Day 17 of the Autumn 2015 Sinus troubles.

I've been sick for 17 days now. Only about 3 of those involved leaving the house at all. I am getting bored of my bedroom. *WHINE* I'm a big baby.

 As I mentioned,  I've been diagnosed with Silent Sinus Syndrome, which is a rare condition where the sinuses in the front of one side of the face close up for as long as several years. I also have a deviated septum. This probably is part of why my allergic reactions turn into painful acute sinus infections within about 48 hours, those infections linger for a month or so, then crawl into my lungs to nest for the winter.

Fixing it requires surgery. I don't know when I get the surgery- I have a consult appointment next week. I don't know how long recovery will take either. This is only upsetting for me in that I am sick right now, and that I was going to get a dog.

 I need a dog. I am a sad piece of misery without one. My house is too quiet. No one wakes me up to go for walks.

There's the catch, though. To have a dog, I have to be healthy enough to move around. I am not, so I can't. I am so lonely without a dog. I won't be able to have one until I am healthy enough to move around again, outdoors. I wear a scarf over my nose and mouth in winter here anyway because I almost always have or am recovering form lung infections in winter, so I can't breathe icy cold air.
I wanted to get a dog and go scootering with him in the mornings. I was healthy enough to do it, too. And then this happened. Foo.

You'd think after years of winter bedrest for months at a time, I'd get used to bedrest. Nope. Still as whiny as ever. I hate not being able to at least sit up and do things, but the more I do anything other than lie down or against pillows in bed, the sicker I get the next day. I have to REST.  Well, tomorrow after I do my online test I am gonna play computer games on the couch downstairs. I can be bundled up down there just as easily as up here.


Yes, online test. Did I mention the awesome side of this?
1. They caught the SSS before my eyeball started to sag. That's right, most people only know they have this thingy when their sinus has imploded so much that the bone under the eye socket is dissolved and their eye starts to droop. NOPE NOPE NOPE. So I am very thankful my CT scan showed that I have it before anything happened to my precious eyes. I am exceedingly visual and I need my eyes.
2. In spite of my brain fog making reading hard, I have found an Audio Dramatization by the BBC of my textbook, (still chortling over that) and that's been letting me "study" for the test I need to to take which is  ONLINE. My History class is at the cutting edge, for a college course, and that means our assignments and tests are all ONLINE. I can take the test from right here in my bed! I don't have to haul my weak butt into the testing center!
This is important because to attend our school you must be healthy and mobile. If you cannot wheel or walk a quarter mile or more from parking lots to classrooms, you cannot attend classes. Elevators and a few ramps do not an Accessible Campus make, not if you're too sick to walk long distances but not actually disabled.


I miss going to Aikido. I miss how cool it was to be healthy enough to work out and work hard.
I really, really miss my dog.

INTJ problems- Not Cold, Pressure Cooker.

I test out on the Myers- Briggs profile, professionally done, as an INTJ/p. That is, I have some times when that last variable is a 50/50 split.

INJT are stereotyped as likely to be cold rational intuitive thinkers, blunt, honest, a bit socially awkward, and stuck kind of pretending to reactions they don’t feel in order to fit in.
All spot on,
except one thing.

I’m not cold. I’ve never been cold unless you mean like Dry Ice is cold. I am a kettle. I am boiling over. I am a slowly seething mass of rage that vents gently and constantly so it doesn’t explode. I am FULL of lots of emotions, lots of loves, lots of empathy for people I’ve never even met, depths of sorrows, lots of old resentments, LOTS of righteous wrath against willful hate.
I am largely full of rage. Yet I do not appear outwardly to have anger issues, and have almost never “taken it out” on someone. Never, in my adult life.
It’s not for lack of knowing how, either- I know a lot of very dangerous stuff including certain martial arts. Or for lack of really, really, wanting to.

Most of my family would be very surprised to learn that I am pretty constantly a roiling pressure cooker of wrath and rage…. under a knitted tea-cozy. “That’s my secret, Cap… I’m always angry.”
…crap. I’m growing up to be either Bruce Banner or Sam Vimes. That’s either really good or really bad.
I sublimate that rage so it never comes out. But I just don’t identify with this stereotype that INTJ people are cold and unfeeling. I have these vast oceans of feelings, not the least of which is this… Anger Thing.

