Book of Jamez

55 y/o malcontent, something of a writer

Category: Health

  • Choker

    This morning on the way to the office I stopped at the grocery to get some healthier alternatives to the chips I tend to snack on there. I grabbed some grapes, bananas, carrots and two apples – It wasn’t all for me I was sharing with folks. I rinsed off the grapes and set them and the bananas on the kitchen counter and alerted the work folks that they were free for the taking and then I went to my desk with a snack pack size of carrots, the two apples and my bottle of water.

    Everything was going fine, I was attaching emails, answering the phone, fixing erring printers…

    (more…)

  • Self Image

    Ever since I can remember I’ve found beefy, stocky, hairy guys attractive.

    I remember finding girlie magazines in the basement apartment of our house – they belonged to one of mom’s many live in boy friends. I remember being just fascinated with the photos in the ad pages of the guys with beards or hairy chests, some of those guys were doing awfully naughty things with other guys and that was amazing.

    The first guy I had sex with was bearish – he was a bigger guy and had a hairy chest, no beard or mustache…. and he took advantage of me and some other kids but it still probably left an imprint on what I look for in mates today.

    I can’t really get aroused when I see the fit gym bodies or the muscular body builder types, it doesn’t do anything for me… but give me a big guy with a football players build, a wide firm front (not his penis, but that’s nice too) and my stomach will do flip flops and get all excited. Gray hair has the same effect and can be a huge turn on for me.

    When I was younger (in my early 20s) I was a thin guy myself (see image from 1995ish)

    I think I looked rather creepy myself. I was pretty thin and usually weighed around 160/170 pounds. I have a hair chest and I couldn’t really grow much of the beard I found so attractive on other guys.

    Now days I’m a little bigger, I have some facial hair that guys seem to like there is more gray in my beard than there is black. But I struggle with how big I am… I have old tapes in my head that tell me I’m too fat, that I need to lose weight that no one will find me attractive.

    Many guys do (some women too… icky) find me attractive though and for that I’m grateful. But it’s hard for me to see that in myself.

    When I look at myself I wish I had hair on the top of my head, that I didn’t wear glasses and that I was skinnier… But I find all of those things sexy in other men. A bald head, gray hair, barrel chest… yum.

    My best friend is a girl… well a woman…and she’s so skinny. But she doesn’t see that herself either. Just like me when I look at me she see’s what she doesn’t like about herself instead of what other people like about her… It must be harder for straight people to compare themselves to what they find attractive in others – facial hair on a girl just doesn’t do it for most.

    Society has put certain notions of what is and isn’t attractive on the screen in the media and all around us… but I just like to look at bearish daddy guys… maybe someday I’ll be happy with what I see in the mirror, but probably not. So I’ll just keep thumbing through Tumblr and looking at what I like.

  • Slow Motion Perception

    Yesterday while riding my bike I took a fall. I was on mile 8 of the journey and it just happened. What was really cool about it was the slowing down of time and the intense focus on the different aspects of the fall.

    I first noticed the tire really close to the edge of the sidewalk and thought I should correct that… then I over corrected and started to fall.

    My eyes did a close up focus on the tire, I saw the wheel start to slow down and I was amazed at how slow it was going. I then looked to my left and saw the ground was just hanging there out of my reach but I was getting closer to it so slowly.

    This reminds me of Douglas Adams suggestion on how to fly – He says there’s a trick to it: throw yourself at the ground and miss. He suggests you do this by getting distracted at the last moment by a bowl of petunias, a long lost satchel or a pink towel…and boom you might be flying…. this sadly did not happen to me, I just hit the ground.

    But the entire process happened to my senses in slow motion. Even the scraping of my arm along the sidewalk, though painful, seemed to take an eternity.

    So I began to wonder why that happened, and thought back to a car accident I had been in in 89 or 90 and how that too seemed to happen in slow motion (I wasn’t the driver and walked away mostly unscathed). I found this little article on Wikipedia – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow_motion_perception and while not a scientific journal I thought it was quite interesting, mostly because if something happens to me and it’s happened to others then I can relate and it’s suddenly relevant… it would have been much more interesting to be flying or discover I had superpowers, but this article will have to do.

