Bajai Kulture 9.3:02 : My Addictions (Flashback)

Bajai Kulture 9.3:02 : My Addictions
Bajai Kulture 9.3:02
Addictions
by KC Bajai

(*editor's Note... another flashback, from 2002, it looks like. Interesting times and perspective. This is my old self sending a message to my new self. You can read along, if you like.)

I've been admitting all over the place that I'm addicted to exercise, working out and most specifically lifting weights. This is just the latest in a series of addictions that probably started with sugar. Way back when, and I'm kind of fuzzy on the details, my mother took me to the neighborhood junior high school because they were vaccinating everyone against polio. I think that was the needle they gave children in the butt. I remember getting a sugar cube and then feeling this pain in the butt. Later in life, I put various details together - I didn't know it was a polio vaccine at the time - to flesh out and explain this memory. When I was a little older and had cereal for breakfast, I'd always spoon on lots of sugar and when the cereal was gone I'd anxiously scrape up the sugar from the bottom of the bowl and eat it.

When I'd get sick, my mother would make me tea, and I've been drinking it ever since. This is probably my second addiction. It's a combination addiction because I never have tea without sugar, even honey won't cut it. I tried it for a while, but it wouldn't (pardon the intentional pun) stick.

My next addiction was (toy) cars. I had lots and lots of them and I'd set them up like I saw them set up outside on the street. My folks bought me all kinds of car related toys and tracks from Matchbox to Hot Wheels to knock offs. Once we met a older kid who'd out grown his Hot Wheels collection and my brother and I scored big time. Later we got into the HO electric racing cars and tracks and I was of course hooked on that. We actually learned how to make those things go faster, but they'd usually fly off the track. Then we figured out how to weigh them down with coins or play dough to help them stay on the track.

I think my biggest addiction of all time was television. I was addicted for years, in fact I often describe myself as a recovering TV addict. Oddly enough, I don't have cable. I have a TV in my bedroom that only plays DVDs... (the VCR is broken and must be fixed as I haven't converted all my tapes to DVD or digital avi files.) I can't tell you how much time I wasted wasted watching things like Mid-South wrestling when I lived in New Orleans, or all the reruns of reruns of reruns of Bewitched, Green Acres, Beverly Hillbillies & Gilligan's Island, and then later M.A.S.H, all the Norman Lear stuff. and let's not forget the cop shows, Hawaii Five-O, Mannix, Cannon, Kojak, Kolshack The Night Stalker (great series,, very proto X-Files, wasn't a cop show however) all the Quinn Martin productions. I even watched the Steven J Canell junk. I cringed and complained, but I was hooked. Miami Vice kept me in on Fridays and... well I won't even tell you the extended addiction from that series. There was even a time i was hooked on the ABC soap operas, a low i have yet to sink beneath. And don't even get me started on MTV and music videos!! OMG!!

Whenever I moved, the first appliance I bought was a television. TV itself finally shook me from my addiction. I can still remember the last TV series I was really into... X-Files. Although people told me I'd like Lost & Heroes and 30 Rock is hilarious (I've only watched it on DVD at a friend's house) I no longer have the time to waste, in front of the TV or on the internet, with "entertainment." I'd sooner write one of these notes. (Perhaps this is an addiction as well.)

When I discovered I couldn't watch TV in my sleep I started listening to the radio and right around then is when my music addiction started. I already wrote pretty much about this. (As an aside, I'm listening to Fauna Flash and sipping a 16 oz cup of tea with 8 packs of sugar dissolved within. I've been taking periodic breaks to do crunches. See, I'm a junkie.)

I would describe myself as someone who has an addictive personality, however, I'd caution against the idea that my addictions cross into the realms of substances, with the exceptions of tea and sugar of course.

Like our last three Presidents I did my share of experimenting with narcotics, probably none of them were crack, otherwise I wouldn't be the person you know today. Nonetheless, none of them took. I even tried smoking cigarettes in college (and well before college, but I won't reveal THAT much). Once I bought a pack and never got past the second square. I was probably the only person on campus who didn't look cool smoking. Good thing too. Somewhere I have a button that says, "Militant Non-Smoker."

Which brings me to my current addiction. I'm a month away from my 13th year anniversary of living the fitness lifestyle; of exercising more days a year than I don't, of keeping my weight under control and keeping my self healthy.

What I've discovered and what I find so wondrous about fitness and the body and the way the body works and the whole area of exercise science, is that there's always something new to learn. If it's not the way muscles grow, it's the way hormones access fat from between the muscles and the skin and turn it into energy. There's always some scientist discovering a way to push the body to a greater calorie burn in a shorter period of time. Even my injuries fascinate me.

One of the ironies of my fitness addiction started because I injured myself foolishly thinking I could lift the same weight I lifted with I was on active duty. Well, I did lift it, 135 lb. military presses, which is what probably caused my sciatica - that shooting nerve pain that goes up and down from the butt to the ankle. I had no idea at the time what was wrong and I thought since the pain was traveling from my butt to my foot, it would somehow leave through my foot. Not so, to my dismay. What I discovered was that the only thing that made the pain subside was doing crunches with my legs elevated and on the edge of a chair. When ever I got a sciatic attack I'd hit the crunches. I didn't count, but I know I must have done thousands.

Finally I went to my doctor and learned about sciatica and what it was and all that. This is when I decided to strengthen my abs (and lose weight) to better support my back. I think the sciatica lasted 6 months or so, but I'm not sure. I just know I beat it without surgery and it hasn't flared up again, (knock wood.)

Anyway, I am thoroughly hooked on this exercise thing, maybe because it worked, it works and it looks like it will keep on working. In fact, I am so much of an addict I've become a pusher. I travel around the city getting kids hooked on exercise, telling them why, showing them, by example, the benefits, warning them not to kick the habit just because they've reached their weight or aesthetic goals and showing them that yeah, this stuff can be fun too!

"Hello, my name is KC and i'm addicted to, sugar, tea, tv, music & exercise (& face book). I've got one under control, I'm in denial about another, the other four I'm dealing with.