The Russian mud road looks like it could be a lot of fun, but I am not brave enough to handle any of the crazy mountainside roads…! (click). Anyway, I'm going to watch tonight's UFC event from the greatest altitude I ever have… but the couch doesn't really compare to this Bolivian nightmare.
…because after about a year of sitting on the floor, I finally bought a couch. It's actually sort of weird sitting on it because I'm not used to being in that position in relation to everything else in the room. To be perfectly honest, I'm actually sitting on the floor in front of the sofa as I write this!
So I noticed that my right hand was shaking pretty bad because I was having trouble using the mouse — no typing west of Qwerty! The weird thing is that my left hand wasn't shaking at all. Just my right hand, and then tremors up to about the shoulder. I showed Jon and pointed out that my hands were also different colors which I didn't notice until then. The one that I couldn't control fully was a deeper red. Dunno why. It's still kind of shakey but at least it's not a different color any more.
Saira said I should probably call a doctor about that?
The funny thing is that I've had variations on the above most of my life too… I think one of the first “weird” appointments I had with a doctor when I was a kid was because I was complaining that someone other than me was moving my arm. I had some tests done but nothing ever came of it. It's funny because one of the reasons I can remember that I had some of the same issues when I was a kid — holes in my memory, pain issues, and seizure/tremor stuff — is because I remember no one taking them seriously when I told people.
I was thinking a bit about pain… I mean, this tumor has hurt like crazy for as long as I can remember. I know it's hurt at least fifteen years or so, because when I first started getting tattooed I remember thinking about how much less it hurt to get tattooed than the pain that I'm always in. It's not really the same pain, because tattooing (or at least lining) is a very sharp and external pain, whereas a bone pain is dull and internal.
Anyway… Clearly it's a pain level that I can deal with, because I have, and most of the time I don't even think about it because I'm so used to it. But at the same time, I don't really enjoy hurting all the time. So I don't know if it's appropriate to ask for anything or not. A part of me thinks, “oh, good, now you have a 'valid' excuse to ask”, but another large part of me points out the obvious that I don't really need it, and it would just be a cop out that'll probably make other stuff hurt more in relative terms in the future anyway.
My conclusion is not to get any, but it's an interesting thought experiment because you think about the relationship between pain treatment and date of diagnosis in comparison to the date of the onset of symptoms, and in my case (what with all the intentional pain), how it causes me to relate differently to pain in general.
Anyway… Rachel is coming to take Nefarious off for a Thanksgiving holiday, so I have next week to pound through lots of work (and maybe even get caught up on a little sleep). I've got to get my new gallery code done. It's been far, far too long, and the clock is ticking fast toward the end of the year (we're less than a month until submissions for 2006 are over!).
So, I'm generally a big fan of madmen who lead potentially cultish rebellions against oppressive forces and governments, as I'm sure is no surprise. I think it's sad that before his death (yesterday was the anniversary) Louis Riel became a Christian, but I think it works in this, one of the only (and final) poems he ever wrote in English, two weeks before his execution for treason by the Canadian government.
The snow,
Which renders the ground all white,
From heaven, comes here below:
Its pine frozen drops invite us all
To white — keep our thoughts and our acts,
So that when our bodies do fall,
Our merits, before God, be facts.
How many who, with good desires,
Have died and lost their souls to fires?
Good desires kept unpractic'd
Stand, before God, unnotic'd.
O Robert, let us be fond
Of virtue! Virtues abound
In every sort of good,
Let virtue be our soul's food.
I really wonder how much damage the grandson of Aleister Crowley (now that's funny) will still do — the restructuring of the economy for the rich is bad enough, but I still keep reading rumblings about an invasion of Iran, which I don't understand at all… And really, if the US pulls out of Iraq, in some ways that's worse because it leaves a highly destabilized player in a now nuclear Middle East. But I think that the core purpose of Bush's presidency was the economic changes — the war just kind of happened.
Here's some UCLA cops tasering a student for being Muslim:
Well, you should be doing something more useful right now.
Since a couple people have asked about it, when ModBlog gives you the “can't connect to database” error, just hit reload and it'll [probably] work… It's struggling right now because the world is going so link-crazy (but there are new entries). Other than that, some kid slammed Nefarious's hand in the door today so the school stuffed her full of candy and told us to take her to the hospital. She wasn't really very badly hurt (a couple of cuts and big bruises, nothing broken or even that sore) so it was easier to DIY fix…
So far at her school this year there has been a stabbing, lots of biting, hands slammed in doors, kids getting punched in the playground, and more… Schools sure are violent these days, even if you're only three or four. Back when I went, your main risk was getting beat up by the teachers…
