Relaxation Vacation

This past week I have been on vacation. My husband was invited to a work event that took place at the Ritz Carlton in Orange County, California. By attending, his airfare, rental car, and lodging would be covered, hence if I could find some decent airfare and someone to watch our kids, it would essentially be a free vacation for me. I, of course, took the opportunity.

On my first day in paradise, I struggled with what my plans for the week were going to be. I knew that I was going to need to do SOME work over the course of the week. But I didn't want to spend so much time working that I felt like I was "wasting" my vacation. However, I'm a little too Type A for my own good and I knew that if I just layed around by the pool I would feel like I was "wasting" my time when I could be DOING something. Ugh. Two things are clear at this point. 1) I need to learn how to relax. REALLY relax. And 2) my constant struggle to find balance has followed me on vacation.

The good news is, this week at least, I found it. I worked a couple hours each morning, but did it primarily from my super-comfy bed with a beautiful breeze coming though the French doors to the balcony and the sound of the ocean waves crashing in the distance. Not bad. I also did my very best to delegate tasks that needed to be accomplished instead of feeling like I had to step in to make sure everything got done. (And of course, the team back home managed just fine without my constant presence.)

But not only did I find the right work balance, this week I also broke free from relaxation guilt. I decided to not feel guilty about relaxing the way that I really wanted to relax. This was harder than it sounds.

We arrived at the resort on Monday, so Tuesday was my first full day to relax. Tuesday morning, after a couple hours of work, I decided to grab my iPad and head down to the pool so I could sit in the shade on a chaise lounge chair and read some new as-yet-undownloaded eBook. Tuesday afternoon I hung out with my husband for a couple hours before we both headed to a work-sponsored dinner. Not a bad day.

Wednesday morning though, was when I made my big decision. I thought about going to the spa or back to the pool or down to the beach. But you know what, those pool chairs weren't nearly as comfy as my bed. And the beach chairs would be the same. I didn't really feel like swimming, and the spa SEEMED good, but I just wasn't really in the mood. (And you don't pay $100+ for a massage unless you actually want one.) The bed I was in was comfy. Like SUPER comfy. And with the doors to the balcony open, there was a beautiful breeze and the constant sound of the ocean, which was awesome. And I finally realized that the spa and the pool and the beach SOUNDED very relaxing, but what I REALLY wanted to do was not have to take a shower, lay in bed, and read. Now normally, this is when a little voice in my head would pester me with thoughts like, "Wow, great use of the resort, with its with great food, a beautiful beach on the Pacific Ocean, a great pool, beautiful views, a spa, great little shops nearby, and so much more, you're going to spend the day doing something you could do at home." But this time, I ignored that voice and, as a result, had a wonderfully relaxing vacation. I did almost nothing the entire time. Slept. Read. OCCASIONALLY showered. Slept and read some more.

Plus, it turns out, that little voice is feakin' stupid. When can I ever spend 5 consecutive days at home just sleeping and reading whenever I feel like it??? (Skipping an occasional daily shower though, that might not be so rare.)

How Twitter Mobile is Making Me CRAZY!

I'm on vacation at the moment. It's a kid-free, do absolutely nothing kind of vacaton. I'm really enjoying it. I've pretty much been laying in bed, in a beach chair, or by the pool with my iPad and reading. I've been reading a book that's been on my list for a while. I've been reading blogs that I haven't visited in AGES. I've been checking in on the folks on Twitter and Facebook. It's been great. Until today when Twitter has made me NUTS!

I don't have a million followers on Twitter. I don't even have a thousand. And I follow only about 500 (at the moment). But still, 500, at least for me, is to many to straight up follow without some sort of a system. My system: lists. I just have bunches of lists and I read different ones depending on what I'm in the mood for.

A while back, a new version of the official Twitter app for the iPhone eliminated the ability to update lists, including updating list membership. This blows. I do most of my tweeting from my phone, so eliminating a key piece of my functionality sort of sucks. Especially when the previous version of the app HAD the functionality. So sometimes I follow new peeps, but if they're not in a list, I really won't ever see their tweets. So then I have to remember to periodically login to my computer and put all the new peeps into lists. A major pain in the ass.

Today, I figured that I would outsmart the damn Twitter app and use the browser on my iPad. The iPad has a big enough screen to not be really annoying using the full version of most websites.

I pull out my iPad and go to twitter.com. My first thought: Why does it look just like the app??? Oh! I'm on the mobile site. Ok, where's the link to the full site? I look and look, no link. Anywhere. I type in "www.twitter.com" again like I'm a website idiot (I'm not) just hoping it will take me to the full site, fully knowing it won't. It didn't. I Google it. There's really no way to bypass it without downloading weird apps and other solutions that require WAY too much work. Fine. F*** it. I won't clean up my Twitter lists today, I'll just go back to reading blogs.

I read a few posts and then remember that I follow some folks on Twitter whose blogs I wanted to add to my Reader. Quick stop back at Twitter to get the blog URL's. Not.

