Pink Spots

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I’m wearing compression stocking again. A few days ago the space between the top of the foot and the front of the shin were aching. I looked down and each led had a little pink spot.

I’d rather be seeing spots before my eyes.

Years ago a pink spot on my foot changed my life. I’d been smoking nonstop from arising to bedtime, guzzling rum and Colt 45 and eating like a family of five.

Back then my old style BBS, Psychotronic BBS, was my obsession, as they say, my hobby. I spent hours fiddling with the hardware of what grew to be the four PC network in my bedroom. And fine-tuning the software, bent at my keyboards. I’d hunch down pressing on my legs.

Witling that I was the blood flow in my legs began to stagnate. I dimly noticed that my calves were so thick it was getting hard to take off my jeans. The little pink spot appeared and it hurt. The wife of one of my BBS’ users was a nurse. Hearing about it she came by. She told me I better get myself to Duke’s outpatient clinic. The intern who saw me gave me a dirty look and asked how I could’ve done this to myself. And without letting me pass Go put me in the hospital. (NB: I’ve never resented the intern’s attitude, doctors, my own included are generally too tolerant of what their patients stupidly do to themselves.)

My newly acquired doctor (not the intern, she’s become my regular physician) told me that I had incipient diabetes. And that I was generally in danger of in diverse ways of going to Jail (might as well keep the Monopoly image going): Health Hell.

A rare moment of grace it proved to be. I quit smoking, drinking, eating too much, eating junk. Thanks to the televised guidance of Kiana Tom¹ and Corey Everson² I started working out and rode my bike everywhere (I don’t know how to operate a car).

Renovating myself, my biological age probably dropped by ten or fifteen years. Rumor has it that I even became a nicer person.

Meeting Charles and establishing a life with him broke all my old habits. At first I kept trying to ride the bike but he always wanted to take me in his car. I lost my workout schedule. Charles eats junk, e.g. the Great Satan of food McDonalds. Having had a McDonalds burger about age fifteen³ I established what I expected to be a lifetime moratorium. So it was almost no exercise, less food, no food and other bad habits.

Months ago there was the dark time when I thought we’d split-up. So I ate too much, drank too much.
I’ve been shamed by the fat I’ve put on myself. How less health I am. Shamed isn’t the right word. I’m angry with myself. Not that I’m yelling at myself. More a clinical bafflement that I’d let myself fall short of my own, easily achievable standards.⁴

With luck the pink spots will give me the shove I need to live again in consonance with clarity.

We’ll see.

Footnotes are excessive but fun.
1: Just a hottie but that is what got her on TV.
2: Unlike guys I have nothing against muscular women.
3: I liked crap as much as the average American teenager but the Big Mac was clearly inedible even by debased standards. When I recently learned that what makes a Big Mac so big is a third bun between the patties I could only smile at Ray Kroc’s wicked cunning.
4: If you are overweight and think that isn’t a fair word or don’t mind or feel damaged by social norms this doesn’t have anything to do with you. These are my own clear, reasoned expectations for myself.