    Slow motion perception is a subjective perception of time in which things are perceived as passing by slower than the normal perception of time. To a bystander watching a life-threatening situation such as an accident, time is moving at a normal speed. However, to the individual in the accident, time seems to have slowed down. As a result, the individual in the accident may be able to think faster and act faster during these events. However, even though individuals commonly report that time seems to have moved in slow motion during these events, it is unknown whether this is a function of increased time resolution during the event, or, instead, an illusion of remembering an emotionally salient event. Research conducted by David Eagleman has suggested that time does not actually run in slow motion for a person during a life-threatening event, but, rather, it is only a retrospective assessment that brings that person to such a conclusion. To bring this into the realm of scientific study, he measured time perception during free-fall by strapping palm-top computers to subjects’ wrists and having them perform psychophysical experiments as they fall. By measuring their speed of information intake, they concluded that participants do not obtain increased temporal resolution during the fall, but, instead, because their memories are more densely packed during a frightening situation, the event seems to have taken longer only in retrospect

    what would be pretty cool is if while in that state of consciousness you realized it and like Tobey Maguire’s enhanced Spider-Man senses in the first set of those movies… we could catch all the items from that tray before they hit the ground… But instead I probably just looked like a flailing idiot at the time.

    I think having Saturday Night Live do a skit series where one of their actors plays Neil Degrasse Tyson and uses physics to explain this kind of thing and then end it with “and you basically are just flailing around like the evolutionized chimpanzee you are.” or something… then he could show up and discuss other things that annoy people – like when i’m going leaving an intersection and still catch up to traffic that was doing 45 mph when they passed me “Why does this happen Neil?” we’d ask and he’d go into some long boring explanation of speed and relativity and we’d be all amazed. While he’s talking the camera would catch up to the car in question and we’d see some idiot texting or something instead of paying attention and the Neil could say… “but in this case we just had an idiot”.

    I got back on my bike today and rode it to the shop for it’s scheduled tuning… my legs are sore and I can’t grip the handle bar with my right hand (or turn my house key, or a few other important things) but I got the bike there and walked home. I plan to ride it again and I’ll probably take another fall or two before I die some day… but next time I hope someone or something distracts me and I can just fly awayIMG_0403

  • 2014 Better Than I Imagined

    So much happened this year I’m having difficulty believing it all fit in 365 days.

    AA:

    I started work with a new sponsor, Flo. Did another 4th and 5th Step. Sought his advice and direction in many things I’ve never asked a sponsor before, and its really changed who I am. Tonight at my meeting it was on Step 12 (Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and practice these principles in all our affairs) and just reflecting on the step work this year and my willingness I think I finally feel some of that “joy” we talk about – I still think it’s a bit overrated, but maybe I’ll get used to it.

    I sponsored 4 guys this year – one of them moved back to WI (Matthew); one of them got drunk again (Zack) and then sobered up again; one of them has been sober longer than I (Mark); and one of them just kind of disappeared (Jordan).  Each of them helped me tremendously this year and I’m glad that I had the opportunity to share with them (even if sometimes they don’t listen). The very first sponsee I ever had (David) passed away and I was with my current sponsor when I received the news. (more…)

  • Pain For Too Long

    I feel proud, manly, strong – probably stupidly so, but I do – when after the examination the doctor says

    “I usually only see patients with this in the ER! And you’ve had this for a MONTH?!?!”  

    I can’t help it, I want to say

    “HELL yeah I have! fuckin’ right man!”

    But then sanity clicks in and looks back at the constant pain, uncomfortableness, lack of sleep and the like and I realize I probably should have just gone to the ER when it first happened. I did go to the walk-in clinic twice for the same condition before finally going to the ENT, so at least there is progress.

    (more…)

  • Belated Celebration and Update

    Click this link up here Belated Celebration and Update.

    My friend’s chemo is finally over – but they still have the medical bills to pay. Donations have helped them immensely and more donations would help right now – If I had more to give I would and I’d do the same for any of my friends (and on occasion, strangers – if they’re cute enough… no cute doesn’t matter, well… maybe a little)

    Please help my friend Jana and her husband Cameron… if the situation were reversed they’d help you – that’s part of why they’re my friends (big hearts).

  • New Years Resolutions – Quitting Smoking

    It’s really kind of hard to believe, but I quit smoking almost 9 years ago (Jan 1, 2005). It was very cliche, I did it as a New Year’s Resolution…. and I had tried countless other times to quit and not one of them took.

    I think at the time the main concern was how expensive they were getting – I think they were a little over $4 at the time and I kept thinking it was going to to up and up (and it sure has). I had decided enough was enough (but I always thought that before quitting) and I meant it (like always) so I went out and bought Nicorette gum, the lozenge, and the Patch, I even ask my doctor for a Wellbutrin prescription. An extra step I had taped all over my bedroom and bathroom “You Can Quit Smoking” so I’d see it constantly. I also purchased a hypnosis/positive thinking tape (yes, cassette tape) that I played each night before I went to bed.

