Mourning.

I would hardly be the first, and it's hardly the first time I've thought this myself - but the loss, through the 20th century, of traditional mourning practices in the United States is also a loss of an important signal between us as humans. It's been tempting, since my stepfather's death, to find some way to communicate, without having to have awkward conversations with strangers or acquaintances, that I have just endured a loss. With even the black armband all but vanished, mourning itself is an awkward proposition anymore.

There has been an increasing sense, for me, that it's time to move on. Nobody has pressed this upon me, but with weeks passing at a clip (I almost cannot believe it's been nearly three now), there is an inescapable feeling that continuing to Have The Feels about my stepfather's death is already drama-queening. That, to be frank, there is only the briefest of periods we can get away with not being okay and getting on with the day-to-day.

It would be ... if not nice, then certainly convenient, to have an unspoken signal of mourning. If one is to get on with the day-to-day, not having to *speak* about the loss of a loved one would certainly facilitate that. But the human heart is what it is, and it still hurts when people you're not sure even "know about it" register no sympathy. There is confusion - do I tell this person I see every day? Why should I have to do that? It feels like dramatics to lay that on people - particularly when you're not sure whether they know already. Some people won't speak because it's been more than a few days, and the news-cycle of life has sailed. Some people won't speak because they are sensitive to the pain of loss. Some people won't speak because they are awkward with the subject. Some people won't speak because they do not know. As the bereaved, it would be easier to know - is this person in ignorance, or are they being kind? It HELPS to understand.

So much of communication is nonverbal.

And so, if I had a signal, I could at least understand the words that do come toward me. And I could also communicate this important thing about myself, without having to stop time in the workroom to say, "Yeah, my stepfather just died." And leave someone feeling VERY awkward.

My guess is, this is one more gift Americans have accidentally or heedlessly imposed upon the world. In the rush to imprint our informality, nonconformity, and expectations upon human interaction, we have obliterated some forms of signal someone figured wasn't necessary, and over time the social enforcement that is conformity (har) ended up killing off this branch of etiquette. Uncomfortable, restrictive, depressing, perhaps even importunate upon the carefree (har) lives of other individuals.

Goodbye, mourning. Seriously, has anyone seen real mourning since Jackie Kennedy? I can't so much as remember consistently black garb at funerals; my mom, as it happens, wore poppy-red over a red and black dress, to the funeral inspiring me to discuss this whole thing. She is a great believer in the reaffirmation of life in vivid (the word means lively, after all) color.

I wore black. He was a bit more traditional. And he deserves to be mourned.

Indeed, since he died, I have kept my wardrobe more on the sober side ever since. If I can't go around in mourning jewelry (that people will understand as such, as opposed to thinking I just picked coz I'm goth-ly tinged), at least I can calibrate my mien to less flamboyance. And wear *less* jewelry. I actually applied a shot of brown hairspray to cover the blue hair, in fact, before the funeral; and at least once or twice since. I'm not even wearing highlighting cosmetics these days; bright eyes just seem inappropriate. (And the simpler the eye makeup, the less smear when I slip and find myself crying. In the middle of a meeting. Because: dork. In mourning.)

Three weeks. And already, I find myself embarrassed to even SAY "I am in mourning" (except to that one actual human telemarketer who called, and I could not take it). In the culture I've grown up in, mourning itself is unseemly, because it imposes upon those around us the distasteful necessity of sensitivity, or just the reminder of mortality. Mourning for three WEEKS, well. That is just melodramatic.



And yet, I am impelled to say - at least here - he deserves more than weeks. And what he has taught me, perhaps especially in his own final week, which was horrific ... will stay with me for the rest of my life. I still don't understand everything I saw and experienced, and it's both something to process and also to extrapolate from: for all I went through the eternity and power and heartbreak of his deathbed, my mom has been enduring as a caregiver for years now. His decline, in fact, goes back eight years - I still remember the Mother's Day lunch we shared, when we had to hold his arm back out to the parking lot.

