The good news is that my blood pressure finally seems to be under control. In the last month and a half the highest reading has been 137/86 and the lowest 113/75, with the rest falling pretty squarely in the middle. Which is excellent after over eight years of fucking around with different combinations of meds and other treatments. True, it’s quite the cocktail I’m taking by now – Verapamil, Enalapril, Bystolic, hydrochlorothiazide and aspirin in the morning and more Enalapril before bed – but I credit the current results as much to a regimen of twice-monthly acupuncture and periodic massages as to the pills. Every little bit helps.
The bad news is I’m still more than 100 lbs. over my ideal weight, though that’s not exactly news I suppose. It would be news to a lot of people from my CA days, which is why I hope that my detour by the Black Rock in August will be far enough ahead of B-man to avoid any unexpected encounters with hardcore burners whose mental picture of me is fixed at the 1999 200-and-under size. I don’t get neurotic and vain to this degree in Austin because barely anybody here knows I wasn’t always this hefty, so score one for staying home.
At some point it’ll probably be easier to just lose the weight than keep explaining it (meaning apologizing for it) but if I’ve reached that point yet I sure as hell don’t know it. Another form of denial enabled by staying close to home. Woo-hoo!
The good news is June’s almost over and only July remains to be sweated through before I’m on the plane to Oakland. Also that I’ll be missing half of August in Austin, traditionally the best month to skip town because of the heat.
The bad news is we’ve had August weather for the last two weeks at least, with no end in sight according to the forecast. Over 100 every day last week: beastly. Wednesday after work I walked outside into a wind that was blowing hot and when you can’t catch even a brief respite from the breeze that’s just plain wrong. (The title of the last entry referred primarily to the heat’s effects, and only incidentally to the recently deceased freak. Lest you wonder.)
I volunteered to help Heather move today when it’s supposed to hit 103 – 108 with the heat index – and I don’t know what the hell I was thinking. But she helped me and my brother get our crap from our Eastside sublet to the new house back in 2003, and that was actually in August and classic August weather to boot so at least I can feel good about paying her off in kind. Might have to skip my usual Sunday laps at the pool if I feel anywhere near as ass-whupped as I did on that day almost six years ago.
Weighed less then, too. BP was higher though.
The good news is I don’t think about my brother and our experience in that little house in the Brentwood as often or as bitterly as I did even two years ago. As long as I remain the current flinty-hearted sonofabitch – something that morning cocktail almost certainly plays a large part in – I won’t want anything to do with him, and I expect that’s going to hold true for a long long time to come. But the fact that I don’t wake every single morning wanting to reach out and throttle his scrawny little throat like I used to has to be a good sign. Again, every little bit helps.
And in this case I think there’s no corresponding bad news. We’re far out of each other’s reach now with no further harm to be done unless we make a mutual effort. I can’t even say he’s screwing things up between me and my mother by staying there with her – something that’s also likely to be in effect for a long long time to come – because my mother and I are quite capable of having a bad relationship entirely on our own and probably would be doing exactly that right now anyway. He’s just a handy excuse for me to avoid her. I’m sure I’m not the only one sees that.
The good news is the laundry’s almost done and I can leave Quacks where this morning they’re insisting on playing Bad in its entirety. The little MJ gingerbread cookies in the display case are cute, sure, but I draw the line at abusive aural assault. Off the Wall wouldn’t be so bad; this is just punishment. What’s next – 87-vintage Pepsi jingles?
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