For those of you playing along at home...

Now I have this: 

Which might be this: 

     or

Which was (probably?) caused by this: 

 Which I'm wearing because of this: 

Which I bought because of this: 

Wellness Cardio Challenge (May-July)

But at least I got a cool shirt out of it. 

Oh...hey there, blogosphere. Long time no see.

Aaaaaaand I'm back.

Hi there. 

Did you miss me? 

 I missed you. 

I'm sorry for the writerly hiatus, but all of my creative faculties were consumed by the determination to acquire more functional technical knowledge. 

In other words, I've been studying a lot of tech stuff.

That, and since this is a fitness blog, and my fitness has been placed on hold, it's been hard to come up with anything interesting or relevant to write about.*

But now I'm back. And I'm going to do my best to stay back. 

So a quick update for now:

--The knee is healing up nicely. All that's left is a slightly pressure-sensitive bump on the top of my kneecap, which isn't noticeable to you unless you're looking, and isn't noticeable to me unless I kneel down or try to put on a pair of jeans.

--The ankle is just pretty much the same. It's not excruciating; it's simply annoying. I fatigue after standing on it for too long, and the air cast is pretty much useless. I'm over it.

--It has been a month since I have been in the gym, and I'm not okay with that.

--I've been eating more, better, and I've actually started introducing more variety into my diet. Quinoa for breakfast? I think so.

--Eating more and not exercising is messing with my head.

--My life has been reduced to waking up, going to work, playing with my amazing new operating system, cuddling with my dog, and looking at food porn.

--I need a change.

That's all for now. I'll be back soon--I promise.

Kaila

*i.e. the fact that I can't work out is depressing, and it makes me not want to write. 

Restoration

I'm tired of feeling weak and injured. I have started to work on range of motion for the ankle. The knee is starting to look (and feel!) a little better (although I've noticed a suspicious new area of inflammation creeping down onto the shin, though I'm sure it's nothing...). I have been trying to weight-bear as long as is comfortable, and I even tried to do a little yoga this morning, being mindful of my knees while doing floor poses.

It hurts now, of course, but I don't care. I'm sick and tired of this, and I'm ready to move on. Healthily. Safely. Slowly. But ready to move on nonetheless. 

Anyway, I've stalled long enough. Here's more of the Gainesville saga: 

To recap: I left Columbia as a 1st semester sophomore & entered the University of Florida as a senior. I was 150 lbs, and forced into becoming an English major but for the two math & science credits I still had to make up. I had a by-default friend, since we had been close in high school, but other than that, I was pretty much on my own. 

On the second day of classes, I was walking back from my "Math for Idiots Liberal Arts Majors" lecture when I ran into my friend Bradley, who had been in drama with me in high school. Though I was done with classes for the day, he hooked his arm into mine and literally dragged me with him to his Theatre-Majors-Only class, Dramaturgy, on the assertion that I absolutely had to be taking this class, and that, if any class had ever been meant for me, it was this one.

Turns out, he was right. The professor, Dr. Ralf, might be one of the coolest profs I've ever had (alongside the incomparable Prof Mass at Columbia!), and it turns out that Dramaturgy was not only right up my alley, it was exactly what I wanted to do with theatre.

For the uninitiated, and depending on who you ask, dramaturgy is something like curation for the stage. Whether you're working on a historical piece as a consultant for the director or on a new play as a guide for the playwright, a dramaturg's job is to, essentially, be an advocate for the text. Dramaturgs have a radar when it comes to plot, and they are on hand to keep the delicate threads of the story from unraveling, tangling, or fraying.

I loved that class with all of my heart--and when I found out that our final projects would be comprised of a casebook based on actual dramaturgy for an actual play actually occurring on campus, I was ecstatic. Even more exciting was the opportunity that Dr. Ralf presented to our class to work on the Spring season's Mainstage production, The Man of Mode. Dr. Ralf made sure to position it as an incredibly work-intensive commitment, since the play was written in the 1660s and the director was going to be doing some major script surgery as well as resetting the play in 1700 (which doesn't sound like much of a move, but the time change actually leapt the gap between two entirely different generations). So I, being the work-loving masochist that I am, volunteered.

