Sunday, June 10, 2012

Cancer Humbled Me Part 3


God fucks the world coming workable fixative all over it’s coal miner’s face.
Trailing negative space, he draws neon-pink tears with his stylus running all down it’s face.
These days, Jennifer Lopez is speaking on divorce, motherhood & looking fabulously fit.  Game-changing research has come to light on how to beat a migraine.  But what is the most fun way to work out?  I want age-proof skin, better curves.  2012 is the year of the best body ever, and because of that I really need to take a look at the fashion forecast for dreamy dresses, surprising colors, perfect T-Shirts, sporty bags & shoes.  Feeling the urge to do good is nothing new, but every age gets the guru it deserves, and this is the age in which we deserve a fitness guru.  Just two years ago, Rupa Mehta, a stealth dynamo trainer, entrepreneur, philanthropist, and author, was poised to become the next big thing in the fabulous fitness world.  But Mehta walked away from a national deal with Equinox after having an epiphany:  “I realized that exercise can help children deal with some of the stress in their lives.  That was huge for me when I realized that my forms of exercise could be huge for the children.”  Mehta may not have invented the no-impact, fast-paced barre classes that have become so popular among women seeking the long, lean look of a dancer, but she is a master at keeping them exciting by constantly adding new props.  “The muscles,” she says, “are like kids on Christmas and like to be surprised.”  More complicated still is Mehta’s work with middle school students, many of whom struggle with learning or behavioral disabilities.  Before she gets them moving, she tries to get them talking based on “Connect to Your One,” the book she wrote outlining her philosophy of life, exercise, and the way our emotions can weigh us down.  “Emotions are like fat,” Mehta sez, “they just weigh you down and are totally not attractive.  I mean, think of what a person looks like crying.  It’s disgusting.  Sometimes snot comes out their nose.  Their faces get all scrunched up and their chests spasm.  It’s like watching someone dying, and a dying person is surely the least attractive person of all.  I dread the day I die, I mean, who’s gonna admire me then?  Everything I’ve worked for will be moot at that point…shit let’s not talk about it.  Death, Africa, emotions…these are just things best left ignored.  They have no place in life.  What am I gonna do about it?  See, that’s why I’m the guru this age deserves.  I have the wisdom to know which things in life I can change and which I can’t, and by focusing on working out, I totally exercise what I can change…the number of people who’d like to fuck me.” “What are some words we hear in our lives that don’t make us feel good?” Mehta asked, standing at the head of the classroom on the day I observed.  The children slumped in their seats.  “Stupid,” one said.  “Dumb,” another quietly added.  “Retarded,” another chimed in with a voice as clear as a bell.  It was enough to break your heart, and I asked everyone, “What are some words we don’t hear in our lives that don’t make us feel good?” 

No one ever has nothing to lose anymore.  Millions of women know Botox cosmetic.  Botox cosmetic, onabotulinumtoxinA.  It’s not retouching, it’s just touching…It’s Botox cosmetic.  Eight out of ten women achieved clinically significant results at day 30 in clinical trials.  Results may vary.

