The Fluffbucket Diaries

My brain has felt scattered and weary for a couple of weeks now. Hoping for some sort of reboot this weekend.

The term “empath” annoys me, though I can’t put my finger on why. But I still relate to this.

Probably not what Red Barber had in mind when he talked about “sitting in the catbird seat.”

The New York Times says I am not flourishing. Find out if you are.

It’s been more than 10 years since I last worked in a newsroom. There is a lot about it that I don’t miss. But I do miss newsroom people.

This was not unexpected after more than 3 straight months of weight loss. I was up 1.8 pounds on the scale this morning.

I’m still down nearly 34 pounds since January, but I’m still scrolling through the old food diary to figure out what might have led to this first reversal since I started. According to my records, I never went above 100 grams of carbohydrates over the past week, but that might have been bad logging on my part at one or two points – namely Friday, when I went ahead and had several squares of regular pizza for the first time in forever. I’ve had a piece here and there since I went low-carb, but not “several.” (But it was still a lot less than I used to eat in one sitting.) Also, I’m not limited in calories – just carbs – but I did go significantly over the MyFitnessPal app’s prescribed calorie limit (like, by 600+ calories) a couple of days. My snacking has also been a bit more frequent and fatty or high-carb (I really have to lay off the peanuts and pork rinds), and I haven’t logged as much water as I had been.

Perhaps just as significantly, I had a lot of nights of poor sleep, at one point logging barely 4 hours. Plus I logged one Pilates class, and maybe one day above 3,000 steps. I could get off my ass a little more (and my painful lower back and hips would likely be grateful).

I’m not too upset about this. It was inevitable. At least I have an idea of how to move forward: A bit more sleep, a bit more water, a bit more movement. Onward.

My kid has me sucked into Dragonvale. Feel free to friend me.

Good morning. Here is your periodic reminder that cats like boxes.

If I had seen this on a proof in the newsroom back in the day, I would have burst out laughing like I did when my husband showed this to me this morning: “Well, thank God we can all come back inside after all these months.”

Nowadays, I try to avoid politics in this space, as there’s enough of a cesspool of it elsewhere on the Internet. But as a pro-life Catholic who usually votes Democratic but often finds some of the party’s overly earnest fellow travelers irritating, I can’t help but link to this interview with James Carville in Vox (emphases below mine).

You ever get the sense that people in faculty lounges in fancy colleges use a different language than ordinary people? They come up with a word like “Latinx” that no one else uses. Or they use a phrase like “communities of color.” I don’t know anyone who speaks like that. I don’t know anyone who lives in a “community of color.” I know lots of white and Black and brown people and they all live in … neighborhoods. …

We have to talk about race. We should talk about racial injustice. What I’m saying is, we need to do it without using jargon-y language that’s unrecognizable to most people — including most Black people, by the way — because it signals that you’re trying to talk around them. This “too cool for school” shit doesn’t work, and we have to stop it. …

Wokeness is a problem and everyone knows it. It’s hard to talk to anybody today — and I talk to lots of people in the Democratic Party — who doesn’t say this. But they don’t want to say it out loud.

Incredibly glad that somebody is saying it. Out loud.

There’s a nice bit of writing in the Washington Post accompanying a recipe for pandesal, the classic bread roll of the Philippines:

“To eat like a Filipino means eating multiple times a day, not just three square meals. Many will have a pandesal in the morning and then a sizable breakfast, called almusal, later with eggs, meats and, of course, rice. It’s not a meal without rice."

This is what I grew up with. This is also why going low-carb in January was as seismic a shift as I imagined it would be.

The husband picked up stickers after his second COVID-19 shot yesterday to make up for my sticker shortfall after my own vaccination. I love him.

Another week, another 2.4 pounds lost. Now at 247.4 pounds. That’s a 12.6 percent loss since I started all this in January. At least another 70 pounds to go.

I’m not as blasé about this as I might sound. But I just realized that I forgot to post my update yesterday; this time, I didn’t delay it because I wanted to get a decent weight to log here. I just plain forgot. Maybe I can blame that on post-vaccine brain fog.

Meanwhile, I think I’m largely past the COVID-19 vaccine side effects now. C, however, is dealing with the same kind of hit-by-a-truck aftereffects that I woke up with Saturday. On top of that, he has a 101-degree fever.

