Hello 2008, Nice to Meet You
Monday, December 31st, 2007
It’s New Year’s Eve day. I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas or whatever you celebrate, if anything! Mine was nice and quiet, my brother stayed over and we ate lots and watched The Number 23 and episodes of The Office and Flight of the Conchords. I have to watch The Number 23 again because it’s really weird and I know I missed stuff.
So, a new year is upon us… I don’t want to reflect much over the past year. Overall, I had a really great year… all the great friends, making new friends, the music, the traveling for and with the music and musicians… yeah, it was good! My health, however, is another story altogether, and one I don’t want to get into.
So we start fresh in 2008.
I guess you could say I’ve made some resolutions. Goals, things I’m going to do differently, what-have-you. I took a look at my 101 in 1001 list, and made a couple changes to things I know I won’t be doing (with regards to the no wheat/dairy/sugar attempt I made last year). #16 and #36 are now relevant to the next month. I need to do a lot of things on that list in 2008 in order to reach my deadline!
So this is the rest of my 2008 list:
- Exercise every day. Nothing major, I will know when I’m able to do more and increase it. But just do something - every single day.
- Get up about an hour before Home Care arrives (which has now been increased to 5X/week), to do those exercises and to spend at least 20 minutes meditating.
- Choose what clothes I’m going to wear the following day, before I go to bed.
- Food… well… it has to get better this year, because it can’t get worse!!! With the help of some great friends I’m starting the new year off getting some delicious and healthy meals delivered. I plan to stick with using this service quite often, instead of ordering in pizza!! Breakfast and lunches are easy and I’ve got some no-excuses ideas for those. Less junk, less junk, less junk.
- The Second Cup order: Sugar free vanilla latte with soy or skim milk, (depending on my recent dairy intake), and NO MUFFIN, PASTRY OR BISCOTTi.
As mentioned above, my home care service has been extended to 5 times/week, Monday through Friday. I’m really happy about this! Dressing myself has been a huge struggle lately, so I haven’t even really bothered on Tuesdays and Thursdays unless I had to. So it’s going to be nice that every weekday I’m up and around, showered and dressed at a decent hour. Plus, Harpal does little things like tidy up, wash dishes and take out my garbage when she has time. HUGE help! So, yay for that.
BOO for Access Calgary, however. Today I had my appointment at the Clinic for Mind/Body Medicine, and my ride never showed up. Well, he did eventually, but only after I called them and said “he’s so late now, my appointment is in 10 minutes (it takes half an hour to get there, if you’re lucky enough to get direct) so I’m not going to make it. There’s no point in going.” Buggers! The last time I went to the clinic, I saw their Psychiatrist, to talk about weaning off my anti-depressants and sleeping pills. It is SO REFRESHING to talk to a Psychiatrist who doesn’t want to see you on pills. He even went so far as to say that anti-depressants don’t work in the long term, “for anyone”. I asked “but what about people with a chemical imbalance?” and he said - are you sitting down? - “a chemical imbalance is just a marketing term made up by the pharmaceutical companies to make their drugs sound necessary. It’s not even real.”
Woah.
Anyway, bottom line is, according to him, anti-depressants work to pull someone out of that “dark place” they’re in (which is what I used them for) but then you need to get off them as soon as possible. Our bodies have an “inner pharmacy” that is perfectly capable of producing that which we take the drugs for. Of course, it’s a different story for schizophrenics, we didn’t get into that. But for someone like me, there is no reason to be on these pills. So, I’ve started the weaning off process with the anti-depressants. Then we will work on the sleeping pills. Which will be a lot harder to stop!! I told him I’ve bought a couple CDs to help put me to sleep but as he said, “it’s as much about what you do during the day as it is about what you do at night”. So, yeah, exercise is a key part of that. And I need to invest in some decaf espresso.
I asked my psychologist there, how it is that this clinic even exists. I mean, don’t pharmaceutical companies rule the world? How can there be a psychiatrist alive who doesn’t want to prescribe drugs? How can there be a medical clinic funded by the GOVERNMENT that believes our bodies can heal themselves? Read this!! Can you believe this exists, and it’s not an “alternative health centre” where I have to pay tons of money out of my own pocket to attend, because Alberta Health Care would never cover such a thing? How how how how how???
The answer is, that a man who was helped by a psychologist that uses these methods of healing, left millions of dollars to the Calgary Health Region when he passed away, with the specific instructions that they only use the money to fund a clinic like this. YAY Mr. Dead Millionnaire Guy! So now I’m going to plan a fundraiser to raise money for them, too. One of these days. I’d rather give my money to this than the MS Society, or any other Society that raises money for research to find a so-called “cure” for anything, ANY day. I’m really blessed to come across this clinic, and to live in a city that has one. I wonder if any other cities do? I expect to get a lot of help from them this year!
Well, it’s almost New Year’s Eve night, now. Since starting this entry I have been to the mall, visited the rental office, signed a one year lease and paid my (increased again - blah) rent, and made plans for tonight. Those plans include a visit from my friend Melanie, who is staying with me for a few days before she goes back to her job up in Fort MacMurray. We’re ordering in food and watching movies and stuff like that. We also have 10 million things to talk about, as I think we both need to let go of a lot of shit before 2008 starts. There may be tears.
Ciao! Happy New Year!!

