The Bod
I'm getting old enough now that when I get sick, I can pretty much predict how things will break down. There are three areas of my bodily functions who have voted themselves the messengers of bad news, such as:
"You're not taking care of yourself! We've in revolt!"
or
"Hey, Flabby! What's with the sedentary lifestyle? Do you think your Baba B. lived to be 100 years old by parking her fat Czechoslovakian duppa in front of a computer all day? She didn't even have a car!"
or
"Remember that little sniffling kid you kissed at church yesterday? The one you thought might have a virus? You were right! And you got it, genius!"
My body talks to me in this way, like a character from a James Cagney film, spitting bits of cigar at me while it berates me. And then it does weird things like produce random, swollen blisters on my left shoulder and face (right on either side of the nose, where all the interesting nerve endings live). And the lower back goes out. The third area of familiar distress is something a lady never mentions.
So I groan and I say, "I know, I know, I'm sorry... don't nag, I'll do better." But the truth is, we don't get along very well. My body knows that I only really like to do a few things with it: sing, dance, listen to music, snog, write, read, think, shop, hug people, cook, eat, loll around in warm water, look at art, and attend revolutions.
I've never been one of those people who wakes up on a gorgeous day and thinks, "Oh good, let's get out the bike!" What I think is, "What a great day to sit outside and have lunch with friends!" Immediately followed by feelings of guilt that I don't even have a bike and the very idea of rollerblading along the banks of the Charles River turns my heart to a block of rejecting ice.
I am considering having an open casket funeral when I die so that all my friends can drop a sprig of rosemary or lavender into the box and say a silent prayer like, "Yay! She finally broke it off permanently with her body!" (I'll be buried in white cotton pajamas : one of my many white cotton tops and my infamous "nighttime pants" which are enormously floppy-legged drawstring cotton things, made for me by a transsexual Witch named Raven, who is very talented at making things for you, and you can call her). It's not that my bod and I have an abusive relationship, it's that we're like an old unhappily paired married couple, where my body says, "I thought we were going to have this totally free, bikini-oriented summer outdoors!" and I spit back, "Yes, I've heard it. And I thought we were going to be Olympic-calibre figure skaters, too, but that didn't happen, either, did it!? Or the really amazing tap dancing skills!!??"
We make up and sit on the couch watching movies, and then we take a little walk holding hands.
I am pretty much expecting, as I age, to enter the Heart Attack/Congestive Heart Failure Plan, which means that that's how I expect to die. I'd love to get into the Stop Breathing In My Sleep Plan, but that's a special break given to really lucky customers, and you can't count on it. So I'm going with the Heart Disease Plan, which allows me to honor my body's true, authentic nature and which means that if the PeaceBang Container decides to take on the Cancer Plan or something else, I would be really surprised. And kind of impressed at her initiative.
Anyway, I hate doctors and hospitals a lot. I mean, it's not a personal thing, I just hate how you have to leave your ordinary life completely when you need get professional help for the Bod. You thought you were this Person, and the doctors come in and talk entirely to the Body, causing it to puff up with ego pride while the rest of you sits dejectedly on the little paper-covered table. In the car on the way home, your Body says, "See!? I AM the more important!" And you get it an ice cream just to shut it up.
"You're not taking care of yourself! We've in revolt!"
or
"Hey, Flabby! What's with the sedentary lifestyle? Do you think your Baba B. lived to be 100 years old by parking her fat Czechoslovakian duppa in front of a computer all day? She didn't even have a car!"
or
"Remember that little sniffling kid you kissed at church yesterday? The one you thought might have a virus? You were right! And you got it, genius!"
My body talks to me in this way, like a character from a James Cagney film, spitting bits of cigar at me while it berates me. And then it does weird things like produce random, swollen blisters on my left shoulder and face (right on either side of the nose, where all the interesting nerve endings live). And the lower back goes out. The third area of familiar distress is something a lady never mentions.
So I groan and I say, "I know, I know, I'm sorry... don't nag, I'll do better." But the truth is, we don't get along very well. My body knows that I only really like to do a few things with it: sing, dance, listen to music, snog, write, read, think, shop, hug people, cook, eat, loll around in warm water, look at art, and attend revolutions.
I've never been one of those people who wakes up on a gorgeous day and thinks, "Oh good, let's get out the bike!" What I think is, "What a great day to sit outside and have lunch with friends!" Immediately followed by feelings of guilt that I don't even have a bike and the very idea of rollerblading along the banks of the Charles River turns my heart to a block of rejecting ice.
I am considering having an open casket funeral when I die so that all my friends can drop a sprig of rosemary or lavender into the box and say a silent prayer like, "Yay! She finally broke it off permanently with her body!" (I'll be buried in white cotton pajamas : one of my many white cotton tops and my infamous "nighttime pants" which are enormously floppy-legged drawstring cotton things, made for me by a transsexual Witch named Raven, who is very talented at making things for you, and you can call her). It's not that my bod and I have an abusive relationship, it's that we're like an old unhappily paired married couple, where my body says, "I thought we were going to have this totally free, bikini-oriented summer outdoors!" and I spit back, "Yes, I've heard it. And I thought we were going to be Olympic-calibre figure skaters, too, but that didn't happen, either, did it!? Or the really amazing tap dancing skills!!??"
We make up and sit on the couch watching movies, and then we take a little walk holding hands.
I am pretty much expecting, as I age, to enter the Heart Attack/Congestive Heart Failure Plan, which means that that's how I expect to die. I'd love to get into the Stop Breathing In My Sleep Plan, but that's a special break given to really lucky customers, and you can't count on it. So I'm going with the Heart Disease Plan, which allows me to honor my body's true, authentic nature and which means that if the PeaceBang Container decides to take on the Cancer Plan or something else, I would be really surprised. And kind of impressed at her initiative.
Anyway, I hate doctors and hospitals a lot. I mean, it's not a personal thing, I just hate how you have to leave your ordinary life completely when you need get professional help for the Bod. You thought you were this Person, and the doctors come in and talk entirely to the Body, causing it to puff up with ego pride while the rest of you sits dejectedly on the little paper-covered table. In the car on the way home, your Body says, "See!? I AM the more important!" And you get it an ice cream just to shut it up.
posted by PeaceBang at 9:39 AM
2 Comments:
ah, vic, you say it like the rest of us feel it. i think i'm gonna take my bod out for an ice cream cone -- or maybe cotton candy, which they make fresh at a candy store one block from my apartment -- just to celebrate.
and a thought: maybe there are two kinds of people in this world -- the ones who live to blade down the esplanade, and those of us who laze on the grass and wonder why our comrades are working so fucking hard at life. the twain need not meet. and they certainly need not date.
anyway, it's great to be on the grass with ya, sis. my bod salutes the god in your bod.
I hate being sick. A cashier at the petstore this weekend was sniffling and sneezing, and after I'd paid for my stuff I promptly went over to the drug store and slathered my hands in hand sanitizer (I don't care if it doesn't work, it smells like it does).
Get well soon!
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