Tag: illness

Busyness as a disease

I have decided to say NO to more things on the calendar.

busy.WaitingSunday, March 1 was a very full day. We went to the early service at church (8:30).

Then I taught a class for adult education about the book The New Jim Crow (9:30), sang at choir and read scripture at the second church service (10:45), and watched The Daughter and other kids perform The Gospel According to the Beatles (12:15). Afterward, the parents-in-law came over for dinner.

After they left, I said to The Wife that, had I not had all of those things on the agenda that day, I might have stayed home sick from church.

So you would THINK I would have had the common sense to stay home from work the next day, on Monday; I did not. I thought that, because I had a particular project to do on deadline, and since we’re behind on reference, and because I needed to take Friday off that week, I BETTER go to work.

What a mistake! I’m sitting at my desk, but I am unable to focus, with a sore throat, and probably a fever. I decide to take the next bus home out of Corporate (frickin’) Woods, but, unfortunately, there’s NOTHING leaving between 9:45 a.m. and 1:45 p.m. I muddle through the morning, find my way home and to bed. Stay home on Tuesday, I tell myself, and THIS time I listened to him.

Somewhere during my incapacitation, I come across an article that brought me up short: Busy Is a Sickness.

The American Psychological Association has published its Stress In America survey since 2007. They find that the majority of Americans recognize that their stress exceeds levels necessary to maintain good health. The most frequent reason they cite for not addressing the problem?

Being too busy.

It’s a vicious cycle.

When I used to call my late parents on the phone, and would ask them how they were doing, they’d almost always inevitably say, “Busy, but good.” Sometimes, they would reply, “Good, but busy.”

As the article notes:

It’s busyness we control.

Self-created stress.

I’m so busy that I decided that I don’t have time to be ill? I have about 125 sick days and get another day and a half each month. This is NO exaggeration.

And speaking of NO, one of the things I have decided is to say NO to more things on the calendar. There are plenty of good causes, learning opportunities, interesting events. Unfortunately, I’m not at a point to squeeze any more in.

Sidebar: have you noticed that more and more retired people say they are busier now than they were when they were working?

Last week, one of my library colleagues sent me UCLA Mindful Awareness – Free Guided Meditations, which I have just started to do, even though I might have otherwise argued that I don’t have time. I NEED to have less busyness, and this may help.

Reality hits hard (with apologies to fillyjonk)

One catalog company I ordered from called me to tell me my card had been declined.

hospital-bed-talk-with-doctorThe blogger fillyjonk wrote on December 15: ” I dunno. Locally and globally, sad and difficult stuff.” She was SO right.

*Her post began: “Someone took hostages in Sydney. In a Lindt chocolate shop.” Unfortunately, that ended with two of the hostages being killed, along with the gunman.

*About the same time, I’m listening to this story of a guy killing his ex-wife and five of his ex-in-laws at three different places in Montgomery County, PA, just north of Philadelphia, before turning the gun on himself. Worst of all, I awaken the next morning to the news of 140+ people murdered by the Taliban in western Pakistan, most of them children.

*Locally, and more recently, there was an Amber alert for a five-year-old boy near around here, then canceled 10 hours later when the boy’s body was discovered. The abduction story was a crock; his 19 y.o. cousin has been arrested. Meanwhile, eight children were slaughtered in Cairns, Australia.

*The Daughter complained of sharp pain on her left side, and we went to the ER at Albany Med on Saturday night, December 13. We were there from 8:30 p.m. until 2:30 a.m., and bed after 3 a.m. I SO don’t do 3 a.m. well anymore. Then I went to church in the morning. I’ve been on fumes all week.

*She has some infection in or around her kidneys, and she has to take an antibiotic. But halfway through the regimen, the hospital calls to say that the type of infection she has is resistant to the antibiotic she has been taking, so she needs to take a DIFFERENT one and start the regimen all over.