The Man of Mode...and Dr. Pinkney

Working on The Man of Mode gave me a sense of purpose. After waking up early to go for my run, going to math or one of my English classes, and then coming home to my hellish apartment, I would spend hours reading and rereading the script, highlighting changes, making a historical reference guide for the actors, and chuckling to myself at jokes that haven't been funny since before the Revolutionary War.

And then I would go to rehearsal.

I loved the UF School of Theatre and Dance. Even though I wasn't a BA or BFA in Theatre, everyone accepted me. And even better, they became my friends.

A director who threw himself into the job...and the wig.

I can still remember the very first read-through, when I had to stand up in front of a group of actors, designers, and the director, Dr. Pinkney, and give a brief introduction to the dramaturgy of Restoration theatre and offer myself as a resource. I was scared to death & nervous as hell, because my focus has always been Tudor-Stuart drama ( & my experience with the Restoration was limited to a Shakespeare class I took during my second semester at Columbia in which we read Restoration rewrites of Shakespeare).

It went so well.

And then the next night, during the very first rehearsal, I was seated next to a tall, skinny kid who spent the entire rehearsal laughing at jokes that haven't been funny since the Revolutionary War.

And this is why rehearsal was my favorite time of day.

I felt like I was home.

To be continued.

Oil can?

I'm sorry to have disappeared for so long, but I've been too paralyzed to write.

Not paralyzed physically, although my mobility is certainly limited by the various afflictions of lower leg and knee that have lately befallen me, but mentally. The kind of paralysis that strikes when there are too many options, too many possibilities, too many roads-less-traveled and not enough maps. The kind of paralysis that strikes at a fancy buffet when you're standing at the center of the room, plate in hand, and unable to decide where to start or what to have, because everything looks good but you know you can't have it all.

I know why I am paralyzed. This used to happen to me during winter and spring breaks when I was a student. This is why I used to work multiple jobs over the summer.

I am the kind of person who needs routine.  I need routine and I need a map. I need a plan and a goal. And when that routine gets shot to shit, as mine has as of late, I become paralyzed.

Part of the reason why I struggled so much in grad school was because the social aspects of the program--ie the unpredictable late night adventures, the post-theatre "why-don't-we's", the late night rehearsals that dragged on past dark--all impinged on the strictures of my daily up-at-5am-gym-shower-class-study routine. Part of why I have gained my "freshman 15" in the 10 months that I've been working retail is the lack of routine that my random schedule affords.

Even so, I've tried my best combat my unpredictable hours by sticking to my 5 am gym check-ins (hooray for Facebook keeping me honest...), to my eat-every-2.5/3-hours schedule, to my 9:30 pm bedtime (except on the nights I close). But now...

Now? I can't go to the gym. I'm afraid to eat as many calories as I usually do. I have nowhere to be and nothing to do. And I'm paralyzed.

I'm paralyzed by my life in general too. While my friends are out working amazing jobs, getting engaged and getting married, having children, traveling the world, or partying so hard every night that they can only remember the fun they've had by reading their friends' instagram hashtags the next morning, I am stuck standing in the same spot in my kitchen for half an hour because I can't decide whether I should have an omelet or oatmeal for breakfast.

I want to start working out again, but I can't. My ankle is still messed up, so it starts to ache after weight-bearing for more than a few minutes, which means I can't even do something as simple as the elliptical at the gym. My knee is still swollen (although much less so than it was) and I have to take flexion or extension slow or else it hurts--so that means no cycling. The swelling is right over my patella, and kneeling is excruciating, so I can't even do yoga.

At work, I'm stuck answering phones, because I can't be out on the floor, standing and walking around for hours at a time. And that's when I'm at work. My paycheck was pitiful last week because I had to miss several shifts. I am already freaking out about finances, and this certainly isn't helping.

I am so beyond frustrated at this point, I can't even begin to explain it. I want so badly to be doing something, but I don't even know what I'm capable of doing. And while, in the short term, I mean this about my fitness and nutrition, I've had enough time to sit on the couch staring into space during the last few weeks to realize that the preceding sentence applies to my life. I've started over so many damn times, and I always do something to paralyze myself, just when things seem to be going well and I seem to be making progress.

At this point, I don't just need a map, I need a damn road to begin with.

