The very good news is that I do not have a brain tumor.  Also good: my brother and his wife did not need to bully me into going to the ER on Wednesday to get a CT scan after I had forgotten where I was in the grocery store on Tuesday.

Less good news (although admittedly disproportionate in its magnitude), I know about the lack of brain tumor because I spent most of Wednesday morning in the ER.  I was awake all of Tuesday night with abdominal pain more intense any I have experienced.  I was in so much pain it made me vomit.  Since the pain only intensified instead of eased, I got a ride to the ER at 6am.  The ER doctor ran a battery of tests (one of which was a CT scan of my head), and it seems that it was a reaction to a medication I took.

Frustratingly, the pain has not gone away entirely.  It has yet to return to the intensity of Tuesday night, but it waxes and wanes at random.  All food sounds terrible.  On the upside, I have been working on losing 25 pounds this year.  I’ve already lost ten, so maybe this will get us rolling on the remaining 15.  Not the healthy way to do it, but hey, if you are going to be sick and miserable there should at least be some perks.

I had kind of a scary day today.

One might argue that the time to get nervous was last week when I spent most of the day unable to stand up.  I, being of the “just rub some dirt on it, it’ll be fine” philosophy, take a while to get rattled.  I have accepted that this is not going away on it’s own, and as such went to the doctor three weeks in a row and have another appointment next week.  Four appointments in five weeks says quite a lot, as you typically have to drag me to the doctor kicking and screaming.  Taking something seriously and be afraid are two different things however.

I haven’t been afraid until today.

In an effort to keep some level of autonomy, I went into the grocery store by myself while my brother waited for me in the car.  And then, immediately upon entering, I forgot where I was and what I was doing there.  I did not forget which aisle I was on and what was the next item on my list; I suddenly didn’t know I was in the grocery store.

This happened a couple of times this past Friday, but it wasn’t scary for some reason.  I had taken medication that made me spacey earlier in the day, and my friend Karla was standing right next to me.  Today it was kind of terrifying though.  I think it was because I was alone.

If I have learned anything in my life, it is how to trust the Lord.  When things are scary we don’t need to be afraid, because Christ is with us always.  So, today, while I am afraid I remember and am comforted by the promise of Our Father:

“Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.” 

Isaiah 43: 1b-2

As you may recall, on Monday of this week I spent three hours lying on the floor of my guest bedroom.  Now what you must understand is that among my family, when I have odd things happen like that I tend to be the one least concerned about them.  For example, one day last March my face suddenly started twitching and pulling to the side. I knew I wasn’t having a stroke.  I felt fine otherwise, and my face went back to normal after a couple days.  My brother, however, was mad at me for a couple weeks that I only went to urgent care and not the emergency room. (He’s kind of the best that way.)

Another important thing to remember is that I live alone.  One of the great benefits to living alone is that you can walk around in varying degrees of undress all you like.  Taking full advantage of this, I spend most mornings while getting ready for work walking around in just my bra and panties.  This Monday morning part of getting ready for work was putting clean sheets on my guest bed to see if I could suffer through the migraine while getting things done.  It’s a test I run to see if I feel well enough to drag myself to work.

And then I passed out and couldn’t get up.

If ever there was a moment for a loving and concerned brother to jump in the car, drive over and whisk me off to the emergency room, that was it.  So while any sane person would be thinking “Oh man, this is a problem.  Should I call 911?  Should I call for help? Should I get one of those Life Alert necklaces so I can say ‘I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!’ if this happens again?”  All I could think was:

Dear God, please don’t let my brother walk in and find me in my underwear!

Have you ever thought to yourself: “You know what would be great: to have like a month off work to just rest and relax.”

Who am I kidding? Of course you have!  Everyone has. I’m sure you have even fantasized about what you would do.  You’d read.  You’d watch TV.  Go on nature walks.  Take naps. Try a new hobby.  Take a road trip where you taste the pie in every roadside diner you pass.  Well, friends, prepare to be jealous because I’m living the dream.  That’s right, I get to take about a month off work and use it to do whatever I want.