Mom is still learning, too. Just how long this road has been. How, bit by bit, her own liberty to move in the world was curtailed - sometimes by my stepfather's will (he developed terrified and aching separation anxiety), and always by his frailty. How she did it all herself, and kept him home.

Six months ago, I was firmly of the belief that I would NEVER die in a hospital. My own dad's death left me sure it was barbaric and awful. My own dad's death came fast, though.

Now, I am not so sure. Being home might be nice, if I could be assured of sudden death (and that The Poobahs would not starve). It has an allure - who would wish to be in a hospital at the end?

But a slow death at home ... knowing that I could be alone, is that something to sign up for in all eagerness? Not that I'm interested in artificial prolongation, but the variables in horror - if I were alone, and broke a hip (my stepfather's final crisis was a break, and this is often a precipitating factor for those already in decline), what would I endure, ensconsed at home yes, but immobilized, in pain ... ?

Even with caregivers, death at home isn't some peaceful slipping away in one's own bed. Indeed, a standard bed is a horrible, dangerous place. Only after a hospital bed was delivered did my stepfather subside from cruel restlessness and the torture of his broken bones. And by "subside" I do not mean he found comfort. Only some respite, and that incomplete itself.

I learned from him; and sat with him, and tried to give him silence. Sound made him uncomfortable, so I stopped even indulging myself telling him how much I loved him. Or that he could go on. We told him that a lot. He didn't need to hear it, he wasn't holding out for permission to die.


And this too, I learned from him ... death doesn't always answer to the pretty stories we apply to it. It's not always a saga of fulfillment, someone waiting until an important figure comes to their side and releases them. It's not even always a question of release. The man my stepfather was? He had life left, and he was going to use it all up. All of it. Where for six years, he literally begged for death, once it announced it was come, he wrung out of his body the last *iota* of life left to him. Death wasn't impatient for him; those of us around him were.

It is a harrowing thing, a week long deathbed. Human chatter becomes intolerable, and I understand his responses when it was pushed on him, or shot over him as if he were barely there. He was there.

Even outside the room where he lay, the prognostications of "when" ... the stories about crows haunting us, or passed family members coming to take him away ... were not merely exhausting, they became irrelevant quickly as he kept on living on ... and we undoubtedly crossed into distasteful territory, more than once. People coming and going, speaking loudly of meals once shared, or playing music he would have hated ... crossing with those who came to sing, to pray, to just be beside him.

I think (and this may just be a story I tell myself) I became more silent as the days passed, simply because that was the only gift I had left to give to him. I stopped typing one day, because I felt the sound of my keystrokes, even, were too much to bear. I didn't hold his hand constantly, I stopped telling him he was the best stepfather ever, or that I loved him, or how much he amazed me.

I just never stopped kissing his head. Breathing the smells of him - not all of them beautiful. And yet, I both miss the scent of him and find myself having a sort of PTSD series of flashbacks to the smell that seemed most emblematic of him in his last year or so. The smell of his death began long before he ever broke a bone.



I miss him, and I love him, and I mourn him, and just thinking it makes me weep silently.

One of the funniest people I ever knew.

Someone who, never having been a father before, took on our whole family when he was not a strapping youth, and who found ways to laugh alongside us. Great G-d, it was not always easy - for him, or for us. The first years were difficult.

But the past eight? The past six? The years since my brother's family moved, and it's been me, mom, and him? The time it took for me to go from reluctance, to content, to tenderness?

I am blessed to have had these years.

Their passing deserves observation.

My stepfather deserves mourning.

Almost my birthday, and all I want is death

This post is a barely-edited version of an email I sent this morning. It's funny how trains of thought actually seem to create their own tracks and destinations.



Forwarded message to a best friend TEO...


"When bitching about a sweater gets REALLY dup and profiend.

Sometimes, being a writer is weird."


