PAYING OM-AGE TO YOGA

As a beginning Yogi I feel
That Yoga will turn me into Yogurt.
But by the middle of practice
I’ve turned into a human pretzel,
Albeit a soggy one,
From sweat of strain.
I ask you, how can one
Get such a workout from simple flow?
I petition Ganesh, the remover of obstacles,
To dissolve my body blocks
So that I might bend better,
Twist tighter,
Streeeetch past stiffness,
And maintain my marshmallow muscles.
I end practice feeling like a rubber Gumby
Who’s just been mauled
By a classroom of Kindergartners.
But the beauty of Yoga
Is feeling the elephant endorphins
Wash over me.
Ahhh, sweet savasana,
It feels so good to stop.
The power of Yoga is like a live wire.
It makes my blood buzz for hours after
With low level wattage,
As I hum an Om to myself.
Yes, Yoga, you have turned me on.

 

35 WAYS I KNOW I AM A COMPUTER ADDICT

1.       I am a computerphile.
2.       I am a computeraholic.
3.       If I had a spouse, they would be a PC-widow.
4.       I don’t need to be baby-sat, I have a PC. It is the ultimate adult pacifier.
5.       Computers are my drug of choice.
6.       I am a habitual user of keyboards.
7.       I am so addicted to my computer, I have 6 different email addresses.
8.       I am a slave in cyberspace.
9.       I am considering going to Computer Anonymous (CA) meetings.
10.   I need to get computer sober.
11.   I need one day a week to be set aside as a computer moratorium. I am just too addicted to pick a day for it.
12.   I need computer asylum.
13.   Relapse to a computer addict is just one mouse click away.
14.   I work all day on a work computer managing other computers, then rush home to spend the evening on my personal computer.
15.   I am bicomputer. I like laptops as well as desktops.
16.   I like to telecommute so I can have a 3-way with my laptop computer and my desktop computer.
17.   I don’t need a lot of superfluous limbs, just fingers for typing, eyes for seeing, and my brain for computing.
18.   I use the mouse so often, my right pointer finger is thicker than my biceps.
19.   My fingers type by themselves while I sleep at night.
20.   After looking at my screen for hour after hour, I fear my eyesight will end at 3 feet.
21.   I stare at screens so much, my nerves to my eyes need bigger bandwidths.
22.   I am so addicted to the computer, I have forgotten what my own backyard looks like.
23.   I am so addicted to the computer, a prolonged power outage may make me suicidal.
24.   My life is a virtual life.
25.   My best friend in the whole world is a search engine.
26.   My entire social life consists of communication through emails, chat rooms, and instant messages.
27.   I’m taking a week’s vacation just to spend more time with my computer.
28.   I have traded in all my other recreational hobbies for internet surfing.
29.   I am considering couples therapy for me and my computer for those times when we don’t see eye-to-screen.
30.   I get 100% of my daily recommended brain stimulation from my PC.
31.   The computer is a full-service provider: Entertainment, Information, Companionship, and Limitless Shopping.
32.   My credit card is married to on-line shopping but my bank account wants them to get a divorce.
33.   I am only attracted to digital life forms.
34.   I prefer text talk to f2f. I prefer cyberspace to r/t.
35.     I have safe cyber.

 

THE ROTOR ROOTER JOB:
My First Flexible Sigmoidoscopy
by Drake 

The truth about turning the big 5-0 that they totally downplay until it’s your turn, is the big “scope” test. Everyone dreads it. But everyone must go through. Just do it and then be glad it’s behind you. Actually the fretting over it is far worse than the actual deed done to you. The bottom line: There is no way around it butt to go through it. 

I decided that being a gastroenterologist is a shitty job, but someone’s got to do it, right? However, don’t ever tell a colon doc to stick it where the sun don’t shine. Because they will! 

Your regular doctor may require you to get the flex sigmoidoscopy (a mere 12 inches) or the colonoscopy (the whole enchilada). The first test of either procedure is to learn how to pronounce them. My GP had me do an occult blood stool sample test. This consists of eating only roughage for 3 days until your poop is greener than the front lawn. Then you send in 3 samples to the lab. If you pass, you can do the flex sig instead of the colonoscopy. My lab lost the results from the first time I did this, so I had to repeat the test a second time. It didn’t really matter though, because it just let me procrastinate making my appointment with the gastroenterologist even longer. 

The day before the procedure, you start the cleansing process. They give you a special liquid diet that turns out to be the opposite of the one they give you for the occult blood stool sample test. This time you can’t eat any roughage. The last 12 hours you have to fast so it’s a good thing to schedule the test early in the day. The lucky morning arrives and you get to do the kinky self-induced portable bidet trick. It’s so much fun you get to do it 3 times! 

The moment finally arrives. As the doc is perched ready for entry, I wanted to yell out “Butt, wait!” However, I did exercise some self-restraint. Not quite enough to keep the barn door shut though. Now my back field was in motion! After an undetermined amount of time had passed (time ceases to move in these kind of situations), the doctor finally said “That’s as far as it’ll go.” O, darn it! I was so much looking forward to some more… The fact is he was so far in, I thought I detected a tickle at the back of my teeth. The flex sig was the longest 12 inches of my life! My imagination runs wild at the idea of what the full colonoscopy fills like-- probably packed tighter than all those twinkies after they have been cream-filled while running down Hostess’s conveyor belt. 

You do get to be entertained while being scoped though. You watch the procedure on TV while it’s happening. I always wanted to see myself on TV, but this wasn’t what I had in mind. I watched the TV screen descend into the cherry colon like watching a rerun of Fantastic Voyage. Welcome to the dark side of the moon! I was quite surprised to see how pink it is in there. Somehow I had always visualized another color… 

The worst part of the procedure is the air they blow in there so they can inflate the tissues. It’s a good thing they don’t use helium, because you’d just rise off the table and float away. Your belly ends up feeling like a big balloon anyway. As I was putting my pants back on, I thought that they should be handing out stickers or buttons that say “I survived my colonoscopy!” 

Through out the day I felt like I was suffering from mad bowel disease but by evening I was back to my normal self. (I recommend you schedule some solo activities for the first 12 hours after the procedure. You really don’t want to spend time around people.) Thankfully, I won’t have to go through that crap for another 5 years!