I prefer my birth control hormone free and my coffee caffeine free, that’s how I roll, free as a freebird, like a rolling stone, and let me tell ya it feels great to be all alone on my own, in the goddamn big city.  Life is so beautiful!  I walk everywhere and see beautiful dresses and purses I one day will own.  Jobs are gonna come.  And if not a job, surely a handsome prince, tall dark and handsome, with a good wristwatch, a clean car, a hairless back, and a body which smells not like a body at all, but probably of soap, shampoo, and a slight hint of aftershave!  And his luxurious penthouse will be clean and orderly and I’ll spend all my time there until he asks me to move in, then I’ll work some sort of silly job, like an internship or something, just to keep myself kind of busy until we have children and I focus on them having the best.  That’s going to take a lot of my time ya know, I’ll have to be scouting the best little private schools, going to the meetings, making sure the teachers are as smart as me, which of course they won’t be ya know, cuz they’re just teachers, only dumb people wind up teaching, anybody with half a brain wouldn’t be satisfied making twice what they make in a year.  Plus, they have to work so hard, and let’s face it, they need to be working harder.  China’s like totally kicking our ass out there.  Their teachers are really drilling it, kicking it hardcore for the kids, and they’re just outstripping us.  I mean, I heard the U.S. was like way behind in math and science and shit, and that’s why there’s all these Chinese and Indians working for like major corporations cuz they’re like really advanced and shit and America pays real top dollar to get em to come here.  But ya know that just goes to show ya, how much money really means.  We got the dollars here so we can steal like totally the top minds of our generation.  Anyways, here I am in the big goddamn city, and I just know I’m going to meet my Carrie, my Samantha, my Mr. Big.  In fact, I think I’m Carrie.  I’m looking so fly today ya know, and let’s face it I’m totally a sexpert.  People are gonna pay me the big bucks to write about my awesome lovelife.  Whoowee, last night, I went out with this young fair-haired young buck who’s totally on his way right now in public relations.  He totally just helped Chris Brown get over his negative image for that whole Rihanna incident.  He tells me Chris Brown is like totally down to earth, that most days Chris Brown gets his intern to get him a quarter pounder with cheese for lunch.  He’s like totally like us, pigs out on hamburgers, takes vacations, sleeps at night…That was cool.  I hope he takes me to like a free Chris Brown show or whatever.  We like totally fucked in his little studio apartment, but he sez he’s on his way up.  I dunno though, probably not fast enough for me.  I’m keeping my options open ya know.  I don’t wanna waste my time, and I know I could totally do a lot better.  I mean, if I had the opportunity to meet like Donald Trump or whatever I know they’d take one look at me and fucking put me on lockdown.  You know men right, you just gotta give em some sex and that’s all they care about as long as you don’t give em too much, gotta keep em coming back for more, stoke the flames of desire, so you get more gifts, make em work for it, but know when to relent and let em have their way.  Fucking men, I mean, they’re all so dumb right? They like don’t even have emotions and shit, at least, men with power certainly don’t, and who wants a man without money and power?  Not me.  I’m gonna make it huge. Like for real huge. I’m fucking gifted.  Not only am I brilliant, but I’m fucking hot as shit, ya know, like everybody tells me that, pfffft, not that they need to ya know, I got fuckin mirrors, I can tell.  Plus, men are like so gross, like naturally gross.  They have to do like all this shaving and shit, and they get sweaty and stinky, so ya know, if ya can get used to it, I mean, you can just about sleep with any dude.  I mean, Trump, is totally disgusting, but hell yeh I’d fuck him.  Goddamn, life is just so fucking beautiful.  You gotta take advantage of it while ya can you know.  Just live it up like there’s no tomorrow.

Frustratingly hard to treat and excruciatingly painful, migraines have long been medicine’s unsolved mystery until now.  No one who has ever lived through a migraine ever forgets it, unless they get Alzheimer’s or have a stroke.  A ruthlessly incapacitating brain disorder, it has plagued women from Virginia Woolf (whose writing could halt for months due to ‘wearisome headache’) to Princess Diana to Serena Williams.  More than 10 percent of Americans are afflicted, which costs the economy an estimated $30 billion annually.  Don’t ask me how something “costs the economy”—I’m still unsure how the economy should be personified, with or without a wallet.  Yet research is dismally underfunded:  In the last half-century, triptans have been the only class of drugs developed specifically for migraine.

“You want my real feeling as to why?” asks Robert Cowan, M.D., director of the new Stanford Headache Clinic.  “It’s a bit of sexism because migraine is three times more common in women, and women’s chronic diseases have traditionally not gotten much attention. And for many years, it was seen as a  psychological issue—an excuse for not having sex or going to work. Also, nobody dies from it.”

The good news for migraineurs, as sufferers are called, is that headache centers at major medical centers are proliferating, and despite limited funds, several promising new treatments have been developed.
Doctors used to tell patients to delay medication until pain was moderate to intense—the point when many people are already en route to the emergency room (migraines being one of the leading causes for visits).  But there are a host of new drug-delivery systems under development that patients can deploy themselves at the first sign of pain.  Cambia, for instance, is a new formulation of the older anti-inflammatory diclofenac, but this one is a powder that dissolves in water so that it enters the bloodstream more rapidly, giving a migraineur crucial extra minutes of relief.

Or the common medication dihydro-ergotamine (DHE), which Cowan calls “the gold standard” in emergency rooms:  It’s traditionally given via I.V., but a new inhaling system called Levadex, which has completed trials and is awaiting FDA approval, is controlled by a gate.  This is critical, says Cowan (himself a migraineur), because without the gate…

The Transformers:

How much can you really change about your mind and body?  Three writers find out.

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