browser life

FINALLY, after a solid month of maximum pain and/or fatigue, I got a break today. I didn't do anything differently than usual, slept the same amount of hours, etc., but I woke up feeling slightly more rested. And after I got a massage this afternoon, my TMJ, neck and hamstring pain all decreased some. And the fibrofog even lifted a bit. Whew!!

Took advantage of the improvement tonight and wrote a book review for But You Don't Look Sick. This is the latest in the month I've ever submitted anything, so it may not show up on the website until the end of the month. I'm relieved I could finally put one thought in front of another and come up with a coherent review.

I also did a little yard work, being careful to sit on my mat while pulling weeds and coming inside after half an hour even though I had a lot more work left to do. I injured my hamstrings last Saturday by trying to pull weeds from a standing position. I did that because I can't kneel or squat down without severe pain, and I was in too much of a hurry to sit that day. I'm trying to get the yard looking presentable in case Dan finds a job in another town and we suddenly need to put the house on the market. I'm going to work on some interior spring cleaning as well if I can find the energy.

One good thing that I did on Saturday was go see "Kingdom of Heaven". Aside from the obvious benefit of watching Orlando Bloom for two and a half hours, I found the plot intriguing. Bloom plays a widowed European blacksmith who travels to Jerusalem during the Crusades of 1095 to follow in his father's footsteps. His father was a reknowned knight. What he finds there causes more spiritual questions than answers. He is willing to honor the wishes of the king, but he cannot endorse the righteousness of Christian domination. He will defend his people when they are under attack, but he can't morally justify slaughtering Muslims for religious reasons alone. This is one of the few movies I've seen to address the quagmire of holy war, a stiuation virtually unchanged for the past 1000 years. The best moment of the film was when one of the king's advisors says, "I thought we were fighting for God, but we were fighting for wealth and land". The more things change, the more they stay the same. My only complaint was that some of the battle scenes had portions that were artificially sped-up, which made me dizzy.

I've got a confession to make: I'm turning into a tv junkie. It sort of snuck up on me during the three months I've been off work. I've always watched "Jeopardy" and "Millionaire" in the afternoons, but it has progressed to leaving the television on during Oprah, then sometimes the news (I admit I tend to fall asleep during this), then "Wheel of Fortune", and THEN sometimes even something after that. At first, the only prime time show I watched was "Extreme Makeover Home Edition" Then I caught the beginning episode of "The Bachelor" one night when I was too tired to leave the couch. I wasn't interested until they showed this down-to-earth delivery nurse as one of the contestants. I predicted she wouldn't make it past the first show and vowed to stop watching when she was thrown off. Well, wouldn't you know she was the contestant who won? Oh, and I've been watching "Revelations" on Wednesday nights because I've been able to catch that from the beginning. And don't forget "Desperate Housewives"! It took several weeks for me to decide to watch it all the way through, but I think I'm hooked now. I haven't watched this much tv on a regular basis since I was in high school. Yikes.

I'll probably try to see "Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith" in a few weeks when the crowds have died down unless I can entice Dan to go see it with me sooner. I must admit I've gotten caught up in wanting to find out how this saga wraps up. I'm having trouble imagining a credible transition from Anakin Skywalker to Darth Vader.

Past my bedtime.