Sunlight

After spending another interesting session with Doctor Jeff, I think I understand why all those vampires on TV are so cranky.

Dr. Jeffery Comanor is quite possibly the most interesting chiropractor in Atlanta, if not the best. Doctor Jeff is currently or has been a touring musician, medical student, illustrator, children’s book author, pilot, black belt of multiple martial arts systems, herbalist and chiropractor. Despite the sheer entertainment that results from an office visit, my health is the primary reason why I drive from Loganville to Marietta to see Doctor Jeff.

The entertainment starts before I even make it into the exam room. Doctor Jeff escorts a patient to the desk, and asks his receptionist to schedule a follow-up visit.

“We’re gonna open up her butt and see what comes out.” His receptionist is new, but unphased by the bold and practical summary of his patient’s ailment.

Doctor Jeff collects me and we head to the exam room. The conversation immediately shifts to martial arts as we discuss the “XMA” special that recently aired on Discovery. We often talk martial arts as he adjusts me … typically I explain what happened to me in class, and he uses that knowledge to undo the side effects.

The similarity between chiropractic arts and martial arts is staggering. One of my instructors at Master Sams’ dojo is a newly graduated chiropractor, along with being a 3rd degree black belt in Sajido & Tae Kwon Do. He’s fond of illustrating the subtle difference between an adjustment & a fairly nasty technique, and has actually adjusted me in the middle of a move. But today’s visit to Doctor Jeff has nothing to do with karate-related mishaps, although we did spend a few minutes contrasting a subtle difference in how Japanese & Korean styles draw punches back (and more importantly, why they do it that way).

For the first time I can remember, I am suffering from what I think is “winter blues” … but I’d like to make sure it’s not a more serious mental issue. Most winter blues is caused by a lack of sunlight, due to the shorter days and the tendency for us hairless mammals to remain indoors and sip hot beverages from ceramic mugs. Work has been strange as of late … the type of strange that makes me glad I work in a one story building, limiting the potential injuries from a suicidal leap out of a nearby window to a few scrapes and some flattened shrubbery.

Doctor Jeff smiles and goes to work. His main speciality is kineasology, which uses muscle response tests to indicate misalignments and stressed glands. Over the years, Doctor Jeff has helped repair the evils my college caffeine habits suffered onto my adrenal glands, along with the random twists and turns of my spine.

Eventually the good doctor has my right index finger on the top of my head, testing if I can push against the pressure on my left wrist … which I cannot.

“Ahhh, I have just the thing,” he declares, reaching for a small white bottle on the table. He holds the bottle against my chest and repeats the test. This time I can resist the pressure on my outstretched arm.

The odd thing about the human body is that it knows what it needs long before the brain it carries understands that need, much less the reason it needs what it wants. Doctor Jeff’s “proximity method” of determining dosing for minerals and glandular supplements seems akin to the sale of snake oil at first, but time has shown it effective. Of course, Doctor Jeff fully admits to being a snake oil salesman … he has several forms of it in capsules on the shelf in his office.

Along with some basic adjustments, I get a bottle of pineal supplements and an order to buy yellow-tinted sunglasses. The pineal gland is very affected by a lack of sunlight, which results in the moodiness known as “winter blues”. The supplement uses “bovine extracts” to rebuild the glandular tissue, while the yellow glasses help amplify the light my body needs to get back into balance. It’s no cure for work-related stupidity, but it will help me from loosing my mind until spring returns.

That must be why all those vampires on Buffy and Angel are so moody … their pineal glands suffer from a severe lack of sunlight. Perhaps Spike would be a nicer bloke if he picked up some yellow sunglasses and the right bottle of bovine extracts.

I hope a moodlift will get me off my butt and working on some long overdue projects. The house should start soon, assuming the bank doesn’t have any more paperwork sup rises. DragonCon*TV won’t write itself, so I need to get moving on some scripts. There’s holiday shopping, computer upgrades, and a new season of Tech Support on my plate.