Bluesy

I'm not in the mood to listen to a lot of upbeat music so I made a bluesy playlist. When my father died, I listened to Anthony Hamilton's I'm A Mess a lot and while it's not a song about physical death, it allowed me to grieve. The lines that moved me the most:

I'm a mess right now I can't eat can't sleepBills are piling high ain't worked in three weeksAin't bathed can't shave cause my heart is so tender like living in a blenderI'm shaken and I'm stirred

Here's part of the playlist:

I also have Hamilton's  Comin' From Where I'm From and Can't Let Go plus Moby's Why Does My Heart Feel So Sad? and Bill Wither's Ain't No Sunshine. I will also add Al Green's How Can You Mend A Broken Heart? Might add Diana Ross' Missing You but maybe not.

If It's Magic

Instant viewing on Netflix has sucked me in but I never thought I'd watch so many episodes of LA Ink starring Kat Von D.

Part of the appeal is that I keep toying with the notion of getting a discreet tattoo. Perhaps, cherry blossoms with branches and names, a dove with an olive leaf or a bouquet of flowers, an idea that I got from the show.


So many people on the show get memorial tattoos. There was this one woman who got a sleeve of her friend who died of breast cancer. The friend was a fellow surfer fascinated by mermaids and dolphins and such. So, the tattoo is of her friend as a mermaid surrounded by all of things she loved.

There was a woman who got the symbol for the National Eating Disorders Association on her back so that she can remember where she's been and how for she's come.

On the flip side of an eating disorder is the father who got a tattoo of his daughter (with words My Angel and Ecle 3:4) who has Mitochondrial disease which I hadn't heard of. The father describes it as an inability to produce fuel from food that we eat.

A young lady comes in wanting a life preserver, the symbol for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, to honor her brother who committed suicide.



One guy got a It's called Vitiligo tattoo.


Yet another woman got a series of tattoos on her back of a bird tentatively leaving a bird cage, then another bird in the middle and, finally, a bird soaring. Recently divorced, she also had an eating disorder and wanted to document her flight so to speak.

There were a number of phoenix tattoos done, including one on a man who saved his friend from a fire but ended up being burned himself.

The comedian Margaret Cho comes in to get another peacock tattoo because it represents beauty for her. Cho said that it took her a long time to get to the point where she thought of herself as beautiful.


In Vol 2, Epi 2, Hannah Aitchison, an LA Ink artist said:

One of the best pieces of advice that I ever got is the idea of the responsibility when someone gives you their body and wants you to do something on them that they will die with, it's a tremendous amount of trust...

I was completely moved by the woman who got a Japanese crane on her rib cage to honor her friend Mary Crane who was going through a second bout of lymphoma. About her friendship, she said:

I don't know how much farther I can go but I will continue going as far as I can to validate how much I love that girl. Wherever we are in the world, I will always looks at this tattoo and think of good memories -- hugging her, her smile and just always think about friendship and how magical it is. (Vol. 2, Epi 5, Novelty Girls)

Jedan Gram

Know that Stevie Wonder song "Love's In Need of Love Today?"

Well, 'Drea's in need of non-scale victories today.

When I saw a post, Screw Plateau, It's A Drought, over at by Body By Pizza, it summed up, precisely, how I've been feeling. I'm not going to dwell on the scale but I can't say that I haven't noticed it has moved north a tad bit and the seesaw variation is the same two or three pounds...


The first non-scale victory begins with lotion which I was putting on when I felt something odd; I thought the oddness was some kind of growth. Who knows? My skin does weird things and is so sensitive at times.

It turns out the growth was one of my bones. I can feel bones, people, without going on some excavational expedition. I can feel the bones when I trace my eye sockets and I can distinguish the shape of my rib cage now.

For a fleeting moment, I felt vulnerable like someone could run into me and break my new-found bones but no one call Dr. Paul Weston; I've got a handle on that feeling...Not that there's anything wrong with therapy -- to paraphrase a Seinfeldism.

A few weeks ago, I was over at my friend Hazira's when her friend, Rabija, came over. Rabija was kind enough to stop by and take a few IKEA orders before heading to Chicago the next day.

I hadn't seen Rabija since we were poolside in '09. Hazira escorted Rabija out the door and, upon returning, informed me that Rabjia said that I didn't need to lose jedan (Bosnian for one) gram. Wow.

What has been one of your biggest *wow* moments during your fitness journey?

Breathing

Not since I was in boot camp i.e. swimming class with my most excellent teacher, Jim, have I been able to swim the front crawl for 25 meters without stopping; It took me about seven months but I was finally able to do it again.

I consciously relaxed, slowed down and concentrated on rotating cleanly.



I struggled as I got near the shallow end and I was practically gurgling but I did not stop. I made it. Twice.

On another note, my g'ma is breathing better. Not as rapidly. Oxygen saturation is good.

It's amazing the things that you take for granted.

There used to be an art therapist at my job and she had a Breathe sign in her office and I was drawn to its uncomplicated directive.

Lately, all I do is think about breathing for one reason or another.