I repeat myself when under stress

I've got this song in my head this morning.

Why?

I see Doc Plotkin tomorrow. I’ll get the results of last week’s MRIs and talk about what the next potential step might be. Scared? Who me? Of course I fucking am! Did the proton radiation (on top of the big fat, most-difficult-surgery-my-back-cutter-had-ever-done, massively risky spine op) work? Are my brain tumors (meningiomas) stable-ish? Can I have a fucking year off from the OR? I suppose I’ll find out, more or less, tomorrow morning at 11AM. I believe I need a gummy with my morning eggs.

Meanwhile, yesterday, between walks and the elliptical, I did .86 of a mile. Sure, for you healthy folk that may sound like a ridiculously piddling amount BUT, as my hematologist mentioned in Friday’s appointment, back in January of this year—just eight months ago—I was almost completely bedridden. So YEA me and shit. 

Also too, exercise, for me, is the best stress reliever. The more I do the more I chill.

There’s one issue—as I’m building strength and regaining my walking chops, I’m all tensed up through my upper back, chest and shoulders. OUCH City. The more I do, the more I hurt. For that matter, even in theoretical repose, industrial strength tension courses through my back and chest muscles. What to do? Stretching, meditation and talk to Doc Plotkin—could the deep aches and occasional stabbiness be indicative of fresh tumor growth? That’d blow hideous Krayt Dragon wang, wouldn’t it? Yes, in point of fact, it would.

My bean surgeon, Doc Barker, advised me after the surgery where my brain lost its ability to talk to my left leg, that it might be a year or more before I could comfortably walk again (and probably always with a brace and/or walker). I’m now a year and eight months past that mobility stealing op—having had spine surgery and radiation in the interval. Last week I managed to twice walk, sans walker, brace or cane, an eighth of a mile. In Wednesday’s PT session, I’ll try for a quarter mile.
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 Over this past week I’ve been on a wild muting tear on Twitter. Why mute a bothersome ass versus performing the more muscular and definitive block function?

According to a post by John Scalzi, when you block a person, they’ll know you’ve done it. If you simply mute them, you just don’t see their posts anymore but they still see yours—they don’t know they’ve been disappeared. Blocking gives the offensive Twatter the satisfaction of imagining they’ve succeeded in pissing off (or reducing to tears) another liberal/feminist/BIPOC/antifa/all of that plus whatever. What’s actually gone down is that you’ve removed an annoyance—a fly has been swatted, essentially. In muting, the Twatter is left with the impression they’re being ignored—they’re not worth their prey's effort. This brings us back to Brandolini’s law, AKA the bullshit asymmetry principle.

I really need to stay off social media for a while, especially with my pre-Plotkin stress level. Instead of clicking on the bird app for ten, ultimately annoying, minutes, I'll doodle or read or bother the extraordinarily patient Cake and Ten.