Category: Health

Church plus coffee

I have to pick up milk, cream and cheese for church today, but that’s just across the street. I have to be dressed and out the door by 9:45 – I’ve already got my outfit laid out and clean so that’s one fewer decision to make.  CPAP for maybe four hours last night.  I had a panic attack when I put the mask on at first.  After a while I calmed down and put it on.  I remembered to put the eye goop in.  The omega-3 appears to be helping with the dry eye, enough to be noticeable but not a whole lot.

Everybody have a good day! I have other plans.

 

wa-ho

OMFGBWAHAHA.  NOT SAFE FOR WORK.  The noise this thing makes is a complete relief for grief and woe. TLDR: I wouldn’t want a device that sounds like a cross between a prop plane and a sewing machine anywhere near mah nethers.

I musta burnt 500 calories last night with the tossing and turning.  I wore the CPAP for 4 long and tedious hours and finally gave up, got up, peed, took another painkiller (I was in AGONY after the walk, and it hurt to roll over but I had to to get my back to hurt in different ways).  Got up at 9 and had to deal with the tedium of rumbly tummy after my sushi lunch yesterday. Crossing that restaurant off my list.

Katie and Alex are coming to record some songs, they should be here imminently.

 

The second worst thing about being a white liberal is that there are fewer and fewer people I can openly mock and pick on. The worst thing is knowing that there should not be ANYBODY in that category. If I really cared, I’d mend and not mock. I think that having hundreds of millions of people to hate, fear, mock, jeer and write bigoted laws for is part of the special appeal of social conservatism.

Walkita walkita

Walked 2.5 k today; went to the dentist office to pay Katie’s overdue bill from December (which I had already agreed to do, I finally got around to it) and then walked over to the imaging place to get film of my pubic symphysis, and then went to the bookstore and got really sad because I shouldn’t buy any books, and so I didn’t, But I Really Wanted Roxane Gay’s book goldurnit, and then crossed the street and had sushi for lunch, and then went to the library and picked up a couple of books.  I took the bus back and now I am, candidly, pretty crippled up.  Peggy said yesterday well if what you say is true it’ll hurt when I push here and WAAAAAAA HO! I yipped most doggedly and had to be scraped off the ceiling.

So yeah, it’s a problem.  Maybe something will show on the xray.

In too deep?

Last night I dreamed I was following a human-body style alien around asking it if we could at least have a wee peek at some technology to which the response is “You humans cannot understand it” to which my response was “No, we’d be making improvements once we knew how it worked.” Alien stomped off. I should probably lighten up on the Stargate franchise rewatch.

Off to the doctor to deal with the shooting pains in my groin. **** me, if somebody had told me you can get arthritis or sports injuries in the joint of your pubic bone I would have said YUK but I really wouldn’t have expected to get it.  Now I’m thinking that when I skidded and fell in the shop almost two years ago, that’s when the initial injury happened.  I’m remembering how much the walk to and from work – the last time I worked – was killing me. Oh well it’s for the doc to say.  It doesn’t hurt all the time but when it does, I stop in my tracks like a lightstruck deer and promptly start limping on both feet while whimpering.  I have to be really careful how far I walk with Paul now, and I’m DONE when I get back.  Also, I’m finding shopping, with it’s combo of slow walking and hauling and then driving a stick vehicle and getting in and out of a tiny car (which I love, but man), more and more difficult.

CPAP okay.  Probably about four hours. I do wake more rested.

 

No writing yesterday but I worked on songs.  Welp, only half an hour to make it to the appointment, BYE.

The hypochondriac in me

I fucking hate it when somebody on facebook says “I meet most of the diagnostic criteria for X HORRIBLE INCURABLE UNTREATABLE DISEASE”.  Because, lalala, I run off to the dreaded Differential Diagnosis Machine that is Google and go “ARGH MY GOD I HAVE THIS DREADED DISEASE and it isn’t fatal  BUT GOD HOW INCONVENIENT.”

No, I don’t have this dreaded disease.  I am just complaining about how the ‘monkey see monkey do’ part of my brain seems to be hyperactive.

Keith and Paul, bless ’em, have gotten me out of the house for walks over the last couple of days.  Oakalla was gorgeous, as always, full of lovely dogs.  Whom I respected from a respectful distance, but Paul never saw a Samoyed he didn’t want to manhandle.

Inherent Vice is a sterling example of how you CAN film a Pynchon novel.  Joachim Phoenix is remarkable, as is the rest of the extremely well chosen cast.  Josh Brolin is a standout.

I have met Keith’s girlfriend!  She exists.  L. is a charming young woman with a most infectious laugh. I gave her a lift home the other night and so had a chance to interact with her.

Buster is remarkably blithe for someone who’s been castrated. He leaped up onto the pinball machine less than 24 hours after the operation.  If he keeps this up he’ll rip out his stitches.  Remarkable feline. Hopefully his remarkable aim, persistence and bladder capacity will be put to more pious uses in future.

Today’s walkies will include tomaters.  Jeff needs tomatoes for BLTs.  Also, I must cook bacon.

Everybody have a lovely day now!!

 

Vampire, pass by

Paul and I gave blood yesterday. (I drained in 8 minutes, a new personal record!) He was joshing with the phlebotomist and she turns to me and asks if she can trust him and I said, blandly, “He’s my ex so I’m the wrong person to ask” which triggered much hilarity. Paul clots so fast he literally does not have to put pressure on the sticking point, and the vampire didn’t believe him. I bruise like crazy so I follow the instructions.
 
