Clever Manka is dressed and undressed

I think I found another tee shirt I need. DAMN IT.



Everybody knows by now that I workshop at the Altar of the Squat, but I know Squats Are Hard and it took me a long time and a lot of work to do them adequately. I still have to pay enough attention to form that I wouldn't say I yet do them well. Yet. Anyway, a lot of people have issues with squats and I know from personal experience that you can do yourself some serious damage if you do them consistently wrong. So here is another Breaking Muscle article on two common squat/hip dysfunction problems, how to identify them and how to correct them. Lots of helpful videos for the movements, too! Breaking Muscle, man. I LOVE THAT WEBSITE.

Speaking of exercise (because when don't I?), I went to the gym last night despite feeling really MEH about it. Mostly due to the cold. Brrrr. But I had a great workout and the weight room population was abnormally sparse. Probably a lot of other people were deterred by the temperatures. WIMPS. Anyway, such a good workout. Man, I walked out of there feeling like a motherfucking champion. And then two hours later I felt like someone ran over me with a truck. Just. So. Exhausted. That progression is typical of adrenal fatigue, and I guess I shouldn't be surprised that my cortisol levels are a little wacky again after last week's hormonal mess. Still frustrating. I gave up and went to bed at 9:15, woke up at 6:30 this morning, and I'm still feeling a little worn down. Gonna have to really think about how I want to handle Thursday's workout.

This does not bode well in regards to my hopes of returning to CrossFit WODs this summer.

I decided over the weekend that I was going to drink a cup of tea. Real tea. Black tea. English Breakfast Tea. The only reason I stopped drinking tea was the high fluoride content (fluoride being an endocrine disrupter). But I decided I would let myself indulge in the occasional cup of tea (maybe one on Sunday mornings) because my thyroid itself is not a problem--it's the autoimmune disease attacking it. So. I had a cuppa on Sunday and noticed no ill effects. WIN.

Another experiment: Cantaloupe. For years I thought I was allergic to it due to a pretty severe reaction after eating it (itching throat that lasted for hours). When I was at the grocery store last time, I noticed a half cantaloupe in the produce section. It looked beautiful and delicious and I thought "What's the worst that can happen? Trip to the ER? Eh." I brought it home and ate the entire half (it was pretty small) all by myself. No reaction. FUCKING WIN.

I got my thyroid numbers from last week's test.

July blood results:
Free T4: .8 (range .8 to 1.8)
Free T3: 56 (range 76-181)
TSH: 1.83 (range .4 to 4.5)
TPO: 299(should be less than 35)

For reference:
April blood results:
Free T4: .8 (range .8 to 1.8)
Free T3: 2.3 (range 2.3 to 4.2)
TSH: 6.14 (range .4 to 4.5)
TPO: 381 (should be less than 35)

May blood results:
Free T4: 1.0 (range .8 to 1.8)
Free T3: 79 (range 76-181; different test range)
TSH: 2.24 (range .4 to 4.5)
TPO: 347 (should be less than 35)

June blood results:
Free T4: .9 (range .8 to 1.8)
Free T3: 67 (range 76-181)
TSH: 2.5 (range .4 to 4.5)
TPO: 332 (should be less than 35)

All my numbers are dropping, which is kind of not great, IMO. I was worried about the T3 dipping below range, but Dr. Khosh is more interested in getting the TPO number down, which it's doing quite consistently. So we're continuing the current thyroid treatment.

I shall never read or hear this poem the same way again:


My session with Andrew on Sunday was good, but knocked me out. We tried a short(ish) metcon at the end and I won't be doing that again soon. It knocked me out for the rest of the day (there's a reason we went to go see a movie Sunday afternoon--I wasn't up for anything else), and I was pretty fatigued Monday, too. This morning I couldn't get out of bed in time for my Activity Time, so I'll be doing that when I get home. No more metcons for a while. Which a bummer. I was wondering when I might be able to resume CrossFit sessions and the answer to that is Not Anytime Soon, Sister.

For this week's Tuesday Tumblr Collection I present Tuesday, July 9: Vices, part 2. This collection includes some actual poetry written by yours truly, so enjoy the extra special sauce.

