Having no computer or phone, since Friday, after a blown transformer killed my surge protector and, I thought, my computer, I am pretty excited to be back.  The previous entry will serve, maybe, to introduce myself.  I am supposed to start a blog that will work in tandem with these websites and I was trying to tie them all together.

I’ve been putting that off, starting the blog.  This is the only blog I’m interested in but I needed to have something personal over at Blogspot, to serve as a link to the web pages.  And I’m sorry I didn’t mention the sites weren’t up yet.  I thought I’d be writing this part the next day. Mostly I wanted to explain why I sounded like a know-it-all.  I’m wanting to convey an air of authority but keep it personal enough that people will read it. 

It will be weird to have people I know reading it.  My best friend is the only person I know, who reads this, and some of her family.  That’s the part I’m not looking forward to, the part where I have to censor myself.  Anyway, if you find me to be a bit on the formal side, you’ll know it’s something I’m working on for the other site.

Learning the Language

There have been a couple times in my life, where I have been deluged with information; when every waking minute I was absorbed with learning three things at once. 

The first time was when my youngest started first grade, and I went back to school to be a court reporter.  About that time I discovered Taoism and began the five-year study, completing one level and moving onto the next, until I had mastered them all.  It was during this time I took up bellydancing, an art form no one could believe I related to but then they didn’t understand what I was doing at all those Taoist classes, either.  And with the dance, especially, I was aware of an urgency, to glean as much as I could, as fast as I could. 

The second time I found myself overwhelmed when I had to figure out how I wanted to treat my cancer, find the docs, and learn about alternative medicine.  As usual I wanted to combine several philosophies, Eastern and Western, so that I could detox while I did chemo. 

If that wasn’t enough, because you have very little time once they get you in the system, I was going through a divorce and it was getting dicey.  My lawyer wanted to go to court and I didn’t.  I found the process of divorce, just the paperwork and the game-playing; the dance lawyers do EXTREMELY frightening because I didn’t understand the rules.  It was just like with the doctors; they’d tell you only what they had to, and the rest you had to figure out for yourself.  I didn’t have the information I needed, to make the kinds of decisions I should have made.  Instead I left it up to my lawyer. 

On top of that, I had to figure out how to buy a house.  My husband had always handled the money so I was clueless.  I didn’t know the first thing about a mortgage or the language.  I remember meeting with this nice young mortgage broker and then another guy who looked just like Pee Wee Herman.  My lawyer had chosen him to advise me on the portfolio that would be mine after the divorce.  I had a horrible cold and had just come from the hospital where they made me get fluids. He had a maroon and white, pin-striped shirt with a bow tie and skin just like Pee Wee’s.  I kept having to blow my nose but had no tissue.  He sat up very straight and clean and I sat there disheveled from rushing in the rain.

I’d drag myself to all those meetings each week, in between doctor’s appointments, and I’d just take notes.  When you do chemo it’s hard to talk because you can’t find the words you’re looking for.  I’d haul around this notebook and then go home and try to decipher all the new language.

Now I feel this same sense of rush, only it’s wonderful because I know I have the capacity for it, and I know the information is important.  My family always acted like I was wasting my time with all those crazy classes and, since I didn’t need to work, couldn’t understand why I’d want to.  I didn’t have the heart to tell them it’s what kept me sane.

I went to a class at the herb shop last night to learn about flower essences and their medicinal use.  The woman was a naturopath and acupuncturist but, in addition, she treats her patients with flowers.  The flowers are soaked, in the afternoon sun, in spring water.  Then it’s  strained and bottled, with a little brandy, and called “the mother.”  The “stock” is a smaller jar of spring water, with a little of the mother added.  And the “dosage” is a vial with five drops of stock into more spring water and brandy.  The brandy was starting to sound pretty good.

We all were given a textbook showing how each flower addressed certain emotional tendencies.  It was hard for me to contain myself when I discovered that while homeopathics and tinctures, from roots, address disease physiologically, flower essence is used to treat disease emotionally and spiritually.  And because Chinese medicine is founded on the principle that different emotions are held in different parts of the body and have everything to do with weakening the corresponding organ, when those emotions are negative, it only makes sense that flower essences would be included in treatment.  Oh, the research I must do!!!