-----Original Message-----
Original email to Mr. X
Sent: Tue, Feb 6, 2018 8:06 am
Subject: Yep nope

The quest for the right wardrobe never seems to end. I bought a sweater maybe three months ago - it was definitely "recent" - but am deciding today, it has got to go. Which is especially irritating, as it's a GAP and I usually have good luck with GAP. (One red/black damask print v-neck has lasted me like six years now, it's woooooonnnderful.) But this simple blue rib knit: I'm not into that whole Marie Kondo thing, but this sweater is NOT GIVING ME JOY.

Which, ugh. This sweater made me use THAT phrase. This sweater sucks.

The thing is - it's really comfortable, it's the length I like, and the color is great on me. It is also pill--tastick (yes, with a K - like your name, it needs the consonantal emphasis), the "inseam" tag sticks out (and no, I don't cut out care tags because lord knows I'll louse up the laundry at some point), and the front hangs really weird at the bottom. Gah.

So, though I've worn this probably not even half a dozen times: I need to get rid of this thing.

Life is too short to wear unflattering (and prematurely RATTY) sweaters.

It's just a shame I happen to be wearing the thing NOW. On my fake-Friday, and family day. And with good jewelry, too! Blah.


Tonight is steak night at mom and Stepdad's. The filets from Christmas, which we didn't eat because everyone came down with the flu.

This'll be the way to spend some family celebration time with Step, but leave Wednesday free for me and mom. He's been in bed a couple days, and says he might not eat with us (he'll almost certainly eat with us, but how he'll be feeling today overall is up in the air). Sigh. Poor S. He just can't seem to die.

Bro and I were talking about him this weekend. He said it was something of a shame we came to love him after he lost his mind - I think there's a feeling akin to guilt, for Bro - but I feel like it's a blessing. We LOVE him. Neither of us felt like that was a possibility twelve years ago, and okay, it took dementia to loosen S up and give him this sense of humor we treasure. But he's loosened up. He is funny. We love him. That is enough of a blessing, and dementia is enough a part of life, I feel like it's worth just being grateful for the love and the blessing.

This is the power of a sense of humor, really. Laughter is so elementally *human*, I think, that the bonds it creates can't be trivialized. I mean: look at the way I talk about your face, broken up with laughter. It's in no way a small thing, the way that is beautiful to me.

It's in no way a small gift: S's immense grace in his sense of humor.

They always say there's no comedy without pain. I'd have to agree; that's fair. S's wit has come at such a price. Life itself, arguably. But his funny-ness has made all our lives just that much more wonderful. And just saying that squeezes my heart, and all but breaks it.

And as much as I am grateful for the incandescence of S's impishness and his smile, G-d I wish it could be taken from us all. I wish he could die. Because as long as we have his brilliance with us, HE has to endure such hideous, unbreakable pain. It is so unjust - and I know life is not fair. But nobody should ever suffer this. I would not even wish this on a Trump.

And even with all that, to feel *guilty* about loving his humor would be to waste it, and to negate the blessing it is. I just have to pray it is some amount of blessing for S. It looks like it is. It looks like, even if only a moment at a time, it takes him out of the pain. Even as selfish as it is: he takes *us* out of it. He invites us out of the reality he can't escape himself.

I've never seen grace quite like that. S is something so special.

Internal Narrative is STRONG

… once the illusions are stripped away: the DELusions don’t necessarily decamp.

Monday "Off-ish"

This weekend was the James River Writers conference, my favorite writing event of the year, and I do have intentions to blog about it, but yesterday before it quite concluded, I recused myself from the fun and came home upon several warning flares from my back.  It did wait to go into full muscle spasm pain until after I got home, but yesterday was painful and very little productive, and today may not improve much - because, though I have good intentions of sending out the full request, getting into that trick my WIP just *most-intriguingly* played on me, and digging yet again into query research:  I do have to get groceries, do some tidying up around here, devise a method to huck laundry up and down two flights of stairs without killing my back, and call my bank about an unidentifiable $300 charge.  Also, my mom called, and wants me to come over and help her sort seasonal clothes for getting-rid-of.  The invitation is not one to turn down lightly - not least because this is the sort of thing I *like* doing with my mom - but a lot of me wants to, unfortunately.

