sj, I've had knee and back problems since high school. I've had to wear a knee brace for the last 15 years. As of 2 months ago, I no longer need to. It took four solid months of work to get to that point, but I truly thought I'd be looking at surgery for a fix.

If I can do it, so can you.

(I really don't mean to sound preachy about this, but I am amazed at what a difference it's made in my life.)

I can. You will feel better. I promise. If you can, try foam rolling. It truly has saved me from an untold amount of soreness.

I need to get one of those.

The foam roller is GOD.

Oh, and Maria -- I don't think I ever thanked you or your friend on FB when I asked the question about yoga, about what "activating" a muscle means. Your answers made perfect sense, and I just want to know why the yoga DVD can't say it that way. I am way too literal sometimes. (Seriously, when the yoga DVD told me to "broaden my collarbones," I almost turned it off. BONES DON'T WORK THAT WAY. And then my SiL told me it meant squeeze your shoulder blades together, and my reaction was "Why can't they just SAY that? Is it not yogic enough?" Obfuscation helps no one.)

Shir, please be safe and your sister too. And all the the people in Gaza as well who are suffering horribly in large numbers even worse than usual in response to the bombing (which is not being particularly careful about 'collateral' damage).

Yeah, "surgical" hits my ass. Gaza is in total chaos. If there's one thing I'm thankful for is that IDF accidentally dismissed my sister from reserve duty. Everyone she knows from her unit was drafted within three hours.

I spent the past few hours, in part, watching the flood of people (friends, people I know online) running away from the targeted zones - basically, anyone/most who could have leave already left, but many were in shelters/improvised "safe zones" (that won't help in case of a direct hit) just couldn't leave because the sirens went on every few minutes. They couldn't even make it to the bus/train station. Some just took a chance and left despite of it.

Right now, I really find it hard to see how this war improves anyone's safety that is not in Tel Aviv (which, I admit, might be good, as I work there and it will be sweet if there aren't rockets that are able to get there). But for those in the South? They are, as they has been in the past years, sitting ducks. No military operation made their lives better.

Oh Steph I was going to ask you my shrink mentioned this medicine that's next on the list to try. It sounds like Sassa something and it's administred sublingually and it's like Abilify.

Do you know what it might be?

I should have had him write it down.

Is it Saphris, askye?

I worked on a study of that in bipolar teenagers

Also: this list of "28 drag kings you should know" is SERIOUSLY random. I mean...I think this guy just randomly googled "drag king" and put up whatever he found?

[link]

Of course, of the people on that list, I am friends with at least five of them, and vaguely know several more (plus there's some historical type people on there). But of those? Several don't even perform anymore! One hasn't performed in at least five or six years--she took out all her piercings, dyed her hair blonde, and was a newscaster in Duluth for a couple years!!

meara that looks like it thanks

No worries, Steph. I'm just glad it made sense to you.

Stay safe, Shir. I don't understand how violence is supposed to solve anything, I really don't.

sj, I hope you made it to the gym. It takes time to build new habits. You can feel like not going, and recognize that feeling, and go anyway. Easier said than done, of course, as are most things.

sj, I hope you made it to the gym. It takes time to build new habits. You can feel like not going, and recognize that feeling, and go anyway. Easier said than done, of course, as are most things.

I went. I feel awful tonight, but I went. I could use someone to maybe poke me to go at least three times a week, preferably four (not including Thanksgiving week when I will be out of town). The trainer was nice, but she alternated between being afraid she might break me and way overestimating my abilities. She walked me around the gym for an hour and showed me how to use all the machines I was interested in, and then said "so are you going to go work out now?" It took a lot of restraint not to say "fuck no, this was a work out for me." So, I did a quick circuit around the gym to make sure I remembered how to do everything before leaving.