An Eye For An Eye Making The World Blind

Morning came well before I was ready for it. A combination of meds seemed to keep me awake well beyond the limits of my usual sleep pattern, but not for my kids! No, they were bounding about when I awoke. I could hear them doing lord-knows-what in the floors below. So, glancing at my wife's gracefully somnilent form, I got up staggered to the shower.

The shower's such a handy thing... a malodorous cure and a relaxing place to think. So I did. First I thought "hey! who used all the shampoo" but then as the monotony of the routine took over, I started to think about other things. There's a cease-fire underway tomorrow. Israel will stop bombing what's left of Lebanon. And in an effort to get ready for the hiatus, there's a push to destroy as much as possible. There is a sadness about this suffering that will not rinse away. In that moment hunting about for some other shampoo, I'm thinking about the fact that some evil genius has developed a formulation that will blow up airplanes and moisturize dry and damaged hair. Impossible to imagine.

Mindlessly I get out of the shower and fumble about the routine of getting dried off and dressed. From the vent at my feet I can hear the gleeful shriek of my middle child and someone else making an animal sound. There is no intermediate volume in my home, just on and off. And thinking they'll need food or find it themselves, I hurry. Brushing my hair and teeth at the same time. Grabbing the aerosol deodorant as I look about for my pda. Suddenly my eyes are on fire. I'd sprayed the deodorant, but in my haste, did not look to see in which direction. A blast of butane propelled Cool Fusion is melting my eyeballs! Reaching for the sink I rinse. It burns. I repeat. Still burns. For some reason this stuff seems to repel water, oh... right. Its a deodorant.

Its a DEODORANT! I use soap to wash that off in the shower!! So blindly I search for the soap, lather, and I wash only to realize I AM PUTTING SOAP IN MY EYES! Before my eyes burned, but they at least smelled good. Now they were soapy and no matter how much I rinsed, I could not seem to get all of it off. Ouch! And however rediculous it sounds, when you NEED to rinse your eyes, you can't. They don't want to open. I tried and tried and the kept closing. So I'd fill my hands with water, hold it to my eyes, and open and close and the water poured from the spaces between my fingers. It wasn't working, but I was not going to try conditioner, no matter how dry my eyes were.

My ankles were aware of the nubby cotton towel and with a blind swoop, grabbed and dabbed. And dabbed. And blinked, waiting for the pain fade, then chuckled. My mind, vastly contemplating fighting and death and airport security and happy semi-ferrel kids, had not considered the many small and essential tokens in that present moment. I wasn't paying attention, and the chuckle was from imagining what my mother would say if I'd done that as a kid. Frankly, it would be more of a look than a word from her; something mixed between pity and wonder for this son of hers who is alternately bright and retarded.

So I dressed in about 200 blinks, found my groggy wife and kissed her a few times (I wonder if she could smell the deodorant on my face... she's like a hound dog that way... *gasp*... did I call my wife a dog? This is obviously untrue, but I begin to digress...) and went downstairs where my happy kids ate fruit and cereal and watched Scooby Doo cartoons.

Mastery

So my wife is playing with this new ipod shuffle thing that arrived at the house. She cracks me up! Says it looks just like a home pregnancy test! Damn that slays me... it does. Even has a plus and minus! How did I get it? Long, unimportant story and its free. I don't want it. She was happy to take it and play. So as she loads the software onto our computer to operate it, its asking her survey questions about her occupation. She stays home with the kids. A busy job. Lots of duties and titles. No pay... well no money... unless we sell one of the kids (note to self.... I have 3). Anyway, she was checking off job titles. Finance, Administration, Computers, Web Master. That one caught my attention. Master?

Is that a little presumptuous? Web Master? I mean it was born in a time when the pocket protector ruled the world... no one could understand what those guys were saying, but they not only weren't burned by the strange new magic, they could *gasp* USE IT! I remember this time well because I worked in finding techies for companies. The Internet was totally off the radar, except for a few guys playing D&D with their Commodore 64s. No one was around to name them, except themselves. And their decision? Master. A hearty 'screw you' to all the guys that gave them swirlies and wedgies. They are masters of their domain... compared to everyone else.