White/Xwayaat

I am what most people would call bi-racial. I come from many ethnicities and histories, but my two major cultures are UK-Celtic “White”,

and on the other side of the family I am very much Native American.

I have very pale skin, and outwardly show no signs of Native heritage but some subtle bone structuring and the thick, nearly black hair of our tribe. Everyone assumes I am “White”.

But the people who give me the most grief about how pale my skin is

who harass me every time I wear a swimsuit, 

with “jokes” and cries of pretending to be blinded by my “undesirable”, “gross”, “ugly” whiteness,

who constantly insist I should be trying to tan more 
so I stop being SOOOO pale

are other “White” people.

Post-dated post: 4th of July Rant

I hate living in a state where anyone can get their hands on fireworks.

Excuse me while I spend the next 48 hours in a state of hypervigilance due to startle response, and stifling bad Firestorm ‘03 Trauma-flashbacks from the smell of ashes and sulfur and plastics burning.
*off to huddle under heavy blanket and weep softly*

I don’t think I Love My Country. I wish I lived in a place that celebrated things with music, or concerts, or folk dances, or candle vigils. Instead of Explosives.

A bad combination of cicumstances- silly lil rant

You know what’s fun?

1. I often sleep with my window open so fresh air can circulate. (second story, steel mesh screened, it’s perfectly safe to do this.)

2. I live in a Suburban Wonderland of a town where people frequently barbecue, burn leaves, roast smores, and generally use fire to do quaint Americana Norman-Rockwell Painting type activities.

3. It’s also an area with a college nearby so they do these things at any ol’ hour of the night because Studying is Hard and life is short, and our sleep schedules are shot anyway.

4. I have a new “Fire and CO detector” that is a fragile orchid of delicacy when it comes to any kind of smoke that is NOT matches. If you light candles and wave the match around, it’ll ignore that. Anything else within about 1,000 feet of this thing will make it start screaming.


Now, when all these things line up just so, it creates a hellish Venn diagram of, “Let’s wake her up at one in the morning with the fear that her lil’ home is ON FIRE, she’ll like that!!”
because the fragile and delicate orchid that is my fire alarm,
which, remember, ignores actual wood smoke in the house,
Is picking up traces of smoke on the wind coming in my window.
*facepalm*

In Which I am Still Sick. With Rejoicing?

October 3- I went to Great Western War, an SCA event in Bakersfield CA, and the site was covered in dead Bermuda Grass.
October 4- I began to have a massive allergic reaction.
October 5- I ended up in a hotel with a chesty cough, did not return to the camping event.
October 10- ish. Got a round of Amoxicillin antibiotics for sinus infections while staying in Temecula.
October 19- End of Antiobiotics.
October 26- First xrays. Not Pneumonia.
November 3- New round of Antibiotics.
November 16-24 San Diego trip, some improvement.
November 18-22, Prednisone for strengthening heart and lungs.
December 16- Bad Coughing frequency picked up that night.
December 17- Second Xray, still normal lungs. Aches, fever arcing up to 101.6 that night.
December 18- fever and chills, coughing, etc. Still continuing. Had more blood drawn today so they can do more tests.
All we know is that it's not Pneumonia, almost totally Not Contagious because no one I've spent a lot of time close to has anything like it, and I think it may not be bacterial because I've had the same symptoms, to varying degrees, since Mid October when the sinus infection went away.

So yeah, that's what you've missed, folks.

Also, I have the honor to be the Maid of Honor for my best friend's wedding. I just really really hope I can be better soon so I can actually BE the proper maid of honor. I have a bachelorette party to plan.

In Which I Pass Out, and Much Follows

Long story shortened:

I stood up out of bed one morning and more or less fainted, then had what might have been a seizure, and so I called doctors and we did a ton of tests, one of which was the most unpleasant thing I've been through in years.
(If you are incredibly sensitive to stimuli of any kind, never allow someone to flash an industrial strobe in your face at increasing intensities while you are effectively immobilized on a bed. You will cry, and then the Tech doing the test will feel horrible.)

So now that all the blood work has come back "healthy", I'm still waiting on the brain scan results, and the doctors have no idea what happened yet and will probably be writing it off as "just something that happens when you pass out" without ever telling me how to avoid passing out, or explaining why, since that day, do I keep getting dizzy Every time I stand up instead of just occasionally.

