WHIRLING DERVISH

27 March 2002

...that's kind of how I'm feeling today. I went five years being pretty much a slacker, but I am making up for lost time, especially right now.

This morning started out at 4 a.m., trying to see how much of Dr. G's book I could get typed. He's out to become the Dr. Spock of the menopause set, and I think he has a good chance, based on the book I've been typing. But he came back from his vacation in Bali with several chapters written and dictated onto tapes. I do his transcription as an extra job (charged differently from my regular salary). Fortunately the psychiatrist is out of town for a week, so I have a little leisure time to work on Dr. G's book.

I left here at 6 to go up to the club and work out for an hour. I am remembering two months ago when I started with 5 minutes on the exercise bike and 5 minutes on the treadmill at 1.8 mph. Now I'm doing 20 minutes on the bike at a faster speed, and 20 minutes on the treadmill at 3 mph, plus all the other weight machines.

Came home to eat a quick breakfast and get ready for work, then up to Weight Watchers for a weigh in (only 0.4 lbs this week--but a loss is a loss is a loss). I didn't stay for the meeting because I had to get to work.

Off to the office where I was deluged with all sorts of overlapping projects, phone calls, requests, etc. In addition to the menopause book, Dr. G is also writing a book of instructions and helpful hints for the home he rents out in Bali (which he built in 1979), and he's about to take on the task of overseeing the nurse practitioner who rents space in his office, so there is a huge menopause book to type, a sizeable (40 pages) book about the Bali House, and this agreement to type up (I do the typing as a contract employee, so I get paid more for doing the typing than I do for working in the office).

This was, then, a bad night to be going out to a movie, but I promised my friend Ellen that I would go with her to see Midred Pierce. In truth, we saw this movie two weeks ago during our film class, but the Lambda Center in Sacramento was showing it again and having a discussion and we figured we could contribute intellectually to the discussion so decided to go. It was kind of fun seeing the movie again, having already discussed it in depth.  (Of course there were only four other people there to see it, so it wasn't much of a discussion!)

And I was home in time to dive back into typing again before going to sleep.

On Friday, I am driving Priscilla to visit her mother. She's still trying (unsuccessfully) to get custody of the mother, but at least wants to see her, so I offered to take her. I am not looking forward to it. It's a 3 hour drive one way, but I'll bring a big book so I can read while they're visiting.

But I'm very much looking forward to Saturday. Having read about the progress with the bike and the first ride Olivia and I made, The Bitter Hag wrote and said she'd like to go biking with us. We are all at about the same level (she tells me), so we may just go back to the Navy base and ride around some more until we're fit for public streets.

I took my bike to the supermarket yesterday. To get there from here, you either go on the busy streets (uhhh....nooooooo!) or go the back way through the quiet streets. The streets are quiet partly because several years ago, the city blocked off one end of them so the high school kids would stop using the route as a speedway. The posts are set wide enough apart to ride a bike through, but not a car.

Wide enough for a bike, if you're a good bike rider, that is! As I approached the posts from a block away, I was already worried about whether I could actually steer through them, or if I should get off and walk through them. I kept saying "you KNOW the bike will fit through. You can DO this."

Ultimately I decided to go for it, and yes, I did make it through the posts without making a fool of myself. I even managed to do it on the trip back. It's the little triumphs that make it all worthwhile.

Next hurdle was the incline into the parking lot of the supermarket. It's not long, but it is a little steep. I had to go with momentum, and did manage to get about 3/4 of the way up the incline before I realized I was actually working. If I'd had to push the wheel one more revolution, I'm not sure I would have made it, but I did. I also discovered that taking that same incline down was kind of scary too. I am such a wimp! But I'm getting better. Slowly. Slowly. Slowly.

In the wake of the pull on my legs going up that little incline, I upped my time on the cycle at the club to 20 minutes, and kept the speed higher so I had to work higher--which got me all sweaty by 10 minutes of the 20 that I worked. I figured that had to be good for me.

All this is definitely good for me. I discover that when I sing along with Steve's CD in the car now I can hold the notes as long as he can, and when Dr. G took my blood pressure today, it had gone from 150/105 to 145/95. It's still not ideal, but it's getting better, and I can only assume that as the days/weeks/months pass it will get even better yet.

But right now I'm just trying to figure out how I'm going to get all the typing done and still fit in my busy social life as well.