“Do it ten more times.”
He said that with an enthusiastic smile. A beaming smile. And he meant so well. I had just told the PT specialist how much it hurt to put weight on my foot to lift myself up, once. I might have done two or three more for him.
Some things hurt. What does that even mean? What doesn’t hurt? I hurt after walking a mile, yet I hurt less after walking mile than I did last week, or last month, or last year. Should we avoid all things that hurt?
I don’t think “hurt” is a big enough word to hold all that it can be. How about we divide the word into two new ones. “Hurt” shall now be “hurt/pain” or “hurt/sore”. What is the difference you might ask. Well, keep in mind that I’m making this up as I go along, so don’t try to google my phrases, as it would be circular bringing back to the same point. I would say that hurt/pain is to be avoided and when encountered, it should be solved.
With all this of course, I’m just thinking of physical pain, though I suppose the word could be expanded more. Physical/hurt/pain, mental/hurt/pain, emotional/hurt/sore? How much more descriptive could we be that just a comment like “that hurts bad.”
It’s supposed to hurt, you’re recovering. Do it ten more times.
Mowing the lawn hurts too. Mentally. Mentally pain.
I like the grass, I love seeing that green carpet after a fresh mow on a sunny day when I have the time to sit on the porch with a beer afterwards. (That’s happened, like three times in the last seven years of home ownership.) Of course it doesn’t get that green without (more green) water. My first summer I watered my lawn in Jackson, until I got the first water bill.
Yet, then I had to watch brown grass for most the year. Until it rains for a week, stops for a few days, grows a foot, rains until you’re home tired after work, and have to mow it quickly before it rains again- or the city inspectors see it for a fine (or before other citizens would see it and think that I was getting away with long grass because I was on the Council.)
Side note: sitting in the car, and it’s just getting a bit chilly in here, which gave me the perfect reason to plug in my new electric blanket- twelve volts! At a cost of only four amps per hour of use, it’s far cheaper than starting the car, easier than going to put on a layer, just as warm as going to sleep in the mummy bag. Well, let’s give it some use (it will see some use in New Mexico!) first and then maybe it will be one of my first Amazon reviews.
So grass. It looks nice. You cut it, it grows. You ignore it, it grows. You ignore it too long, bad things happen. Weeds, you should put down more seed, fill it in. More grass to cut. I like the grass, I just don’t like the maintenance of it. All together, I don’t miss my grass.
My mental pain is gone. Maybe a little hurt/emotional/sore tough.. Hmm, if pain is to be avoided, what is this hurt/sore?
Well, again, no doctor here, though I do believe I have a unique perspective on the topic. Hurt/sore is what happens when (an average walking person) walks a few miles then sits down. Their legs will be sore. If they did it again the next day, their legs would likely be sore again, yet less so. Sore is a feeling of gaining strength, a feeling of growing. It is a good feeling. Being sore is being alive.
Oh, this topic will be touched again many times – it’s a sore spot for me. I’ll have to do it ten more times.
That is how you get rid of sore. Whatever caused you to become sore, you need to do ten more times.
Hurt/sore is not hurt/pain. Also, there is certainly a spectrum at hand here, maybe they are both on the same spectrum yet at far extremes. Also certainly, hurt/sore can become hurt/pain pretty quick.
“Trust it up to a pain level two.”
Another smile, a good doctor, the ankle guy. Though I met him nine months too late, he did do everything he should’ve from that time on. Yet even he doesn’t know what a pain level two is. What was he trying to tell me? It’s supposed to hurt some yet not too much about two tenths of all the way pain. One fifth if that is more clear. It isn’t.
What is a ten?
I’m going to stop there. Not that I’ve run out of material, yet some sore spots have to be exposed slowly to the air and at the right time. Healing is a process, as are growth, and life.
Every day the grass grows because it is alive. Does the grass feel sore when we cut it?
Ha- okay, I think I was just being silly now.
Today was tedious. Took all my meds (except the piss pill.. yet, I’m still pissing fine people, happy story) so I know I was properly physically/medically motivated (that Vyvanse is just a molecule away (or something) from Meth.) Mentally though, I have simple not been on my game. I started with my new four step daily plan.. the same four steps I kinda figured out over all of last year.. now I can do them every day. Pray. Move. Work. List.
This is a thing here, so it may change.. like today I as tried to talk myself out of walking a mile this morning. It had already written move as the second thing, and I didn’t want to start working until I did it. There was a long debate, a negotiation even. In the end I did walk around the block (not the mile) yet after cereal and a banana. Compromise, that how me do things.
Then I thought about pray eat move work list… then I thought I wonder what pemwl would sound like? Maybe it needs a second vowel? Eat twice? PEMEWELS. Pray, Eat, Move, Eat, Work, Eat, List, Steak. Then I thought this was part of my problem too.. had a little good idea that came naturally.. then I wanted to keep twiddling with it. A four item list. Really, it should be a three item list.. if I was perfect. Yet I’m human and more faulty than most, so I need the fourth item to keep me in line on the third item.