Small catch.  I get the month off because, after a nasty series of migraines and vertigo over the past 2 months, I kind of passed out while making the bed on Monday morning.  Then I had to lay on the floor for a couple hours because I was too dizzy to get up.  My loved ones have unanimously requested I not drive myself anywhere for a while.  They have also requested I not go for walks or take a dip in my lovely pool unaccompanied either.  As much as it cramps my style, I see their point.  Spending three hours lying on the floor of your guest bedroom is one thing, spending three hours lying on a Phoenix sidewalk in May is quite another.

So now, I get to live The Dream at home.  Where I live alone.

Don’t get me wrong.  I love living alone and am immensely grateful not to have to wake up every morning and decide whether I am well enough to drive the 40 minutes to work or if it will all end in a fiery blaze.  I am, however, faced with a challenge: What the heck do I do all day?

Can it be done?  Can a person be alone and housebound for a month without going crazy balls? There is only one way to find out.

I’ve been giving a lot of thought lately to the seven deadly sins.  Why exactly I have been thinking about them, I’m not sure.  I’m not Catholic.  I believe all sin is deadly.  I can’t even name them all.  There is no logical reason why I should think about them at all outside of conversations referring Gillian’s Island, Monty Python or that super creepy Brad Pitt movie from the nineties. 

Nevertheless, I have been thinking about them for weeks.  And the thought that always seems to crop up is this: why these seven?  What about these seven vices makes them categorically worse than any other?

From a theological standpoint the eternal consequences of eating your weight in deep fried Twinkies are far less dire than those of rejecting Jesus Christ.  And when you think about all the horrible things people do to each other every day –murdering, throwing things at old people, screaming at a customer service representative because you didn’t notice your domain name expired nine months ago and it was sold to someone else—you have to wonder why none of those actions have higher priority than, say, sloth.

While reviewing the list of the malevolent seven, I realized that none of them are actually actions at all.  Then it hit me, what makes these seven sins so destructive is less about their eternal significance, and more about their effect on our lives before death.

They aren’t single actions that are worse than any other, they are patterns of behavior that destroy your life.

Envy keeps us from seeing our own live.  Lust diminishes what is real and drives us to continually seek fresher, greener, more shapely pastures. Gluttony makes us fat and sick. Wrath makes us mean and steals our joy.  Pride makes us insufferable and drives away the people we care about.  Greed is a slave driver whipping at our backs, telling us work, money, and possessions are more important than our families.  And, that misunderstood monster Sloth, one of the most destructive of all, gets us to do literally nothing while life passes us by.

Yes, they can lead a person to do heinous things.  But, more importantly, when we give ourselves over to them, they rob us of the fullness of life. 

Welcome back readers!  It’s been awhile so I was going to give you a witty list of highlights from the past seven months.  But the list was going pretty dark pretty fast and for no positive purpose, so allow me to briefly summarize.

New second job… Internet at home… talk to the police about restraining orders… mystery illness… move to Phoenix.

Thus we arrive at the present without thoroughly depressing everyone.

In essence “Thirty’s Not So Scary After All” was about the process of becoming the person I want to grow up to be, or as my mother likes to put it: “the ever-present quest to become an entirely different person.”  In that spirit I have been taking a good hard look at my life, pinpointing what I am unhappy with, determining what I want my life to look like, and taking steps to make up the difference.

I don’t want to grow up to be a person is uncomfortable, overweight and battles Type 2 Diabetes.  I want to be healthy and strong well into my eighties. So in August, I joined a gym and started swimming 6 days a week.  Then in September, after I hadn’t lost a single pound (let’s not kid ourselves, weight loss is an intended secondary benefit), I started doing research on healthy eating and have changed my diet almost completely.

I don’t want to have to work three jobs to maintain subsistence and hold my breath that no surprise expenses will pop-up.  I want to work in a job that will give me a sense of pride and pay me a wage commensurate to the educated professional that I am.

I want to see my family more than three days twice a year.

And I want to write.

So in October, I packed up my worldly possessions, buckled my traumatized poodle into the moving van, and blasted Huey Lewis all the way the Phoenix.