Argh.

For the last time, yes I am drinking Plenty of Water.

Update: Bloodwork is fine. EEG is fine. I have a (relatively) normal brain- not a seizure, yay! I have great healthy blood pressure, I am not anemic, and I am not diabetic. That pretty much rules out possible likely reasons for nearly fainting whenever I stand up too fast.
I am thankful it is none of these things, but I'd sure like them to figure out how to keep me from being a Swooning fragile flower the rest of my life. They have no idea why I get dizzy and then faint or nearly faint. That could kind of hamper some of my plans for an active lifestyle.

In Which I Log the Saga of the Pothead Neighbor.

Every freaking where I live there's some idiot smoking. At the apartment in Downtown, #444, it was tobacco, but not very often, and we used to "wash our windows" to get the downstairs neighbors to quit puffing outside our window- with the knowledge and approval of a very cool manager.
At the house on Beech Tree it was my Charming Neighbors, who had a neurotic dog and a perpetually lost cat, very loud parties and far too many pricey cars for one house, and they would toke up occasionally when I had the windows down on nice evenings. In CA the smell of Pot is Probable Cause for a search, and the cops dealt with those lovely people regularly, thanks to an anonymous tipster. Ahem.

But now.
Oh, now this is the worst, right here in lovely innocent Utah. One of the people I am forced by heater vents to share air with is a pothead, and is forcing me to inhale their nasty acrid smoke almost daily. I've been sticking notes about it on facebook, as follows:


Nothing like being home with an upper respiratory infection when one of the people connected to you by a forced air heating system decides to light up some weed. *chokecoughhack* I am sealing the vents. I'll be cold, I don't care.
Like · · December 14, 2011 at 4:21pm


If you're connected by forced air to several other apartments, is there any way to find out which, specifically, of them is smoking pot and choking you while you fight off a lung infection? Because I do not at this moment Love my Neighbor as Myself.
December 15, 2011 at 2:27pm
Heather I had that problem at the timbers. There is no way they can fix it. Only way I know of is to move. I hope you feel better soon though!
December 15, 2011 at 2:54pm · Like
Jennifer check with the property manager to see what the smoking policy is
December 15, 2011 at 3:07pm · Like
Carly Rat them out!!!
December 15, 2011 at 3:25pm · Like
Jason You said once that you have good senses, why not sniff them out? When somebody is smoking weed I can usually smell it through a door. Failing that, just wait until you pass somebody who reeks of weed and see where they go.
December 15, 2011 at 4:07pm · Unlike · 1
Peter Whichever one is also listening to pink floyd or bob marley :)
December 15, 2011 at 4:26pm · Unlike · 1
Laura Good luck, with whatever you do. I hope you get over the lung infection!
December 15, 2011 at 5:03pm · Like · 1
Nicole I'm sorry you're having that problem, but I love your last sentence. It made me LOL.
December 15, 2011 at 10:32pm · Unlike · 1
Me Thanks guys. If it happens again when I can afford to be outdoors in the cold, I'm going knocking on doors until one opens and the smoke wafts out. Then I am calling the cops.
December 16, 2011 at 4:46pm · Like · 1

I never did get to go knocking doors, because that lung infection- bronchitis from a sinus infection- turned into Pneumonia, which I am still trying to recover from here as I post this in January. I still have to avoid cold air whenever I can, so yeah. It goes on:


Saga of the pot-neighbor continues! I am using an air purifier to make my bathroom breathable. Last night whoeveritis decided to get high again at my expense, so I had to go use the shower at Mom's. I can't tell if they're doing it again, or if it's just fumes from last night. Merry freakin' Christmas.
Like · · December 24, 2011 at 11:03am

I sort of feel sorry for someone who has to get high on Christmas. But only sort of. Inflicting it on other people, who have lung and breathing problems, that right there kills my sympathy.
I didn't make a status every time they smoked pot from here on because it has become pretty frequent, increasing in frequency and intensity:


Saga of the Pot Smoking Neighbor continues: Spoke to an Ossifer, and he says they can't enter someone's home or arrest them without actually seeing them doing it. Seeing them with drugs in hand. Even if the whole place reeks. Greeeeaaaat. I can pray the smoker is stoned enough to answer the door with joint in hand.
Like · · December 28, 2011 at 9:02pm

Smoked out of my apartment by acrid marijuana fumes on Saturday, forced to go use a friend's bathroom. Unable to sleep thanks to intermittent fumes all of Sunday night. Had enough. I am going to the management in person. Either they evict this piece of crap or I am moving, and taking my substantial rent and deposit with me. I can't live like this.
Like · · Yesterday at 6:35am

And so we're up to date.
By this point it has gotten so bad it's ruining my ability to sleep properly, I get woken up by the stench. I've had to leave my house and go be with friends to escape it, it keeps me from showering because I can't shut the vents in my bathroom. I choke on it all night. My friends won't come over because they can't deal with the stink of it and a bathroom they can't use either.

