health

Progress

/ Alyxander James / Leave a comment

Sometimes, progress is obvious and happens quickly. Other times, it can feel like it’s not happening at all. This week has largely been one of those other times.

FAWM marches on, and I have been writing – I’m up to 12 songs and it’s the 14th of the month. This week it’s been harder, though. I’ve had trouble waking up early to write. Still, I’ve written some keepers, and that’s exciting. Here are a few of the songs I’m proudest of so far:

Work has been frustrating, not because of anything specific to my job, but because my brain has been extremely foggy this week. I haven’t gotten much done, because I can’t keep my train of thought on the rails long enough to see things through. I feel stuck, and it’s not a pleasant feeling.

I am looking forward to the weekend. A friend of ours is coming down from Minnesota to hang out for a couple of days. I’m looking forward to some low-key hangouts and pizza.

Brain Fog

/ Alyxander James / Leave a comment

I am, for no particularly good reason, having a bit of a rough week. Maybe it’s the constantly-shifting weather that’s turning my body into a constantly-achy mess. Maybe it’s the largely cloudy weather. Maybe it’s the cold/possible sinus infection I’ve been fighting since Christmas. But the past few days, mornings in particular have been really rough. I wake up later than I mean to, and then wrestle for a long time with the reality that I need to get out of bed.

This morning, I woke up and everything felt heavy, and I realized that this is probably me sliding down toward the depressed end of my Bipolar cycle. I almost called off, but I’m leading a training this morning at work, so that really wasn’t an option. I’m on my way to work now, and hoping that the coffee I picked up on my way to the bus helps.

In an effort to turn my morning around a bit, here are a few things I’m currently grateful for, despite feeling crummy:

  • A somewhat flexible work environment. I’ve been able to take days off or work from home when I’ve needed to.
  • Technology. It’s maddening a lot of the time, but it’s also the thing that lets me have text conversations with friends.
  • Songwriting/songwriters. I haven’t been writing as much recently, but I’m getting back to it, and I’m grateful to have such a great community of folks to get feedback and inspiration from.
/ Alyxander James / Leave a comment

I’m feeling pretty under the weather today. The cold I caught shortly before Christmas has ebbed and returned at least three times now, and I’m very ready for it to just be done. I made the choice to work from home today to try to recover a bit more completely.

Despite feeling physically off, it’s been a decent week. Here are some things that I’m happy about right now:

  • On Saturday, my partner and I went with a friend to the penultimate day of the Science of Pixar exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry. IT WAS SO COOL. It blows my mind that there are people in the world who can take math and science and turn it into art like that. After going to see the Pixar exhibit, we parted ways with our friend, and my partner and I went to 57th Street Books, which was absolutely delightful. It has a very rabbit warren feel to it – winding rooms of books all connected as you go deeper into the store. I got Binti, by Nnedi Okorafor (which I proceeded to devour in one sitting on Tuesday evening – it’s a short book, and very good), and we also got a puzzle and some Chicago-themed holiday cards.
  • On Monday after work I had a consultation call with a potential new therapist, and we set up our first session for a couple of weeks out. Based on our phone conversation, I’m hopeful that this will work out – it’s a bit of a trek to get to her office, but I think it will be worth it.
  • Tuesday night was the first songwriting class of the year. I’ve taken a couple of sessions off from songwriting classes at the Old Town School of Folk Music, and I was weirdly nervous going in. But of course, it’s a delightful group of people, and I’m looking forward to digging back into writing, which has fallen a bit by the wayside the past few months.

Now, fingers crossed that I can kick this cold!

Slow Recovery

/ Alyxander James / Leave a comment

I’m on my way into the office for the first time in a week.

Last Wednesday I felt like I was coming down with something. My partner had stayed home from work and I seemed to be about a day behind him in terms of symptoms, so when I left the office that day I brought my laptop home and warned my office mate that I might not be in on Thursday. Sure enough, I woke up Thursday feeling feverish. I worked from home.

Friday I felt so miserable I called off altogether and slept for what seemed like half the day. Aside from the rally we went to on Saturday, the weekend was spent laying low, only leaving the house to feed our friend’s cat.

Sunday I realized I was losing my voice. Normally this wouldn’t be huge cause for concern, but I had a gig scheduled for Monday night. I hydrated as much as I could and tried not to talk much. I worked from home again Monday to try to save what little voice I still had. I figured out if I played my first song a major third lower than usual (I usually capo at 4 for that particular song, so I took the capo off entirely), that warmed me up enough that I could get through the rest of the set.

