Whole30 day9: grrrr

I really, really, really want a cigarette.

I'm frustrated, angry, and bored at my job and I want a break from this place and what we do here.  I want an occupation that matches my vocation (& I want some confidence as to what exactly that may be).  I want out of a sales environment.  I want in to something that engages my whole mind and my heart.  In the absence of smoking I want lollipops, M&Ms, gum...  Instead I'm grazing on pea pods.

What I'm noticing:

Yup, squelch those unruly thoughts and emotions with food.  Because there's no time or space right now to solve practical problems or dream new ways of living.  Nose to the grindstone, my time is not my own, let's see some productivity for these hours at the office.

What I'm doing:

I made a fresh cup of tea and headed out to my stoop by the butt can.  I gave myself a few moments to think my own thoughts and calm down.  One of the smoking clique members joined me and we chatted and laughed a little.  Somewhat restored, I came back in to my desk.

What's true:

Is that there are healthy and worse ways to experience emotions and thoughts, even big ones.  And I do get to choose what to do once I feel a particular feeling.  It's ok to feel it.  For me, it's good to feel it, even when it's uncomfortable.  And even in a place that feels unsupportive at times I can find my niche and nooks of security to pause for a few minutes and recognize the feelings.  Maybe jot them down to be wrangled with later.  But I can do this without hurting myself with food that does me only harm not health.  Because I want to live healthy both in regards to my feelings and to my food.

3 things

zee nectar of zee gods ~ coffee

not awesome with coconut milk but dump a bunch of it in and the coffee is slightly more guzzle-able

happy light

my psychiatrist (whom I love) doesn't anticipate that I'll get depressed this dark season.  I'm not as confident about that as she is.  already I perceive these dim mornings mocking me.  a co-worker reminded me that I do have this Happy Light at my side.  I could just switch it on.  So I did.

Marlboro gold

lingering in the back end of the bottom drawer of my desk.  In case I "need" them.  I haven't smoked since Friday.  But today they are singing my name.  what could be better than sitting on the stoop, a mug of hot coffee, and the first cigarette of the day.  not smoking could be better.  I'm not smoking.

on the cusp

I am a number of things that a (nice, good, attractive...) woman is not supposed to be.

I am: fat, greying, short haired, divorcing, single mom, spiritual seeker, mentally ill.

Tomorrow, I turn 39.  I am aging. 

I am surprised at my own surprise when I tell you it's all ok. Some part of me still believes the old rules about what a woman should and shouldn't be or do.  But nothing bad is happening as a result or in connection with any of those qualities I currently inhabit. They are things that I've chosen and I live well in these choices. Entering my fortieth year, I am making some more choices about what to continue and what to change.  I'm happy to pause a minute and notice where I am today.  Happy and ok.

self portrait Saturday: upright

It's enough just to stay upright,

upright in every way,

And pour your love into your children,

til there's nothing left to say.

- Ani Difranco

  

I want to live upright.  These recent weeks of listing and limping along has set me eager for an upright life.  To me that means something about self care and the discipline to hold to that course.  I'm feeling better in the last 48 hours and I'm optimistic that I'm back on track.  My head and my heart have cleared some.  I'm eating nutritiously, have set down the cigarettes, am playing with my son, and pausing for a moment's gratitude and good will.

Of course today, a good day when the doom and gloom has just passed on, upright means more than how I care for me.  It encompasses the big values of environmental stewardship, social justice, advocacy for my son and others on the spectrum, global socio-economic awareness, etc... But let's not call back the clouds of doom and gloom.  Let's start with this good day.  Little N and I composted and recycled.  We ate mostly vegetarian.  We wore second hand clothes.  Yet, we weren't perfect or pure or holy.  I drove the station wagon across town adding to a variety of forms of pollution.  We played in a wading pool that could be considered a waste of water.  And right now our freshly laundered clothes are spinning around in our dryer, rather than being hung out to dry on a line somewhere.