First, another damn list problem. I know the three people I want to get URL's from are all in the same list, but there's no way to view list membership from the mobile site. All I can see is their tweets, IF they've tweeted recently. I scroll. And scroll. And scroll. Apparently they're on vacation, too, 'cause no recent tweets.

Fine, I think. I'll just search for them manually. (I know. My life is so hard, but really, this should SO not be necessary.) I can't remember the handle of one person. I know her real name (which is VERY common) and her avi. Neither of those are going to help me. Oh well. Scratch that one. I type in the handle of tweep #2. She comes up. I tap on the little link to "view full profile." No link to her blog! No, not because she didn't list it, it's just not showing! I confirm this by opening my own profile page. No blog link. Oh for the love of God!

I pull out my iPhone, search for the same someone, and go to her profile page. Voila! There it is. So I'm sitting there with my iPhone and my iPad together, searching for tweeps on my phone, and then typing their blog URL's into my iPad.

Seriously, Twitter. I love you, but THIS you've got to fix!

I Need a Book

It has been forever since I read a really good fiction book. I love non-fiction and read a lot of it. What's more, my usual subjects are probably what most would consider atypical. I love A.J. Jacobs, Michael Pollan, Bart Ehrman, Steven Levitt, Michael Lewis, and Dan Airley. If you haven't heard of any of these people, I'm not surprised. They're not really household names.

But I've been reading Harry Potter to my son at bedtime and boy has it made me miss a good page-turner. We don't get very far each night, so I always find myself wanting to keep going, even though it is clearly time for him to sleep. I do my Mommy-duty and put the book down, but now I need to find another decent fiction book.

But what??? I have not read either of the two most recent sensations: The Hunger Games and 50 Shades of Grey. I'm just not enthused about kids killing each other. And I'm just passing of 50 Shades. The last good fiction I read was The Help. It was pretty good. And The Kite Runner. Also good. Before that, Angels and Demons and DaVinci Code, but whatever that third one was was not great. Oh, and there was The Red Tent and Replay and Time and Again were good.

Maybe I should just read one of the classics that I never got around to.

Oh I don't know. Come on people. Give me some recommendations.

Benign

Shortest blog post ever. Update from the last blog post. Both biopsies came back benign.

Carry on.

Visiting the Other Side

Today, I'm going to take you on a little journey; a journey to the other side. It's a journey I've taken scores of times, so I'll hopefully be a pretty good guide.

The journey to the other side begins with knowledge; knowledge of the impending pinch. It's not terribly painful, you already know this, but it begins the journey regardless. You're instructed to lie down, which of course, you know is wise, but will not alter your travel plans.

"You're going to feel a pinch," you hear.

Then you feel it. Not that bad. Really. Maybe, you think. Maybe I can will myself to stay here.

And then it begins. A slight, almost imperceptible spinning in your head. It is so subtle that you tell yourself that it's not real, it is just your expectation of what would happen and not an actual feeling. Then a more concrete feeling of nausea begins to take hold and you realize that your journey has not been canceled. Your vision changes slightly as the brightest areas of your vision seem to darken into purple. Then, the wave of discomfort, like the worst nausea ever... times ten. Now you try to let go, knowing that it is the only thing that can take this horrible feeling away.

Now, in an instant, you are on the other side. You have no memory of where you were a moment ago. You are someplace else, someplace real. It is not a dream. This world is strange, but real.

And then it starts to fade. You feel yourself being pulled away. You hear voices, but don't know who they are. You feel someone touching your face, hear someone calling your name. You try to make sense of the sensations, try to figure out where you are. Slowly, very slowly, you begin to remember where you are. You realize you've been dreaming. And just as you do when waking from a normal dream, you grasp for the dreams, if only just to remember them. They were so vivid that you want to at least remember them. But unlike your normal dreams, they are gone. You're not even fully conscious yet, but you cannot remember anything about where you thought you were just two seconds earlier, only that they were so vivid that you were certain that they were real.

The dream state fades. The queasiness that started this journey returns, only with greatly reduced intensity than before. You look at the faces around you and wonder how long you were "gone." What felt like 15 minutes was probably seconds.

"Welcome back," they say. "Feeling better?"

Feeling better? Yes. But man, I'd love it if next time I could just pass on this whole experience.

---

Yesterday I had a suspicious mole on my shoulder and another suspicious "skin thing" near my eye biopsied. Dermatologist wasn't particular worried, but thought we should do the biopsies to be sure, especially on the "eye thing." (He probably used an official term, I wasn't really listening.)

At least since I was 10 years old, probably earlier, I have fainted after nearly every shot I've received. I've also fainted when my cat was in a fight and had a gaping wound in his neck, while reading a book in 6th grade about surgery, while watching a movie in 8th grade where I passed out onto the lap of the boy sitting next to me, and on and on. So when I need to have a needle stuck into me (like when getting an IV before giving birth or getting a biopsy), I pretty much know what's going to happen. I find it humorous how often I still need to convince people that it's going to happen. (I know the TB test won't hurt. Trust me, I'm still going to faint.) I'm 38. I've done this a few times.