*The illness meant that I missed two days of work, one full day, and two half days, which feels actually worse than two full days because my work rhythm is off. I was going to go to a luncheon to honor people at SUNY Central who had reached milestone anniversaries. (Because we were switched to SUNY Albany for a time, both a colleague and I missed both our 15th and 20th-anniversary luncheons.) But I missed it, seeing my boss, a former colleague, and two long-time friends get awarded. Worse, the ticket I bought ($30) went to waste because we were so shorthanded. Because…

*Our office secretary left on November 5, so we – well mostly a library colleague and I – have been answering the main phones. One of our library colleagues, Amelia, had a baby at the end of November, which is lovely, of course, but she’s out on maternity leave until late February. So when one (OR MORE) of the five, currently four, librarians is out, it becomes a strain on the system. There were just two of us two Thursdays ago (snow and the flu kept the other two at home), and two on the day of the luncheon.

We usually have a week’s turnaround on the reference queue but, currently, it’s about 10 days. This will EVENTUALLY rectify itself as the demand slackens during the holidays, but looking at the list of questions undone is depressing and frustrating. And one of the librarians will be away for a week around Christmas.

*One of our choir members has been away much of the year getting treatment for cancer in Arizona. My mother’s first cousin Robert is now on dialysis. And while I didn’t know them, I mourn the loss of my friend Steve Bissette’s parents, his father in late October, and his mother in mid-December.

*We have lost our custodian at church a few weeks ago. The Wife chairs the Administration Committee until the end of the year, so this is a task that involves meetings, et al.

*All this busyness has made it difficult to concentrate on Christmas shopping. One catalog company I ordered from called me to tell me my card had been declined; what I didn’t notice in the pile of mail unread is that the bank had pulled one card as compromised and replaced it with another.

*Of course, it’s been havoc on blogging. I have a daily blog and write one post every two days. It’s not a lack of topics, it’s a lack of time. This will explain, in part, an increase in typos.

*I’ve had a deficit in not only sleep but good dietary habits and housecleaning effort. The house is messier than even my relatively low standards can bear. Where IS my cellphone? It’s in the bedroom, SOMEWHERE.

So, happy holidays, everyone. I’m told it gets better; sure hope so.

Crummy, we feel

This may shock you, but people related to me have actually suggested that I might be just a touch cranky when I’m sick.

sickIt started with the Daughter a week before Halloween, sluggish going to school, going to her team’s soccer match that Saturday but too weak to play, tired on Sunday, then home sick from school on Monday. She went to school late on Tuesday, but too fatigued for gym.

The Wife, who is never sick – just ask her – was feeling off on Wednesday, stayed home from work on Thursday, and still recovering on Friday.

There’s something unfortunate about being ill on Halloween. The night before, I slept extremely poorly. The Wife, when she’s ill, wheezes audibly so that I can’t sleep. I went down to the sofa, but the cats running around made that not a viable option. Finally, at about 3:20 a.m., I went to live down on the floor in the Daughter’s room. I literally crawled back to bed one minute before the alarm went off at 6 a.m. I thought when I went to work that I was just tired, but realized by midday that I too was becoming ill.

This may shock you, but people related to me have actually suggested that I might be just a touch cranky when I’m sick. When I got home, I schlepped furniture from the front porch to the shed, because The Wife had asked me days earlier to move them, lest the trick-or-treaters use them in their pranks. I was spent after that and could put on a happy face briefly as I handed out the candy before the others took over the task. Home all weekend with various ailments: sore throat, headache, congestion, body aches, and vivid dreams.

The result of which is that I can’t write a cleverly coherent post here, though I wrote TWO posts for my usually neglected TU blog, one on the NYS ballot proposals and Albany School Board election, and one on the governor’s race, which was time-sensitive.

I did watch about a half of (US) football on Sunday, Cardinals over Cowboys – YES! I also saw this unfortunate gaffe on NBC News Saturday night in real time.

Back to work today, but just muddling through…

This shall pass. I hope so.
**
My friend Dan’s story on how fear, nastiness and dirty tricks sideline public discussion of the Albany City budget.