While thinking about this, I started to think about work. What work did I need to do to today? Then I looked at my new small list I had begun today and the two I have leftover still from yesterday and the day before. My new list had a lot of blank space and thought popped into my mind that I wondered how much it will cost me in gas to get to New Mexico (also, I won’t spoil it yet, though I do have a destination, a firm one now in mind!)
Before I knew it, well actually I did realize how much time I was wasting, I realized I may have not been wasting time. What started with a lookup on google maps for the millage, then was the price of gas in New Mexico, add in the thought of what it cost me to idle for two hours last night after two days of clouds (and not having any errands to run,) and handful of other thoughts, then some quick math.
Well it used to be quick. Today I spent three hours and the rest of my page to figure my current cost of engine generated battery kilowatts: seven dollars and fifty nine cents. Per kilowatt. (Compared to consumers at maybe a quarter per kilowatt?) In any case, I’m glad I’m using a lot less electricity now. Also, that’s just if I’m running the engine for no other purpose. If I’m already driving, those are free kilowatts being collected from my alternator that would other wise be wasted.
With only three hours down, I thought to myself: none of this is on the list. and we’re two days behind. Yet, I looked at my page and said: it’s all on this list now. And it was, the page- my list for the day- is/was full of.. of.. work. The kind of thing that I used to enjoy a whole lot more. Calculation. I don’t even like to type numbers any more (pain/hurt = cut.) Yet, here I spent four hours doing painful math to avoid working on the list.
Ha. A list filled with things that I want to do. At some point along here in the day, I figured I haven’t been doing well the last few days.. Maybe I needed a some sunshine or a walk or something. My page full, that last thought got me moving, past time for lunch and no more salads on hand, I added grocery shopping onto my today list, and prioritized it above the only item I had added from yesterday: remove amp.
The old amplifier, sitting unused under my old dash, is drawing phantom power. Never did for years, yet now. Now it kills my battery?
Oh why would it do that. The car radio doesn’t even draw power from the car battery- it’s wired to my lithiums. Which is nice. I can turn “off” my radio directly leaving it with just the day and time displayed. Currently: WED PM one one : two four. Both radio power wires, constant and switched (the switched line also from lithium, with a soon to be dash mounted switch.)
Yet, testing shows… if I turn off (hard switch) the radio, the phantom load is gone. The radio, in soft off mode (it’s turned off, yet still powered as if the car was on) it actuates the amp and causes the amp to draw power- from the only battery it’s connected to, the car starter battery. Ugh. Like the wiring mess last week that took me three hours to find two screws I needed to buy to carry on with the project.
The amp may make it to New Mexico, I might rip it out tomorrow (if I can figure it out without removing the entire dash.) Of course, I could also do what I thought three days ago, I could just disconnect it. Leave it hanging in there. That’s probably even a good first step at removing it. Yet.. then I would be a stopping point, if not properly motivated I might stop with it disabled and never make it back to the project. Is that why I’ve waited two days?
I think too much. Or not enough. Depends on the day and the circumstance, yet given the option, I’ll probably take the wrong one. Ohh.. should have thought about that more… Uhh.. what are you still thinking about?
The last time I went grocery shopping and had finished I sat in my car and it came to me: I should have said “How do you like your eggs in the morning.”
You see at the egg section I picked up a dozen eggs, checked in the carton, put them in my cart and rolled away barely noticing the woman next to me. A few minutes later in the other corner of the store as I was picking out my salads made a comment out of nowhere to get my attention saying something about the price of eggs (seven something?) and that she was looking for a half dozen since she lived by herself on a three acre ranch. The last part was added when she mentioned raising chickens, yet had no time for that, rather would offer her property for a cut if someone wanted to raise chickens.
As I was sitting in my car, I assembled the different bits of conversation and realized they occurred at the eggs, at the bakery (the good salads are in the bakery, the so/so salads are in the veggie section..idk) and finally in the checkout lane and also realized it had been the same woman each time.
Idk. Idk. I don’t know, in case anyone doesn’t know what that means. Why am I still thinking about that? Haven’t I jumped topics/content enough in the last two thousand words? Idk.
Because I wonder if someone jokes/asks to split a dozen eggs or to raise chickens if she wants you to ask how she likes her eggs in the morning?
Yet, I was probably busy thinking about something else to think about that.
Until I sat down in my car, then I thought about it.
Oh well, not to be on my journey I suppose. Uck. Can you imagine chicken shit in the Texas July heat?
Also, before I wrap this up. South, then West has been completed. The roadtrip, arrival/healing/staples, the beach, falling, finding gold/recovering, back to Mathis, planing for the real adventure. Dispersed camping.
Free (I almost want to emoticon a smily, yet I will not.)
Free dispersed camping in the Lincoln National Forest. I would call it a coincedence, yet I usually follow that with “that’s just God acting anonymously.). Where else for a retired appointed GOP Jackson County Commissioner to end up. In a tent in Lincoln’s park. Even found property there that I may to look at. Half acre of wild mountain (no grass to be mown out here) for five grand. No camping fees anymore.
(Just annual taxes.. lol..)
From now until the solstice, North then West.
Time to rest.