But even though I know it's coming, I still hate it. I HATE that HORRIBLE feeling right before it happens. It's really bad. I hate being the high maintenance patient that has to lie down for a simple blood draw. I hate that I feel like an idiot when I come to because I don't really know where I am. I hate that I feel like an idiot when it's really out of my control. I hate that everyone tells me "it's all in my head." Great, and how does that help me? Also, random person on the street, please tell me how much you actually know about vasovagal syncope. I've kind of been dealing with it for three decades.

Yesterday, I hated it so much more. Yesterday, I didn't just faint. I fainted 4 times! I kept waking up, only to feel a bit better and then be completely overcome with the same sensation and go right back out again. When I woke up the fourth time, it was because I was vomiting. Lovely. Also, that's never happened before. Normally, I wake up and am back to normal in about 10 minutes. Yesterday, 30 minutes later I was still sitting in the doctor's office feeling "off." I decided to go home and nap instead of going back to work. Even at 10 pm I still felt not 100%.

Today, I am mostly better. Today, I am hoping that this is all ado over nothing. Biopsy results in 14 days. Again, the doc wasn't terribly concerned, I'm not really concerned, but fingers crossed anyway.

DOMA = Defense of MY ASS!!!

I try to write profanity-free. I'm not exactly profanity-free in my normal, walking-around-in-the world self, but I just think it looks icky on my blog. But right now, I am so annoyed that this is gonna be hard.  HARD!

So today I learned a couple things about DOMA, and in so doing, learned that I didn't really know much about DOMA in the first place. Basically, I knew that DOMA = the Defense of Marriage Act. I knew that it was passed by Congress and defined marriage by the Federal government as a union between a man and a woman. And I knew that it's a silly waste of time for the conservatives in this country who are trying dearly to cling to their definition of marriage when clearly the tide on this issue is moving against them. It's only a matter of time. OK, that last part was less fact than opinion. But anyway... So really what I thought of DOMA was that it was stupid and temporary.

Today I learned what DOMA really does. DOMA prevents the Federal government from providing any tax-payer money to same-sex couples in any sort of marriage benefit, even if they were are legally married in one of the many United States that allow gay marriage, since the Federal government does not recognize their marriage. I guess I knew this. Kinda. But gay couples have never gotten any sort of marriage benefits from the Federal government before, so I guess I never thought anything of it. Until I learned about the impact that it has on gay soldiers.

With the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell, gay and lesbian Americans can now serve openly in the United States Armed Forces. Finally. Finally, your sexual preferences have nothing to do with whether you are able to serve your country. Finally, service personnel do not have to lie about who they are. Finally.

However, gay couples receive none of the marriage benefits that heterosexual service personnel receive. None. This is not because the military doesn't want to do it or the rules haven't kept up. It is because DOMA prevents any taxpayer money from going to pay any marriage benefits to same-sex couples. Some of the many things gay service members don't receive include:

• Lower housing allowances, since the military must treat them as if they are single.
• No on-base family housing. 
• No military ID cards for spouses, meaning spouses cannot enter military bases without being escorted by a service member. So no shopping at commissaries, which often have reduced prices for service members and their families. No access to the military medical facilities. No access to recreational activities that happen on base among military families. 
• Lower disability payments to disabled veterans, again, because the military must treat them as if they are single.
• No survivor benefits to your spouse you are killed in action.
• No ability to be buried next to your spouse in a military cemetery.
• No travel allowances to spouses to attend repatriation ceremonies for service members killed in action.

Did you get those last ones? You volunteered to serve your country. You were deployed to a war zone,  and fought for your country while most Americans were sitting on their couches watching Dancing with the Stars, and then you were killed in action. And now the vocal minority of Americans who think that a commitment between two people of the same gender does more to destroy marriage than the 1 in 2 divorce rate among heterosexuals, have declared that the government cannot assist your spouse in attending your repatriation ceremony or save a burial plot for you in a military cemetery because they happen to be the same gender as you!!! What a freakin' CROCK!!!


And how about all those services denied to the families of living, gay service personnel? Your spouse can't come on base without an escort? You can't live on base with your family? Because (let's all put our head in the sand and pretend that) you're not really a family!?

I tell you what. If every SINGLE person who voted for and supports the Defense of Marriage Act agrees to serve a single tour in Afghanistan, I'll shut the hell up. But until that time, the brave Americans who are fighting and dying for our country should get every single benefit that they are due. Every. Single. Benefit.

For those of you that are in the military or who are gay, I am sorry for being late to the party. I know that all of this is old news. But dammit, I am on board now. Because THIS is bullshit.

My Remember List

These days it seems that everyone has a bucket list. I do not. While I am quite a lover of lists, I have decided that one thing I don’t need in my life is a list of things to accomplish before I die to make my life “complete.” Sure, I truly hope that I get to see France before I die. But if I don’t make it to le Midi because I “wasted” all my time in the American Midwest playing with my kids and "sleeping in" next to my husband, I shall still consider my life a great success.

So to serve as a reminder to myself to keep my days focused on the things that are truly important, at least to me, I created myself a Remember List. These are the things that I will try to Remember every day.