I am breaking down. I am contemplating violence. I am wondering if an Assault charge on my public record would be really so bad. I am so very glad the Management has refused to tell me which apartment they think is doing this to me, for my own sake. I am ready to do something phenomenally stupid. I dunno what but it would be violent and stupid. I scream at the walls. I have started phoning Management to leave a message every time the smoker lights up and fumes my house some more, just so they get a sense of the urgency of the problem.
Which brings us to today:

Saga of the pothead neighbor continues: I have contacted the Main Management, described my rather hellishly fumigated weekend, and have given an ultimatum to them. Either they evict this person or I am leaving. End of story. I think they see my point now, and have told me they'll call me back this afternoon.
Like · · 25 minutes ago

If they don't want to lose an exceedingly high amount of money, they will get rid of this problem. I seem to have made them understand that whatever they have said to this person, the Pothead clearly has No intention of ceasing to poison my air and is ruining my health. I have also told them that if I have to go to a hotel, I will be sending them the bill. Money talks. They have said they will contact me this afternoon. I dearly hope it is to say they will have this person thrown out. My sympathy is done.

In Which I Don't Care if No One Buys, I have a Storage Unit.

I have a weird problem.
I would go into the studio and make random series of art night and day, churn out mad rows of paintings… except what the heck would I do with all of those when I was done?
I realized one of the big things stopping me from doing art is that finished,

it has to go somewhere.

And unless I paint nothing but kittens or weeaboo-stuff, no one is going to want my paintings. The paintings I have in mind are NOT going to be my usual fare.
But you know what? If no one is going to want them, then these paintings are not for those people. These paintings are going to be painted for me. What happens to them after that is just the epilogue.

So this year,
I am going to do it anyway and sell em all via etsy. I'll link here once a piece is done and up for sale. If you want exceedingly unique art for your home or apartment, actual art, not prints, get ready.

Part of my subconscious issue with painting for art's sake is that people always ask you to explain it. They almost never ask for this with a photograph. They accept a photo as An Image, but they want a PowerPoint slideshow with interpretive dance to help them "get" a painting. It's like if you spent a whole ten minutes telling someone something, and right at the end they say, "So, yeah, I heard all that 'blah blah', but what do you actually mean?"

I am very inspired by Ursula Vernon's approach. She just paints whatever she feels like painting sometimes, and other than a few words, doesn't bother trying to get people to understand any of it. The art's the point. No explanations this time. Art for art's sake. So far my best answer to narrative seekers is, "It's a painting".


...Now I just need a clean studio.
Crap.

In Which I Resolve to Become Dangerous Again

I used to be dangerous. I was scary good. It was fun. I could depend on my body to do insane things for me.This was freshman year of college. I was physically competent to the point of skilled agility and defense. I could look at a lineup of ten people and say, yep, I could beat four of them- seven of them if I have a ballpoint pen with me. I could go exploring in the hills and rely on my strengths and senses to keep me agile, mobile and safe, with just a stick and a phone and a bottle of water. I could go running over a path full of obstacles and deftly avoid each one, reflexively.
I wanna do that again.

I've been sick for two months straight. Medication adjustment all of November, then sinus infection -> Bronchitis -> Pneumonia for all of December. I am so done being fragile. I wanna go run up mountains now, but that isn't going to happen. Contrary to how I was raised, you can't just barrel on through things because you decide to Keep Moving- that's how I got Pneumonia from a measly Sinus infection. I pushed too hard, too fast, trying to MAKE myself get better NOW.