    As the New Year approached I kept doubting I could do it, I wondered why I even bothered. Hadn’t countless attempts before failed at getting me to quit? Yes, but I was determined this time (like always).

    I didn’t use the gum that day, the lozenge or the patch… I just stopped and gritted my teeth through it. The first day seemed so hard, the habits of when I’d light up were there with me – when I’d step outside, after eating, after sex, during commercials… I was always smoking it seemed and the first day was so hard to get out of that expectation.

    I was grumpy for probably a month, but I had a lot of support of friends and coworkers who kept on encouraging me… before I knew it I no longer had the cravings or the desire to have one at all.

    There was an immediate downside – everything smelled – whether good or bad I could smell all kinds of things I hadn’t before – car exhaust, bad breath, good breath, perfumes… and most of all smokers! Ugh, why didn’t anyone tell me how awful I smelled and how my breath was rancid like that? Probably because I hung out with other smokers, it became evident to me why some guys wouldn’t date a smoker and now I won’t date one.

    There are still days when I consider a cigarette – after a really good meal, on rainy fall days, during movies with lots of smoking.. but I resist and remember how expensive it is (holy crap how can you afford that?) and how bad people smell.

    I tried to quit a million times, I didn’t think this time would work either – but it did. Don’t give up, keep trying if you’re trying and eventually you’ll make it. I think after the first few months you’ll be happier, I know I am.

  • …the end's well

    The worst part of preparing for surgery is not being able to have coffee in the morning… really that was the absolute worst part of prep. This mornings coffee tastes so good, absence indeed made the heart grow fonder. MMMMMM

    My friend Cliff picked me up yesterday morning and took me to the Hospital, I had offers from several people including work folk, but Cliff made the most sense. Cliff did come with a cup of coffee for himself, which made me crave it soooo badly. He came in with me and we made sure they had his number to call when I was finished. I handed him my wallet and keys and he was off. He could have come up with me to the pre-surgical place – but why would you do that to some one? (See my post on how I get when I visit folks in the hospital: Squeamish) (more…)

  • Keep It Clean

    This isn’t going to be a warm and fuzzy post full of nice things or cute animals… ok, here’s a cute animal….

    cute animal
    cute animal

    but after this it really becomes a TMI post and you probably don’t want to continue reading… that was your last chance… (more…)

  • Answering the Phone 101

    I almost forgot, this is one of those things that I wanted to write about.

    Photo on 10-10-13 at 6.52 AM

    Yesterday I called to schedule an initial appointment with the surgeon (more on that later – is this getting annoying or what?), they were supposed to call me and didn’t so I initiated the call and it went something like this.

    “Hi my name is Jamez and I have a referral to call you.” I said

    “What for?” she said in a not to friendly voice

    I specify why I’m calling, the referral and that I’d like to schedule an appointment.

    “An appointment for what?” she asks “just to see the doctor? surgery? what kind of appointment?”

    “I can schedule surgery without first seeing the surgeon?” I inquire

    “Why didn’t you say that to begin with?” she barks “which location do you want an appointment?”

    “I wasn’t aware you had more than one location what are…” I start

    she shoots off the two addresses before I can even begin to understand thats what she’s doing.

    This is an example of bad customer service, this is an example of how NOT to answer the phone for your job. She was not the least bit friendly, not the least bit helpful and maybe was having a really, really bad day (it was only 9 how bad could it have gotten by 9?).

    When I answer the phone at work (I do this for a living) it’s like this:

    “Good morning thank you for calling [insert workplace here], my name is Jamez how can we help you today?” and then I listen… and then I go out of my way to help that person get what they need… sometimes I have to put them on hold to think to myself “had this person just read the email they wouldn’t have had to call” but I don’t tell them that…

    My job is to be of service, to be friendly and to make them feel like they were listened to and cared about. If you answer the phone for your job that’s what you’re supposed to do, don’t be all bitchy to them no matter how bad a day you are having… You’ll actually find that when you’re grumpy or not up to the task that faking this kind of thing actually helps you to feel better… because those people sometimes say thank you, those people need to feel like someone is listening and most of the time they’re human..

    Remember that golden rule thing… treat them as you would have them treat you. And smile, it helps to make you less grouchy

    I’m keeping the doctor appointment, but I might be overly, syrupy cheery when I get to their office!