God created Arrakis to train the faithful.

Sunday, July 15, 2007

You know, on an objective level a lot of stuff in my life is kind of messed up… I'm going through the stresses of a divorce, which even in the best of cases is unpleasant (and I think that as much as there are hiccups, Rachel and I are handling things better than most), I might go partially blind because of my over-the-top body modification interests, and I've been diagnosed with a nerve disorder that means I may be in increasingly large amounts of uncontrollable pain for the rest of my life, but when it comes right down to it, I'm happier now than I have been in a very long time. It's interesting, because I think when you feel your life is falling apart and everything is being taken away from you — business, body, relationships, everything — it gives you an insight that's very important in the process of growing up.

I went out for a fun pub supper with friends down the street (when I go out with Michael it always means a few too many pitchers!)… But the last couple days (because right now I'm “cooking for one” I have to cook a similar meal a couple days in a row) I've cooked chicken — which is funny because I don't really like meat, and definitely not chicken — in a garlic cranberry reduction with various veggies and rice. Last night I made it with a rather spicy seaweed jerk sauce and it turned out quite well.

Well, my eye hasn't ruptured yet. I think there's a cyst of ink (jeez, I hope it's only ink) trapped between the muscle and the eye, which is slowly trying to force its way out. It's kind of painful, but I think that even the worst case scenario should be inside “acceptable”. Ha. I'm sure I must seem like such a nutter to people who don't know me or understand what makes me tick, but really, I don't particularly care about those people. And I suspect that most of the people who read this little diary, or that hang out on BME in general, probably feel the same way and feel the same way themselves. It's interesting how alien we can be from the “average” human experience, while being so incredibly human at the same time.

Well, tomorrow I'm going to try and get Ferg's much delayed article on the way (sorry to Ferg for taking so long), and I have a couple of great interviews about female genital modification on the way as well that I hope I'll be able to publish soon…

Thankfully I put my car into storage today so I don't have to drag myself out of bed super-early tomorrow to keep it from getting towed! And now, to bed. So tired! And tomorrow morning it's off to the gym… Ack!

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Ol' One-Eye

Saturday, July 14, 2007

An eyeball tattooing update…

So even though I've had a doctor check my eye repeatedly and they tell me that it looks fine (not that they think it looks good or anything, but at least my vision is perfect), I really think there's about a 35% chance that there's a serious problem about to “erupt”. The redness and general soreness from it is definitely gone, but there is sort of a throbbing feeling, and because I'm in so much constant pain anyway that it's so hard to gauge it in terms of “rate the pain from 1 to 10″.

Here's a kind of gross picture:

I'm going to go have it looked at again on Monday (even though they said “come back in two weeks”), because to me it seems like the third injection (the one that went deep) is trying to reject or is otherwise becoming increasingly irritated and I expect the surface of the eye to split open (assuming it's not just slowly leaking out, which I don't think is happening any more than already has)… The doctors think it's an inflamed muscle and I'd like to believe that (because it has sensation, I think that objectively they're probably right), but haha, I guess we'll see what horrorshow thing happens. Arr!

I want to state again for the record that if something goes wrong I don't have any malice or regrets about it, and to be honest, I'm surprisingly not particularly stressed out over it. Damaged vision in one eye? It's the least of my problems, really!

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How does your oven work?

Saturday, July 14, 2007

First, judging by the feedback, Jon totally aced the new theme for ModBlog! We've got some more projects in the works as well as we slowly, slowly move BME from 1994 to 2008.

Other than that, the medication I'm on is weird. It's supposed to last 4-6 hours or so, and I know that's about how long it works because I'm opitate itchy for about that long, but I tend to sleep in and feel really dopey in the morning… As such, I sure enjoy this video.

Anyway, I'm just posting another BME update (Phil's been processing a zillion images a day!), and then I think I'm going to go have breakfast at Yasi's Place… Maybe try and do some painting today. I haven't really done any painting since Nefarious left, not including drawing…

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OK, in English

Thursday, July 12, 2007

I spent the whole day at the hospital today… I thought it would only be a half hour thing but it was quite lengthy. I got x-rayed a bunch and talked to a variety of doctors. In a bit under a month they'll be both removing the bone tumor and doing exploratory surgery to see if there's anything obvious they might be able to find in terms of a ganglioneuroma which may have resulted from nerve damage done in the first surgery. I guess the technical name for the main thing bothering me is allodynia. The anaesthesia doctor I talked to today seemed a little pissed off at my regular doctor for not dealing with it because it's so obvious (they have “philosophical issues” with painkillers) and offered to write them a letter about it.

I had some blood taken, got tested for antibiotic-resistant bugs (hello butt-swab), and all that. I had to wait for a long time in a room that would have gotten any tattoo shop shut down — the sharps container was not only filled to past the “full” line, but it even had a bloody needle just lying on top of it out in the open, and I noticed (after it blood was taken, eww) there was blood on the pillow that they put your arm on when they take blood… Seems like of dangerous.

I stopped by the eye department as well and they took a quick look at the eye and all's good in that department. Oh and this surgery is going to be done under a local probably so that'll be fun because I'll be able to watch them take out the thing. Anyway, I'm pretty tired out and pissy from having spent the day talking about pain and surgery (and without painkillers because I had to drive) so I'm going to take one and lie down for a while now.

I wanted to do some painting today but I don't think I'm up to it (like I said, I was expecting half an hour at the hospital, not eight hours)… but I think maybe I'll draw out some paintings because I have a big stack of mini-canvasses that I can do pretty fast.

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I love Warren Ellis

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

And I love his commentary on eyeball tattoos. Way too funny (and completely good natured — and I have to admit that I do get a kick out of reading Wil Wheaton calling the three of us stupid while I'm simultaneously watching him as Wesley Crusher on TV, haha! — I mean that in a fanboy way to be clear, not in a mean way):

“Now, apparently corneal tattooing has been around for ages, covering up scars and leucomas and other disgusting shit. But it took Shannon Larratt, of the indispensable ModBlog and the BME online community of body-modification fanciers, to ask the question what about scleral tattooing? Well, a specialist told him that tattooing your eyeball is basically dangerous and stupid. Shannon, being Shannon, decided that this was Condition Win and set out along with two friends to get stabbed in the eyemeat.”

Here's a photo I took a few minutes ago. It's healing nicely, no problems at all, although I'm so jealous of how Josh's turned out and can't wait to get more done. I am over-the-top into this modification and am so thrilled we finally did it.

Anyway, with some help from Tan0k, ModBlog finally restarts later today (I apologize for the extended downtime) in part thanks to my Dr. House cocktail of opiates and stimulants, und meine persoenlichenschreiben (ist das ein wort?) hier fortfahren auf Deutsch.
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