Shipwrecked & Comatose

I know I came quite late to the party on this one, but I recently read Gone Girl . I also managed to avoid all of the hype before I read it, so I really didn't know much about the story other than it was a very dark and strange story about a woman's disappearance. (Spoilers ahead) Once I read it, I found it a fun, if somewhat disturbing, story.  It sucked me in pretty quickly.  If you are unfamiliar with the book, I'll give a short synopsis of how it flows.  Protagonist Nick comes home one day to find his wife Amy missing with a few signs of a struggle.  He becomes the main suspect in her disappearance.  The chapters alternate between Nick's discovery of evidence against him, and Amy's diary entries.  The diary talks at first about her deep love and devotion for Nick, but then takes a frightening turn as she begins to worry that he is a danger to her.  As the story progresses, Nick becomes a much less sympathetic character.  We learn that sinc...

Last week I watched The Theory of Everything .  At first I enjoyed it.  I felt the movie was a bittersweet love story that humanized someone I merely saw as a scientific icon.  I had known very little about Stephen Hawking's personal life before I saw the movie.  I had known he was married, but not to whom, or how many times.  Shortly before I saw the movie I read that Jane Hawking eventually divorced him due to burnout, but that was the extent of what I knew. I was discussing the movie with my family and the accuracy of the story came up. My mother mentioned that Hawking would eventually marry his nurse Elaine Mason.  This was completely glossed over in the movie.  It is never mentioned in the brief epilogue at the end of the film, which gives a rosy, happily-ever-after picture of Hawking's and Jane's post-divorce life.  In real life, Hawking left Jane for Mason.  This is not stated outright in the film.  Their parting scene does invo...

Where do I even start to discuss the way I'm feeling right now?  I look out my window and see a cold, dark winter day, and actually wish I were outside. I feel weak and soft.  I am in pain.  I feel disappointed in myself for letting myself be in this position.  What hubris brought me here?  What weakness is so innate in me that I ended up here?  Why can't I be healthy?  Why is it any time I make progress with my body something happens to break it down? I am recovering from surgery from a labral tear in my hip.  Labral tears don't happen from sitting around.  They happen from overuse.  Too much movement in the hip joint can tear or crush the ring of cartilage covering the hip joint (the labrum) which is what happened to me.  I didn't have to have the surgery.  I could have just lived with the pain as it was not terribly intense and could easily be avoided by avoiding certain types of movement.  That didn't seem like a goo...

Since the recent lack of indictments over Michael Brown and Eric Garner, and the massive fallouts that have resulted, I have seen some rather unfortunate memes going around Facebook.  What makes them so unfortunate is that when it comes to issues of race, too many Americans just don't get it. The memes all go along the same lines.  They center around an unarmed white victim who was shot to death by either by a police officer of unspecified race, a black police officer, or sometimes just a black civilian.  Occasionally it is just a meme, but often there is a link through to some right-wing website that makes Fox News look like The Nation . There will be a story about some white person who was unquestionably innocent.  The article contains no information about whether or not the victim had a criminal background.   He or she died a horrible death by shooting.  The story ends there.  It is sad and tragic for anyone to be shot to death, but if you're as...

Sometimes life's biggest questions just stump me.  There are times when I just can't find an easy answer.  Occam's Razor grows dull.  Questions tickle my brain as I lie awake at 3AM and the answers evade me as much as sleep does.  No matter how much I search for the truth, no one can provide the definitive answer I seek. What exactly are "yoga pants"? I started doing yoga about 22 years ago.  Yoga was just becoming trendy at the time and I started out with books and videos until my gym began offering a single weekly class.  You know what I wore?  I wore the same clothes I wore for my other workouts, minus the sneakers.  I wore leggings and bike shorts and sweat pants.  In those days yoga had no specific uniform.  Most yoga classes were taught by the old-time gurus who, if female (and in those days they were all female), wore mostly the leotards and footless tights of an earlier era, or else just wore ordinary shorts and t-shirts. N...

So it's my 1 weekiversary for my surgery.  How am I doing?  Pain.  It's quite manageable.  I do without pain meds most of the time.  Some movements still hurt.  I try not to do those movements.  I don't know if my pain level is better or worse than it should be since I don't know the average levels are. I am capable of hobbling around the neighborhood pretty well.  I can go a block or two to Dunkin Donuts or to the gym.  The hardest tasks are the simpler ones like getting dressed or getting in and out of bed. I fear overdoing it.  I fear I'm not being careful enough.  I have been known to hobble partially or fully unassisted around the house when I'm in a hurry.  I move my leg too far to the side.  I bend over too far forward now and then.  I keep scolding myself not to, but I tell myself, "Just this once."  I worry about reaching the breaking point.  What is going to be that one move that damages my fragil...