Also, that back problem.  Combined with a nestle-happy kitten, it goes a long way indeed to making me want to stay right here with the laptop producing the illusion of productivity in a couple of the aforementioned activities.

Yet it is a beautiful day, and mom's been sick and I know how that makes you crave company, and I'd LIKE to help with this activity.

And it's 1:00 almost already, and the day is burning away as I dither on my blog.

*Snip*

Came home sick today after an hour trying to tough it out at the office (which is to say, closer to three hours of "toughing" really - getting to the office takes time, too).  I feel wiped out, but still have this idea in my head two sick days are reserved for life-threatening direness, and exhaustion doesn't qualify.  Work Ethic by Mom.  *Zonk*

While I was still there, I snipped the waistband of the hose I was wearing, and remembered the last time, the first time, I did that.

The day dad died my stomach was in knots - not like today's discomfort, but a serious, acute pain indeed.  It was also the first time Erick ever came to visit here, and I was trying to take him out.  Oddly enough, trying to do my own birthday.  What a bizarre thing that must have been for him; certainly, it wasn't normal for me.

I failed to feed him any sort of dinner, and he ordered a steak.  I took a bite and bit my tongue so hard it bled for a pretty long time.  Nice hole, right through it.  The steak didn't agree with me, and between that and the taste of blood (and the event of that day, intense enough in itself), I had about the worst upset stomach I can remember.  I went to the bar and got a knife, or scissors, or who knows what, and cut the waistband of my hose, in the bathroom.

The sound and sensation of a blade in nylon is very distinctive.

What a funny thing to bring me back to thoughts about losing dad.  I miss that man.

I rather miss the other one, too.  But that is significantly less painful.

Ack - My Back

Okay, I definitely settled too soon/too low with that other driver's insurance company.

Good news is, Brookstone sells these for sixty bucks.  I can afford sixty bucks.

Aftermowth

Hootenanny on a Friday night at my house:  achingly HOT bath, followed by analgesics, muscle relaxant, heating pad, and early bedtime.

Lugging

Siddy is restive, because she did not get her nice long walk tonight.  Even last night's stroll was short; she tried to spin me like three or four times.  I can't go but so far after a good leash-yanking.

She's not being punished as a matter unto itself.  I just have too much crap to do around the house.

There was the hand-washing I needed to do before I even got around to dinner, and then there was the shade (its bracket fell down last night - when it did) I had to drill back into the sill.  Not my finest carpentry project, but the thing is up - and the shade is down.  And the skirt I hope to mend before the night's out.  Oh, and the laundry (one load down, and a bedspread now hanging to dry), which I am just to cussed to carry up and down stairs one sock at a time.  So I carry the damned basket.  And that doesn't feel great.

And here I sit, with the novel's handy little drive all plugged in the laptop ... not quite getting round to opening it.  And it's coming up on 9:00.  Which ... how in the devil???

Good lord, in an hour I'm going to be setting myself up for bedtime.

What an endless day.   *ZONK*

Blast

Okay, two problems with going for Krispy Kremes to celebrate both my work and (oh yeah!) The Simpsons' 500th episode (and what could be more appropriate than doughnuts for Homer time?).  One, the snow started actually sticking at some point.  Huh.

Two:  OH YEAH.  I don't have taillights, thanks to that road rage wench.

Dadgummit.  I guess there won't be guilty decadence for me tonight.  Boo!

Gah

One of the most frustrating things about rejections is those that tell you what a great writer you are - and leave you out in the cold nonetheless.  Got two today; one, while including some encouraging words, also brought on some useful commentary.  The other wasn't quite as practical, but at least it was a response.

The arrival of these responses - one of which I consider to be an enormous disappointment - coming less than fifteen hours before I'll be getting started with this year's Conference isn't ironic, and it sure isn't funny to me in this moment; but the timing does seem to have some sort of key light on it.