Yo. Happy New Year, yo.
It’s New Year’s Eve day. I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas or whatever you celebrate, if anything! Mine was nice and quiet, my brother stayed over and we ate lots and watched The Number 23 and episodes of The Office and Flight of the Conchords. I have to watch The Number 23 again because it’s really weird and I know I missed stuff.
So, a new year is upon us… I don’t want to reflect much over the past year. Overall, I had a really great year… all the great friends, making new friends, the music, the traveling for and with the music and musicians… yeah, it was good! My health, however, is another story altogether, and one I don’t want to get into.
So we start fresh in 2008.
I guess you could say I’ve made some resolutions. Goals, things I’m going to do differently, what-have-you. I took a look at my 101 in 1001 list, and made a couple changes to things I know I won’t be doing (with regards to the no wheat/dairy/sugar attempt I made last year). #16 and #36 are now relevant to the next month. I need to do a lot of things on that list in 2008 in order to reach my deadline!
So this is the rest of my 2008 list:
- Exercise every day. Nothing major, I will know when I’m able to do more and increase it. But just do something - every single day.
- Get up about an hour before Home Care arrives (which has now been increased to 5X/week), to do those exercises and to spend at least 20 minutes meditating.
- Choose what clothes I’m going to wear the following day, before I go to bed.
- Food… well… it has to get better this year, because it can’t get worse!!! With the help of some great friends I’m starting the new year off getting some delicious and healthy meals delivered. I plan to stick with using this service quite often, instead of ordering in pizza!! Breakfast and lunches are easy and I’ve got some no-excuses ideas for those. Less junk, less junk, less junk.
- The Second Cup order: Sugar free vanilla latte with soy or skim milk, (depending on my recent dairy intake), and NO MUFFIN, PASTRY OR BISCOTTi.
As mentioned above, my home care service has been extended to 5 times/week, Monday through Friday. I’m really happy about this! Dressing myself has been a huge struggle lately, so I haven’t even really bothered on Tuesdays and Thursdays unless I had to. So it’s going to be nice that every weekday I’m up and around, showered and dressed at a decent hour. Plus, Harpal does little things like tidy up, wash dishes and take out my garbage when she has time. HUGE help! So, yay for that.
BOO for Access Calgary, however. Today I had my appointment at the Clinic for Mind/Body Medicine, and my ride never showed up. Well, he did eventually, but only after I called them and said “he’s so late now, my appointment is in 10 minutes (it takes half an hour to get there, if you’re lucky enough to get direct) so I’m not going to make it. There’s no point in going.” Buggers! The last time I went to the clinic, I saw their Psychiatrist, to talk about weaning off my anti-depressants and sleeping pills. It is SO REFRESHING to talk to a Psychiatrist who doesn’t want to see you on pills. He even went so far as to say that anti-depressants don’t work in the long term, “for anyone”. I asked “but what about people with a chemical imbalance?” and he said - are you sitting down? - “a chemical imbalance is just a marketing term made up by the pharmaceutical companies to make their drugs sound necessary. It’s not even real.”
Woah.
Anyway, bottom line is, according to him, anti-depressants work to pull someone out of that “dark place” they’re in (which is what I used them for) but then you need to get off them as soon as possible. Our bodies have an “inner pharmacy” that is perfectly capable of producing that which we take the drugs for. Of course, it’s a different story for schizophrenics, we didn’t get into that. But for someone like me, there is no reason to be on these pills. So, I’ve started the weaning off process with the anti-depressants. Then we will work on the sleeping pills. Which will be a lot harder to stop!! I told him I’ve bought a couple CDs to help put me to sleep but as he said, “it’s as much about what you do during the day as it is about what you do at night”. So, yeah, exercise is a key part of that. And I need to invest in some decaf espresso.
I asked my psychologist there, how it is that this clinic even exists. I mean, don’t pharmaceutical companies rule the world? How can there be a psychiatrist alive who doesn’t want to prescribe drugs? How can there be a medical clinic funded by the GOVERNMENT that believes our bodies can heal themselves? Read this!! Can you believe this exists, and it’s not an “alternative health centre” where I have to pay tons of money out of my own pocket to attend, because Alberta Health Care would never cover such a thing? How how how how how???
The answer is, that a man who was helped by a psychologist that uses these methods of healing, left millions of dollars to the Calgary Health Region when he passed away, with the specific instructions that they only use the money to fund a clinic like this. YAY Mr. Dead Millionnaire Guy! So now I’m going to plan a fundraiser to raise money for them, too. One of these days. I’d rather give my money to this than the MS Society, or any other Society that raises money for research to find a so-called “cure” for anything, ANY day. I’m really blessed to come across this clinic, and to live in a city that has one. I wonder if any other cities do? I expect to get a lot of help from them this year!
Well, it’s almost New Year’s Eve night, now. Since starting this entry I have been to the mall, visited the rental office, signed a one year lease and paid my (increased again - blah) rent, and made plans for tonight. Those plans include a visit from my friend Melanie, who is staying with me for a few days before she goes back to her job up in Fort MacMurray. We’re ordering in food and watching movies and stuff like that. We also have 10 million things to talk about, as I think we both need to let go of a lot of shit before 2008 starts. There may be tears.
Ciao! Happy New Year!!
Yo. Happy New Year, yo.








