Monday 27 May 2002

Pic of the day: Took this a while ago, but it seems to fit the topic ...

Reflections of the day

After work I took a bus to the physiotherapy. Or something like that, for my hand. This guy likes to project the image that we're going somewhere, that we're making progress. I don't think so. Honestly, I think he is working on the wrong part. Not that it's not a good thing to loosen up that neck muscle and breathe more deeply, but I think it is only loosely connected to the hand and arm problem. Oh well. I can probably afford it, and perhaps learn something in the process.

Today, as I was lying on my back and this old guy was massaging my neck and I found it became harder and harder to breathe. Evidently there are some nerves that do double duty or something. That's a whole science which I am not educated in, but I know when it gets hard to breathe. I tensed, of course. Very much so. He stopped. He told me to breathe. I did not answer. I could not. He stopped, and asked if I were dizzy. I said no. He told me to breathe with my diaphragm, and then he poked my stomach! I glared at him with a white hot "Keep your filthy human hands off my tummy or I'll rip your throat out!" glare, which to his credit he understood immediately. Growing up with dogs can really unite us, huh?

"Sorry" I said, "but it is kinda hard for me to trust that you will help me and not hurt me." "That's OK" he said, "I work a lot with psychiatric patients. It is quite interesting." Thanks a lot, comrade. But I guess he's onto something there. Body and soul are so tightly interwoven that you cannot really tell where one ends and the other begins. If I did not distrust humans so deeply, I would not need to wear my body as an armor, a rigid shell against a perceived hostile world. Then again, as you may know, there is some reason for that perception. I don't even trust myself, much less others.

***

Afterwards, there was some time before the bus home, and I shopped some food. The fridge was rather empty, as often on a Monday. I had plenty of time, and stopped and looked at the rows and rows of food. So many different types of food. Canned food, plenty of mouth-watering meals ready to just heat. Of course, they are all for 4 persons, which is a major reason why I don't buy them. The prospect of eating meatballs for 4 days is less than appealing, not to mention brown beans...

The "Kiwi" supermarket on Tangvall is so well cooled that I even dared to buy a small box of chicken salad. Usually I don't buy chicken. In most shops, at least here in southern Norway, the perishables are stored much warmer than public regulations require, and that they are made for. Lukewarm poultry is not a good idea unless you are casual about food poisoning. I am also happy to report that when I came home and started eating the stuff, I found no trace of chicken or any other meat in it. There probably is some, but I did not notice it. Hopefully this is cause for further optimism for the future of the digestive tract. I have no idea how many workdays are lost to poultry each year in the western world; certainly a lot less than alcohol, but still, for some reason the birds seem more likely to harbor harmful bacteria than most other creatures. Perhaps because of the factory-like way in which they are mass produced?

I bought the chicken salad also to buy something I don't usually do. Usually I eat mostly milk products, actually. Yogurt, lots of it, and various other milk stuff. Well, calves certainly seem able to subsist on only milk, but I wonder about the psychological reasons behind this love for milk. Some kind of infantile regression? Not so sure about that ... actually I think I ate more other stuff back when I was a kid. Perhaps it just tastes good? And it's easy. There is very little preparation to eat a yogurt or a chocomilk. That's something I really appreciate, me being lazy and all.

And on that note, I stop now. (Actually it is partly because of the hand too.)