And you all have seen my craziness with the stock market.  WHICH I LOVE, now that I know what more of the words mean.  Talk about notes.  Plus I’m still writing.  The book has given way to Internet writing.  This pile of notes on my desk and the notebooks upstairs, all will find their way into the two websites I am creating, with domain names like Breast Cancer Outreach, Sitting Tao, Organic in Oregon, Cooking with Cancer, and Herbs and Cancer. 

It all started with a drug that is awaiting approval by the FDA, for Breast Cancer, which I was writing up for the newsletter.  I also was researching it for investment purposes. That was the $1,000 I lost.  But what I gained was a comfort level in writing about things medical, things cellular. 

I’m sorry to get so longwinded but that’s what I’ve been up to lately.  There just isn’t enough time in the day for all the cool things to learn.  And it’s all about the language.  I’m not sure where all this is going but, unlike before, I know it’s going somewhere worthwhile.  I know I can do it, and I’m not afraid to succeed. 

© 2006 pd Brown

My left leg is throbbing.  A month ago, at one of those Wednesday night classes I attend at the herbal shop, I threw it out of whack doing qigong.  We did a rapid, repetitive kicking motion, thrusting the leg forward in order to release tension in the knee joint.  I released something all right.  The odd thing was I didn’t know it.  Maybe a week later it started to hurt, and I could think of no other way I might have done it.  

Then, the other day I lost my balance and had to right myself using the bad leg.  This pain shot up my leg and I just about fell down.  Whatever hinging action was supposed to happen, didn’t.  It was just like when your back is out of alignment, I could tell whatever was wrong with my knee was something that might right itself.  So at the herb shop I picked up all kinds of stuff to help with inflammation.  I just happen to have one of my six-month follow-ups with the surgeon next Mon, so I can get a referral and an X-ray then.

I was doing a lot better today until I put all my weight on that foot again, without thinking, and it was like a cable slipping out of its groove; that’s what it felt like.  Now I can barely walk and it hurts behind the knee, as well as down the back, left side of my calf.  Does this sound at all familiar?  I don’t know anything about knee injuries.

So, today was a rough day.  The market was down and I came dangerously close to having to sell something at a loss.  Two things, actually.  Bob’s the only one I know who likes stocks but he’s got a busy career, a wife, and lives in another state.  So today I went looking for a stock buddy I could call.

Bob suggested I start a stock club and in my hunt to find existing clubs in Portland I ended up on the phone with a woman who oversees  NAIC (National Assoc. of Investors Corp.) stock clubs in my area.  Things were going swimmingly until she mentioned something about the software they used.  I started asking questions and she fairly gasped, “Are you a daytrader?” 

“No,” I said, “But, after a week like we’ve had, I’m beginning to feel like one.  I sell at an 8% loss or with a 30% gain, then 60% and on up, selling a sixth at a time”

“Oh,” she said, and I could hear the scorn, “You’re a technical investor.”

I had no idea what that was but I could tell it wasn’t what she was. 

“There is a group here in Portland,” she said, “who deal only in growth stocks, where you’d be a better fit, except that you’re a woman and they only take men.”

I tried to get off the phone at this point, thinking of the ad I was going to have to write up for the Willamette Week, our local rag. 

Wanted:  Stock buddy.  Preferably a woman but a gay man would be nice.  Are you passionate about the stock market; love to talk about trading?  If you’ve made a profit in the last year, you’re not into hedge funds or options, and you are comfortable talking on the phone, at length, or reading my long Emails please contact me.

She wanted me to come to their “wine and cheese,” so I could scope out the different clubs.  She assured me there were people who came, but who weren’t in a club; had their own strategy.  Then she told me about the Model Club I could attend, to see what their strategy was all about.  It ought to be interesting.  I just hope I don’t have to show up with a cane.