Well, not this time. This time people who inquire after my health and insist I should push harder will just have to be patient, because I am not going to do anything too fast. THEY aren't the ones who will suffer if I overwork myself. Just repeat that. They are not the ones who will suffer if I push too hard, I WILL. I'm going to do this at a speed I can feel is right and healthy, no matter what anyone else says.
I will not let myself be pressured into doing more than I can handle.

I will not let myself be pressured into doing more than I can handle.

I will not let myself be pressured into doing more than I can handle.

So to be concrete:
January-
-I will get myself to the point that I can walk my dog myself, and move about the rest of an average day, without being utterly exhausted. I am too weak for this now, this must change.
-I will be cutting out all potatoes and white breads. Vacation's over. Multigrain or nothing, kids.
-I will be experimenting with new vegetable recipes, and trying to eat more fruits and veggies.

By March, at least two of my daily meals will be vegetable based. Somehow.

In Which I am STILL Sick. AGAIN. Send Help Plz.

SO I did my week or so of medical rest, and then a week sort of recovering from that and prepping for Thanksgiving, and then the day after Thanksgiving I let myself get waaaay too much exposure to freezing dusty desert air. No, really, literally freezing. I have not been that cold in a very, very long time. A few years at least. As could be easily expected, that night I felt quite dead and I woke up with sinus problems that turned into a full blown infection.

So here it is about a week later and I still can't breathe properly. I've spent all this time in bed, again, with a brief respite on Saturday when I thought I was starting to recover, and I got out of bed for a bit longer than an hour at a time and was able to talk with friends and sculpt a little and even ordered Pizza.

I am concerned that all the health I gained over the summer will have atrophied right off me after spending an entire month in bed. Lots of other people have worse conditions than me, and maybe if it were worse I could accept it more gracefully because it'd feel, I dunno more real? This is like a lousy false half sickness that will not loose its grip, and I am running out of things to do while sick in bed.

I also feel like a loser for whining and needing so much help. I am not able to get out of bed and perform any task more complex than make cocoa or heat food in a microwave. I certainly cannot drive a car right now.
So for a bit there things got kind of desperate because I ran out of groceries and out of laundry and out of room in the bin to put my trash, and my dog was just not getting enough exercise. My friends work and my family are busy.
Luckily I was able to get help- My parents came at night and walked my puppeh, my wonderful friends came over Saturday and helped me with dishes and trash and they brought me bread and milk, and today my lovely Mother came, walked my dog and brought me clean laundry and cough drops.

Now If I could just get some sleep instead of trying to hack up my lungs...
I don't want pneumonia, I've had it once and it's exactly like another month or two of this...

In Which I Have Made Myself Sick, Sort Of.

Argh. I have been on bed rest for the whole week. Not. Fun. Rar. I'm just not used to this kind of thing.

I am adjusting a medication of mine, but the darn stuff is so freaking strong that one has to drop the dose in increments, and every time one does this, one ends up knocked for a loop and in bed for a week- One of the reasons I want OFF of this drug is that it is so very strong and messes with my health like this. So not worth it, can't wait to be free of it.

I have a dog to take care of, dishes and groceries needing doing, and a life to live, and very few local friends with time to help out. Grr. Impatient.

Luckily for me, I do have some friends and family who have been very patient with the whole, Wah, I can't do anything Mess. They've been bringing me food, or walking my dog, or just keeping me company online.

In Which I Scare the Dog, and She Gets Revenge

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/ Go to this blog. Oh my goodness I have not laughed so hard in ages. It has been seriously helping me de-angst myself, because you can't feel sorry for yourself while you're hurting your face and scaring your dog because of how hard you're laughing.

The fluffy white dog is giving me a look from the other side of my apartment, in her bed where she sleeps, and it is an utterly confused and disturbed face. She has no idea why The Boss keeps squeaking and snurfling and making strange sounds. Eventually she gets used to the noises and she goes to sleep but I suspect that in her fluffy doggy head she knew she would have her inevitable revenge.

Cut-scene to about an hour later.
Me, still snickering quietly over Hyperbole and a Half. Her, my floofy roommate, innocently curled on her furniture-moving-pad bed in the corner of the Main room...

( I should say at this point that my apartment is small. It has five rooms. Four, technically. A kitchen nook that is part of a huge Main room, which I have tried to use my furniture to break up into a dining area, a reading area and a couch and movie area- A bedroom- A teeny tiny bathroom- and the Studio. That's it. I can see the dog's bed in the Main room from my own bed if my bedroom door is open, as it usually is, since the dog doesn't care if she sees me in just a t-shirt and scottish-plaid panties.)