Because that's just how my life is these days.  I yield to some of the conveniences of contemporary life and culture the same way that I yield to passing storms of hard feelings.  I expect that I won't be "upright in every way."  I think, I hope, that's where we lean on grace.  The grace of good friends who email me with encouraging words and acceptance of where I'm at.  The grace of city-wide collection systems that make doing the right thing (compost, recycling) convenient.  The grace of divine (?) forgiveness, of self (?) forgiveness, for all the time when "inconvenient" or "culturally inappropriate" renders doing the right thing "impossible" and left undone.  The grace of clarity and retrospect to try again or simply to call on grace and apologize to whoever is paying attention for where I'm still not quite upright.

self portrait Saturday: uniform

My husband is a stay-at-home dad and a good one.  But it's impossible for us to pay all the bills on what I make as an admin at a (perpetual) start-up.  So L has picked up a part-time job at night and I have picked up a number of evenings plus the weekends solo parenting so that L can sleep while I take Little N.  It's rough.  It's very rough.  But once school starts again things will ease up, in terms of L being able to sleep during the day, so we really just need to get through two months of this.  We can do that.  

We're gradually developing our new routine of occupying Little N and providing L with a good sleeping environment.  (Also kind of rough with a small apartment.)  So Little N and I go out. A lot.  Every Saturday morning, and more times besides, we're off to the beach!  

This is me in my summer morning beach uniform of cap, turquoise T, black lightweight capris, and flip flops.  The only thing missing is my ubiquitous cup of coffee.  I'm comfy and ready for anything the sand, surf, and son send at me.

 But single-ish mom isn't the role I would have chosen for myself.  Heck, we all know by now that "Mom" wasn't my plan.  For that matter, "Admin" wasn't my plan either but it's turned out to be the most direct way that I can make money for this little family.  Much as I love our family pod, I need, and want, and get to have (really?  I hope so...) other identities and other good work in the world.

I have a new daydream of what my good work in the world may be.  It's been a long time since I've had a dream like this for myself, so I take it to mean a few things.  One, I'm getting well.  I can imagine something positive and imagine being, bringing, contributing something positive.  That's been a long time coming.  Two, I have to be brave and learn things that are new to me.  And isn't that what the Mom gig has been for me from the beginning.  I know that I can be brave.  I can learn new things.  I can fail & learn & try again.  Three, Compassion.  For others.  For myself.

But what's the new daydream?!  I don't want to jinx it.  Please wait and see as it develops and shows up here.  Wish me luck and all good things!

self portrait Saturday

I feel good today.  

self portrait Saturday

Last week I outed myself with a mental illness in a post about ten of my self care practices for major depression.  I posted the blog on Facebook and held my breath.  What would people think?  or say?  And you know what - folks were kind, supportive, and appreciative of my sharing.

There's still such a stigma attached to mental illness.  I don't really know what to do about that other than continue to share my experiences with honesty and trust that the folks that need to hear it, that want the understanding, will find my words.

But mostly I write for myself.  I need to fight the stigma in my own mind.  I need to acknowledge where I'm at in this depression wrangling - the successes and the not-so-much.  The writing helps me to see myself more clearly and to better appreciate what I see.

self portrait Saturday: adderall

I've started a new medication.  And I'm optimistic about it. 

Adderall is a stimulant typically prescribed to kids with ADD and ADHD.  But it's also considered for treating depression.  It's the latest addition to my cocktail.  I take it in the morning to add a little pep to my step and help me to focus my thoughts.  Yesterday was my first day taking it and I definitely felt something - a sharper focus in my day, and the ability to accomplish stuff at the office.  After days (weeks?) of coasting under the radar with an utter lack of productivity, this little achievement felt rewarding.  Plus, I only drank 2.5 cups of coffee as opposed to my usual 6.  Hopefully today brings something similar.

self care for major depression

May is Mental Health Awareness Month.  I have a mental illness - treatment resistant major depression.  In light of this month's awareness campaign, and inspired by Caitlin Marcoux's 10 Practical Steps for the First 10 Days of Cancer, I've been thinking about 10 of the self care tools I use to live with depression.

1) Go to the doctor, take my meds, treat my side effects:
There's no good reason to suffer from depression.  You can feel good.  You are allowed to feel good and to function fully in your life.

It's taken me a long time to be able to say that.  Mostly I just struggled on my own.  I dipped into therapy every 5 years or so and tried some medication once or twice.  But now that I'm a mom I feel even more sensitive about taking care of myself, including my moods and feelings.  I want to be whole, present, and engaged with my son, in a way that I didn't commit to my own life prior to him, not even with a partner.  Looking back I can only imagine how my relationships and career path could have been different, better, more true, had I enlisted a doctor to help me manage my depression.

