Tag Archives: burn

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Hungry

Each time I’ve gotten pneumonia, I drop ten pounds in a week. The weight stays off, each time for longer. Then I gain it back and go past my “normal” weight. It takes work to get that extra weight off.

I have been trying to lose that extra weight since the start of the year. At first I just tried to increase my vegetable intake. The green, yellow and orange vegetables have the lowest calories and carbohydrates. The grains and rice and potatoes and bread are all more dense and have more calories and carbohydrates. I tried to go easier on them.

I did not make much progress. The climbing gym has been building muscle and clothes fitting better, but the scale did not move much.

I started having conversations with my stomach. I would eat. My stomach would demand more. “HUNGRY! WANT MORE!” This is not real hunger, as the people in occupied territories are having. This is my stomach or hindbrain fussing. It was easiest to control at lunch. I would fill half my container with spinach or mixed greens and then add more vegetables or tuna salad or egg salad or humus and vegetables. I would take a piece of fruit. Once that was done, we were done. “HUNGRY!” my stomach would complain. “That’s ok,” I would tell myself, “It’s ok to be a little bit hungry. We’ve had enough food. Stop fussing.”

My stomach fussed a lot at first. Now it is more of a query: “Hungry?” “No,” I reply, “we’ve had enough.” It seems to quiet down much more quickly. I think I am losing weight but I have no scale here and haven’t remembered to weigh myself in the last 3 weeks at work. Never mind. I have more muscle, at any rate, which is denser than flab. Muscle burns 9 kcal/gram and fat burns 4 kcal/gram. I climbed yesterday at the gym and might again this afternoon. It did take weeks or a couple months for my stomach to quiet down. Changing habits is not easy.

The tuna salad and spinach and green chili dish was my breakfast this am. I don’t think my stomach complained at all after it. It was distracted by packing and clearing out the refrigerator and cleaning. Sol Duc knows I am packing but is pretty sure she is going with me. I have been putting her toys in the carrier and she’s gone in and out to suss out the situation.

I hope all the people who are suffering from hunger get fed, today and tomorrow and the next day.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: hungry.

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In deep

Time to return
again

Human, pfaugh
I give up
I don’t want to be one
I can be anything I want to be
I want to be a mermaid
again

I sink into the sea
and down to the depths
scales and tail and breathe the sea
the water cools the burns
my charred burnt skin
and lungs

Such a fail again
every time I try
to be human
yes, legs, I can do that
it always makes my voice hurt
but those damn wings
come with the legs

It’s hard to hide the wings.

I don’t know how
but they sense them
even when I hide them

It really pisses me off.
It’s the broken ones that show up
though now I think maybe
they are all broken
they all wander around
pretending they are ok
using lies to try to appear nice
hating parts of themselves
calling those parts unclean spirits
and casting them out
DEMON! DEVIL!
over and over

I try to pretend they aren’t there
the cast out
and I am human too
but the demons kneel and lay their monstrous heads
in my lap
crying
cluster round me
begging for my help

I always fail.

I try to stay present
with the person and the cast out
but eventually I can’t stand it
and I say something wrong
and the stupid human thinks I am the demon
and casts me out too.

I wait and hope.

I wait and hope with the monsters
with the rough beasts.
“You have wings,” say the demons, “Help us!”
“I can’t.” I say, “The humans must help themselves.”
The monsters weep and wail.
Finally I am sick of it again.
I send them home
and I go home too.
I have failed again
and must endure falling through the atmosphere
my feathers and skin a burning star

I am sick of it.
I give up, Beloved.
I am a failure.
I can’t do this.
I must go to the sea again.

Here is the trench, the deepest part of the ocean
I stop swimming and let myself sink
Slowly the light disappears
I am in the ink black

Slowly the others appear
glowing
in the deep

_________________________

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: liquid.

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phoenix rising

Written in 2009.

Set a torch to me
Why don’t you?

It’s not the tearing sound of fabric
A small rip
And now a tear
That I feel

It’s the torch

I’ve been here before
A job where the idealistic came
As moths to the flame
Self-immolation
Because they had ideals

I watched and burned and rose

It’s the torch
The flames that rise
As the witch is burned
Tilts back her head
In ecstasy and knowledge
Eager to learn what she can
From these burning brands

In the burning we learn
In pain we learn
If we can remain open
Ashes fall to the ground
Buckets of water
Wash any remains to grey mud
Gone, punished
Relief for the frightened
An example has been set

No but what stirs at night
Moon or none
What rises from the mud
The ashes
Takes form
Takes flight
Laughing

Set a torch to me
Why don’t you?
And see what is created

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leaf light

Well.

Being off from work, for an indeterminate time gives one time to think.

I have been advised by various people to move. Pick up, sort out, get rid of and move on.

I think they are right. I have been in this house for 21 years. Time to change it.

So, I am going through things. Washing everything washable. There is a lot of that. Starting to sort and give away things. I sent a unicorn horn and ears and a tail and tiger ears and tail to a five year old a couple days ago. She can be a unicorn or a tiger or a ticorn or a uniger. And rope the adults in.

Photos now. I could have a ginormous bonfire of old photos. It’s ok to get rid of the ones that have no remaining connection, right? I may give them to friends to cut up and use in art, that’s cool. I will keep the connected ones.

I took the leaf light picture with my phone yesterday evening. Crashed early.

Hugs, all.

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forest fires and your lungs

Our air quality is still bad today. I got my first alarm on my cell phone for bad air quality yesterday: the first time in 18 years.

Here are some links regarding forest fire smoke and your lungs:

Forest fires and Respiratory Health Fact Sheet: here. This pdf has other links at the bottom.

Breathe: the lung association: here. A Canadian site. Good, short and clear.

American Lung Association: How wildfires affect our health.

Fire fighter health: US Forest Service. Effects of Smoke Exposure on Firefighter Health

The photograph is not a fire: it’s a sunset in Hawaii.

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Mundane Monday #173: skies

For Mundane Monday #173, my theme is skies: not blue skies. Skies that worry me. This is a fire sky, the sun setting through smoke that we can smell. There are no big fires near us, so I don’t know if this is California, Oregon, Washington, or Idaho smoke…

Add a message with your post or a pingback and I will list them next week. There might be a delay, because I have some travel soon.

For the Mundane Monday #172 prompt: windy:

KL Allendoerfer joins in: https://klallendoerfer.wordpress.com/2018/08/06/mundane-monday-windy/

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burnt

This is for photrablogger’s Mundane Monday #129.

We were two of the three first responders to a house fire across the street and two doors down two weekends ago. The house was an inferno when we got there. Both the resident and two cats got out. The fire was in the morning. We returned in the evening and walked around. It is terrifying to see what melts, what explodes, how fast the destruction can happen.

And sending love to the injured and lost in Las Vegas and still thinking of all of the hurricane victims.

I wish today were mundane.