Adventures in Chiropractic Medicine

I went to a chiropractor for the first time today. Many of my friends have been seeing one, I've been having some unexplained aches and tensions. Why NOT see a chiropractor? My insurance and FSA are just sitting there, cogs in our completely messed up healthcare system, waiting to be utilized.

First, I turned to Facebook for some old-fashioned crowd sourcing. Ideally, I'd find a female doctor somewhere between home and work. The first suggestions missed the mark by about ten miles. I got impatient and Googled some random woman on the internet.

At my consultation appointment a week later, I was a few minutes later and Instagrammed this:


Here's the weird part.

"Amanda?" says nice lady with clipboard.

"Hi, nice to meet you."

"I'm sorry, can you tell me how to say your last name?"

"pl-OUGH" (Rhymes with snow, go, chateau. See what I did there? Let's go find a woodstove or something)

"Oh! Like p-l-o."

(eyes roll)

So we make small talk as she measures my spine, posture, pulse and whatever.

"How long have you been at your job?" as I rotate my head to the left and right as far as I could comfortable.

"Oh, uh, since May. Before that I was a student..."

"..."

"A non-traditional student."

"What do you mean?"

"You know, like traditional students go straight from high school to college and graduate around 21. I took some time off or whatever. I just say that because I don't want people to think it took me ten years to get my undergraduate degree."

"..."

"Not that there's anything wrong with that or anything."

"No, that's just what my son did! He took 6 or 7 years off and worked for a while. Then he went back to school. Once you take some time to figure out what you want to study it helps you get more serious."

"Yeah!"

"So what was your major?"

"Media Studies."

"That's was my son's major too! Oh! You should meet!"

"..."

"..."

"..."

"Is he doing some video production work now?"

"Yeah, and a little of this a little of that. He's also working at [name redacted]"*

*local independent record store that I worked at for a while in and immediately after high school.

For a minute I had to be like, wait a minute, have I boned your son? But no, I checked and re-checked my mental list. She said she was from Biddeford and I'm nearly positive I've never dated, made out with or anything else otherwise anyone from Biddeford. This also explains why she couldn't pronounce my last name: Biddeford residents are famous (in southern Maine) for bastardizing the pronunciation of French words.

See you at La Kermesse (LAKEr-mess), Biddo.

Oh, this is how effed my muscles are:

The left illustration shows what normal muscles are supposed to look like on the stress scale or whatever. I only have 4 normal muscles, and T8 is so disrupted it's off the Green, Blue, Red scale. It's taken the Black! Winter is coming!

More later. Bye. 

Have you seen a chiropractor? How is it? Have you ever witnessed a Biddeford resident Jon Snow'ing a French word?

Burning questions about the Bachelor

I've been watching the Bachelor. Before that, the Bachelorette, and before that the Bachelor, and so on and so forth.

One of the things I could never wrap my mind around is what do these people even talk about? It seem like they just giggle and talk about their immediate surroundings and how weird it is. One of the things I liked about Ames, a contestant on Ashley's season of the Bachelorette, was that he seemed to ask intelligent  thoughtful questions and their conversations were some of the most interesting of all the segments in the history of the show.

Like, okay, maybe I can believe in love at first sight. Maybe I can believe that it's possible to fall in love with someone on camera for national television. But like, do you get to talk about politics? Do you get to talk about career aspirations? What did you give up before you left for the show? What was your salary before you left the show? Cat person or dog person?

Favorite film? How many hours do you spend per week watching reality tv, other than the show you're on? What do you spend your time reading? Do you know how to read? It seems like none of these burning date questions are answered in any of the "dates" that we see.

Idk, maybe the casting directors screen for any obvious deal breakers. But I decided to turn to Twitter.

Mystery solved.

Decision Making Fatigue

Over the last few weeks, I've been a bit out of sorts. Double booking friend hangouts, locking myself out of my apartment, trying to make plans for an event that I think is on one day but is really on another. But it seems as though there has been a lot on my mind, between job stuff, school stuff, which is all ties in to financial stuff. Like 20 times in the last month, I've signed off Gchat with "buy" instead of "bye".

But I was thinking a lot about decision making fatigue (DMF) tonight, after seeing this excellent film Chasing Ice at SPACE. Essentially, this film a collection of stunningly beautiful images documenting how Global Warming is killing our planet. I have a very difficult time making decisions. In some arenas, like who to date, what to write, how many rounds of beers, I'm pretty good at deciding. In others, like what bills to pay when, how much to spend at the grocery store, how to structure my savings plan, which charitable organizations to support... It's hard to make a "perfect decision, " kind of like when Tom's of Maine changed their toothpaste tubes.

I blame the Industrial Revolution. I realized I had DMF at some point last year when I was so poor that the mental excursion of doing groceries was so acute that I'd spend the rest of the day making stupid financial decisions. Just like in that NYT article.

Before and after the screening at Space, there were short presentations about the dangers of Tar Sands and what we can do to ensure they don't make it to our front lawn. Do I care about Tar Sands? Yes. What I struggle with, however, is how exactly Tar Sands fit into the hierarchy of Causes to Care About. It's like, rate these things in order of importance: social issues, economic issues, environmental issues, homeless animals, your friend's kick ass play, your other friend's ride for the cure, public broadcasting.

My company offers paid time off to volunteer and part of the reason I haven't started a regular volunteer gig is because I can't decide where to go. It's not that I don't care enough to volunteer, it's more like I care about too many causes to decide where to go. On one hand, maybe I should spend my time at the places I contribute financially, since those places seem important. On the other hand, should I spread my resources and talents and contribute to a place that seems needier? Like picking a pizza topping, I'll always second guess my decision.

Global warming is scary and sometimes I fantasize about living in a house-version of the huts from Maine Huts and Trails, composting toilet, sun tunnel and all. But then would I be so busy stacking wood or living off the grid or whatever that I'd have no resources left? Is living off the grid > doing Laundry at the Animal Refuge League?

Where do you volunteer/contribute and why? How do you sort out what's most important?