I responded to the agent it seemed appropriate to thank for their time, and have been reading up on the one I meet with tomorrow, but this makes the fire this event usually lights both in and under me all the more important for me.

The Ankle

... is improved a lot, but still painful though I am walking. Somoene surprised me today by asking about it - and when I asked how they even knew, I got a laugh - "I read it on your blog!"

So an update. My gait is back to normal, and the swelling and bruising have stayed under control very well. Still, the ankle hurts and the soft tissue on the top side of the foot, where the injury occurred, is sore. I don't have particularly good lateral motion in either direction, but have been trying to flex and increase that some. Still using the Ace bandage, and still not in heels, but all my ordinary functions are fine and I'm trying to work to improve some "extras".

The goal is to be able to mow the lawn tomorrow and/or the next day.

And thanks again for asking! :)

Bootless Walkin'

I am, to some degree, back up off my knees today. The contribution of a neighborly set of crutches hasn't gotten me as far as out of the house yet (they're set for someone 5'4", and dang if my mom or me could readjust the buggers - sheesh), but may at least be of some use and comfort. I've probably put fewer than a hundred steps on my feet today, but none of those has been taken on my knees - or crawling - so, some success at least. The pain remains, but at diminished intensity, thank goodness.

Still not positive whether this is a sprain or if there is the possibility of something being actually torn in there, but at least I've improved a good deal. It'll be interesting to see if I can do church in the morning.

Pain seems to make me tired, though. Not even eleven - and I was in bed until 10:30 today, and took an hour and half nap to boot - and I am dying to go to bed.

Since there are no commitments to prevent this nor even make it a bad prospect, I think we'll hit POST on this and do exactly that.

What a weekend. What a waste!

Walking

Turns out that stand, weight, slow, and careful thing DOES NOT work more than once.

I have stairs to go up, to go to bed.

And then I will have to come down them again tomorrow, presumably. Oh great G-d. What a prospect. My throat is killing me as it is, from screaming and hyperventilating in pain.

Indeed I Am Aware

That it is insufferably self-indulgent to put up post after post about this injury.

Hello: you are reading a BLOG. Only shy of Lindsay Lohan for sheer self-indulgence, that. Right?

I'm fascinated by the progress of this pain. And I do know how sick that sounds. It's a family thing, though. My mom once took a photo of her blood in the snow, after a nasal accident on a sled. And she MAILED it to me in the midwest.

We're really not normal.

But we're pretty difficult to gross out ... If that's any advantage. Heh.

Bit Less Bad

If I pull myself to a standing position, and carefully place my feet, I can, if I stand very still, bear weight on my foot. From there, it is possible to take a few steps ... as long as the angle of my ankle deviates in NO way from pretty straight forward, and as long as not even a molecule of air hits my foot to impede my stride whatsoever - obstacles like the friction of the floor under me, or the fraction-of-an-inch lip between the kitchen and the living room are pretty paintful.

It also comes to my attention that this is not to be attempted too frequently. For instance, the resting period of the twenty minutes it took my rice to cook just now: insufficient for the taking of six or eight steps in either direction to pick up the food.

Oh, and damn. I left the stove on.



Still. It is locomotion. Of a sort.

Whee.

Bad

Okay, I quite literally cannot walk. Period. I just crawled through my house and walked on my knees, and THAT is painful to try. But it is so much better than walking.

It is - you know - at least actually possible.

Holy frijoles, this hurts!

Header, Footer

So today was the day I took off work to celebrate a year and a day (and April Fool's - har) since being laid off. I had plans, good ones - and did show up so to speak. First, a blood donation. Platelets and plasma, maybe some whole. And a trip to Goodwill; I have not donated anything there since starting at the new job (now nine months old!), and the pile was beginning to get teeter-y.

Two steps out the back door (and one down the actual steps), I took a header and made a more ungainly route to the ground than I had intended. Big box of clothes exploded on the walk. Me exploded on the walk. It was remarkably painful, and I sat for at least a full two minutes just waiting to breathe, and for the shock to subside. It was a long, sticky shock, didn't want to abate so easily.