Now I take 3 medications.  It's not perfect.  Depression breaks through. Side effects annoy me and require remedies.  It's an ongoing conversation with my psychiatrist.  But most days I feel better and it's certainly better to have someone facing it with me.

2) Tell the people close to me:
This one is particularly challenging for me.  There's no casual way to broach the subject in conversation.  Plus, there's still a stigma about mental illness that makes me not want to bring it up.  I do talk to my husband about it.  It helps him to know what to expect or how to understand my behavior or expression.  In return, sometimes he is the one to notice a pattern and nudge me back to the doctor's office for some help.

3) Move my body:
My new lunch break favorite activity is walking the mile from my office to bridge, running up the stairs, and then jogging back to the office.  It gets me out of the muck of the j-o-b.  Gets my endorphins up a little.  Wakes up my mind and my metabolism.  All good things for someone wrangling depression.

4) Establish healthy routines:
This one is best initiated on a good day.  I've set up some habits that make my life easier and require less conscious effort on a bad day. Some of them are packing my food for work the night before, listening to an affirmation meditation during the bus ride to the office, and exercising on my lunch break.  At their best, these habits also ensure that I'm continuing to live the way I want to live, despite what I might feel like doing (or not doing).  For example, on a bad day I might feel like eating junk food and not feel like eating nutritious food, but bringing some healthy food to the office makes it easy to eat the good stuff anyway.

5) Eat nutritious food:
It might be obvious - nutritious food is good for your body.  But on a bad day I really don't feel like eating healthfully, or doing anything that's good for me.  Committing to nutritious food is a commitment to my life and my health, regardless of how I feel.  And with the right choices, I might feel better.  There is some connection between diet and mood.

6) Practice yoga:
This is more than moving my body.  Yoga makes me feel like all the parts of my body are coordinated and working together.  But it also works on my mind, synching everything up, opening me for greater clarity and calm.  It's a bright little harbor in the midst of this storm.

7) Participate in therapy:
It's not easy to find a good match with a therapist.  I've had two, including my current therapist, that really "got" me and were able to both affirm me and challenge me in meaningful ways.  Good therapy helps me to untangle from my "stinkin thinkin," uncover patterns in my family and other relationships, and engage a sounding board to hear how I talk about myself, my feelings, and my life.

8) Collect evidence:
I use my day planner to keep track of what I do and how I feel.  I jot down things like what I eat and drink and my emotions (or lack of them) over the course of a day.  Then I can notice patterns, like a string of bad days or particular behavior that continues to appear and make a decision about what to do about it.  It also helps me to see when and what I've done well and what works to make me feel and do right for myself.

9) Inhabit time with good people:
Depression and isolation go hand-in-hand.  It's like being seen and communicating with other people just takes more energy and interest than I possess.  That said, the right people can be a balm.  And the exercise of getting out, hearing other people's lives, and sharing what I can of my own keeps me connected, affirming my value and visibility.

10) Indulge in creature comforts: 
comfy clothes and clogs, chocolate, '80s synth-pop on Pandora, plants, multi-colored pens, a favorite mug (usually half-full of coffee), walking on the beach, and hanging out with my guys.

I'm not successful in practicing all of these every day.  Some days all I get to is my creature comforts.  But having the list in front of me every day, in my day planner, puts good ideas in my head.  It encourages me to try these things regardless of how I feel.  Some days moving my body or sitting with some friends makes me feel better, other days I just get to tick off the list that I lived the way I wanted to despite depression.

the end of a long day

These are long dog-tired days for me.  I have yet to shed the low feelings of last week.  But this ~

~ this makes me feel a little better at the end of the day.  Little N chose this park for his after-we-pick-up-mommy play time last night.  Instead of resuming my yoga practice, I came along, grateful for the sunshine, salty air, and good company of my guys.  And so, there is hope.

******

That hope seems out of reach today, back in the office, where there are expectations of performance that I don't feel like I can meet.  Reasonable expectations that still appear beyond my ability for today.  I limp along under heavy feelings and a foggy mind.  Every sound distracts and upsets me, reasonable office conversations, the pitter-patter of fingers on keyboard, the shuffle of feet on the carpeted floor.  I want to walk out of the office and be alone.  I want to sit still, cover my ears, cry.

