You're still here?

What, still checking to see if I've written anything else?
or if I'm alive?


I'm still alive, mostly.

I think animals have it right--winter is hibernation/brumation time.

Trying to function, to smile at people, converse, be nice,
trying to get laundry done, bills paid, homework done,
trying to get to class, to the store, to the post office,
is all just way too fucking difficult right now.

This is not the world's cheeriest entry...
I just had to drop my CSS class because I keep missing it--I'm taking it online, and the live class is from 10-12. You'd think I could make a 10:00 class that meets AT MY COMPUTER, but I can't seem to. So I dropped it.
I'm really bummed out about it, though, more than I thought I would be.
I guess it's that whole not wanting to admit I can't do what I think I can do thing--ever since the brain surgery this has bounded my life. I am constantly having to stop and ask myself if this is going to overload me.

What's really overloading me this semester, though, is the "Coping Strategies for Brain Injured People" or some such thing. It's like group therapy twice a week, all talking and sharing and positive outlook shit. Just WAAAYYY too much social interaction for me.
I resent it, and the energy it pulls out of me, that I then don't have for my other classes.
Yes, to be fair, I am learning a lot, but I'd rather be coding.

Like yesterday's class--it was supposed to be about learning to manage stress. Instead, the message was we could CHOOSE to be stressed out about something, or CHOOSE not to.
Basically, it's all in your head, kiddies, just choose to be calm and it'll all go away.
Oh, yeah, that works.

While I am CHOOSING not to have a stress reaction, why don't I also choose not to have a brain injury? I know! I'll choose not to have ulcerative colitis, too!
And migraines, all in your head, right?
Wow, I like that house right there--I think I'll CHOOSE to live there!
Hmmm. I don't seem to be managing my stress very well, I wonder why?

Interlude #190

him: BRRRAAAP!

me: So much for your "one cheek sneak"...

him: No, I wasn't even trying for the "one cheek sneak"--that was more of a "two-ball burble."

me: AAAA [buries face in shirt]

him: I made you lose your shit!

me: Just don't lose yours!

woo! Baby kingsnakes...

I just peeked in the incubator to see a little black string go sliding under the container full of kingsnake eggs...yay!

A baby mexican black kingsnake just hatched! A second egg is pipped and the baby inside is resting and absorbing his yolk.
Weird thing is, two eggs had hatched fully, but I only found one baby--and it wasn't all fat and full as if it had eaten the other one, either.
Theories abound: perhaps it got out through one of the vent holes in the incubator's underside.
Perhaps I didn't get hte lid on fully last I checked the eggs, and it crawled out.

Finding the little bugger will not be fun--that room is too full of hiding places that would fit something that can curl up as small as the chunk of silly putty that comes in that little plastic egg...


-------
update: The pipped one finally decided it was time to greet the world...

Heh. TV.

It's been so long since I've watched TV that I have no idea where the remote is.
We have a long pink ribbon tied to it, too, so we don't lose it in the couch.

IN OTHER WORDS....

I FINISHED!!!!

Final projects are in, exams are taken, everything is done until next year.

whew :thud:

'Graine Ate my Brain

Friday was evil.

I worked on my webpage final project for about 5 hours, which hasn't given me problems before, but every time I've pulled a marathon stint this semester it's been at school, in their proper chairs and desks, not here at home with my crappy "printer table as desk with couch as chair" setup. About 9 pm I started really hurting...I took a flex and a blue, but my head kept getting worse--by about 10, I was at the "I'm going to puke my guts out and I HATE puking" stage--about an 8 on the Migraine Richtor Scale. The agony was such that laying down hurt because then all I could do was focus on the pain, and walking hurt, and sitting hurt, and OW OW OW OW...
TTK turned out every light in the house, then put tape over the microwave's glowing readout, to give me relief from the pain of light in my eyes.

It was definitely not a good time.
Saturday I was so wiped that though we ran errands, the whole day was quite distant and everything was distant, like I was watching it. Around 6 I was so tired I went to bed...