Thankfully, my voice held out, and the set went well. I had fun. Tuesday my voice was back to being scratchy, so I worked from home again to try to get it back. Yesterday I was planning to be back in the office, but my office mate was afraid of getting sick before her flu shot today, so she asked me to stay home again, so I did.

It was hard to get up this morning, and harder to leave the house. But I managed. I’m hoping to have a quiet, productive day. We’ll see how this goes!

/ Alyxander James / 1 Comment

I’m writing this post on Thursday morning from my armchair at home, rather than from the bus. I have been feeling increasingly crummy every day this week, and this morning I finally woke up feeling definitively sick, so I’m going to work from home and keep my germs to myself.

So, this is going to be a short post today, because my brain is pretty foggy. Usually when I’m feeling like I have nothing to talk about, I go for some sort of list post. So…let’s go with three things I’m grateful for today:

  1. I can work from home. My boss told me I could just take an actual sick day if I wanted to, and I know that I technically can…but I’m almost out of sick time and I have to save my vacation time for Christmas travel. I’m glad to be in a position where it’s possible to do my job remotely when my body doesn’t feel up to commuting.
  2. Things are going better with my family. We’ve worked through the most recent round of hurt and seem to be closer to being on the same page, which feels nice.
  3. I don’t think I’ve mentioned it here yet, but thanks to the adjustments that were made to my med regimen over the summer, my anxiety is much better controlled. So much so, in fact, that I’m able to drink regular coffee again! It had been about two years since I’d been able to handle that much caffeine. As I sit here and sip my coffee this morning, I am grateful for that.

On My Mind

/ Alyxander James / Leave a comment

I nearly missed getting this blog written today – I meant to write last night but then suddenly wasn’t feeling well and just wanted to go to bed. I’m still not feeling great, but I wanted to get a blog out anyway, so here we are. These are some of the things that have been on my mind this week (that are mostly unrelated to the consistent undercurrent of the world being on fire and US politics being a horrifying shitshow):

  • This stellar HuffPo article: “Everything You Know About Obesity is Wrong”. As someone who struggled with weight fluctuations for years and who has, in the past, had an extremely disordered relationship to food, this resonated so powerfully. I’m so lucky to have a doctor now who respects me as a person and doesn’t write all my problems off as being “because you’re fat.” Not everyone is so lucky.
  • This speech Anne Hathaway gave when accepting an ally award from the HRC. I am not about giving cookies to allies just for being decent human beings, and I have my reservations about the HRC, but I think Anne Hathaway provides a good example of how to do allyship correctly. Also, there were pieces of this speech that made me cry, so…that’s a thing.
  • Songwriting! Last Friday my partner and I went to an all-day songwriting workshop at the Old Town School, and it was fan-fucking-tastic. On Sunday we’re gathering again to share our homework from the workshop. I got one song that I think I actually rather like out of what I’ve done so far, and I have some other ideas percolating. This was the most writing I’ve done since Song School, so that felt good. Also, on Saturday I’m taking the stage at Silvie’s here in Chicago with over 40 of my fellow Chicagoland musicians to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Acoustic Explosion, which is the Monday night show I’ve played a handful of times a year for the past few years. I’m so excited for a night of music with this community I adore.

That’s it from me for this week, but once again, I’d love to hear from you, dear readers! What’s been on your mind this week?

/ Alyxander James / Leave a comment

I have been super distracted this week.

Some of this is probably the continuation of holidays – having so many extra days off has me feeling a little discombobulated about what day it is. (Which is not at all a complaint, because the days off are lovely. Just an observation that it’s hard to keep track of what day it is when I’m out of a routine.)

I’m also fighting a bit of a cold, which has had my whole head feeling stuffy, including my ears. This is also disorienting, because I have to focus harder than usual to hear and absorb auditory information.

It hasn’t been a bad week, though. The weekend was fun – lots of time with friends, and I was able to make it to my LGBTQ+ rock ensemble class at the Old Town School. This week has been pretty laid back. I worked Monday and Tuesday, and then yesterday went with a friend to the Art Institute, which I’d only ever been to once before (and not under the best of circumstances), so that was a lot of fun.

Tomorrow my partner and I are both taking the day off to go to an all-day songwriting seminar/workshop at the Old Town School. I have not been writing much at all since getting back from Song School, so I am looking forward to that and am hopeful that it will give me some solid inspiration and motivation to get back in the saddle.

I hope your weeks are all going well, dear readers! I’d love to hear about what’s making your weeks fun in the comments.