I daydream about what would heal me.  A proper vacation, probably alone but maybe with my guys for part of it.  Slow motion days of sunshine, surf, and lots of fruit.  A hammock.  A cool dark room.  A day (a week?!) of being taken care of more than taking care of others and stuff.

But I sit up straight and pretend to be working.  This workday will end in a couple of hours and then I'll go to the psychiatrist's office and talk it all out.  Maybe my meds need to be adjusted.  Maybe I just need to talk.  Maybe I'll feel well someday.

Well enough to do good work more days than not.  To hold off on the binges that don't comfort me the way I imagine that they will.  To sit still at my desk and accomplish tasks amidst the sounds and distractions of reasonable office mates.  To live a happy, healthy lifestyle.

*****

I keep going back to Caitlin Marcoux.  Her photos inspire me to live more healthfully and to plan and maintain healthy routines to manage my depression, similar to the way that she is navigating her cancer.  It's probably unfair to say that depression is my "cancer" (metaphorically), but today unfair is also true.  Depression is taking my life away from me, taking me away from my family and friends.  I need to beat it.  I need to live well despite it.  I need to hear a lesson in it and then grow and thrive anyway.

Caitlin posted two quotes in the last week that are bees in my bonnet.  Humming. Stinging.  Distracting me.

"What I need for healing is already present in my system."~Leslie Kaminoff

"No one can listen to your body for you. 

To grow and heal you have to take responsibility for listening to yourself."~Jon Kabat-Zinn

Could these possibly be true for depression too?  Is there some healing available in my system (my body? my family? my spirit? my friendships?)?  If I listen to my body will it lead me in healing this?  is that what Dr. L means when she tells me to "go inside?"  I'm so tired.  My listening to myself is muddy with doubt, despair, fatigue.  Surely there's yet a still small voice of insight waiting for me to hear it and be healed.  

fast day 2 of 2 (or breaking the fast)

This is my first meal since Friday night.  

Oh man today has been challenging!  I got to the point where I could not think clearly, my head ached and my thinking was just fuzzy.  I was nauseous.  There was a terrible taste in my mouth. I was so cold.  My body ached.  I got into bed and stayed under the covers for hours while L took Little N out to a park.  It occurred to me that the fast was directly interfering with my ability to participate with my family.

My girlfriend Miss A called and asked me what I was up to today.  When I explained that I was following a 2-day fast that Miss G's naturopath had given her, Miss A was sort of startled.  She explained that my body is very different from Miss G's.  That the naturopath had designed the fast and the elimination diet and supplements (which I don't have) for Miss G.  I've got different issues (including my antidepressants), different parts of my body that need to be addressed by a potentially different kind of fast.  When L got home from the park he reinforced what Miss A had told me.  "Yeah, that was a real bad fast.  But you sure showed that you could do it!"

So here's what I've learned:

• I can resist food.  Even when I'm really hungry.  
• I can feel the discomfort of hunger, for at least a day, and continue in what the day requires.
• My elimination diet, the next phase of the fast, will focus on my go-to foods of chocolate and bread.  I will fill up on nutritious produce and lean proteins.  
• If I do a fast like this again it will be under the guidance of a trained practitioner who is familiar with my body and lifestyle.  

All in all, a useful exercise, that I was anxious about starting and not sure that I'd be able to do.  I'm still thinking about my relationship with food and learning other ways to deal with my feelings.  I've learned that I can take away food.  But what will I put in it's place?  Writing worked well this weekend.  I'm pretty pleased with all the blogging I got in!

gratitude Sunday: Caitlin Marcoux

This week I'm especially grateful for discovering Caitlin Marcoux.  She's the friend of a friend on FB, which is how I found her, and she's pretty freaking amazing.

She's a yogini based on Nantucket and you can find more about her life, practice, and teaching here: http://www.caitlinmarcoux.net/.

What impressed and inspired me is her commitment to life, which is something I struggle with as I wrangle with depression.  This is probably my favorite post on her personal blog: 10 Practical Tips for the First 10 Days of Cancer.   She calls cancer is her teacher. Then she gets nitty gritty about what real life supports can facilitate this new relationship. She's honest about the shock, anxiety, pain but maintains the ability to also step back and make choices about how she wants to relate to this new development in her life and even make choices about how to engage others.