So my project has not gotten done, and it's due tomorrow.

The teacher reviews the sites in class.

Ah, public humiliation, here I come!

In the Locker Room...

...a surreal moment. I'm in the adaptive swimming class (part of APE--what a stupid name! Adaptive Physical Education) and it's mostly older folks, with some young puppies as student assistants. The SA's are really nice, but oh so young!
Anyway...
I'm in the shower in the women's locker room, and finished and started to dry off and dress. One of the SA's popped in a cd in their stereo and hit play:

Out comes the opening strums of "You Sexy Thing" by Hot Chocolate.
!
This was one of the songs from the movie "The Full Monty" that the guys used to learn to strip to. HEE!

So it was very surreal to be PUTTING ON clothes, in a room full of people who are mostly past their sexy days.
Heh.
I was so tempted to break into a strip tease in my underwear, but I feel like I fall into the above category of unsexiness, so I didn't.
Instead, I came here to post about it. Heh.

Now I go pick up the Ginsukitten, who just got her baby-making parts removed and is coming out of anaesthesia nicely.

I'd like to buy a vowel...

or actually, a new spine. This one is giving me no end of trouble.
It used to be that my hip only hurt at the end of the day, and only if I had been sitting too long.
Now, it hurts all night and is already aching in the morning. By afternoon it feels like a hot, tight, band of pain across my lower back, and just continues getting worse.
And on top of that I am going to be spending a lot of time sitting--final projects are due next week and so I need to put a LOT of hours in behind the computer. My desk situation at home is so icky and painful that I spend all of my time at school in the computer lab--the lab assistants all know me, and call me one of their "frequent fliers" heh.
Pain medication is what will get me through this week, I'm afraid.
Note to self: refill purse, car, and schoolbag stashes when you get home.

Ginsu-Roomba is going in to the vet tomorrow to get spayed...it seems she is going to live after all, and a cat in heat is a miserable creature (as is everyone within earshot), so snippage time.

She's a great fluffy awkward ball of love--just pure love. Her main senses that are still operable are smell and touch...unbroken cats enjoy being touched, so imagine how much she loves it. She runs into things a lot, poor spinny thing, but I can't find a little football helmet her size. Heh.

Life is...

...Pain.

I know this. Yet, I would REALLY like to have just ONE day without pain. I would probably fall over dead from the sudden lack of input from my body and mind, though...

Migraine follows me everywhere. It's nestled in at the base of my neck, close to my spine, a little demon with dull teeth. Even when he's not OUT I know he's there, just waiting.
Sometimes I can feel his fingers at the base of my skull...tapping impatiently, or stroking lightly, sneakily.
Little questing fingers that dabble at my consciousness...
sometimes he's able to get into my brain and steal whole chunks of knowledge, like he did this afternoon, when I got into my truck and was completely unable to remember where the hood release is.
He's doing it to me now, even as I type, getting bolder and stealing words, whole thoughts, even my knowledge of CSS and HTML.
No homework will be getting done tonight--I am going to throw some blues at him.
They're no longer blue--the pharmacy changed to a different generic years ago a plain white oblong, but by then ttk and I were so used to calling them "blue pills" that the name has stuck, as has the term "blue pill babble."
Hey demon--catch!
He'll still be there, just less able to get to me, so he'll slink back to his crevice in my skull until he thinks he can come out again.

Which is way too frequent.

Scope Creep...

a very useful phrase that describes the phenomenon that occurs when I am trying to work on a project. TTK coined it and it fits me perfectly...

I Love that Man...

...but he's insane. I just got a call from him:

Him: "This is kind of embarrasing. I let myself run out of gas...I'm somewhere near Ignacio...but everything's all right, I'm just calling you while I catch my breath to walk back."
!
[boggle]
Me: "Honey, WHY didn't you call Triple A?"

Him: "Because I only have like one call left this year!"

Me:"HON, there's ONE more month left of the year! You don't need to save it!"

Him: "Oh. Now I feel stupid."