I’m starting the process of starting again.  It’s scary and exciting… and sometimes it feels like a mistake. But sometimes to become the person you want to be you have to be intrepid.

So this morning I woke up and my neck and shoulders and back were the kind of tense that only a hot bath or a highly skilled masseuse could fix.  My sleep has been disturbed the last few nights, so I assumed I had slept awkwardly.  But I couldn’t figure out why my gluteal muscles were so sore.  And then I got on the bike again.  Mystery solved.

As much as I hate to admit it, riding was less terrible today.  Especially after I discovered the embankment at the end of the alley that I was high enough for me to put my foot on and from my perch on the seat, making the stop/dismount combination irrelevant.

I rode for twenty minutes up and down the alley behind my house.  And only had to say “Ah, ah, ah!” when I ran into a bush.  Twice.

Next time I’m going to try a bike path.

Since my key problem with bicycles is stopping and starting my plan was to ride short distances so I could regain my confidence with the mount and dismount.  But there was a fundamental flaw with this plan.  The bike I am borrowing is once again too tall for me to reach the ground; so dismounting is a cross between a leap and a flop.  I hit the ground and lean with the falling of the bike giving a small yelp.

I amended the plan therefore so simply allow myself to get comfortable on the bike.  There is an empty parking lot next to my apartment. So I rode around in circles for what felt like thirty minutes, but was probably only about ten.

It went pretty well considering how awful it was.  I even ventured a trip down the alley and back.

But then, I didn’t loop efficiently enough and rode off the pavement into the adjacent gravel lot.  Not pleasant.  I actually called out “Ah, ah, ah!”  It was reminiscent of the time I went snow boarding in the eleventh grade and cried “I’m gonna die!  I’m gonna die!” as I dashed under the chairlifts because I couldn’t figure out how to stop.  Thankfully, this time there was no one around to yell: “Then stop!”

Why do people think this is fun?

Spring has arrived and that means only one thing:  Time to conquer bicycles.  Yes, that’s right, bicycles.

Before we begin I feel it is imperative that you know one very important thing.  I do know how to ride one.

My problem with bicycles is this.  I am short, my legs especially.  So I have yet to find a bike that I can sit on the seat and touch the ground.  Which means that I have to mount and start riding at the same moment.  The same goes for this stopping.  It’s terrifying.

Every moment I’m riding, all I can think about is the inevitable moment when I will have to stop.  And with every foot I travel the distance I will have to ride back increases.  Every moment, playing on an endless loop in the back of my mind are visions of my impending death.

Ridiculous and foolish I realize, but let’s face it, being neurotic isn’t pretty.

But Spring is here, and hope is the color of new grass after five months of snow.  So I am going to take bicycles and make them my… well, you know.

I spent the majority of my twenties starting over.  Again and again.  First it was college, during which I moved on average every six months.  (I calculated it.)  Then I started my gypsy phase, when I bounced from Southern California to London to Southern California to South Africa to Seattle back to Southern California and then to London again.  For six years I didn’t own anything that didn’t fit into a large suitcase.  The sum total of my worldly possessions could be squeezed into two large suitcases, four small, and a backpack.

As an adult I have never been in one situation for longer than six months.

But now I’m going for the record.  February second marked the one year anniversary of my arrival in St Paul, Minnesota: a place I confess I don’t like nearly as much I liked South Africa or London or Southern California.  To be perfectly honest, there were large portions of last year that I didn’t like it here at all.

So when, on January 30^th, after 6 weeks of visiting family and friends and raising some money to fund my work here, I had to fly back to Minnesota, the gypsy in me wanted to continue my wanderings.  But we have to grow up sometime.  A person can’t build a life out of a suitcase.  So here I am.  Back in Minnesota.  Home.

Realizing how long it has been since I have written, I had been contemplating calling this month Tiffany Gets Back on the Horse.  But conquering my wanderlust is the most accurate assessment of the last 30 days.

Here I am and here I will stay.  Me and my tiny apartment and my small, furry dog.  Giving up the perpetual quest for greener grass.

For the moment at least.