Depression is by no means on par with cancer when it comes to shock, symptoms, treatment, threat to life and lots more things I can't name or claim or understand because I've never been close to cancer.  I get that.  I also selfishly, passively, wish for a "10 Practical Tips for Living with Depression" to guide me and support me.  So I'm claiming Caitlin, through her blog, as one of my teachers for living, including living with major depression.  Not because I think our diagnoses are similar.  But because she has something, in her essential Caitlin-ness that I don't have today. And her diagnosis has given her a new, additional medium for expressing what is essentially her - a commitment to life - and I waffle on that commitment.  I yield to depression.  I've let it shape my life, my reactions, rather than choosing a consistent commitment to my own life and the life I share with other folks.

What are my 10 Practical Tips for Living with Depression?  What I have learned from this relationship?  What choices am I making, will I make, now that I am more awake to my own will and agency?  My own desire to live well for myself and with others.

Another of her blog posts that I love is A Great Day to Have Cancer.  In it she talks about the great support she has from folks who love her as well as the alternative treatment support and daily life supports that she is choosing to supplement her medical treatment path.  It offered me suggestions and reassurance about living well.  In one little paragraph she lists things like what she's drinking, spiritual practice, a gratitude practice, and yoga as daily ways to support herself.  I really resonated with the gratitude practice, since it's something that I already try to embody, and took instruction from the rest of her daily plan.

Caitlin Marcoux is a beautiful woman with a beautiful life and a shocking new relationship with cancer that she is navigating with grace, honesty, and openness to others, even those like me who have never met her.  I wish her healing and peace as she continues her treatment and her vibrant life.  I am so grateful to have found her, for my own selfish, needy reasons, and for the gift that she is all on her own, and all with the folks that love her.    She is a bright light in our world.

via FB: 21 Tips to Keep Your Sh!t Together When You’re Depressed.

A Facebook friend of a friend posted this today and it's so right on that I'm linking it here for future reference and general goodwill:

The DIY Couturier: 21 Tips to Keep Your Shit Together When You're Depressed

welcome mat

This is me two years ago, when yoga and a healthy diet were a normal part of my life.

Today I'm a good 25 lbs plumper than this photo.  I can still reach my toes but... yeah, things are different.  I'm posting this photo as a welcoming back to my yoga practice and a motivation to get vigilant about my diet.  Because I miss the combination of calm and energy that my yoga practice renders.  And I would love to live in that lean, limber body again.

Commonplacing: consciousness & culture

I'm rereading Starhawk's Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess for the first time in about 15 years.  The pagan group I do holiday rituals with has added a book club to its activities and I'm excited to have more time with these good folks and to dig into some good books together.

Starting with the Introduction of this book I'm struck by how many of the same words and phrases are standing out to me now as when I first read, and underlined, the book.   The ideas that held my attention then also speak to my life today.  Maybe it's something about phases of transition in my life.  Or maybe it's a testimony to my years long search for meaning.

"The concept of a religion that worshipped a Goddess was amazing and empowering."  p.2

"Now my body, in all its femaleness, its breasts, vulva, womb, and menstrual flow, was sacred." p.2

"Maybe, in fact, deep transformation of society could only come from an underlying transformation of culture." p.6

"To create the changes in consciousness needed to transform society at a deep level, we need insights broader than those the issues of the moment can provide." p.7

Although, thinking about it a little further now, it's almost ironic that the same material has got my attention because I'm approaching it from such a different place.  Fifteen years ago I was struggling with the evangelical tradition.  I was specifically addressing the roles and possibilities for women in that culture.  Today I've found a Christian church led by a woman and where women and men share visible and diverse roles.  I'm less concerned now about changing culture and more concerned about changing my own mind, my heart, my life.

I can hear my psychiatrist telling me to "go inside" and I suspect that she would tell me that meaning won't be found in a book or a book club.  But maybe this book, with its affirmation of the sacredness of life and the immanence of the divine, with its rituals and exercises, may offer a way inside.  And maybe this book club, with its good company of smart, caring, spiritual women, may form a container of kind support as I make the journey inward.