We worked on the Chevelle a little bit yesterday. Got the rear springs out, and the rear axle pretty much out. The bolts holding in the rear upper control arms are practically welded on and not even the impact wrench could budge them. At one point we thought we'd knocked them a bit loose and I crawled under to get them out. I was pulling so hard I strained something in my upper back and I'm all ow this morning. *sigh*

With the weather looking potentially stellar for Thanksgiving this week, I'm hoping we can put in quite a bit of time on it during the holiday. Actually make some progress before it becomes too cold for me to work in the garage.

Two Tumblr posts of note!

The first one is charming: Ten Relationship Words That Aren't Translatable Into English. Although I think one of them (La Douleur Exquise (French): The heart-wrenching pain of wanting someone you can’t have) is translate-able as "being in a fandom."

The second one is sobering: A male college student discovers what it means to wear a skirt. "What is it about a piece of inanimate, plain fabric that scares you so much?" I especially like that he realizes that he'll never really know what it feels like to experience this sort of oppression. White male privilege awareness, sir. You're doing it right.

CrossFit Lawrence has another really great seasonal special for Spring 2013. I have no idea if I'll buy it for myself or not. I need to figure out what the fuck I'm doing with my health and activity levels. Last night I even had a dream about going back to CrossFit. It was awesome. So I want to go, it's just...blah. I'm gun-shy. And Andrew never wrote me back about the personal training stuff and how to take it easy but still do CrossFit, so I feel weird about that, too.

And then my plans to buy a cow fell through when we found out that M&J Ranch doesn't have any cows available until Fall 2013, the other recommended ranch has nothing until 2014, and the third option isn't really a place I'm interested in supporting after seeing their website. I contacted Parker Farms in Missouri (on Marisa's recommendation) and we'll see what they say. I can't afford to purchase grass-fed, organic meat at the Merc. So this whole EAT SUPER CLEAN AND ORGANIC IN 2013 might already have some spanners thrown into the works.



Good times, though: I'm having a drink with a couple gals tonight that I've never hung out with before--two former grad students. I just recently found out they're Benedict fangirls, and one of them is on Tumblr. That'll be nice. I've been drinking a lot of wine lately.

First off,

tama_grey is awesome.

She drove to Lawrence last night to bring me a made-for-belly-dancers body stocking, which will allow me to eat today so I don't have to fast until 11:00pm which is when I'll get home from tonight's Smoker promo in KC. Baby, you rock.

Wednesday's fasting test was informative, if not exactly helpful in regards to my ability to eat the day of a show. I finished my breakfast at 9am, fasted for the rest of the day (not even allowing lemon juice in my water), and I was still up an inch around my waist and a tad over two inches at my navel from my pre-breakfast measurements when I re-measured at 8pm. Apparently I need time and sleep for the swelling to go down. This reinforces my cortisol/adrenal issues theory. I need the significant decrease in cortisol levels that sleep provides for the swelling to completely disappear.

Kiva told me last night at acupuncture that she's still unhappy with the quality of my adrenals/kidney lines. She said she couldn't tell me what not to do, but she strongly discouraged me from returning to Crossfit until KCRF is over. Maybe even wait another month or so.

I see Dr. Khosh again on November 19. I'm going to ask to have my cortisol levels tested again, to see how the four-plus months of being on the adrenal supplements are helping. I can tell a difference within a week of not taking them, that's for sure. My energy levels are even worse, and I have a tendency to veer into depression. But it will be helpful to see some numbers.

I want to go back to Crossfit, but I don't want to do it at the expense of my general health. This is me, not being angry at my body, or asking it to do things that will prevent it from eventually being better! GOLD STAR FOR ME.

*sigh*

Perhaps I'll enroll in an actual yoga class once KCRF is over. Yoga Center of Lawrence has a Level 1 9am Saturday class that starts October 27. There's also a 5:45 Thursday class for Levels 1 & 2, so I could go to that right after acupuncture. I'll talk to Kiva about her thoughts regarding a class immediately after a session.

Mash-up fans: Titus Jones has a new album. I'll be checking it out today.

Locals: The Amphitheater Previously Known As Sandstone has another Saturday concert, but at least it's not an all-day music fest. The show starts at 7pm, so Smoker will be well over by the time it starts. Good thing. The bands? Motley Crue, AC/DC, and Poison. I'm pretty sure this means that P Gate will be closed (again), so plan accordingly if you need to be on site Saturday.