Me: "How come you don't call me BEFORE hiking to a gas station? I could have told you about the full gas can in the trunk!" <--I'm evil.

Him: "You're kidding!"

Me: "Yes, I am. But, you wouldn't have known either way until now...did you buy a can at the station?"

Him: "No, I just filled an empty water bottle."

Me: "That's what, less than a quart? So you'll pour it in your tank, and drive a quarter of a mile before running out again and having to walk back."

HE IS INSANE!

So now, he's walking down the highway at night carrying a plastic Arrowhead bottle filled with gasoline. Let's hope he doesn't forget and try to take a swig, like he did with the lamp oil.
(We now have a bottle in the kitchen, wrapped in duct tape with the words "FUCKING LAMP OIL!!!" on it.)

Winter's Coming.

Sigh. It's that time of the year again...the first bloody nose last night. You'd think that with it so rainy and wet, and COLD, that I wouldn't have a problem, but no, it doesn't work that way.

Hair

Boy, you know it's bad when NO ONE comments on your new hairstyle...
I mean, I went from all over brunette to a really badly patchwork bleach-blonde highlights that are more "chunklights."
Heh.

Since I'm swimming twice a week, I can't do a temporary color like I usually do, so I'm not sure what to use to "fill in" some of the blond sections.

And in other news, I've been geeking forever today.
At school.
And I don't want to leave because my hip and back are NOT hurting.
Have I mentioned my "desk" at home is one end of the couch?
And not even a real couch, either--it's my old (OLD) bed-into-couch futon frame with two different futons on it, one for the back and one for the butt.

Geek geek geek...but I'm getting hungry...geek geek geek...

almost.

Sitting in my computer class yesterday, I was discussing website development and bemoaning the fact that a website I've agreed to create has no CONTENT (which is the number one thing you need, BEFORE layout, and cute graphics, and rollover buttons!) and I said "I can do the code, but I can't _write._"

That struck me:
I used to write.
I used to write well.
Then a chunk of my brain decided to grow all wonky, and after 14 hours of surgery and months of confusion, dizziness, and migraines, I discovered that something was missing.
A lot was missing. What wasn't missing was damaged.
My hearing.
My balance.
My memory.

I used to hear music in the center of my head--I loved loud music and live concerts...now it's all on one side and kind of flat.

When I read poetry I could hear it, like music, in my head. Incredible depths and far off whispers, and a sense of something greater than the words alone.
When I wrote, I could reach that level, where as I wrote I could hear the different stories and worlds building. I could _feel_ it, I could direct it.

I no longer read poetry. Even stuff I loved, before.
Now it's like sensing something just beyond the edge of the light, something huge and ponderous and incredible, but never being able to see it.
It's like remembering how music _really_ sounds.
It's like seeing a photo of yourself, and having no idea when it was taken or what you were doing.

My writing is like that, now.
I can feel it almost becoming music, but I get lost in trying to get the words out of my head and the tune falters, dies.
Even this whole entry disgusts me--it's _almost_ what I wanted to say, and how I wanted to say it, but that's like saying a little melody is _almost_ an orchestral score.
.

New Meds

The doctor's appointment went fine--it was just a chat, really, not an exam...she says that it is most likely that I have Irritable Bowel Syndrome on top of (or would that be in conjuction with) the Ulcerative Colitis. Oh joy. Basically that means that my body has gotten used to the pain and movement, and so though the inflammation is trying to subside, the rest of my system is still in turmoil and fighting. (Remember your basic biology classes? "-itis" means "inflammation of..." so laryngitis is inflammation of the larynx. Bronchitis is inflammation of hte broncheal tubes. And so on. )
So now I get to try Lomotil too see if we can slow the momentum and calm the system.

By the way, have I mentioned that I have a feces issue?

