Two separate friends in two weeks have suggested I start a Blog, so I guess that's a sign I should do it.
I've been very lax about writing the last few months. Mostly due to the lack of caffeine. On Dec. 21, I went to the movies with my brother and drank a large Cherry Coke with a chocolate bar. My blood pressure rose as it will do with large amounts of caffeine, sodium and sugar, (which Cherry Coke has in abundance) and I started getting dizzy. Real dizzy.
Walking on a marshmallow sidewalk dizzy. If you ever got hit in the head with a 2 by 4 (which I have) you know this feeling. Except I was having this feeling quite a bit in the last year. So rather than continue feeling this way I figured I better cut out the one thing my doctor was adamant about. Caffeine.
He said that the heart palpatations I was having off and on would not got better if I drank or ate caffeine (chocolate has plenty of caffeine). I asked what's the worst thing that could happen if I continued on my Pepsi ways? He said the palpatations wouldn't stop. That was not a good alternative.
As you know I love Pepsi, but I hate feeling nauseous, breathless and sweaty or being unable to speak and walk with confidence even more. If you ever want to know what it must be like to be a stroke victim or have Alzheimers for a short time, get into one of these dizzy spells. One thing is that your mind can't recall simple multi-syllable words that you've used thousands of times.
Two, it takes too much effort to tell a long story, so you wrap it up quickly to preserve your breath. I am very talkative, so this is a sure sign that I'm not feeling well.
Well, Dec. 21 I decided I am going to stop making myself feel this way. For all intents and purposes I stopped using caffeine that day. But the dizziness didn't stop. I started worrying after about 10 days that it wasn't the caffeine causing it at all, that it was something in me maybe. So I spoke to a Health Food/Vitamin lady. A tough older German who doesn't mince words. Doctors know about the body and medicine, but they really don't know about nutrition. I found out there are no nutrition courses in medical school.
Frau Vitamins told me that my body was trying to readjust itself after years of living off caffeine. My whole energy level was dictated by a foreign substance. Now it was trying to reacquaint itself with its own natural energy. So I was bound to feel bad/out of sorts for a while, maybe even a few months until everything was back in line. MONTHS!!!
It makes sense because since I was 18, my first year of college in 1984, I have been using Pepsi for a boost. Any time of day. For years I drank Pepsi with my breakfast. On Fridays, when I worked at the bank, I treated myself to Dr Pepper and bagels with thick cream cheese. Then after work (around 11AM, I worked the early walk-up window) I'd lay on my bed and watch my whole body pulse as my blood would try to metabolize that winning combination. At 22 I thought it was funny. I never find it funny now.
So 22 years of this abuse had to take more than 10 days to reverse itself. Then a friend of mine and a different friend of Barbara's separately told us about Apple Cider Vinegar. Both are champions in their physical endeavors and have fantastic bodies. These are people you listen to.
They both said a tablespoon of this vinegar into a glass of water in the morning will even out your blood sugar and help clean out the toxins/poisons in your body. This was on New Year's Eve and we soon went to Whole Foods (an organic supermarket chain) and bought the Vinegar. We both started drinking it every morning and while the results for Barb were minimal, for me they were astounding.
Suddenly the marshmallow sidewalks became hard again. The dizziness stopped. My energy level increased and within a couple of days I was back to my old self. No more drowsing off at 8PM on the couch. I even felt better than I had before the caffeine caused the palpatations. For years I would be drowsy around 11AM and get a Big Gulp Pepsi on my way to walking my route. Now I feel fine at 11AM. I would drive home from work and literally doze off in traffic. Now I'm alert from the moment I awake until a half hour before bedtime.
The caffeine was not only keeping me alert, but was causing my energy level to drop at different parts of the day. Having lived like this for years I never realized that it was UnNormal. Now even after a long Game Night, when I sleep only 3 hours before going to work, I don't have that crash. Sure I'm slower on my route, but I don't need that boost that I would before. I just work my way through it and manage to stay alert until I go to bed when I get home.
But one change for the worse has occurred with the lack of caffeine. I always heard about performers worrying that they would lose their creative edge if they stopped drinking or taking drugs. And I always dismissed it. Wouldn't Jimi Hendrix still be as great without the heroin? Now I realized, maybe not.
I found my writing started to become very ordinary. I would begin an email to you people and it would start boring me. Who wants to read this?, I'd say to myself and I'd delete it before finishing it. Now I realize that with the caffeine crash comes a period of depression and believe me I went through that. And with depression comes a lesser sense of self-worth, which could play into the "who wants to read this anyway" mentality. But then those feelings go away and you are your old self. And you can better judge the quality of your own work.
The best art I believe is the kind that entertains the artist themself. My favorite writing is the type that I smile about it after I send it off. The type that makes me stay up in bed and rethink the phrases that I was most proud of.
So I started to see that Pepsi or caffeine probably had a hand in tapping my creativity all these years. Perhaps caffeine released another chemical in my brain that opened my mind and let the words flow through. That chemical wasn't releasing these last few months, I know that. Maybe it's something like Robin Williams said. When asked how he can be so free on stage, he said that other people have a self-edit button in the brain that stops them from going to that next level.
The self-edit button that says "I won't do that because I will look foolish." Robin said that maybe his brain doesn't have that button.
Well maybe caffeine makes that button useless. Now I'm less animated when I'm telling a story in person and my writing is less colorful. That damn self-edit button is allowed to work now. I hope I can somehow struggle through that and make my mind work without the caffeine. Maybe this Blog will be a way to help me through it. I hope so. I won't lie. I'm a ham. I love to perform. For friends, for people who enjoy it. Writing is another kind of performing and it feeds my soul. I'd hate for the palpatatations and marshmallow sidewalks to steal that from me.
Well, I hope you've enjoyed this first taste of the New Millenium's "Crazy White Boy Blues". The caffiene bronco knocked me off the saddle. I hope I can get back on and tame this horse.
The Freditor
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