Blue Zone!

Fighting the medical hydra: go in for one appointment, come out with 4 more! Yesterday, I had an appointment to check on my ringworm (going into month 5.) While it looks improved, I am now off to a dermatologist because it is long lived. While at the doc's we talked about my motion sickness, and we're sure my inner ear trouble from '07 is staging a comeback, so I'm off to ENT. And, because I haven't been eating much these last days, it's back to the tummy doc for me, because of the resultant troubles. After all 3 of these appointments with specialists, I'm back to Dr. Banks.

In addition, yesterday I had my annual eye check up, so new glasses soon and no weirdness there.

But these are all minor, annoying problems. I'm back at work with some anti-dizziness pills and some new tummy meds to bolster the old tummy meds. It's all good.

These antics have left me little time for writing the last two days. I have shipped O-Taga-San back out, but that's about the extent of my activities. I plan to write for a while this afternoon.

***

At work, the wellness program abounds. Cedar Rapids has recently become a Blue Zones City. Go ahead and poke around on the Internet about Blue Zones. The original book, written by Dan Buettner, identifies 9 characteristics shared by centarians and long lived people around the world. The 9 might surprise you. Of course, I struggle with weight and health, but every time I see something like this, I wonder if we're not doing it all wrong in this country. More on that another time.

The one that struck me the most, besides the nice one about drinking wine, is that a lot of these seem geared toward being happy and belonging. Bryon and I are going to try to have at least one social interaction with friends a weekend now. That means I'm gonna need to be an even better planner about my writing time.

And, I've got to go teach, but one of the things that struck me about the Power 9 is this: is writing a happy life? We spend a lot of time in negativity and alone. YET we value art and need it to survive. More reading I think is in order. Stay tuned for more meta.

Meanwhile, I leave you with these questions: Can the artist produce art in a community? In what ways is the artistic life happy and satisfying? In what ways can/should the artistic life be improved?

I look forward to your input.

Mirrored from Writer Tamago.