NO-vember

I had an already scheduled appointment with my allergist, who said I likely had bronchitis.

Folks are often wondering where the time goes. I know where November went; I felt lousy for most of it. And the Daughter did too.

I remember reading that you can’t get sick merely by getting one’s feet wet. But it was a rainy Halloween night when I was wearing my sneakers and landed in a deep puddle. The very next day, I sat at my desk in the afternoon and felt so crummy I thought I was hallucinating.

Did nothing that weekend; didn’t go to church, couldn’t even read e-mail, and stayed home from work on Monday. But never really felt great after that.

I had an already scheduled appointment with my allergist a week and a half later, who said I likely had bronchitis. The breathing apparatus I got helped somewhat.

I missed three Thursday choir rehearsals in a row because I could not sing; I tried it out. Feeling about 90% now.

Meanwhile, the Daughter had various nasal/throat stuff, which had her coughing in the middle of the night, less so in the daytime. But she was tired, had a persistent sore throat. Additionally, she was stressing about math at school. I missed at least three days of work tending to her, and I unintentionally blew off meeting our intern candidate at work, who I had agreed to talk with, twice.

I felt behind all month. Planning a trip to NYC for Thanksgiving, I was rushing to find a hotel at the last minute; everything was hurried. My wife suggested I make a list; a list of all the undone items would have just made it too real.

Thanksgiving itself was great, though. More on that if/when I get a chance.

December will, ideally, be better. All I have to do is ALL OF MY CHRISTMAS SHOPPING. And special church music, starting this Friday.

Because I tend to work ahead, you may not have noticed the lack of blogging. Expect some shorter posts at the end of the month.

Linda Ronstadt for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Linda was as eclectic as musical shapeshifters like David Bowie and Neil Young, but because she didn’t write her own stuff, she’s been dismissed.

One of my friends, remembering her popularity in the late 1970s, both musically and visually – posters of her image were on more few dorm room walls – wrote: “Now that we know Linda Ronstadt is living with Parkinson’s, can we please finally put her in the Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame?”

Not sure about whether induction there really matters; it certainly does not diminish her remarkable talent over decades. Still, I support the notion of her getting into the Hall, and if it takes a sympathy vote because she no longer can sing to achieve it, so be it. But I think she has enough bona fides to get there without pity.

She had tremendous commercial success in the folk-rock milieu in the 1970s, yet ventured off to do the Pirates of Penzance; two albums of music of her Mexican father, in Spanish; three albums of standards arranged by Nelson Riddle; some great duets with Aaron Neville and Emmylou Harris, among others; the Trio albums with Dolly Parton and Emmylou, and much more.

Linda was as eclectic as musical shapeshifters like David Bowie and Neil Young, but because she didn’t write her own stuff, she’s been dismissed. You’ll find her on albums as varied as Randy Newman’s Faust and Philip Glass’s Songs of Liquid Days; from the latter, here is Forgetting, also featuring the Roches and the Kronos String Quartet. She’s one of the great backup vocalists, with Neil Young on Heart of Gold, and Paul Simon on Under African Skies, e.g.

It’s also true that I like Linda Ronstadt – not personally – based on what I’ve heard about her. I hear she’s a big donator to repertory theater in Tucson, for instance. Her birthday is the same as my wife’s (Linda’s a bit older, though).

She inspired a buycott by me. A buycott, as described by Arthur, is “to go out of my way to support businesses that support the issues I care about instead of boycotting the ones that oppose those issues.” In 2004, she was escorted from a Las Vegas casino after she had dedicated a song to the filmmaker Michael Moore. Her ejection and the attitude of the audience annoyed me so much that I soon ordered from Amazon The Linda Ronstadt Box Set, which is great, especially discs three, “Collaborations, ” and four, “Rarities.” Though the collection ignores her hits such as Heat Wave, Tracks of My Tears, That’ll Be the Day, It’s So Easy, and most of the Hasten Down the Wind album, it was a very satisfying purchase.

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