I knew fairly quickly I hadn't broken anything. My family don't break very easily. Still, I'm in more immediate pain than I was when I last tried to sprain myself, soft tissue injury or no.

It took some time, but I did get the boxes into the car, and I drove off to go give blood. It started off well, but I think I'm going to have to discourage them from attempting to take triple donations from me. Doubles go well, but the machine gets far too overexcited about my platelet counts, and simply can't handle the process. It's like Lucy on the chocolate candy conveyor belt - but with all sorts of alarms, and a nervous needle both drawing from and pumping back into my arm.

In the end, and most unfortunately, the process was a bust (without any actual bursting of veins this time, thank goodness). Off I went to Goodwill.

Things went fine there.

I spent some time with mom, but am about out of steam on taking care of the shoe rack project I had in mind for my closet. It's an extremely simple undertaking: I just want to screw up some moulding on a piece of wall which is enough out of the way for it, and hang my heels from it. It'll also clear up a LOT of space, which would be so nice. Even with getting rid of as much as I did today, I have a lot of clothing in my life, and it would be nice to use the space available for organization for those things, instead of the shoes now occuping some of it.


Anyway, so a day off is always good, but this one got a bit cramped (or sprained) with sorta-obstacles. *Pleh*

I think I'm going to watch the last season of Buffy (if Netflix hasn't disabled that yet), and later on it'll be Cukor's "The Women". The first time I ever watched that was on a gorgeously beautiful, seasonable day last year - March 31 - as I absorbed my unemployment.

This year, it is cold, nasty, and grey ... and I am so grateful, blessed, and fortunate.

Life is a good place.

If you're careful descending steps with big boxes in hand.

Oh Ow You Guys

Today's only search strings:

springtime bad headaches make me sick

what can i take for a headache insead of ibruprofin

I feel for y'all. And here's a way to avoid my pill-popping ways: ICE. As much of a fool for analgesics as I am, when I am at home and not at the mercy of office space, the single finest and FASTEST cure for a headache is to freeze it. Keeping a pint of fruit sorbet in the house is actually workable, but the best way to manage it is simple ice packs (use the bag of frozen peas or corn if you don't already have multiple ice packs - but buy at least two, so you can rotate them as one thaws out on your raging head). I've tried the gel masks you're supposed to refrigerate, and it's bearable but I find those uncomfortable - and, frankly, smelly.

And if your headaches are migraines, here is something you should know. IF you can catcth the incipient symptoms, it is actually possible to stop certain migraines dead in their tracks - no drugs, no weird spells, no bargains with the devil. Give yourself brain freeze. The nerve signals caused by THIS form of headache actually interrupt those of a newborn migraine, and short out the relays attempting to build a nasty network in your neurons. Brain freeze is simple, of course - get a Slurpee (a cure for so *much* on a hot summer day) - eat some ice cream fast ... keep a spoon in the freezer at all times, and put it against your soft palate when you feel the first pain.

For all I have become the stooge of the pills, I do know about non-drug methods of managing pain. I also know that, usually, they are FAR speedier in their effects, and vastly more satisfactory in producing results. I just got lazy somewhere along the line. And The Lolly has no thumbs; so she's rotten at taking care of me this way.

