hot lettuce

All summer long we have been receiving fresh vegetables from Melissa's sister, who works at a CSA farm. We don't have a subscription, but we get the extra stuff that didn't go nicely into people's paid boxes. As a result, there have been some unusual or at least unknown green things from time to time. The other night, we planned a roommate dinner since we never all seem to be home anymore at the same time. The menu: flank steak, risotto with tomatoes and goat cheese and sauteed bok choy. Or so we thought it was bok choy in the bag before we looked at it. At dinner time, we pulled out the ingredients and saw that we had some kind of lettuce. We deemed it "Chinese Lettuce" and proceeded to saute it with garlic and sesame oil, because I had my heart set on doing it. The hot lettuce wasn't nearly as gross as it looked. It wasn't bad. We all tried some and even went back for seconds. I think it would have been difficult to disappoint us since we were just pleased to be around each other.


I have been feeling somewhat akin to the Chinese lately, because of my new experiences with acupuncture. I'm tired of getting headaches. After 12 years of pain ranging from annoying to debilitating, I was ready to try something completely new. I once went to a doctor who gave me a prescription for pain pills to take every day to prevent headaches. I did that for a bit, but then felt bad for my liver and quit. Another doctor told me to do yoga, which may have worked except that I find yoga dull (except the laying still part at the end, which I love). Another said to get massages, which I also did, but probably not in the amount I needed to make any real progress. My friends and family have chipped in a lot with additional massage, but in the words of Mike, my shoulders and neck still feel like a stringed instrument instead of muscles.

I hit my deductible this year for my health insurance, so I decided to try something else. They cover acupuncture without needing a referral, so I signed myself up. I didn't really know anything about it, or really what qi was, but I figured lots of people find it to be helpful, so why not? What's a few needles? My first visit, I talked with Stephanie for an hour about my body history. She wanted to know everything. The giant knot I woke up with in my neck one morning in the 5th grade, how my digestion was working and if I liked my job. She decided that my liver was stagnant because of too much stress. When the liver is stagnant, toxins are stored in the back and neck, which is why people get "tension headaches". So far, so good.

In my 5 or so visits, I have found the needles to be a little painful at first, but then give way to all kinds of warm, humming feelings. I feel heavy, exhausted and sometimes see the color yellow. I feel like my back does seem looser, but I still get a few headaches, so I'm not cured yet.

One particularly weird side affect stands out though. This last week I asked to stay a few more minutes with the needles because I felt pretty relaxed and didn't want to go back to work. As soon as Stephanie left, I started to feel funny. My lower half suddenly started feeling unattached to the rest of me and was swinging, like in a hammock. It was a very real sensation, so I closed my eyes to breathe and regroup. As soon as I shut them, BLAMO, I was spinning! Spinning in multiple directions! My entire body felt like it was caught in a gyroscope. I started to panic and I had to lift my arms up to look at them and make sure I wasn't really moving.

I almost cried out for help, but talked myself down and just tried to make peace with the disorienting sensation until she came back. When she did, I told her that I had gone bananas and she quickly took the needles out and waited for it to stop, which it did. She said she couldn't say exactly why that happened, but that it was related to too many toxins being released at once, both in solid and energy (qi) forms... Toxins... Right. I felt pretty sick the rest of the night, but better the next day. Needless to say, I am sticking with it, taking my herbs and hoping that over the long term that this will help both my headaches and my entire self in general.