I went to CrossFit this morning and felt pretty okay for most of it. The warm-up was kinda fun--a wheelbarrow with partner across the gym, switch positions to return, then five burpees, repeat for a total of three times. I was mostly okay with the wheelbarrow once my partner was instructed to hold my legs closer to the knee than the ankles because I don't have enough strength to keep my back from sagging (ouchie on the low back, there). She let go sooner than I expected on one round, though, and I fell hard enough to take the skin off my right knee. For skills, we did push presses (which I rock at, technique-wise, even if I can't actually lift very much weight) and deadlifts. And, okay, deadlifts are not my best thing, but they're better than overhead squats where I fall back onto my ass with some regularity. So I was feeling pretty good about those, and the WOD wasn't too terrible because it did not involve running. Five rounds for time:
5 Hand Stand Push Ups (I did this nifty prep for HSPUs)
10 Pull-ups
15 Knee-to-Elbows (I worked on just getting my hips to 90 degrees)
20 Kettlebell Swings
25 Squats

I finished in 25:01, which was pretty slow, but I was taking breathers to avoid a coughing fit (yeah, I'm still coughing) and just taking it easy in general because, you know, MY BODY. I felt tired, not wiped out--which was good. But my ears felt like they were stopped up and they were ringing like crazy. That was new. And not cool.

Luckily, I had acupuncture this morning, so I told Kiva about it because (an hour and a half later) they didn't feel much better. After hearing about my respiratory infection and hives and a super miserable three-day weekend at KCRF and that I still went to CrossFit twice this week, she looked at me like this:



Apparently ringing and pressure in the ears is a sign that your kidneys are stressed like whoa, which means there is a good chance (in my case, it's about a 99.999% chance) that the adrenals are pretty much shot to fuck. So she did a lot of work on my kidney and spleen lines in hopes of getting some relief to my adrenal glands before they completely give up on me. Again. She also told me that for the next week, the most I should be exerting myself is walks and yoga. No lifting. No heavy exertion. Nothing that winds me, makes me break a sweat, or causes muscle fatigue.



Obviously I'm not going to be able to adhere to that for Saturday's Smoker, but I'm looking at a return date to CrossFit delayed until September 24.



Yesterday afternoon, I had a good and helpful email exchange with a friend who has similar thyroid and adrenal problems. I asked her the same question about finding an internal motivator for not hating my body and she had some great advice. I want to make a whole post about it, though, so it's going to have to wait for tomorrow.

In the meantime:

My new phone arrived yesterday and I spent an hour last night figuring out how to use just the basics. Oh my god why are phones so difficult now? I am not very good at figuring stuff out on my own, you guys. But anyway, after much cursing and laughing, I can enter phone numbers into the damn thing, so if you think I should have your phone number, send it to me in a private message or email, please.

Remember: I lost my old phone, so right now the only person's number I have is mckitterick's. If I used to have your phone number, please please please give it to me again? I leave my phone off at work, so calling me (my number is the same) won't be very helpful. Email or private message, please. Thanks.

Today's Crossfit was so much better than Monday's. Today was all about arms, which was a nice change. The warm-up was a superset of hang cleans, front squat, strict overhead press, back squat, and bent row. Four sets of four. For the skill work we didn't lift a lot of heavy weight, but did several sets of bicep curls and reverse bicep curls with a barbell. That was new! Then the WOD was seven reps for time 13 wall balls, 13 sit-ups. I got motion sick on my last set of sit-ups and had to rest for about fifteen seconds, which put me over nine minutes. DANG.

Tonight is All About KCRF Prep. Jesus Christ I've got a lot on my to-do list. Number one is clean the sewing room because if I start faire with a mess of a sewing room I am so so so fucking fucked.

BTW, have I mentioned I'm pretty proud of my little baby calluses from lifting and hanging from bars at Crossfit? Because I am. I thought they would bother me, seeing as I'm so sensitive about my pretty pretty hands. But no. I feel like a badass every time I rub my thumb over them.

An email sent this morning from KU said "The SUA Carnival scheduled for this Saturday has been postponed due to weather and safety concerns." I don't have a window in my office, so I wondered what I was missing. Isolated thunderstorms tonight when I'm driving to and from KC. Awesome.

msmitti and I got to see Iron Sky on a theater screen in Independence last night. The movie was good! A lot better than I expected it to be. I went into it thinking it was going to be just a spoof film, but it had a lot of good social commentary and some decent (if predictable) character development. Of course there was a big contingent of the KC SF folks there, which was good and bad. Good because most of them are decent folks, but bad because a few of them aren't. And of course, one of the non-decent types (notoriously non-decent, with whom I've had run-ins before) sat behind me and made stupid, loud comments through a lot of the movie. I finally turned around and snapped at him "This is not MST3K. Shut your fucking pie hole." There wasn't a peep out of him the rest of the film. I should have done it earlier.