So what other jobs assert this level of bravado in their title? Zen Master, Jedi Master (kinda similar), Reiki Master (again, similar). Then some, a little less profound:

• Bass Master, Master Angler (is that fish or chix? Or Fish n' Chix... Long John Silver was a Playa. You have to know it)
• Drunken Master ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080179/ ) fighting AND drinking... a pair? Who'da thunk?
• Jam Master... well there was only one. And his name was Jay. ( http://www.j-m-j.com/ ) And he liked his Addidas.

But seriously, rolling through GOOGLE, aside from master chefs, and gardeners... there's very little over mastery out there. This is what makes me wonder... what if we had to proclaim some kind of mastery in our work? Titles that might describe me?

• Sloth Master: while I've not met any, I know how to set my motor to idle, but really I am not comfortable with master. I am more of a wondering fool. More willing to be monkish, than master.

I don't know. When I was a kid I told my 3rd grade teacher I wanted to explain big ideas with little words for people so they'd be easier to deal with. I didn't know what job that was. She didn't either. But interestingly there's a word for this, and I'm really good at it. Its really the closest thing to what I do. I take big idea and reduce them to bites. I am a master of this:

bate¹ ( P ) Pronunciation Key (bt)
tr.v. bat·ed, bat·ing, bates

1. To lessen the force or intensity of; moderate:

Draw your own conclusions...

Obesity Is The New Tobacco

I should just stop reading. Having an opinion is not related to the quality of education. In my randomized, placebo controlled study of literati and illiterati, there was no statistical significance between groups. And being unintelligent is very zen... knowing you don't know is the first step to knowing you do know what you don't know... or something like that. Mr. Miagi started Danielsan on chopsticks right after that and I got hungry. Sorry. I get easily distracted.

So this blog is supposed to be about obesity. RIGHT! A study released by the Mayo clinic studied rates of weight loss in gastric bypass patients over the age of 60...

Doctors at the Mayo Clinic Scottsdale, in Scottsdale, Ariz., compared the outcomes of 110 people younger than 60 years of age who underwent the popular weight-loss surgery, to those of 20 patients older than 60.

Both groups experienced a significant decrease in obesity-related diseases, including high blood pressure and diabetes, the researchers report in the February issue of Archives of Surgery. Both sets of patients also cut their overall use of medications by approximately half following their surgeries.

However, younger patients tended to experience slightly greater weight loss. According to the researchers, 10 months after the surgery younger patients lost an average of about 97 pounds, while patients in the over-60 group dropped an average of about 86 pounds.

Based on the findings, the Mayo investigators conclude that "patients of advanced age can safely undergo gastric bypass with operative results nearly identical to those of younger patients."

So now you all know that I don't know what I do know or unknow knowing or know unknow, or Anton Apollo Ohno, so I feel comfortable sharing my deep insights:

• Isn't the easiest way to bypass the gastric system to not eat the food in the first place? I mean are people really complaining about the cost of healthcare when they afford a $25,000 procedure to keep themselves from eating the entire bag of pork rinds? Uneaten, even pork rinds are low in fat and calories!
• Is it me or have my elders decided to stop saving their money for heirs? I was kinda looking forward to gold-plating my toilet with that...Maybe its just a shift in the culture... all we can really is spend time or money. So whereas before we got their money 'cuz grammy died early, or now we get grammy for another 20 years, but no money. Hmm... so much for having our cake and eating it too. Our aging elders are averaging a cholesterol med, an antihypertensive with or with a water pill, and then specializing to any number of malady maintainers... allergies, depression managers, cox-2's, all of which are good things. They improve the quality of life. That is an ostensible purpose of living, or so I thought. But this obesity procedure cuts on the razor's edge for me. Twenty-five g's is the downpayment on a house for anew generation of family... a college endowment. A cruise with the fam and memories for a lifetime? Now that technology allows so many marvels, someone has to decide whether or not they want to pay for it. Sixty year olds were having a $25k surgery to live another 12-15 years on average? I guess quality matters.

