Things I can change at any time but won't get around to until 2011

I think one reason so many people do New Year's resolutions is because they're too busy to effect change in their lives in November & December. So all of that resolve piles up until the holiday season is finished and you fall with relief into the new pattern you've been plotting for months and wish to really, actually enact in the hope of making it permanent.

Like, I want to get back into going to yoga regularly for mental and physical health, but all of my good after-work times are filled with Christmas shopping and dealing with my job and my not-jobs and seeing friends who are dipping into town from far-off places for the holidays. I am left cycling through lazy sun salutations for 20 minutes before bed. Paying someone to tell me which poses to do for how long is a good investment, even only once a week. I leave ready to take on the whole world.

Mostly I can't blame the holidays for lapses, though.

Like, I also want to start eating breakfast again, instead of junk food over my keyboard at work, and wake up earlier after fewer alarm clock reminders and really, seriously, I mean it, regularly take the bus to and from work, even if it means walking many blocks or driving to the transfer point.

And I want to respond to those little e-mails people send me for nice reasons that I let languish because I'm too busy at the moment and never get back to. And be better a friend in general.

And as always, I want to write more, better, usefully.

It's so strange making dentist appoints six months in advance. Anything could happen. You could move. You could lose all your teeth in a car accident. You could stop believing in The Man's fixation with unrotted teeth and begin to cultivate cavities intentionally, chewing hard candies and ice cubes to chip your enamel, wads of toffee to pull out the old fillings, rinse your gums in sugar water and all those pictures of kittens befriending other animals.

Major test of my fledgling journalistic abilities. Passed?

Special Report: Illness, fixed income equals struggle for local couple

Christie Taylor
Baraboo News Republic

For 50-year-old Baraboo resident Chuck Slinde, it all started with a day in May when he couldn’t stop vomiting, not even after his stomach was completely empty. He had no other symptoms, just intense nausea, and was throwing up two or three times an hour.

After doctors at St. Clare removed his appendix, to no avail, the diagnosis came from specialists in Madison...More (it's a long one)

Healthcare Monday II

I just scheduled a dentist appointment for the first time as an adult who has insurance that is not her parents'. This is great, because I can investigate the strange sensation my jaw's been reporting to me when I am too quick to stand up or change my general orientation to the world. The nurse also promised my teeth would be shiny and white just in time for Thanksgiving. This seems like a fine idea. My relatives are sure to approve of my clean-looking teeth.

But really I feel really privileged and lucky to be able to call up a dentist and say "yes, I have insurance through XXX," and then they say, "We can see you Wednesday!" and I say, "awesome, this is like, close to free."

Next year I'm switching from a pretty decent medical plan to the scary high-deductible version because I decided it was the closest I could bring myself to sacrificing something in solidarity with the millions of Americans who don't have any choices. But when you're young and healthy, it doesn't actually feel like much of a sacrifice until you unexpectedly get hit by a car or a baby or manic depression.

In the meantime, I'm getting as many chest x-rays and hip replacements as I can before Jan 1. 2010 hits. Right right right?

Healthcare Monday

Two related incidents today:

1. For work, talk to local woman who says her family is living one of those Michael Moore-esque health insurance nightmares. Recently sick husband who has been told he can never work again, she can't work, two-year wait to get on Medicaid, meanwhile COBRA will cost them more than $1,000 per month and their disability payments don't total more than $2,800, and even before his work stops paying for insurance, she's got $300 a month leftover from bills for food and gas. Has been e-mailing Tammy Baldwin, Russ Feingold, the President, and when she received an artfully crafted form letter in reply from Obama, she cried at how touching it was but still thinks nothing's happening fast enough when it comes to reform. "We make just a little too much money," she says. "Where is that humane?"

2. Receive back from very patient former landlord tax documents for 2008. This is my third attempt to get my refund from the state of Wisconsin, and I keep not making photocopies. The last time I tried to file, the post office confirmed that my stuff was delivered, but it still never made it into their system. My apologetic note to (landlord) last week: "The Dept. of Revenue lost my return again. This time they're letting me fax everything, so I swear it's the last time." His note today with my rent certificate: "I hear you. This is exactly why I don't want the Government running my Health Care..."

Neither of them is wrong. & what a mess this life is.