I know it sounds kinda weird but I think of giving blood as a kind of communion; it connects me to strangers who need my help, and it connects me with John, who gave a lot of blood over the course of his life, and it connects me to the rest of my family; Katie and I and Paul and Keith all give blood when so able, and mOm gave gallons when she was a nurse.
I drove both ways.  Traffic was good, traffic was good.
Around 7 I felt like all the air had been let out of my tires so I crashed; looks like I got a solid 8 hours of sleep.
Sue and I had a lovely (and for me, hobbitly) breakfast at Ricky’s on Lougheed Coquitlam yesterday.  We noted a side room which might work okay for pub night although there’s no good transit close by; she’s going to advise the minister.
Just learned that South Fraser is being kicked out of their home.  I light a candle for them finding space cheap, fast, painlessly.
I have a song that the Conflikt folks really like in this year’s songbook, so even if I can’t go (money…) I will still represent.
Archer’s back!

Balloons go up until they come down

The ongoing crisis looms a little closer to North Americans.  Sell your Airline stock. I’ve asked Paul to retire.  Or to consider it if and when we get an Ebola sufferer coming through town via YVR.

Katie is having a rough go, poor lassie, not getting enough sleep.

Turkey soup is bubblin’ away.

Jeff’s at work and going to bring home treats.  I am going to curl up with Thomas Piketty.

 

Church at the beach

Well, I took those 478 steps yesterday to Wreck.  When Mike and I got there, there was an immense fog blowing across Marine Dr.  For maybe thirty seconds we debated going down to the beach, as it appeared a breezy and clammy time was to be had, but by three o’clock the fog had moved across the inlet where it formed an amorphous but solid appearing wall, 15 stories high.

There were alcohol and food vendors there and no cops.  I got a little singed but the sun wasn’t very fierce. Mike brought his Taylor and I brought Otto, and we sang and played, Dylan and other gods and goddesses.  There was a very light breeze and all in all it was very very pleasant.

We took it easy going up the stairs.  I concentrated on breathing and body mechanics to ensure that I didn’t strain anything.  I got home and because I am no fool I showered and changed before bed; that beach at the end of the season is like a very scratchy petri dish.

Damn, it was nice. I tripped on rhodopsin for a while, experiencing that wonderful progression of colours and geometry that happens when you stare at the sun with your eyes closed for at least ten minutes and then cover your eyes.  First, your visual field goes an inky, depthless black.  Then purple, a colour so strong and overwhelming that you gasp as it comes on, fills from the centre to the periphery. Then the centre turns a malignant orangey copper, and from that springs a deep magenta, so it looks like a pop art eye. Expanding out from the magenta is that same inky depthless darkness, now almost deep blue, with teal semi circles radiating out from that centre.  Very gradually, everything turns a pale silvery green; then brittle diamond shaped lozenges of fiery orange, yellow and red, march up and down your visual field like the very finest mushroom high. Unlike every other time I’ve done this, the colour progression repeated thrice before the last of the visual effects died off (obviously nowhere near as strong, but it was interesting to look at even as attentuated as it was). As always, I feel as strong as Jack the Bear after I do that, and I am much refreshed both mentally and physically.

A week or so ago I listened via NPR to the new Leonard Cohen album, so his voice was still in my head when I was in the shower last night.  Michel, one of the characters in the novel, still didn’t have a song, so I was thinking… Michel lived in Montréal for years, maybe a song in the style of Leonard Cohen?  Michel is staying in town simply and solely to get his mitts on Kima, so I thought ….  (and this is not a song a Sixer would ever write.  They do not infantilize lovers; they don’t smile, they don’t wear hats.  So this is what happens when pop culture gets through with Michel.  In real life, he’d say nothing, sing nothing, present her with nothing except himself.)

 

I just might stick around, baby

I just might stick around

Normally after a week I see

Nothing new in town

A light is glowing in your eyes

My very breath is bound

I just might stick around, baby

Maybe I’ll stick around

If you didn’t know you were special, baby

If you didn’t know you’re great

I’d hop a freight, jump aboard a freighter

Tip my hat, say see ya later

But no one else has quite your style

Not your figure, nor your smile

Yes there’s something new in town

I just might stick around

Terrible night’s sleep

I have mostly not been having insomnia, but last night was pretty bad.

Today, job search, practice and writing.

Paul is in Ontario staying with Sandra.  They had steak cooked over a fire last night.  I hope Paul is at least able to get Sandra into a canoe – one of the drawbacks of owning a fantastic property is that you’re too busy looking after it to enjoy it.

Wish I was there!

 

 

Room clean

Phase 1 of operation Garage Sale is now complete.

I have cleaned my room. I now have three boxes of papers to decruft and file (and, truth be told, mostly recycle) and then the really, really hard work comes, which is purging my clothes and shoes and costumery and craft stuff AND sorting papers for taxes, all of which is more emotionally draining than room cleaning, although it is less physical ’cause less bending. I’ll be setting up three staging areas in the house, for paper, clothes and items for the garage sale in September. Jeff is supportive but mildly dubious, as the dining room table looks like an outtake from Hoarders. He did yell a most unseemly “Holy shit!” when he saw my room yesterday. Blessings to the friends and family who have been supportive while I deal with my chaos issues and a big shout out to Renée S. for permanently loaning me a Nifty Nabber, which saved my back no end of grief yesterday. Hail Robaxacet.

The word of the day is Jalapeño.

Anxiety coming in waves (this condition)

That’s a quote from a Lupine Howl song, by the way, but it covers the situation nicely.  Every time I go to book the flight I am overcome by anxiety.  I have been waiting for a sign and when I emailed Sandra this morning, she cut through all the bullshit and provided a prosaic and unjudgemental reason to fly east, so after Jeff takes me to brekkie (yay) and I empty the dishwasher and refill it, I’ll book it.  Don’t know the day yet, but at least I know I am going.

Yesterday was that feeling of impending doom day, but today is much better.