What it looks like to the cynical bystander is the harvest of the old and profit laden. These folks spent a lifetime working and saving, and experiencing life and now see that they have more money than time. Fortunately the economy's cockles are warmed when a right fat geezer is tossed on the bonfire of our vanity. Nip/tuck, take meds to seem a little less crazy, pills for erections you might break a hip using, the list is impressive. And you can't take it with you... the money that is. You can take the fat. After they embalm you, it'll have a longer shelflife than Twinkies!

• I know people who have had gastric bypass and its helped them change their lives. That's cool. Radically improved lives. The people who have found these procedures are effective and relatively safe (safer than heart attacks, gout, strokes, all-you-can-eat rib tips). But what is obese? Ok, I'm thinking if you're 100lbs, you might really have a problem. Shockingly, much less. I am obese! I am obese? Huh? How is that possible?

According to the American Obesity Association, if you fat ass is a BMI of 30, congratulation we're brothers in fat. Here's the chart:

BMI:	25	30	35	40
Height (inches)	Body Weight (pounds)
4’10”	119	143	167	191
5’0”	128	153	179	204
5’2”	136	164	191	218
5’4”	145	174	204	232
5’6”	155	186	216	247
5’8”	164	197	230	262
5’10”	174	207	243	278
6’0”	184	221	258	294
6’2”	202	233	272	311
6’4”	205	246	287	328

I am 6'2" and 245. I bench 300lbs, and work out 6-10 hours a week. Ok... I know I should drop a couple, but OBESE? Jabba was obese. I might have been 205 out of college some years ago, but I recall only being able to afford rice and potatoes. I could be a healthy guy at 20 pounds less, but not 40. I'd look hungry. Or like an amputee.

I sense a nationalized moment coming to save me from myself, or the costs other people have to spend on my fat ass when we socialize healthcare.

• Lastly, my big-brother-black-helicopter-area-51 inner conspiracy theorist fears Fat being the new Tobacco. I first laughed at the thought, but there's too much logic in the similarity to tobacco... a person's personal choice, peripheral impact on those around them, evil purveyors of vice preying mindlessly on the mindless... After a Brave New Diet (The Huxley Diet), what could be next? Mindless purveyors of health and wellness products because we don't really need them if we live of bark and roots? Hedonists? While I generally fear isms, hedonism is nice. Its added a layer of comfortable experience between me and the harsh 6 packs of my youth.

So I've rambled but the million dollar question is this: Is it better to burn out (on doughnuts, beer, and ribs) or fade away (after 200 years of near 3rd world privation)? I honestly don't know or I don't think I know if I know... but the thought makes me hungry.

Note: This was written in 2006. Since that blog I'd ballooned another 20 lbs, then due to an extended illness and subsequent surgery, dropped 60 lbs. The point? Today I weight 198lbs... Do I seem different? Yes. Healthier. Back feels better. Blood pressure is good... cholesterol is now normal.. Amazing what happens. This blog cracks me up now in retrospect.

Want

Sometimes observation happens in the most unusual circumstances. I am not a litterati... more like illiterati. Though raised by a wordsmith, I do not consider myself one any more than Romulus and Remus are wolves. But every once in a while I'll bump into a word that I thought I knew and stupify on how I missed the rest of the meaning. Lately this is happening more and more. It probably looks like a petit mal seizure, or maybe an old computer getting jammed with a huge file to process. And I would expect this sort of thing if I was one of the many English as a Second Language people. There, that second language might just help color in the understanding of your own. That's not me. If anything, I might be illiterate in a couple languages, but not enough to dare conversation in unless pressed by dire circumstance... anyway I digress.

So in this place I call home there are all these houses that are tucked away from the madness of the urban center. The houses all look alike, are well appointed, and are generally full of people who want more stuff to put in them. I'm not saying they're bad people. They are people, and people are people; products of their choices. It is apparent from the upgraded flooring, landscaping, electronics, and cars that they want more. Somehow in the story of the American this came to be the story everyone wanted... the immigrant who comes off the boat with nothing and achieves success and comfort.

That story is so much more interesting when you look at the struggle, the rise, the learning that comes for the road. Its the destination that's a let down once you've finished the trip. Somehow I think about my ancestors and their immigrant roots and can't imagine their success defined by underground sprinkling and a three car garage. They had so little and came to find their decendents with so much.