Got to bed by 10:30pm, but for some reason I couldn't fall asleep until after 11. Then I woke up at 4:30 and didn't really fall back asleep, so I went ahead and got up at 5:15 to go to CrossFit. So frustrating. I'm worried about making the drive to KC tonight for a party. The possibility of thunderstorms is making the whole excursion even more appealing.

CrossFit this morning was tough. It's always tough, but there was no skill work this morning (skill work is my favorite), and instead we did this WOD for time:

3x
400m run
21 kettlebell swings
12 pullups

I did it in sixteen minutes. I finished last, but I finished!

Oh, we also did the 400m run with a dumbbell for warm-up. So I ran that fucking 400m four times. Not fun.

Have I mentioned that three weeks of CrossFit and strict Whole30 eating have resulted in not a single inch or pound lost? So that's encouraging. There's nothing like positive results to encourage good habits.

I'm grumpy. I need a nap.

But I came really close this morning! Part of today's warm-up (I've come to dread the warm-ups more than the WODs) involved a 200m buddy carry, which means picking up someone in a fireman's carry and walking 200m. I have ISSUES with being carried. My ISSUES with being carried aren't quite as bad as my ISSUES with deep water and spiders, but they are very much still ISSUES. Being carried is (interestingly) the more taxing position since in order to help the person carrying, one squeezes into a ball to better balance the weight, and presses a hand into the carrier's lower back to help stabilize. This is a lot of work. And for someone who has ISSUES being carried and whose hands were maybe already shaking just at the prospect of being lifted off the ground...ugh. My poor partner had to put me down twice, and after the second one, I had to sit down. Outside. On the curb. My whole body was shaking and I was starting to hyperventilate. I barely made it back into the box, where I promptly sat down and put my head in my hands and did my best to avoid losing it completely.

GOD BLESS PROBLEMATIC J, who (it turns out) is actually a therapist. He came over and asked if I was okay and what happened. I told him I hate being carried and I thought I was having a panic attack. He asked if I knew what a panic attack was, and I said no, not really. He said, "A panic attack is just a fear of a panic attack. What you are is scared, and that's okay. You'll be okay. Just sit up straight and breathe." And then I almost cried. But instead, I got down on the ground and joined everyone else doing bear crawls.

I got my two-rep max push press up to fifty-five pounds. My weighted front squat is holding at forty-five pounds. I can lift more weight over my head than I can squat. If that's not enough evidence that mobility plays a huge part in strength, I'm not sure what else would convince you.

Here are the multifandom vids I said I'd post yesterday but never got around to it.



More multi-fandom vid love here, with a double dose of meta.

Oh thank gods I didn't go to Crossfit this morning. Major emphasis on squats and running in today's WOD. It would not have gone well for me, since Monday overdid it on my back. Not sure when, but there's a badly knotted area right between my lats and teres major. My traps aren't feeling too friendly, either, and my glutes are killing me. I had sleep problems last night too, so when the alarm went off this morning, I didn't feel bad at all for turning it off and getting another forty minutes of rest. When I got up I did some serious rolling-out of my lower half and my back.

amjhawk is visiting this week and plans to go to Crossfit Lawrence's Tuesday Intro WOD at 7:30. I'll tag along for that if my back is feeling better by this evening. I have a ton of walking-while-carrying-heavy-things tomorrow and I'd rather not do that after having gone to a morning WOD.

Friday last week I went to a lymph drainage therapist, on the recommendation of my acupuncturist and Dr. Khosh. It was...interesting. Alas, I didn't experience any of the symptoms she suggested I might, except I had to pee a little more often than normal--but that might be because I drank extra water. She said I might experience some flu-like symptoms. I didn't. I was tired, but I'm tired a lot. And my swelling hasn't gone down at all. My morning waist measurement still varies between 32 and 31 inches. I'm trying to decide if I want to give a second session a go. I know it was impossible that a single session would cure the problem, but for $75 a pop, I'd hoped to see some results.

