Synsepalum dulcificum

Yesterday at EJ1's birthday party, I tried some Synsepalum dulcificum, and it worked! Sour and bitter flavors were cancelled out, and I was able to eat and drink a variety of things that under normal circumstances my mouth would violently reject.

Guinness, lemon (with rind), horseradish, and similar foods, would normally make my entire face scrunch up, but since I'd sucked on half a miracle berry tablet for a few minutes beforehand, I was able to appreciate these foods the way I imagined people who appreciated such foods must experience them: Just as flavors, rather than as vicious assaults against all sense and reason. Actually, Guinness is still pretty good without the tablets.

Definitely a good party activity. Bring a couple packs of miracle berry pills with you, and if the conversation trails off, you can whip them out and be like, "anyone want to do some Synsepalum dulcificum with me?" If nothing else, it'll start the conversation up again.

Kicking

Most of the time, I don't do much caffeine. Chocolate and soda don't really have nearly the same hit as caffeinated tea and coffee, despite what anyone says, so for the most part, I'm a non-caffeine person.

Which is why it can be so much fun to just go and slosh down a cup or two of black coffee every once in awhile. Zing! All of a sudden I feel much taller than usual, and why am I walking this fast? And - the thing over there! And - and - and -

So it can be fun. I don't drink alcohol anymore, at least very rarely, and not enough to get a buzz from it; and I haven't smoked pot in years. I suppose I could hyperventilate and spin around; but for some nice, work-appropriate drug use, coffee is clearly the thing.

But that's not where I'm at now. Right now, I'm at the other end of that cycle. I did some Earl Grey about six months ago, then I did some special Black Tea Blend that I found at the office, and pretty soon every day I was juicing up in the morning when I got into work. I popped the old firecracker every day, and soon it was all day too.

Soon I found myself eyeing the espresso machine as I passed by on the way to the bathroom. I finally even made myself a cup or two of the hard stuff, using those little coffee packs that you slip into the machine, push a button, and whammo.

Now it's six months later. It had got so I wouldn't even feel it anymore, but I still had to have it. And I wasn't one of those guys who wakes up and can't open their eyes until they hit the main line. I'd wake up good and early, no alarm clock needed, and I'd be alert and ready to go. But an hour or so into my day, I'd reach for the Earl Grey. And after I was done, I'd feel just the same as I did before. It had no punch, it had no zing.

So typically at this end of the cycle, I cool it off. In fact I usually don't let it get me this bad. Usually I'll have my fun for a few days, or a week or two, and then kick. Six months is the longest I've let myself go. So, I figure, it's been a while now, I just got back from traveling, drinking gourmet aged Earl Grey that was a gift from a woman friend, and I'm thinking, I've gotten what I'm going to get from this one. Time to kick.

The problem is - and don't get me wrong, I'm doing it - but the problem is, I just realized I only have the hard stuff in my house, and about two boxes of chamomile. Now, chamomile takes you the other way. Tires you out. Gets you ready for bed. I don't want that. If I'm going to kick, I want something neutral, something I can drink that won't be pulling me this way or that. Just some water, with a little flavor. But there's none in the house right now. All the peppermint and blueberry went bad in the box a good while ago. So I have to work something out.

I actually took my last hit the day before yesterday. And I managed it OK, but the fog rolled in, and the headache came on, and I didn't know if this was going to be the one day ride or the one month ride. I mean six months is a long time. And the whole while I'm thinking, we have the best caffeinated teas and coffees here at the job, too. Just one hit, and I can get back to work, no problem.

But I held out, and then yesterday it wasn't so bad, and now today I'm expecting it won't be quite as bad as that either. Damned if I don't think I made it out this time too. But it's still touch and go. And if I fall down this time, I just don't know where I'll land. And maybe that thought is what keeps me strong. That if I hold out just a little bit longer, I'll be that much closer to getting back to the way things were. And then in another six month, or a year, I'll be straight, and some good Earl Grey will give me the zings again. Oh, I'm waiting for that.

Almost Yoga

Jessica just came by the apartment to give me my weekly yoga lesson. I feel a little weird calling it yoga, because the movements I make and positions I hold bear virtually no resemblance to any yoga I've encountered. This was my second lesson, and this time it didn't hurt as much! Yay!

I don't know much about yoga actually. The reason I'm getting these lessons is because I was recently in physical therapy for my knees, and it really helped. I can now run and play without always feeling like my knees are going to explode into tiny fragments. But at a certain point, you know, the insurance company gets angry if one stays in PT for too long, whether or not there's progress.

One option is to have a friendly doctor keep rediagnosing me with something new. Another option is to pay out-of-pocket. And yet a third option is to stop doing physical therapy, and just try to do the exercises on my own and make do as best as I can. I chose option 3.

But while I was in the midst of choosing option 3, the PT people had been considering adding some yoga to the therapy. So I got to talking with the yoga person, and when I decided to quit PT before the evil insurance monster came to eat everyone's children, I kept talking to the yoga person, whose name is Jessica, and we decided to do private lessons at my apartment.

It's a really great deal! $45/hour, and if more people decide to show up, it gets less and less expensive for everyone, down to $13/hour for a small group. This doesn't really help me though, because she comes to the apartment at 8:00 AM, and I don't really know anyone who'd be interested in showing up at my place at 8:00 AM for a yoga lesson. But that's OK because the single-person price is really not so bad.

But so, I sort of fell into the yoga thing, and haven't really read up on it. I have more experience with qigong and tai chi. I studied a very simple form of qigong (called zhong gong) when I lived in San Francisco, and I still do the exercises from time to time. And I studied Tai Chi last year for awhile, before my knees got so bad I had to stop.

I've also read a bit of Chinese medicine writing - not your standard popular writing that leaves out tons of details, but the big industrial strength textbook format that tries to be comprehensive. But yoga isn't really related to qigong, tai chi, or Chinese medicine, as far as I know. It emanates from a different philosophy that I haven't looked into yet.

But I've known a lot of people who do yoga. My parents have done it from time to time; and a lot of extremely fit people I know are big into yoga. I've tried it a couple of times in the past, but I always made the mistake of trying to do too much too soon, and injuring myself.

So now, with Jessica, we do our almost-yoga, nice'n'easy, and she's like, "that's right - twist a little more, let your shoulders flow down your back... does that feel good?" And I'm like "argh! ::grunt:: Mmf!! Um...I don't know!"

Yeah. Me and yoga. Or at least, almost-yoga.