Vertigo

/ Alyxander James / Leave a comment

Sorry for the late post today, friends! I’m all sorts of scattered this week.

I’ve been fighting a cold for a few days. Yesterday, I woke up, rolled over in bed, and the room started spinning. Now, this happens sometimes when I’m sick – my ears get a little plugged and it messes with my balance. Usually, if I can get myself upright, it settles down pretty quickly. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen yesterday.

Half an hour after getting up, when I found I still had to hang onto things in order to get around the apartment, I gave up and called in sick to work. I spent most of the day on the couch. I tried to stay hydrated, and took as much cold medicine as was reasonable and safe. That vertigo lasted the whole damn day – while it was better by the time I went to bed than it had been when I got up, it never really disappeared entirely. It was really frustrating. I frequently feel like my body is a bit of a traitor to the rest of me…chronic pain and other related issues often prevent me from doing as much as I’d like to do. This felt like another in a long line of times when my body betrayed me.

Thankfully, I’m feeling much better this morning (still occasionally having moments where I’m a little dizzy, but nothing like yesterday), so I’m at work and trying to catch up on everything I missed yesterday. And really, I can’t complain too much – we’re entering the season of many weeks of Jewish holidays, so I have a lot of free time in the next few weeks.

These Boots Were Made For Walking…

/ Alyxander James / Leave a comment

It appears that spring has, at long last and after much struggle, arrived in Chicago. Trees and bushes are budding, daffodils are blooming, the sun is making more frequent appearances, and there’s even a new baby bunny in our courtyard.

Baby bun!

The somewhat warmer weather and increased presence of the sun have me wanting to be outside more. I started by going for walks around lunchtime at work. And then I decided to challenge myself a bit.

My office is a little over two miles from home, and because the nearest bus is half a mile away from either place, it takes me a good 45 minutes to get home by bus. I know from past experience that I can walk it in about an hour.

The pedometer on my watch lets me know that I rarely make the standard goal of 10,000 steps in a day. Although I am on my feet for much of the day with my standing desk, I don’t have reason to move around all that much.

So, in an effort to move more, I decided on Friday that I would walk home. And then I did the same thing on Monday, and again on Wednesday (Tuesday I stayed home from work and barely moved at all, but that’s another story). I’ve surpassed 10,000 steps by a fair margin five days this past week. And I feel pretty good about that. (Good is relative. I’ve been pretty sore, but generally am still functioning okay.)

So we’ll see how long this lasts. I know once it’s 90 degrees and humid I won’t want to be walking home anymore, but as long as the cooler, nicer weather holds, it’s a fun experiment seeing how many days in a week I can push myself to do that little bit (or, let’s be real, significant bit) of extra moving.

Vitamins

/ Alyxander James / Leave a comment

I have been trying, with varying levels of success, to turn myself into a morning person.

I used to be a night owl. But as I’ve gotten older, I seem to have lost the ability (not to mention the will) to stay up late. Unfortunately, that has not meant a shift toward getting up earlier. I’ve felt for a while like I just sleep all the time. I like the idea of having quiet time to myself before I have to get ready for work in the morning, so sometime five months or so ago I started attempting to adjust my schedule.

It worked…for a while. And then it didn’t. I managed early mornings again in February while I was doing FAWM, but lost momentum toward the end of the month and haven’t really been able to get it back.

In talking with a friend a few months ago, we somehow ended up discussing the ubiquitousness of vitamin D deficiency, particularly in places where winter is a thing (and goddamn, has it been a thing in Chicago this year). I remembered a doctor in Minnesota telling me I was deficient years ago. I also remembered never doing anything about that.

But I had an appointment scheduled with my doctor to discuss some other questions I had and get other labs drawn, so I thought I’d bring it up there. I deal with chronic pain, and that often goes hand in hand with chronic fatigue (being in pain is exhausting), but this has been feeling…excessive, even allowing for that.

Long story short, I got my vitamin D levels tested, and the results came back this week. Turns out I am SUPER deficient. So now my doctor has put me on a highly concentrated dose of vitamin D that I’m taking weekly for a bit, after which point, I’ll be taking a normal, over-the-counter dose every day. I did the math, and it appears we’re basically carpet-bombing my system with the stuff for the next several weeks.

My hope is that, at some point in the near future, mornings will get easier. I hope I feel less like I’m constantly in need of a nap.

It might turn out that this doesn’t help those things. But at least it’s not going to make it worse. It’s worth a shot!