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Circling the Drain
There are few greater joys in life than lying prostrate on an exam table, naked but for a hospital gown, with 10 electric stickers and their partner wires hanging from you.
Folks, I’m not yet thirty. I’m mostly not even unhealthy. I don’t eat gluten, and I try not to eat most processed stuff. But there I lay this morning being poked and prodded because I inherited one too many of my father’s lovely traits. (Thanks, Dad!)
We discovered today that my spotty past readings haven’t been a fluke: I have the blood pressure of an ailing sixty year old. So naturally, I needed an EKG. And a followup pulmonary test. And later, my third blood pressure reading of the visit.
Even with the hundred pushup challenge, and the New Yorker-speed walking, and the softball, and the generally being active, and (in the winter) the running, I’m circling the drain. My cholesterol? 257. That’s good for me; it used to hover around 317: FTW!
(I know what you’re thinking. But that’s not the answer: my BMI is a healthy 21.)
So I’ll chalk up having the kind of physical that most people my age won’t expect to see for another ten or fifteen years to plain old bad luck, and I’ll ignore the slow thyroid and my big, bad sinuses, and the bi-monthly migraines and the daily tension headaches.
And next week, when I have to get my blood pressure checked “at least twice,” I’ll smile and pretend I’m being fitted for some kind of fancy Donna Karan-like sleeve-only shirt instead.
(This could be the next big trend, haute designers – go get working on your slirts.)
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In the belly of the beast
When you live in the city, a million little events cross your path everyday, and most days I get too wrapped up in them, so I end up keeping an emotional pro/con list active all day. Like Harold Crick without worrying about my possible imminent death.
When I walked out the door, the sky was brilliant blue, dotted with exuberant, puffy clouds. COMEDY.
My entire face was also itching with allergies. Not quite a TRAGEDY.
Then, while waiting for my transfer at 42nd St., I watched a thug harass a kid smaller than him, while everyone stood around. That’s not really too strange, but the nasty kid was also wearing a rosary around his neck. How many Hail Marys did he have to say to wipe his morning entertainment off the record? TRAGEDY.
This made me head-exploding furious, but I woke up kind of pissed anyway, which sent me out into the world angrier than usual, so I wrote it off. Usually I just have a vague sense of crappy sleep, but last night I was awake a hundred different times, when I should have slept like a baby after such an awesome storm. (Go see these gorgeous photos.) COMEDY.
A smart man avoided the screeching cacophony of trains and people, wearing ear -plugs instead of -buds, and reading the Times. He was also wearing pink shorts. He also missed the moans of a woman being killed softly (and very, very slowly) by Roberta Flack’s song. COMEDY.
Another woman was toting an entire garden with her, four feet tall and sprawling every which way out of a wire rolly-cart. “Ch-chnk, ch-chnk, ch-chnk” up the stairs, dirt fell out with every crash as she blocked the rush-hour path to a flow of one by one. COMEDY.
When I got to the doctor’s office, she was surprised to hear that I still wanted to call her my doctor after my move downtown. She blushed, and thanked me for starting her patient day so well, which ended up restarting my day well. New Yorkers can be so funny about traveling seventy-four blocks. COMEDY.
Maybe it wasn’t such a bad day after all.