The Cocktail

My headaches haven't been as bad as they were in years past. The local honey, I do think, gets some credit for this ... but I realize, there is also a problem. A little over a year and a half ago, I hit the hospital thanks to one of my headaches. It was a reasearch trip - eliminate the worst, scan the headbone, scare the neighbors to death. Go home and sleep it off. The headache was, even for me, remarkable in its power, and that is clearly saying something; for those of you who've suffered this blog long, you know I'm able to manage levels of pain in my head most people would go mad enduring. For years, in fact, I didn't even bother with analgesics except very rarely. About seven years ago, though - the job was one of the worst of my life. This was the year I had a headache which continued, never stopping, but infinite in its variety - waking and sleeping - without relief for even a moment - for the course of over three months. Every day had its cresting bad hours, every night even unconscious, my brain was to one degree or other generating, and experiencing, its pain. The air in my building made me sick, and the nature of my position poisoned my head. I was, sincerely and literally, NEVER without pain during this period. And I think it was then I finally devised my cocktail. There were times I was desperate with the pain. I remember describing it to X - like millions of nanobots excavating my eyeballs from the inside, with millions of microscopic, cruel blades. I remember the night he and I went out with my mother, to move a refrigerator, when I had that level of a headache. I remember turning to my medicine cabinet. I would turn to my prescription. A very mild barbituate (I could take it in the daytime with no ill effects, fuzziness, nor fatigue): Phrenelin Forte. It was a very, very long time before I realized the reason I had sleep apnea so horribly, so terrifyingly, along with my headaches, was that this pill - the only thing that really worked for me - happened to come with the power to stop my breath. (Hey, and may I thank you *yet* again, Dr. W., you utter moron. Because it's not like my father DIED OF LUNG DISEASE - so it was a *great* idea you had, to give me a drug which "may cause severe breathing problems" ... Nice.) And so. Somehow, over the course of time, I began putting one aspirin, one acetaminaphen, and one ibuprofen together. After the headache a year and a half ago, when my mom, who'd been worrying and lecturing me about this "cocktail" for several years, importuned the ER doctor to tell me to stop using it - and he looked at me and said, "Does it work?" and then said, "Then take it," when I said yes ... "Or you can take four Advil at a time if that helps" - I won a vindication, and my cocktail became legitimate. And then it became two Ibu's and two Acet's, and maybe one aspirin for good measure. Then it became four Ibu's, and if that didn't work, within two hours I'd add two Acet's. And if that didn't help, at least one aspirin and one more Ibu before bedtime. Hey, I'm not drinking or something. I ... usually won't take four acetaminaphen, what with the stomach thing and all. It was ibuprofen the doc approved. So those have crept up in quantity. *** But my headaches ... are not as bad as they used to be. It doesn't hurt that my job is the best I have ever had, perhaps. It doesn't hurt that I'm comfortable in most ways. But it is unusual, for me to have a springtime without constant head pain, too. What *isn't* unusual, anymore, is for my go-everywhere bottle of meds - some of the ripoff-brand, caffeine-inclusive Faux-cedrin, some Ibu's, some Acet's, some aspirin ... and the last two or so, even, of the old Phrenelin Forte (because, yes, Virginia - there are headaches bad enough, you REALLY do not care if you wake up gasping for breath in the middle of the night) - to run out in weeks instead of months. It's never odd for me to find one of the types of pills in there has run out, and I have to take a fistful of the others instead. I remember my self of twenty years ago, who hardly bothered over headaches ... and I remember that year of the unremitting pain ... and I'm not an idiot. I wonder if it's not a disservice to my intestinal lining, to indulge quite as much acet as I do. I wonder if the pain would not be smarter, to just endure it. But the headaches are so much worse than they were twenty years ago. I think. I'd swear it, anyway, if someone judgy were asking me. And I haven't used the prescription in at least two years now, maybe three or even four. I know it's been a LONG time since that idiot quack doctor prescribed the things to me; by now the little lavendar capsules are more talisman than active ingredient anymore. I just know I get headaches, and I don't want to keep them. And you can't give them away. And really. It's not like I'm drinking or anything. And the ER doc said ...

Kicker

The follow up to the bad day at work (as distinct from the other bad days, and the bad nights, all this week) is this little tidbit: It turns out that that audio conference call? The one that connected those of us who'd been booted off the video conference - but didn't connect us back to it?

Did.

We were heard by everyone still connected on the video bridge line. We just couldn't hear them.



Good thing I stuck with that joke about not having anything to say without an HR issue ... rather than saying anything ..,

Shew.



This week just kept getting worse and worse, and didn't even improve once Friday night (should have) provided some relief,