefir is priceless. And the only people the process enriches is you and your loved ones.

FYI: A caftan is a DRESS

I recently bought myself a caftan. A nice, long, floaty, silky new dress. I haven't really had any new clothes for a long time -- in my size, they are hard to find. Once found, even harder to afford. So I was really happy to find this dress in a catalogue of inexpensive stuff.

The long flowy lines are a favorite of mine, and were before I got so very fat. Probably something to do with growing up during the hippie era. It should, properly, have a sash of scarves or a belt made of lamp pulls or swing chains, I suppose. And feather earrings and headbands, too, I suppose.

I have been choosing to wear mine plain, to enjoy the freedom of something that fits on me, that moves freely, and is slinky soft sliding across my skin.

That decision is going to have to change, though. I'm going to have to wear a belt. If I had any dress shoes, I supposed I'd have to wear them, too. I do have sandals that hurt my hips after twelve steps and my back after a dozen. I'll pass on the headbands -- my head comes with a built in headband, especially on stormy days.

Everyone thinks I am wearing a nightgown. Even the people in my own home think I am wearing a nightgown.

It's a DRESS, people! A fat lady dress, a hippie dress, but still a dress.

Listen to the Folks.

The FDA has approved two new drugs for weight loss. They are supposed to work well with diet and exercise. Of course, this is NOT for the morbidly obese. If they are that fat, they had better have bariatric surgery before doing anything. (Ka-ching, Ka-ching! Anyone else hear that?)

Now, I had a couple of different reactions to this. According to my doctors and the doctors of everyone I know, the way to lose weight is "diet and exercise."Nothing else. Oh, if you have metabolism issues, they'll prescribe stuff to help with those, but you want to lose weight -- Diet and exercise. And if you don't lose weight, you aren't dieting or exercising. Never mind Tuesday's heat stroke or Friday's collapse -- if you aren't losing weight, you aren't exercising or dieting. Not even if your stomach is complaining loudly because of its emptiness.

There's a lot of things going on in obesity studies and research, and a lot of it is good. A drug or two that will kick start a dieter over a plateau isn't a bad thing. Bariatric surgery for someone who eats until too full is a good thing. It's not going to help much with someone who doesn't eat all that much to start with. Or a grazer.

Until doctors and nutritionists are able to look beyond this whole "Diet and Exercise" combo, they are not going to make any great inroads in battling the obesity "epidemic'.

The old folks had it right. Some folks are born to be fat. It's in their genes. No, that's not just an excuse. (There have been some intriguing research and discoveries into fat genes.) It's not a stereotype, either. Lately research is finding all sorts of things more prevalent among certain ethnicities, even when environment is not a factor.

Treat the genetic type, and how that body works, and you'll be abler to manage the weight.

One concern that's twinned with the obesity concern is that it is the cause or related to diabetes. There is a connection, but the scientists are so wrapped up in finding a cure (or ongoing treatments; much more profitable) that they are ignoring, once again, folk wisdom.

Diabetes is caused by lack of insulin, which the body (is supposed to) produce(s) in the pancreas. That has been the scientific wisdom for just shy of a century.

What if that's wrong?
What if, instead of producing insulin, the pancreas -- still very much a mystery organ -- stores it? What if, like the ovaries, the human body comes with a measured amount of insulin or the base ingredients to turn (stuff) into insulin? What if our modern refined diet is just using up a lifetime supply in a few years?

The old folk used to tell kids not to eat so many sweets or they'd end up with sugar in their blood.
Science came along and said that's silly, that's not how it works. So everyone eats refined sugars and uses up all their insulin and -- voila -- sugar in their blood at a young age.

Insulin is playing a role in the diet/exercise dilemma as well. No one is sure exactly how that all factors together, but they've discovered things like insulin resistance and glucose intolerance and gluco-this and glycemic-that. If they look, they'll probably be able to relate that to ethnic origins -- genetics.

If they look.

But they won't, or very few will. They'll continue to preach "Diet and Exercise" until they've killed all the people they haven't operated on. And maybe even those. Much easier to follow the party line, blame the patient, than take time to know the patient and actually help them.

The old folks had it right all along.
As usual.
That family is  usually fat, and if you eat too much sugar while you're young, you'll end up with sugar in your blood.

Listen to your parents and grandparents, if it's only in your memory. They knew your body and background before doctors knew anything.