A Most Unreliable Narrator Issue #99 #goals
I have a lot of them
Dear Internet,
It’s Saturday night and I’m sitting cross-legged on the couch eating Cheee-its. I’m wearing half dirty and half clean clothes. I’ve spent the day, after my walk around the park, inhaling Romancing Mr. Bridgerton. It was a beautiful day, if a bit windy, so I leashed the dog for a jaunt. Despite my PT exercises beforehand, my back locked up ½ mile into the walk. The pain was not terribly intolerable but I was thankful the dog walks slow as my watch clocked me at a 30 minute mile. The dog has to sniff and pee on everything, the park is hers obviously, which even for the few moments she stopped, my back sighed in relief.
I am frustrated, annoyed, and angry at what is happening to my body. I want to walk and walk and walk, and maybe run, only to be stymied by some random ailment. My legs are fine, my hips are fine, my knees are fine, my arms are fine– it’s just my back.
I think PT has helped a bit since the pain has traveled to a new location. I guess that’s progress? (OMG, will someone PLEASE turn off their car alarm! One of the many reasons living downtown is maddening.) I haven’t been to the physical therapist in a week, so on Monday I will be calling in to make an appointment to see if I can add even more exercises to my daily routine which currently takes me about 30 minutes. Me and my props.
I found a yoga app that is designed with those who have never felt like they belonged in a yoga practice for any reason. The program is led by Jessamyn Stanley who I’ve known about for a few years. Jessamyn is known for her wellness approach to yoga for every body (and that she is a fat girl helps). I was hoping to include yoga or walking the treadmill this upcoming week to my daily PT. STRANGELY, walking every day and on treadmills doesn’t set off my back. It’s been theorized that maybe with the treadmill there is a give to the platform which offsets the overcompensating. Who knows!
I’m just tired of feeling broken.
I’m a long ex-Catholic who currently flirts with heathenism but Catholics do have a good idea with the giving up something for 40 days.
And I haven’t been back since.
Well, that’s not STRICTLY true. I am on FB and Twitter for Excessively Diverting but then it is sporadic. But my primary accounts? No siree bob.
I remain on Instagram and TikTok as I have curated the hell out of those feeds. Instagram is nothing but inspo and lightness and being while TikTok is funny and delightful. No misinformation, no talk about war, no talk about idiotic politicians like Boebert and Greene, no ads to get skinny, uplift my already uplifted tits, or subscribe to a panty service. Just pure joy and happiness.
I never really thought of myself as a terribly visual person. Oh, I respond to visual cues and social graces but the written word is where I have always lived and I thought were I would always die. When I see amazing, and fat, people like @iamlshaunty doing pushups, side planks, and skipping rope so fast my head spins, that’s what inspiration looks like. That is #goals and more #goals.
The other day, I received this in the mail:
Someone ratted me out, the m-fers.
After signing up (and TEH) for a five-year membership, I ranted on Twitter about AARP still catering to Boomers:
So yes, dear internet, I turn 50 this year. Most don’t believe me because I don’t look 50, whatever that means. For sure I’m going to post a picture on IG and share it everywhere on June 12 “this is what 50 looks like” because representation matters. But how do I really feel about it? Surprisingly, other than the grumble grumble of where has the time gone, I’m not overly pained to be here. I don’t feel 50 for whatever the hell that means and I see my life living well into my 80s and 90s. I’ve got shit to do! Thinking about death scares me, even though I know it is inevitable, and sad and a bit lonely. I have no regrets, well no major regrets, about the choices I’ve made, and I’ve done a lot of things I never thought would ever be possible as a kid growing up Michigan, but yet I have and will continue to do so.
ALSO! AARP is relentless with the emails! I get two to three a day about bullshit.
But if anyone says I’m 50 and fabulous, they are getting throat punched.
Things I Recently Wrote
If you read #97.5, you’ll recall I’ve ditched the We’ll Read Anything Once (Twice If We Like it) book review blog for a newsletter of the same name. I choose to not import this newsletter’s subscriber base over because I hate to be a bother so if you’re interested in snarky and sassy book reviews, I would be thrilled if you subscribed.
I have a few things come down the pipe for No Flying, No Tights but those reviews are later in the spring.
What I’m Reading
FINISH A FUCKING BOOK LISA BEFORE STARTING A NEW ONE.
The 7/12 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle An Agatha Christie-esque locked room mystery
Changeless Book #2 in the Parasol Protectorate series
Reputation Mean girls with Jane Austen thrown in
Dissolution Lawyer turned sleuth in Tudor England
Intuitive Eating Eating should not be about weighing or calculating your food
The Historian A 700 page tomb of the retelling of Dracula
Fitness for Every Body Instagrammer Meg Boggs walks you through that fitness is truly for every body
Because of Miss Bridgerton A Bridgerton sequel series
Wonderful Thing
SUCHO (Saving Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Online) is an ad-hoc organization started by information professionals (librarians, archivists, etc etc) who are currently indexing, into the Internet Archive, any website that could be designated as a cultural hotspot such as libraries, museums, and art galleries based in the Ukraine. I worked on the project a bit the other night and that doing something other than donating money felt good. I joked about signing up to fight at the front, but I can only edit and organize to death which I don’t think is the look President Zelensky is looking for. But hey, working with SUCHO allows me to organize to death, so there is that.
I was making comments in the SUCHO slack channel the other night about something or another to be notified my message went to 1000 people across 17 time zones. Shit like this makes me believe humanity is not lost. (Well, also the Ukrainian people, duh.)
Interesting Things (or things to buy)
I’m scrapping the bottom of the barrel this week with Cheese-Its but there you go. A delicious snack fit for toddlers and adults.
Links to Read That Are Not (Terribly) Depressing
Russia invaded the Ukraine. Everything remains depressing. (Except for SUCHO.)
Get vaccinated and mask up! There is a pandemic going on.
lisa x