Not Careful

(10/2006)

I was at the halfway point, out at something they call Candy Cane. It's over the Maryland line, uphill through Beach Drive. I ran it in the chill 40 degrees Fahrenheit, then felt the weakness you feel after you migraine.

I wasn't careful a few nights ago, with my medicine, and ended up with a migraine. It's just that easy. In the old days I had an excuse: I didn't know all the dangers around me that could flip the trigger. Now I know all too well about the dangers. Cheese, wine, chocolate, nuts, various delicious things that require aging--also in the mix are a variety of environmental factors. No sleepless nights; no over-exertion; no skipping meals; no flashing lights.

No flashing lights? How the hell is a person supposed to live in this world, in this strange country full of electrical things, without flashing lights?

I ask you again, how? What if I had a stroke, right here and now. My wife would find my body in a couple hours and I would awaken to various beeping sounds, the smell of a disinfectant, and the many, many electic lights of a hospital, including some metal box that monitors my heart and flashes a number every few seconds. If I was conscious at the time of my removal from the house, I'd have to witness the speedy metal conveyance they call an ambulance, flashing its lights for everyone within a mile to notice. Or if anyone nearby gets hurt during a normal day (this is a city; it happens every day) I'll have to see the same thing. How can I be more careful?

Not skipping meals may be the next hardest part. Who eats meals on time? I don't mean that as a hypothetical question. Who makes it to every meal? You have to be a hard-on about that, especially at work. At first I wasn't--you get into these meetings where some dick isn't paying attention to time (I mean, the only person in the room who's ignoring the time is the guy running the meeting) and you can't pay attention to anything he's saying and when he says is that a good idea you just mumble something, hoping to heaven he doesn't have another point to make. But he does have another point to make, of course, and by the time you get to where your food is your scalp is already tingling or your face feels like it's turning into cold clay, and, vavoom! There goes the next three hours.

Needless to say that doesn't keep me from having lunch anymore. I don't work for Amway, or the Krishna consciousness movement, where they really do use deprivation of meals to persuade people to do what they're told. I'm just talking about a regular workplace.

(written 10/2006)