"It's Probably Just Gas"

This is the year of GETTING HEALTHY.

Of course, that probably means something different to me than to other people I know. Instead of training for super-marathons and pretending to like kale, I'm still working on eating a vegetable once a week and going outside sometimes. I am easily impressed by people who take multivitamins and worry about their fiber intake.

Maybe someday that'll be me. Until then, this is the year that I:

• Find a doctor. Aside from the time I got a Tylenol lodged in my throat in college, I haven't gone to a doctor since my pediatrician. That made it a little awkward when I had to get a TB test before I started teaching. The parents in the waiting room kept glancing over as if expecting me to pull a sick child out of my pocket, but the nurse gave me a cartoon lion sticker that said RADICAL! on my way out, so I guess it was worth the stares.
• Go to the dentist for the first time in years. Although I did recently start flossing AND using mouthwash. CAN YOU EVEN BELIEVE IT?! Four days in a row so far. Flossing and mortgage payments are the marks of a real grown up. I'm halfway there.
       My teeth actually started this whole health craze. A week ago I looked in the mirror and yelped because I thought my bottom teeth were about to fall out. (Receding gums are in my genes. I guess everyone has some flaw.) So I ate an apple, flossed, and made a half-hearted search for a dentist.
       I'm not afraid of going or anything - I just really liked my old dentist in California. I liked the lady who cleaned my teeth and the Korean Bibles in the waiting room and the little chair-side TV screens with the animated fish tanks on them. Now my best option is Smilebuilderz, but I don't trust any medical "professionals" who would replace the S with a Z like that. I'm afraid they'll pressure me to get a grill.
• Eat salads that are at least 50% lettuce. The other 50% cannot be just cheese.
• Exercise enough that switching wet laundry to the dryer doesn't leave me winded.
• Work on being less paranoid about every little ache or twinge. But dismissing all symptoms isn't great, either. A nice, moderate amount of caution is probably best. For example...

Right now it's 3 in the morning. I've a pain in my lower right abdomen that's been getting steadily worse for several days, possibly from all my poking and prodding. The Boy is still out of town. I'm all alone and wearing a shark onesie. It's raining.

According to the interwebs, I could be suffering from:

• A peptic ulcer
• Appendicitis, naturally
• Crohn's disease. I'm not entirely sure what that is, and I didn't want to find out the specifics.
• Ovarian cysts
• Ectopic pregnancy (possibly an alien baby)
• Cramps
• Stomach bleeding. I took a lot of ibuprofen over the holidays and I'm very concerned about stomach bleeding.
• Gas?

Please let me know if you have any other suggestions, and I will google them for two hours until I'm pretty sure about my symptoms either way. Right now I'm resigned to appendicitis, but I want to hold off on going to the hospital. Every time my stomach hurt when I was a kid, my mom said, "It's probably just gas," with all the casual confidence of a woman who's raised six children. My plan is to repeat that phrase like a mantra until the pain either goes away or overwhelms me, and if anybody looks at me weird I'll just shout, "IT'S BETTER THAN THE ALTERNATIVE" and let them make what they will of that.

The Boy had his appendix out last March. We took a 3am trip to the ER, and I cheered him up by singing every song from that one episode of Madeline until I passed out from all the excitement. After the surgery he was given some pretty nice painkillers and spent a week propped up on a pillow throne while I fanned him with palm fronds and washed his feet with my hair. Every sneeze and trip to the bathroom was agony, but at least he got a couple days off work. Better than an ectopic pregnancy.

Mostly I don't want to go to the emergency room alone. How much are you supposed to tell the person at the front desk about your symptoms? Would it be more or less uncomfortable to write a note explaining the situation and then stand there while they read it? Assuming I'm not hobbling and weak from the pain, how confident should I make myself sound? I could charge in and shout, "NURSE! PLEASE FETCH SOMEONE TO REMOVE THIS APPENDIX AT ONCE!" or go with a more casual approach, along the lines of "Welp, I may need a mop if my stomach explodes." I had the same problem a few months ago when I thought I had a lung infection and drove to Urgent Care. The nurse at the desk looked expectantly at me until I said, "Yeah, I...need some care? It's urgent."

Please advise.

...I looked up Crohn's disease. I couldn't help myself.

I wish other humans were awake so they could talk me down. Until then, I'll assume that nothing's really wrong with me after all. It's probably just gas.

How to Keep Your Resolutions

I am very strict about resolutions, New Year's or otherwise. Once made, I do not rest until my resolution is achieved, which actually made "Stay awake for a week straight" pretty easy.

In every area of life, it's wise to keep your standards low and your expectations in check. This is especially important for your goals. For example, I would never choose a resolution that required me to do something every day for a year, like "Have at least one pleasant conversation with another human being every day." Completely unrealistic. I might as well challenge myself to lasso the moon each night. Which would be impossible, because some nights there is no moon.

Instead, choose a resolution that requires sporadic effort and has subjective results. This year I resolved to develop a thicker skin. Literally and figuratively. I've burned all my shoes and warm clothes so that the elements can toughen up my skin, but that only takes care of half of it. If I want to write, I'll have to deal with regular rejection, humiliation, taunting, and threats, and I can't let it get to me. By this time next year I want to be so thick-skinned that I don't even notice when people judge me.

Since yesterday was my birthday and The Boy was out of town on business, it was the perfect opportunity to work on my resolution. So I decided to throw myself a birthday party and only invite new friends and acquaintances. I bought a ton of food, made myself a cake, and stood outside the Taco Bell for two hours to hand invitations and extra napkins to everyone who went through the drive-thru. I also invited the maintenance guy for my apartment building, the crossing guard by the elementary school, and stuck invitations under my neighbors' doors. Then I joined an online forum for reptile enthusiasts. I did not invite anyone from there. I'm just interested in any advice they can give me about growing scales.

That evening I laid out the Twister mat, put ABBA's Greatest Hits on repeat, and waited. A few people stopped by, but they didn't stay long. A couple left threatening notes or unflattering drawings of me labeled "loser" or "weirdo." All really good, hurtful stuff, useful for developing the thick hide I need to destroy any criticism that gets in the way of my success. Although one person took it a little far and left a flaming bag of poop on my doorstep. I stomped on it to put the fire out, but burned my feet pretty bad since I got rid of all my shoes. Smelled awful. I suspect it was the crossing guard.

Overall, my birthday was a great success. I could not have been more pleased with the results. Four people total wished me happy birthday - half as many as last year, super good for my resolution - and my grandma pretended to forget not only my birthday but also my name. She hung up soon after I called. I ate an entire cake by myself. Cried for thirty minutes. The maintenance guy stopped by today, ostensibly to make sure the pipes to the washing machine weren't frozen. He didn't mention the party, but I saw him eyeing the pound of mini corn dogs and leftover sodas sadly. I didn't ask him where he was last night. Like any good friend, he was helping me achieve my goals.

So I'd say things are going very well. At this rate, I'll have the hide of a dragon and no feelings left to hurt by Halloween.

Here are some ways you can become less sensitive and grow a thicker skin:

1. Walk into a high school classroom in your underwear. It's picture day and yesterday you cut your own bangs. Also there's a test you didn't study for.
2. Post your diary on the internet. Nobody makes fun of it. Because they didn't read it.
3. Put on a ton of weight. Go to your college reunion.
4. Tell your family about your job.
5. Enter a contest. Any kind.
6. Open mic night.