Day 280

Pain level-9

Last night I had a hard time going to bed.  Truth be told, I really enjoy staying up late, watching bad TV or surfing on my laptop.  I'm definitely one of those people who is very wordy.  I enjoy writing, I enjoy reading, and I particularly enjoy writing things for other people to read.

I don't know what time it was initially when I was woken up but I'm guessing before nine.  To say I felt like I had been hit by a MAC truck would be a bit of an understatement.  Every muscle in my body hurt, my stomach hurt, my head hurt, and my bone spur hurt.  Yes.  My bone spur.

I was exhausted and gave in to it.  I let myself sleep, and once I finally woke up, I lay in bed for a long time, feeling exhausted and depressed and like a waste of space.  I was supposed to go grocery shopping but there was no way.

Days like today are not only physically painful, but they're psychologically hard.  The older I get, the more painfully aware I am that my time on this earth is limited.  I don't want to waste it and I get angry when I do.  As I lay in bed today, I was thinking about what i would be doing if I didn't have fibromyalgia.  I don't know if I would be doing something massively awesome, but I would be doing something.  Something a bit more exciting than watching that hideous "America's Next Top Model".

I'm going to veer off course here for a minute because, well, because I can.  It's my blog.  I am guilty of watching America's Next Top Model.  I know to most people that would be no big deal.  But it's a big deal to me, because I think it distorts girls' ideas of beauty and stresses the power of good looks.  Or unique looks.  My daughter has watched it with me before and asked to be a model.  Being a preschool teacher, I've had parents who have worked hard to get their children into modeling.  I've never modeled before, not once, so I may not know anything of what I'm talking about.  Tyra Banks goes on and on about how hard it is to be a model.  One of my favorite actors, Vincent D'Onofrio, has gone on and on about how hard it is to be an actor.  I have one word for you:  bullshit.  When I think of difficult jobs, "model" and "actor" don't exactly make the list.  Would I want a five o'clock call? Nope.  Would I want to be posing in freezing water nearly naked for a pretty picture?  No, wouldn't want that either.  But I don't think either of those things makes for a difficult job.  It's a difficult PART of a job, but every job has difficult parts.  So wahhh.  Again, I've gone off point, and in the same paragraph this time!  Anyway, that show is freakishly interesting to me.  I do feel sorry for those girls.  They're young and naive, and usually have no idea what they're getting themselves into.  They try their best but their best isn't good enough.  All but one will be sent out the door, given a hug and some sort of cheesy advice from Tyra, and then the winner will be crowned.  The most interesting part of that show is that you never hear from these people again.  I have no idea if they really work in the modeling world.  Are they walking the runways in Paris?  Shaking the booty in Milan?  Who knows?  And honestly, I don't care.

The one thing about that show that I do think  is interesting is the way they make up the models and the way they shoot them.  I think I have a secret fantasy to be made up like a mermaid and hung upside down in a net, or maybe bejeweled like a geisha girl in my kimono.  I think that probably appeals to a lot of girls...being made up to look like someone completely different.

Almost every woman in America has, at some time, had a Glamour Shots photo shoot for "that someone special".  I've never done it.  Now they look really pretentious and self-indulgent to me.  The only photo shoot I've ever had by myself were my wedding gown photos.  And I wasn't overly thrilled with those either.

I'm hoping to have my children and dog photographed together this year at a local park.  I've picked my photographer; it's just a matter of hooking up and doing them.  I don't need anything fancy, despite how fun it may seem.  I just want to capture them how they are.  How I am.  For now, Tyra can keep her advice.  We'll take your typical boring old photos.

Once my bone spur is gone.