Well hey there, everybody! My name is Opaline Chook and I've lived in various southern places my whole life... Southern California might be a stretch but I'm claiming it anyways. I've got to peck out my bio and scratch out my first real topic-oriented post, but in the meantime I took this picture a few days ago and I wanted to share. My littlest chick pointed up above the hen house the other day and said "look mamma, eyelashes!" And whaddya know, there they were...

A Pro-Sitting Stance

I have been doing a lot of sitting just lately. After sustaining a painful but as yet undiagnosed knee injury while conventioning in the nation's capitol last week, I haven't had much choice but to sit for hours and hours, leg elevated, knee iced, in hopes that my malfunctioning joint would begin to repair itself.

Having a lot of time to sit equals a lot of time to think, and so my thoughts logically steered toward famous sitters in history.

In February 1960 there was some very important sitting going on in this country. A group of students -- Negro students, the press called them back then -- defied the institution of racial segregation in the South and seated themselves at the Whites-only lunch counter at the Woolworth's store in downtown Greensboro, NC. They peacefully, quietly waited to be waited on. The students were ignored, however, while White customers were served their customary coffees and club sandwiches.

Over the following two months, sit-ins protesting segregation took place in over 50 cities across the country. Finally, in July 1960, Woolworth's desegregated its Greensboro store. The Civil Rights movement that grew over the next decade made race-based discrimination illegal, and gradually something resembling equality took hold in the United States. This is history to many of us, but when my daughter and I sat down to watch a PBS special about the Civil Rights movement, my chicklet couldn't believe that there was ever a time in this country when segregation based solely on the color of a person's skin existed. I guess they skipped over that part in her own history classes.

While you won't see "Whites Only" signs on any lunch counters today, there are still a disturbing number of closed minds about. But 21st century racists justify their hatred for brown-skinned "others" by blaming them for "taking" scarce jobs and for being undeserving beneficiaries of government resources that are in short supply, in actuality due to legislative and corporate greed. And there are too many malcontents who see armed confrontation as the way to address their perceived inequalities.

Maybe we are past the days of peaceful sit-ins as a means toward maintaining (or is it once again achieving) social and economic justice. But then again, maybe we sedentary bloggers are doing our part to educate and incite others. We can take a stand, and sit proud.

EDIT: Sit-ins haven't gone by the wayside after all: students sat-in at Dickinson College in PA and successfully brought about a change in that school's sexual misconduct policy.

(Photo credit here.)

Gonna, Gotta GOMA!

Once I took a fiction writing course and, although I have never written a word of fiction since, I did take to heart the first rule that the instructor (himself a published author) offered on how to become a successful writer: AIC.

Ass in chair.

In fact, he suggested that we post a sign above our typewriters. (Hey, so the class was a long time ago...!)

Lou Lou's treatise on the dangers of sedentarianism (could that be a word?) certainly put a tack in my chair. And if that weren't enough, I just happened to be driving to the library that week for my sedentary reading fix when NPR's segment on Serena Williams' pulmonary embolisms came on the radio. Pulmonary embolisms are generally caused, they suggested, by inactivity.

Talk about piling on! Specifically, such incidents are most apt to occur after a period of prolonged bedrest. Of course, that doesn't explain how Serena Williams' embolism happened, but still, it did give me pause. . . which is the last thing I needed. I do my best pausing in a seated position.

Almost all of my activities are best done sitting; I read, I write, I knit, I do puzzles--crosswords and jigsaws, I sew, I watch movies and TV. I have only to look at my hip measurement to know that I do it all only too well--or at least too often. With a few notable exceptions, I don't like to do things that make me sweat.

Another NPR segment--this one on how walking at least 30 minutes a day three times a week had more to do with fending off dementia than brain teasers like crossword puzzles and Sudoku-- shot another dart at my bubble butt. I LOVE doing those! AIC activities, all.

So it's IXnay on the crosswords (sigh) and O-nay with the walking shoes if I want to stay out of the nursing home. If I really want to hit a homerun, I can download a foreign language lesson to stick in my ears while I'm hoofing it.

The NY Times says that exercise gives rats a shiny coat. Might that be simply sweat? My fleece-lined coat is fine, thank you, but a skinny butt, shiny or not, would be a wondrous thing.

Take down the AIC sign. It's GOMA time: Get off my arse.

No sweat, I hope.

Sit. Stay. Good Girl!

Artist Trading Card by Ima June Pullet (aka TexasTrailerParkTrash)

Stop Reading This!

A new month and a new topic as grist for the mill: Sitters.

So, what are you doing right this minute? Stop, look away from the screen, look around you. I'm sitting on my grandfather's chaise, my favorite blogspot, with my characteristic blogging lunch of Pam-sprayed, sea-salted air-popped popcorn and diet coke within reach (fills me up, satisfies the need for chewing motion, makes my ankles swell for 24 hours, and deposits the customary popcorn fluff between the keys of Lappy, The Laptop). I'm wearing my Curves With Zumba outfit and letting the sweat dry in place, 'cause a retiree doesn't have to interact with anyone who might be offended. And I'm more or less sitting on an ice pack, trying to get my inflamed periformis and iliotibials to shut up and chill out. Ordinarily, I'd be feeling proud of myself right now: I've exercised for the day, I'm recording my Weight Watchers points, and I have yet to knowingly and deliberately offend a single soul all day so far. 'Course, I've only written the intro to this post, so, on that last score, gimme time.

Cue the goody two-shoes NPR story from the American College of Cardiologists on the side-effects of excess sitting and prolonged screen time . Fabulous.

Cardiology at Concorde, UK:

 People who spend two hours or more a day in front of a screen during their leisure time—primarily watching television—have more than double the risk of cardiovascular events over four years compared with those who spend less than two hours a day in front of a screen, even after adjustment of the findings for physical activity. [Source: Journal of American College of Cardiologists, Jan 18, 2011]

Me, sedentary?

Sedentary behavior is typically defined as any behavior with an exceedingly low energy expenditure (defined as <1.5 metabolic equivalents). In general, this means that almost any time you are sitting (e.g. working on a computer, watching TV, driving) or lying down, you are engaging in sedentary behavior. There are a few notable exceptions when you can be sitting or lying down but still expend high energy expenditure (e.g. riding a stationary bike), but in general if you are sitting down, you are being sedentary. [SciAm, 1/06/2011]

And regular workouts between daily sit-ins are not the answer:

The above definition may seem rather intuitive, but this is not the way that the term sedentary has been used by exercise science researchers for the past 50 years. Up until very recently, referring to someone as sedentary meant simply that they were not meeting current guidelines for physical activity. In simple terms, if you were exercising for 60+ minutes/day, you were considered physically active. If you were exercising 10 minutes/day, you were sedentary. Case closed. But as we will discuss below, sedentary time is closely associated with health risk regardless of how much physical activity you perform on a daily basis. Further, it is entirely possible to meet current physical activity guidelines while still being incredibly sedentary. Thus, to quote researcher Marc Hamilton, sitting too much is not the same as exercising too little. [Sci. Am, 1/06/2011]

We're BLOGGERS! We write 'em, read 'em, research for 'em. I'm doomed based on my sittage for today, alone! What's a person with a rear end to do?  Should we even be meeting like this?