The book isn't just a 'How To Worship the Great Goddess" guidebook.  It's also an invitation to create religion, to change consciousness, and to change culture.  These are big things.  And in small ways I'm already part of them.  Our little group of pagan friends creates ritual together 8 times a year.  Together, through ritual and socializing we create a little pocket of culture where things are a little different from the mainstream.  From that secure space we walk back into our daily lives, and hopefully bring some aspects of it with us.  Nothing too radical.  But still something very real and special in our lives.  And I suppose that's where change, for a person or a group or a society, begins.

self-portrait Saturday

It's been a while since I've been on here with any kind of regularity.  The truth is that I've been wrangling with depression.  For a couple of years.  And really struggled to find any words about anything, especially myself.  Between the daily grind (job, family, laundry, bills) and getting well (meds, new meds, new meds again, therapy) there hasn't been much of me left over.

I'm improving - I have more energy, my head has cleared from the fog, and my body has shed that achey, leaden feeling.  I give myself credit for mushing through the daily grind and getting well.  And now I'm trying to build on that credit to render some words.  Some perspective.  Replace the sad, tired beliefs in my head with something - brighter, honest, hinting of possibility.

I have a few friends who live these commitments to big things.  Justice. Grace. Art. Health. Ecology. The last time I could say something similar about myself was graduate school.  Since then it's been all about Little N.  Coupled with this mind numbing, heart stopping, passion evaporating depression.  I don't know what I'm about anymore.  Sanity. Family.  and...?  Looking for Something More.

I chose a word for this year.  It seemed a useful tool for focusing my efforts as I come out of this haze.  I chose Connection.  And in some gradation between vagueness and optimism, I applied it to multiple aspects of my life: Connection to my feelings, people, ideas, spirit, and my body.  So every week I choose activities that relate back to Connection - send a letter to a friend, resume yoga, participate in ritual, go to church group, read.  And my hope is that through this practice of Connection that commitment to some big thing will reveal itself.  Or maybe Connection, itself, will appear as my big thing.

balancing

I had this experience last week where I felt like I could see through the walls of the office to something more true, more real, than this daily life.  I was afraid that I was cracking up, having a psychotic break or something.  But when I told my psychiatrist about it, she said it was more like a psychic expanded consciousness kind of thing.  Ok.  Still unnerving.  But kind of convincing me that this life is an illusion and spirit is more true.  

My psychiatrist went on to tell me that meaning and joy come from within.  Going inside through meditation and such.  Don't be afraid to do it, she says.  I'm afraid.  Like I'm going to meet someone scary and mean inside myself.  Like all my fears will come to life.  She thinks those fears come from things I was taught about human nature and sin etc.  She thinks I have a spark inside me that I can hold in my heart and it will light my insides.  

Do you think she's right?  That the light and meaning are inside of each of us.  And the fitness plans and resumes etc are may be pragmatic but not quite where the action is?  They are the illusion.  Spirit inside is what's real?  And yet, what does it solve, to believe that way?  How does one live that? 

For a long time I really believed that spirit is where it's at.  But then I had Little N and now I feel like I am totally ill equipped to support him in the "real world" with a good paying job, not to mention my own satisfaction in a fulfilling job.  And I worry so much about money it's crazy-making.  There's just never enough.  We're dipping into savings.  Ack!  That kind of thing makes this daily pragmatic life feel very much more real, more significant than spirit and healing and even job satisfaction.  

It makes me think a couple of things 

1) I should have figured out a nice linear path to a career when I was younger.  

2) This spirit/world thing is a shifting balance that maybe only rarely feels steady and balanced.  

And that's as much as I've figured out today.

my life in texts

Lance:  having a great day with N
me:  awesome!
saw the pics
:)
reminder - I'm at therapy this evening
will get myself home
Lance:  yes
me:  ok
Lance:  Learned about: volcanoes, tornadoes and subtraction today
me:  cool
Lance:  we'll try to do a bath later
before u come home
me:  that would be great
he smells like a puppy
Lance:  yes
Sent at 3:10 PM on Tuesday

a year of doing my yoga

Yoga is one of the few things that always makes me feel better.  So I've committed to a year of doing at least 10 minutes of yoga every day.  In honor of my birthday (tomorrow!) I started on September 1 and today I'm 5 successful days into my practice.

mental health day

Still struggling with depression.  The last few days have brought me very low so today I took a sick day and headed out to the beach.  Bright warm sun.  Gentle roll and crash of the surf.  Sand. Seashells.  Sunburn.  And I'm feeling a little better.