But I am still restless. I don't want any more. I am sorry I ever did. Feel stupid for ever buying a new car when a used one would have been fine, or for buying DVD movies I still haven't watched, or for making people who know and love me feel like they need to buy me something to prove it. I have more than enough. Too much. This stuff is collecting like cholesterol in my veins. I don't want it. But I did.

And that's when I started thinking about want. All these years its been 'I want a '. I remember when all I ever wanted was a 10 speed bike. Then I got it and all I ever wanted was a stereo-cassette player- the kind with TWO tape decks... and those funny lights that blinked when music played. It seems so funny now, because they are so utterly useless to me now, like in the movie The Jerk:

Navin R. Johnson: And that's it and that's the only thing I need, is this. I don't need this or this. Just this ashtray. And this paddle game, the ashtray and the paddle game and that's all I need. And this remote control. The ashtray, the paddle game, and the remote control, and that's all I need. And these matches. The ashtray, and these matches, and the remote control and the paddle ball. And this lamp. The ashtray, this paddle game and the remote control and the lamp and that's all I need. And that's all I need too. I don't need one other thing, not one - I need this. The paddle game, and the chair, and the remote control, and the matches, for sure. And this. And that's all I need. The ashtray, the remote control, the paddle game, this magazine and the chair.
[walking outside]

And then it becomes apparent to me that want is not just a desire to possess, its a personal deficiency. A self imposed void. That I lack because I choose to want. That I deny my own perfect nature in order to seek something that 'complete's me, like a paddle game. Or an ashtray. Or bamboo hardwood floors. Or a 3rd garage stall to hold all that crap I bought that I can't throw away. The story of Eden lives anew when I think about the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Funny, just one blog ago I was ripping it. Shows you what I know... only that I don't. Well, Snow White's a nice story too. Also has fruit in it if that's important to you in a tale. Sorry... I digress. It just that our want has made us wanton.

Now my sainted ancestors, forebearers of a distant age, those people for whom I am the pinnacle of their existential lineage, those whose manifest decendent has it all, is no less content than they were before they left their respective motherlands. The journey of a thousand years. A battle against privation, war, racism, only to end up with the same want, neatly appointed in the suburbs, where I want a riding lawn mower. It would complete me... until I get a satellite dish. Or a paddle game...

Mice Like Ecstacy Too!

Ripped from the headlines... ok, buried in the obscure health pages:

Researchers in Italy found that an ecstasy-linked dampening of the rats' brain activity lasted long after the rodents were given the drug if they also exposed to music of 95 decibels, the maximum noise intensity permitted by law in Italian nightclubs.

If the rats weren't exposed to loud music, the drug's effects wore off within a day.

During the experiment, the team at the Institute of Neurological Science in Catanzaro monitored the rats' electrocortical activity (EcoG spectrum) using electrodes placed on the rodents' skulls. The EcoG spectrum was recorded from 60 minutes before the rats were given ecstasy and the music began, then again for up to five days after the music had been turned off.

Without music, a low dose (3mg/kg) of ecstasy did not modify the rats' brain activity any more than a dose of saline solution. However, loud music prompted significant changes in the brain activity of rats who received a low dose of the drug.

A high dose (6mg/kg) of ecstasy alone caused a reduction in the rats' brain activity and that effect was enhanced when loud music was played and lasted for up to five days. The brain activity of rats that received a high dose of the drug but were not exposed to loud music returned to normal within a day.

Rats that received saline solution and were exposed to loud music showed no changes in brain activity.

Conclusions? Well as a guy who reads science journals for a living, I have many thoughts:

• What music do rodents prefer in the club? Me? Does it vary geographically? These are Italian mice... so are we talking Bochelli or Moby? Somebody help me out with a list here...
  
• How much does it suck to be the saline mouse?
  
• Did the E mice tease the saline mice, or did they try to love them?
  
• Was the hangover different after it wore off after 5 days, or after 1 with low music?
  
• Where did they find all those tiny little Seuss hats?

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