Rainbow’s Point

cecily’s post about schooling made me consider my own experience. i’ve written about it here some before.

i did kindergarten at a public school; i don’t remember much about it except that the teacher had big tits, and i had trouble figuring out what half a glass was. and that it was a big privlege to go get the chocolate milk from the cafeteria.

this was a time when i could walk, unsupervised, from school to my sitter’s house.

first and half of second grade was a private school. then my mother announced she was getting married, packed her shit and moved to chicago. my dad took the opportunity to get a job in texas, and packed his shit and moved there. i went with my dad.

once here, i wound up in a tiny private school, the local jewish offering. in its first year, the school offered grades k, 1, and 2, and i was the late-comer. i stayed in this school all the way through 8. most years they added one grade to keep up with the kids needs.

a couple of weeks ago, the board of directors finally voted to close the school. at its peak there were a hundred kids or so; now it’s down to less than 30. it’s sad, but there’s never been the community support this school needs to make it a going concern long-term.

i got a reasonably good education, both secular and religious. i can read, write, calculate, and think because of that school. the education was excellent, but the social aspect lacked considerably. the classes and grades were so small that if you were a screwball (like me), there weren’t enough other screwballs to make friends with. consequently, i was tolorated.

that takes us through 8th grade. i’ll write more later.

cecily has been sharing a little about her battle with weight and all the things she’s tried. like i wrote in a comment there, my own weight is something that’s been concerning me.

a bmi calculator i found puts me right at 30, the dividing line between “overweight” and “obese.” my wife’s bmi is higher; we weigh about the same, but she’s considerably shorter.

i feel trapped by circumstance and my body.

any exercise that’s hard on feet won’t work for me. i have plantars heel spurs — bone spurs my heels. the spurs cause tendon inflammation, and the inflammation cause so much pain that people notice a limp. especially in the morning and when i’ve been off my feet a while, walking can be extremely painful.

there are four basic treatments:

• shoe inserts
• non-steroidal anti-inflammatories
• cortisone injections into my heels
• surgery to remove the spurs

i’ve reached surgery. the shoe inserts help but not enough, and i have trouble finding shoes that fit with the inserts in, even if i rip out the insoles. the cortisone injections only last a week or so and are extremely painful, and i wind up with bruises on my heels that last a couple days besides. the nsaid drugs stop working; i’ve done feldine, naperson, celebrex, and bextra.

but i can’t afford the copays and the recovery time.

so much for walking for exercise. other exercise also tends to be heavy on the feet, even stuff like exercise bikes. swimming is good, but i don’t have an indoor pool handy. to be consistent i need to be able to do it all-weather, and all-season. otherwise i won’t bother. my housing development has a pool, but it’s only open memorial day through labor day, and it’s usually overrun with snot-nosed little brats who have no consideration for adults who might want to use the facility.

i have my kids.

anything i do needs to be something where i can arrange childcare, or be able to schedule during times when my wife is home (like 3am).

and my diet sucks. high carb, high fat. i’m a carnivore, and rice is cheeeeeep and easy to cook. i enjoy eating veggies but am not very good at preparing them. we don’t buy much fresh food, so the stuff i do get tends to be frozen or canned (thus high sodium). plus many of the things i might like to learn to cook — like, say, fish — sue won’t touch.

meanwhile, i watch my beer gut grow and my weight slowly rise. in high school i topped out at 180. somewhere along the lines i’ve gone up considerably. not 100 pounds, but more than 50. i didn’t have a beer gut when i quit drinking 11 years ago. (kinda like getting arrested, that didn’t start until sobriety.)

i hate the way i look. i hate the way i feel. yet, as always, i feel powerless and trapped and unable to do anything constructive about it.

the pope is dead.

i have mixed feelings about it, and about him.

i’m not catholic, for one thing, so he’s never been the head of a religious order i paid a great deal of attention to. on the other hand, he was a tremendously charismatic leader who managed to attract a considerable personal following.

also, he’s the only pope that i, and anyone younger than i, remember. he was pope for 26 years; i just turned 31 years old, so i was 4 when he was elected in 1978.

anybody can read elsewhere about the criticisms leveled against him for his conservative stances over women, birth control, sexuality, the whole bit. and i agree with them.

on the other hand, he does command a certain respect from me. at the very least, even when he was (by my estimation) wrong, at least we knew exactly what he believed, why he believed it, and that he wouldn’t “flip-flop.” he was always consistent, on-message, and within his frame of reference, lucid.