Usually by this time of year, I have a carefully planned list of family and friends I need to buy Christmas presents for, and some rough ideas about what I will buy.  In fact, I often have some of those gifts purchased already.  People seem angry and resentful that I do this, as if they are incapable of not waiting to the last minute and that I am somehow blessed with some magic talent for shopping early.  I simply say that I like to have the gift shopping out of the way by December so that when the holiday season is in full force, I can sit back, relax, and enjoy the festivities without the gift-buying panic hanging over my head. There is more than one way to enjoy a holiday season free of the stress of having all of your gifts purchased on time.  How about not buying gifts at all? I found myself reading the archives of my favorite fitness website Stumptuous and saw this rant about not Christmas shopping.  The author talks about enjoying the season eating ...

I suppose before I write anything I should take into account the some folks will be offended by this post and take it the wrong way.  I will start this post with the disclaimer that I am not being purposely seditious or unpatriotic.  This post is meant as both satire and a thought piece.  It simply ask the questions about whether or not the patterns of history will repeat themselves and at what cost.  I am not actually advocating for what is being said here. When Scotland recently voted to secede from the United Kingdom, I have to admit I was shocked.  As an American I guess I viewed the United Kingdom as a strong coalition of countries proudly standing under one flag.  I knew that there was some hostility to the English among the Welsh and Scottish and even more so in Northern Ireland, but it seemed hard to fathom how after so many centuries that these countries would no longer want the protection of the British. How could I think such a silly thought....

Just a little song parody I came up with. Just to reiterate, I don't actually hate fall.  I hate the hype.  I'm a naturally contrarian sort of person and when people start becoming obsessed with anything, I become equally tired of it.  When I am constantly barraged with "I love fall" posts on social media, it all seems to be about something rather contrived and esoteric, rather than what people are likely to experience.  No matter what the season, we all still have to get up and go to work every day.  Chances are in any given season, most of us aren't going to experience much of what we think the season is all about. I do have a few certain beefs with this time of year.  The first one being that I do prefer summer and particularly I love long days, outdoor swimming (preferably in natural bodies of water), and being able to wear shorts, cute sundresses and cute sandals (and the pedicures that go with them).  I don't like that transition to jeans and...

1.  You can only flip the pillow so many times before there is no longer a cool side. 2.  You live in fear of the day your boss catches you dozing off in a meeting - or worse, falling asleep at the wheel. 3.  You miss the 80s.  Specifically you miss the 80s because Channel 7 used to show great old movies at 3AM in those days. 4.  Stimulants are pretty ineffective at combating insomniac fatigue - unless you drink enough of them to keep you awake the next night. 5.  You don't need to turn on the light to see your way to the bathroom in the middle of the night.  You can make your way around the house in the dark because you have done it so many times. 6.  Drinking an alcoholic beverage is fraught with indecision.  Do you dare risk the 3AM bounceback? 7.  Your Ambien is your most prized possession. 8.  Only you know why the peanut butter jar, the cookie car, and/or the chip bag always run out so quickly. 9.  You wan...

Disclaimer: This post is my opinion only.  This is not a sponsored post.  I am not compensated at all for this review. I will not receive any discounts or coupons.  I am posting this mostly because there is very little information out there about the Keaton Row experience from its clients and I feel there might be women out there seeking this information.  I also had a very positive experience and I simply want to endorse my stylist Rebecca Green because I feel she deserves it.  She works on commission and  therefore needs a client base to make money.  If my post sends more clients her way, then I am very happy to be helping her out. I am not getting anything out of it if anyone does sign up with her.  If you are interested in having Rebecca style you, I will be happy to send you a referral link.  If you see this post and don't like Rebecca's choices, but would like to see if Keaton Row can find you a stylist you do like, go here (This is not...

It was a Wednesday night and I was just not in the mood for Zumba. I have been doing Zumba for a few years now.  At this point I know the basic moves and the patterns.  If my regular teacher is teaching I have memorized the routines so well that she makes me go in front of the class and teach them myself.  If there is a sub, I can pick up the new combos pretty easily.   My body has adapted to the point where I'm hardly breaking a sweat anymore and I don't feel my heart rate accelerated that much.  Sometimes I think Zumba just feels like an old-school, 80s style, aerobic dance class with more booty shaking. Why am I still doing it?  It's more fun than the hamster wheels in the cardio area of the gym.  There aren't a whole lot of other options at my gym. I like to read a lot of women's fitness websites that are dedicated to sustaining fitness through simply enjoying life.  I like Girls Gone Strong, Eat Lift & Be Happy,  and Lift ...

I have always considered myself a sci-fi/fantasy nerd, but I say that conditionally.  I am not one of those nerds who feels the need to automatically love any and all sci-fi and fantasy that comes my way.  Yes, I was a Lost geek.  I am obsessed with Red Dwarf .  I can also quote entire passages of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy . There are also times when my tastes are completely out of step with the rest of the nerd world.  As much as I say I love Star Trek ,  the beloved original series is probably my least favorite version (and I never watched beyond the first two episodes of Enterprise ).  In a similar vein, I have watched all of the reboot of Battlestar Galactica , but never watched the original.  I never watched Firefly, Serenity, or Stargate .  I was accused of not being a nerd at all because I never saw The Matrix .  I only watched about half of Avatar before deciding it was predictable and dull and sent the DVD back to...