Wednesday, June 6, 2018

Legwork and Life, week of 6/6/18

I feel kind of off this week.  Maybe it's the fact that my legs constantly feel like they're on the verge of getting pins and needles.  Maybe it's that I had a really exhausting Monday. 

I went to bed on Monday night, very stressed and upset from the day I'd had.  It was one of those "I can't possibly meet these deadlines" kind of days, where you beat yourself into trying to meet them anyway.  Then your boss comes and yells at you for not doing something perfectly while you're struggling along, and you just kind of feel awful.  (The actual situation is a bit too complex to describe properly here, so I'm giving an equivalent instead.)   When I finished for the night and went to bed, I noticed that one of my arms and both legs felt kind of like they were just about to fall asleep on me.  I guess kind of fuzzy?  But not a nice comfortable fuzzy, an uncomfortable "you're going to have pins and needles soon" feeling.

This was kind of uncomfortable for trying to fall asleep with, so I kept shifting my legs, but the weird feeling didn't go away.  Eventually I slept... and woke up with the legs still acting like that.  I felt a little clumsier overall yesterday, but went biking as usual and my muscles performed fine... but later that day I talked to a friend of mine and he seemed worried by my description, which alarmed me more than I was already.

So I ended up calling the chiropractor.  They didn't like the sound of what I described, and had me come in the same day to make sure I was okay.  Apparently my spine felt like being tetchy and rebelling against the the chiropractic work I'd had done on Monday, so they did another adjustment to hopefully put it back in line and make my legs stop feeling weird and gross.  But then I had to ice my back for a half hour, because vertebrae get less and less graceful about handling chiropractic adjustments the quicker you do them. Inflammation tends to result.  So, ice pack... or to be more precise, big bag of frozen peas.  I'm to keep an eye on the numbness situation, and if it's not better by this Monday, check in there again. 

In happier news, my old hairstylist-person is back in town!  I complained about her leaving several months ago, after she graduated her school and went off to pursue her dream job in Chicago.  This was in part because I hate change, and in part because I had gotten very fond of her and she's a very remarkable person.  She went off, though, and was gone for several months.  I'm... not really sure what specifically happened to bring her back here, but I couldn't manage to handle travel plans to visit her in Chicago, and I guess now I don't have to.  I suspect it's not a happy story, so this is not entirely happy news, but I'll be seeing her tomorrow for coffee and will be able to celebrate and/or commiserate with her.

This actually also brought up the awkward question as to what to do about my hair maintenance now.  She's still working, and still in the hair-beauty business, but while I'm happy to support her and be a customer to her new place, I also don't want to just... disappear on the student I've been having work on me since she left.  Fortunately, this problem has a time limit on it.  The student graduates in August, and is going back home to find a job.  Her home is over an hour away from where I live.  That is a very long way to drive when the process of making my hair blue takes 4+ hours.  So probably when the student's graduation happens, I'll simply bid her farewell and wish her luck, but not make plans to show up at her new workplace.  I feel kind of bad about it, but that's a lot of gas and time, and she personally knows that all too well. 

Lastly, thanks to a friend, I ran across a helpful website I'd forgotten about.  It's called myNoise, and it lets you listen to all kinds of sounds, from plain white noise to rain under a tent to a sailboat creaking in the waves while a thunderstorm rolls around you.  When I was in college, I ran across a very simple app for a web browser that did something like this, but only had six options.  I think it was around finals time, and I was so stressed that simply turning on the rain noise was a wonderful relief, like plunging a burning hand into a bucket of water.  They had a donation button, and the donation limit was $2.  I think I threw like 10 bucks at them (I donated 5 times) before I finished calming down from my fit of gratitude.

This site is a great deal more complicated, as you can kind of tell from the lengthiness of that last noise generator.  I'll probably donate to this website as well, now that I've downloaded the app on my tablet and will be able to bring the sound of the ocean, rain, and chimes with me wherever I go.  The app seems more limited, and most of the generators are locked behind in-app purchases, but you can buy them all for $12, so I'll probably do that.  Part of being an adult is recognizing that other people have to eat and pay rent also.  If you love something, you have to support it, or it might not be there any more someday.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go flop in bed and listen to the magical invisible rain that will never get me soaking wet, and give my anxiety disorder a pass for a few minutes. 

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