Someone move me, please?

aaaaaand update....GO:

Gonna make this short, since the migraine is coming back. I can feel it lurking behind my eyes, not quite there, but threatening to make this evening as hellacious as it did this morning. 

Basically, I went back to the doctor yesterday & was not only put on stronger antibiotics (in addition to, not in the place of, the other strong antibiotics I was already on). I was also told I can't go back to work until July 11. (That's bullshit, because if I want to pay my bills this month, I'm going back to work as soon as I can walk without pain.) 

I woke up at 7 this morning after defiantly sleeping through all of my alarms. I'd had a horrible night full of restless sleep and nightmares about work. I limped out into the kitchen in the half-light of the early morning, and I felt like my eyes were going to burn out of my head. I figured, "I've been crying a lot [yes, I admit it, shut up], maybe my eyes are just tired." That's happened to me before. I ate a small breakfast, took my antibiotics & vitamins, and let Frida out...and then went back to bed. 

When I woke up at 10, the burning in my eyes had extended itself into my entire body. I was dehydrated, and I had a migraine for the first time in years. The problem with running a fever is that I'm on antibiotics, so even though fevers are a side effect of cellulitis, they aren't if the antibiotics are working. So that's a problem. 

I went back to "sleep" (if you can call fitful tossing and turning "sleep"), and finally got out of bed around 11:30 and choked down some ibuprofen (because even drinking water was making me nauseous) & took a lukewarm shower. Oh my god. I can't tell you how much I needed that shower. I felt like I could almost exist again. 

I took a trip to Publix to buy some Gatorade (which I only ever drink when I'm running a fever, which hasn't happened since I was teaching at OH). And then I read (or, rather re-read) a portion of Gary Shteyngart's Super Sad True Love Story, which is one of my current favorites (despite being really eerily close to predicting the post-PC, social-network-overloaded future...)...and then passed out again until 4 pm. 

Now I'm sitting here with my little dog & watching stand up comedy with the volume way down. I want to be better already. I miss work. I miss the gym. 

The only one who's happy about my being home all weekend...

How Gainesville Made Me Crazy

I don't know what to do. The pain this morning is horrible. It hurts to sit, it hurts to stand....I know it sounds dramatic, but I can assure you that I'm actually not exaggerating. My knee looks slightly purple and the pain is now traveling below the kneecap to the shin.

So I'm going to try to not think about that for now and just write some more.

We left off with my move to Gainesville. We pick up in my horrible apartment by the Beef Teaching Unit. It was horrible mainly because my roommates hated me. They belonged to a racially defined sorority, and I was the odd man out. It was so strange to me, since I lived at Columbia with roommates of every race, creed, and color, and nobody gave it a second thought.

My bedroom was also the bedroom closest to the front door.  In fact, the way the room was designed, my bedroom window was actually next to the front door, since the bedroom jutted into the hallway of the apartment complex. That meant that I could hear all of the noise in the hallway AND in the apartment any time of the day or night. And, with my roommates, that noise was ALL DAY & ALL NIGHT.

From abusive boyfriends breaking into our apartment to loud parties thrown until 6 or 7 am on a Tuesday morning (about the time I would be waking up for my Math for Idiots Liberal Arts Majors class), my apartment was anything but a sanctuary.

On top of all of that, I felt friendless and abandoned. I was fortunate to have Stephanie, one of my very best friends from high school, but she had developed friendships with other people (not to mention developed a relationship with the man who she actually just married this past month), so I felt like the third wheel most of the time. She introduced me to a guy who expressed his interest in hooking up with me until he could find a real girl friend, but I found it difficult to develop any meaningful friendships outside of the one I already had with Steph.

And so I started running. I felt fat and ugly, watching all of the pretty sorostitutes flaunt their perfect, tan bodies as they jogged around the campus, and so I started making changes to my lifestyle & diet.

I started eating oatmeal for breakfast, an apple for a snack, and a black bean salad for lunch. I had another apple and sometimes a rice cake around midday, and then one of the protein shakes that I was still taking from the cleanse for dinner.

I would run up and down 23rd st. every morning, logging first one, then two, then three miles a day. As we headed into March, I started to drop weight.

...to be continued.