I cannot deal at all with discussing this in person...I can write this here because, well, almost no one reads this.
I know this because I installed a statcounter...the people who read this already know me, or have navigated here through blogger's "next blog" button.
Statcounters are great...they remind you that though anyone can read your public pages, that doesn't mean everyone does.
Since I have so little traffic, I use http://www.statcounter.com/ for my stats--it's free, if you only want to save the 100 most recent hits. You want more, you gotta pay...but with those 100 hits, you get to use EVERYTHING--the landing page, the exit page, the search they used (if they used one), where their ISP is hosted, all sorts of interesting stuff. Go play--you'll like it, I think.

It's definitely a lesson in humility if you only have a few hits a week, and if you have lots then your ego gets a boost.

Boy, talk about changing subjects in an entry!

Crepuscular

American Heritage Dictionary -
cre·pus·cu·lar /[kri-puhs-kyuh-ler]
adj.

1. Of or like twilight; dim: “the period's crepuscular charm and a waning of the intense francophilia that used to shape the art market” (Wall Street Journal).
2. Zoology. Becoming active at twilight or before sunrise, as do bats and certain insects and birds.

Doctor Time

Well, I get to go back to see my gastroenterologist, Dr. M. Last time I saw her was 3 months ago, and was NOT fun.
Now I get to go in and tell her that the drugs aren't working.
Who knows what evil meds she will give me next...

Surprise!

So I'm about to go outside and check the laundry.
There's this white towel that is just outside the back door, whose reflection through the glass looks almost like a snake.
I open the door, and there's...
a big white snake!
It's the cornsnake that got out back in MAY! Just lookin' up at me, like, "let me in! It's cold out here!"

Heh.

He's incredibly healthy looking--a few new scars, including what looks like a bite mark, but otherwise perfectly okay!
Woo!

The Food We Eat

It really says a lot about the food you're eating when you give the dog a *tiny* sliver of meat and she promptly pukes. Luckily the newspaper was there on the floor so I could hold her over it--burying the sex offenders article in a copious amount of I don't even want to describe it.
I've been slightly nauseous all day, and when ttk almost dropped the newspaper, he almost had a hell of a lot more mess to clean up.

Daisy 199?-2006

She's gone.
My vet gave her a small injection in her hip. She stopped her frantic, constant movements and relaxed into my hands. She licked her nose, yawned a few times, and then just kinda went to sleep. Truly, just to sleep. She was relaxed and no longer intensely desperate. I felt her little heart beating in my palm as the doctor went to get the syringe of drug that would stop her heart.
The first vein he tried was too hard to find. He tried the other leg. A backwash of blood into the syringe, and the clear pink drug slid into her system. Her heart beat steadily, then stopped. No flutter, no hesitation. Gone.
I thanked him, for being able to do that for her, for us.

We brought her little body home, so light now, and curled her up in her tiny bed that came with her when we adopted her so long ago. She loved that bed, and would prefer to curl up in it rather than snuggle in the copious amounts of bedding I had provided.
She hated all other ferrets in life, and would savage them while screaming at the top of her lungs, but in death she curled into the same tin with little Miranda.
When our first ferret died, we interred her in a metal tin
gaily colored with a christmas scene
since we wanted to bury her in our own land, and not some soon-to-be-forgotten rental. Her sister followed soon after, and fit next to her. When Fatboy died so suddenly, we found another tin
this one gold with fluer-de-lis on the top, both once held butter cookies but are somehow well suited to their new task
for him, and for Azrael when she passed.
We have three of these tins now, lined up in the front yard like some sort of eccentric art.
We know what's in there, why they're there, though others don't.
Tiny crypts.

Ahhh, technology!

How's this for good use of combined technology:

TTK calls an his cell phone and says traffic just went to a dead stop, in Novato.
I go to 511.org and pull up the map.
Downed powerlines and car accident, and brushfire blocking ALL northbound lanes...they "suggest alternate route" so I googlemap the nearest offramp for him, and figure out how to get him home (there's all of one other way and it goes waaaay east, but it's better than sitting in a parking lot for an hour.) from where he is.
I give him directions...he'll call me when he reaches Petaluma or is hopelessly lost (fingers crossed for the former!)...