old ladies unite!

Because it's a challenge to do any kind of cardio when all your joints and connective tissue are messed up, I started taking an "Aqua Zumba" class offered by the school district. The instructor reminded me of D'arcy from Resident Alien. Though I do not believe she was drunk at the time of the class, I wouldn't swear to it! She was very happy and very disorganized. She did not introduce herself or ask our names, but let us know she was single, and that we should introduce her to any eligible men we knew between the ages of 30 and 55. At the end of class she made a speech about how important it was for the world that we all be kind to each other. "If you see someone leaving your office with their hands full, make sure you hold the door!" It will be interesting to see if she's like this every week.

this is how I do it

 A decade late on this, but Gotye compiled a bunch of amateur covers of "Somebody That I Used to Know" into one, and it's cute.

SCIT

Because being allergic to dogs is unacceptable and because it could theoretically help some of my other problems, I started getting allergy shots (immunotherapy). The office has carefully arranged their schedule to make this as difficult as possible for anyone with a typical 9-5 job to do this. It's not open before work or after work, and is close 12-1:30 to prevent people from going on a lunch break. I can only pull it off because I have a ton of sick time saved.

So far the shots are kicking my butt: minimal local reactions which are most common, but I am EXHAUSTED afterwards. I'm hoping this doesn't last forever. ("Forever" is how long you have to get allergy shots for, though I'm hoping to be able to reduce frequency in six months.) I'm also hoping that since I'm there so much and don't even have to check in with a human, that eventually the massive anxiety I get every time I walk into a doctor's office abates eventually. 

I mean I don't like calling contractors either but...

Vacancies have increased in NYC public housing, leading to squatters moving into and/or vandalizing the vacant units. A commission recommends solving this by... inspecting the vacant units monthly. Erm, how about reducing vacant periods instead, which would not only solve that problem but would be PROVIDING LOW-INCOME HOUSING? Units sit vacant for more than a year, which is blamed on renovation needs, but mismanagement is the only reason for it to take that long. 

TV show reviews

* Dispatches From Elsewhere: This defies summary so I won't try. I was intrigued by the puzzle of the first couple episodes. Then I got annoyed for a few; it felt like they were doing wackiness for the sake of wackiness instead of putting together something that would come together, and it felt cheap and silly. But I was wrong about where they were going and it ended up being  a sweet story about loneliness and community and making amends. (There was even a romance that didn't make me gag, and that doesn't happen often!) 

BUT THEN! The final episode was so self-indulgent that it calls itself out for it. It also distanced us from the emotional impact of the previous few episodes. It might hit differently if you know and care who Jason Segel is, but I don't, and would strongly advise stopping before the last episode. 

* A Man on the Inside: A lonely widower takes a PI job spying on a nursing home. It's primarily a comedy but, like the above, has a lot to say about finding community when feeling alone, and is sweet without being saccharine. 

Do better, married people!

(Another thing of note: one of Gisèle's primary supports was a friend she had cut off 20 years earlier because the friend tried to tell her that her husband was skeezy. People do this all the time, fixating on their primary loyalty instead of hearing everyone out and recognizing there can be space in their lives for people who don't like their partners. And even after they buy into toxic monogamy in that way, this is far from the first time I've heard of discarded friends remaining loyal when the wife comes crawling back after recognizing their husband was indeed skeezy, and they need support.)

bygones!

This article about Gisèle Pelicot (the French woman whose husband drugged her and brought in other men to rape her) discusses how some people want to dive deeply into their past traumas to work through them, and others just want to downplay it and move on. (This has caused a big rift between her and her kids.) These differences can be cultural, generational, or individual, but I'm finding for me it's also changed with age. I don't have much interest in dwelling on what's too late to change now. I don't know if that's because of memory loss, other neurological changes, or having learned that it's more productive for me.