The (very expensive) supplements from Dr. Khosh aren't doing a damn thing either, as far as I can tell. Well, I take that back. The Kavinace capsules I take for my sleep health kind of help. They don't help me fall asleep, but I tend to wake up less--and when I do, I can fall back asleep easier. I was reminded of this last night when I forgot to take them and woke up at 1:30 and couldn't fall back asleep for ages.

I'm seeing zero improvement from eating Whole30. It's been over a week of clean eating with several intense exercise sessions, and my abdomen remains the same size and shape. I see muscle growth in my legs and arms, so it's doubly frustrating that the inflammation over my belly won't fucking budge. Yes, I'm vain about how I look in my dance costumes for Smoker. Sue me.

FEELING THWARTED.

Via athenaartemis comes this really long but fantastic article about Creeper Dudes and how to deal with them. Basically, zero tolerance, people, and fuck anyone (not in the nice way) who whines about the use of the term "rape culture."

labelleizzy posted a link to this very fine article about how people make all sorts of excuses and accommodations for people who exhibit undesirable personal traits--in this case, misogyny and rape. Please also, if you have time, read the accompanying article which brings up an important issue--the need for us not to just let these things slide, and to call that shit out. Every time.

It's crucial to hound people about this, mercilessly. Don't not talk about it for fear of upsetting people. Don't say that you don't want to bring up a topic because people might find it upsetting. You know what's upsetting? Getting sexually assaulted because not enough people are willing to be loud and obnoxious about the rampant disregard of how women are treated and thought of in our society.

Don't think cultural misogyny (always a fun topic) is a problem? You're wrong. We hate women in our culture. As women, we're even taught to hate ourselves and other women. It's insidious, and it's subtle. Have you called knee push-ups "girly push-ups?" I'm raising my hand here, too, so be honest. I'm working on that. If you see me write or hear me say something along those lines, please call me out of on it. I'm not perfect and I'm not exempt from correction.

At Thursday's CrossFit I smacked a guy down (not one of the coaches) for making a misogynist comment. I called him out on Tuesday for making biased and closed-minded comments to Coach Thomas, so I think I'm sensing some sort of pattern, here. I'm gonna refer to him as J.

Just to set the scene, Tuesday's interaction came about because J was discussing Coach Thomas's decision about getting a full sleeve done. J asked what he was going to get on the other arm and Thomas said that he was leaving the other arm blank, to better show off musculature and definition. J scoffed at that, and commented that "It was all about being committed" and something along the lines of Go Big Or Go Home. I was in the middle of my set of front presses, but I racked my weight, turned to J, and said "I thought tattoos were all about self-expression and doing whatever you wanted with your body." Zing! J mumbled something about my coming to Thomas's defense and I just gave him An Eyebrow.

Yesterday's interaction was a little more upsetting. There were three new women at the WOD, who had just joined the box. Coach Andrew asked if any of us could do unassisted pull-ups and one of them said yes and then proceeded to show off some Really Incredible Strict Pull-Ups. Like, eight of them. In a row. J looked at the other guy doing the 6am WOD and said "Jeez, dude, you should be embarrassed." I turned to J and said "Wait. Are you saying that he should be embarrassed because a girl can do more pull-ups than he can?" J then proceeded to show his true colors by actually saying out loud to me "Now, don't go all women's lib on me." "Well, where would you like me to go?" I asked. He started to splutter something and I followed up with "Because I can certainly think of where I would like to tell you to go."



I am grateful that, even hot and sweaty and at six o'clock in the damn morning, my brain still pulls out the fast comebacks. Thanks, Brain!

To J's credit, when I left after Thursday's WOD, he called out to me "Good job today!"

This morning, we had another exchange where I called him out for saying something about one of the other women at today's WOD (we had six women! SIX!)--I don't remember exactly what he said, but it was something along the lines of "I gotta up my game, because a swimmer does those better than me." I looked at him and said "J, you have got to stop comparing yourself unfavorably to other people. That's no good." He responded with "Don't get all uptight about this stuff," and I replied "Man, I'm not uptight. You're the one throwing out all these negative comparisons."

Maybe he can be taught? At least, taught how to talk when I'm in the box? We'll see. I wish people would understand (and internalize) the fact that any sort of smack talk that puts yourself or another person down by making disparaging comments about someone else hurts everyone. One of the things I like about the coaches (and most of the people at CrossFit) is that they encourage me as an individual. The motivation comes not from a desire to be better than someone else, but from me wanting to be better because I can be better.

We all can be better--and we're not any of us better than anyone else.