I’ve always been envious of C’s good health and fully expected him to lord a lack of side effects over me. I didn’t want him to go through this, especially since it seems like he’s got it worse than I did over the weekend.

Following the White Sox and the Padres with equal intensity this season is going to kill me.

Advil Dual Action is my new best friend. Between that and a nap late this morning, the second-shot achiness dissipated enough to let me run a few errands. Still sluggish this early evening, though.

At first, I couldn’t decide whether my shoulder, neck, and lower back discomfort yesterday were related to my second COVID-19 vaccination shot that morning or a Pilates class the day before. I was pretty sure the headache and midday queasiness were related to the second shot.

This morning, the pain in those locations has only worsened, along with the headache. Also hurting: my pectoral muscles (including my armpits), my knuckles, and my eyeballs. The discomfort is almost symmetrical, distributed nearly evenly between both sides of my body. And I woke up at one point overnight feeling slightly winded and out of breath, like I had just gained back all the weight I lost this year.

On top of all that, I really don’t feel like getting out of bed, though lying down — either on my back or side — hurts like hell.

This is all definitely not Pilates-related. It’s like having the flu and a hangover at the same time. Or a hangover without the fun the night before.

I understand this means my immune system is working to build up its defenses against COVID. I’m all for that. But man, I don’t think I’ve ever had a reaction to any vaccine like this.

I’m 55 years old and really should not be this annoyed that I didn’t get a sticker with my second COVID-19 vaccination shot.

Discovered an old friend from my North Carolina days unfriended me on Facebook, and I’m not sure why. Sent her a friend request this morning, then canceled it.

Some connections are seasonal, I’ve learned over the years; maybe this was one of them. And I’m actually good — relieved, in some cases — with that.

Still applies to theology in general these days. For me, anyway.

Prince died 5 years ago today. Doesn’t feel like that long ago.

That morning, I was listening to WXRT on the way to the office. By the time I got there, Lin Brehmer — the morning deejay at the time who, with his colleague Terri Hemmert, is a national treasure — was waxing poetic about Prince’s passing. The somber tone was broken with the riff of a church organ.

Dearly beloved
We are gathered here today
To get through this thing called life

Electric word life
It means forever and that’s a mighty long time
But I’m here to tell you
There’s something else
The after world

The opening lines of “Let’s Go Crazy” left me weeping in a Naperville parking lot. I turned up my stereo as loud as it would go.

So when you call up that shrink in Beverly Hills
You know the one, Dr. Everything’ll Be Alright
Instead of asking him how much of your time is left
Ask him how much of your mind, baby

‘Cause in this life
Things are much harder than in the after world
In this life
You’re on your own

And if the elevator tries to bring you down
Go crazy, punch a higher floor

Five years later, Prince’s hometown is dealing with more gut punches beyond the loss of a favorite son. The world has been torn apart and spliced together in the past 5 years, and it’s changed a lot, it seems. Or maybe it hasn’t, and we’re just seeing the world for what it is a lot more clearly – and maybe that’s an even worse thing.

I’m in my mid-50s, when I thought I’d be done being disillusioned. Maybe it’s good that I let hope spring eternal about a lot of stuff, like human nature and – especially – faith. But how many times can that hope crash and burn in my eyes until I’m done with such things?

We’re all excited
But we don’t know why
Maybe it’s ‘cause
We’re all gonna die

And when we do (When we do)
What’s it all for (What’s it all for)
You better live now
Before the grim reaper come knocking on your door

Maybe it’s not terribly orthodox theology, but I don’t care. It’s become theology I can live with right now. I hope Prince and I will share an afterlife where I can thank him for that.

Mood – off and on over the past 30 years, I think.

Remember abdominal cramping? I do.

The chronic pain I’ve experienced in recent years has subsided considerably over the past few months. I chalk it up to the habits I’ve learned through physical therapy (deep breathing, stretches) and especially the weight loss.

But the pain has returned in recent days; it’s clearly stress-related. My physical therapist said last fall that just as some people clench shoulder muscles while tense, others tighten their abdominal muscles – or in my case, my pelvic floor – under duress. I was convinced of this after looking back on the past few years, and the past week or so has further convinced me.

Just knowing doesn’t make the pain go away; the deep breathing and stretches (and Extra Strength Tylenol, “rapid release” variety) do. But understanding where the pain is coming from makes a world of difference with my peace of mind. Grateful for medical professionals like my urogynecologist and physical therapist who pointed me in the right direction.