So I'm in bed doing some reading and suddenly there's this horrible smell. A smell wafting around my rooms, a smell no human could produce. And I squint through the dark and Miss Floof is curled innocently in her bed, eyes shut, paws twitching in semi-concious glee at the discomfort she might be aware she's causing me. If anyone ever tells you dogs cannot fart, smack them for me.

In Which I Angst a Little, Some More.

Hands touch, eyes meet
Sudden silence, sudden heat
Hearts leap in a giddy whirl
He could be that boy
But I'm not that girl

Don't dream too far
Don't lose sight of who you are
Don't remember that rush of joy
He could be that boy
I'm not that girl

Ev'ry so often we long to steal
To the land of what-might-have-been
But that doesn't soften the ache we feel
When reality sets back in

Blithe smile, lithe limb
She who's winsome, she wins him
Gold hair with a gentle curl
That's the girl he chose
And Heaven knows
I'm not that girl

Don't wish, don't start
Wishing only wounds the heart
I wasn't born for the rose and the pearl
There's a girl I know
He loves her so
I'm not that girl...

Don't wish, don't start
Wishing only wounds the heart:
There's a girl I know
He loves her so
I'm not that girl....

(Lyrics from musical "Wicked")


Why do I have to fall so hard for wonderful guys who would never imagine I'd be interested, and certainly never dream of being with me? I try to hint, try to speak to him, try to smile at him whenever I see him, try to meet his eyes and let my eyes say something about what I feel, about how I could love him... And then I have to smile when he shows up with a cheerful, beautiful woman on his arm, because he's wonderful, and she's wonderful too, and they are so wonderful together, and how could I have ever thought I would be a fit match for him...

In which I Try to Get Life Back in Line: Labor Day.

I feel like I'm always playing catch-up, juggling every day to try to get to birthdays, events, dinners, bills, taxes, vacations, obligations, all around my work hours, and somehow in between find time for the art that keeps me sane. I want family time and friend time, but I also have obligations and money-things like taxes and not-fun stuff like bills and rent and managing worky stuff.

I have a new job of sorts and I am in love with it even though it's demanding- I work at a local Motion Picture Studio now, and they are doing a series of episodes from the New Testament.
I am an Art Dept. Go-to, which is like a go-fer but more productive. It means that my boss decorates the set and he needs stuff for it, and if he doesn't have time to have someone else make the stuff, he comes to me and says, "Can you make me this?" and I say, "Yep, I can do that!", which is my arting motto. So far he has liked my work *squee* which is for me a huge thing because if he likes my stuff I've done, they will likely call me in for other projects too, and I will get to keep working there. Every day is a new challenge, and it's something I've inadvertently trained for since High School- limited time, limited materials, and a need for a certain outcome and historical look, Go! I am an expert at this! Making do and getting results from faked or limited material is what I do best! I am so ridiculously happy to have everything I've been doing with my art and reenactment for these last few years suddenly have work application! I have realized I want to do this the rest of my life.

...Which leaves me in a quandary as to my education. I want a degree, but in what? My nascent career in the Entertainment industry hardly requires a degree- in fact they could care less. They require results, talent, speed, reliability and ability, not a certificate saying I'm really good at writing educated papers. I know a degree is more than that, but if you can't write educated papers to specific formats, you No Can Haz, no matter how frickin brilliant you are. I am wondering if a traditional degree is even possible for me. Between my autistic tendencies in learning and communication and my anxiety and depression that totally screwed me academically, I don't know. I feel this driving idiotic lifelong need to Get A Degree so that society will see me as educated and worth employing, but the only people I want to employ me don't give a flying fart whether I have one or not. Argh.

In Which I Am Like a Star Shining Brightly, and My Neck and I Have an Argument

Shining for the whole world to seeeeee...
I am doing okay. More than okay, I am GOOD. For the first time in years, really, truly, genuinely, Good. Not ecstatic or anything, just quietly radiating contentment in general. Sure I have some stressors, but they are as blips on the radar of life compared to the goodness in my life right now. Better than I've been in five long years.

Also, I wuv my puppeh dog.
I'm keeping our family's dog while they are finding a house in Utah. She is a floofy white American Eskimo who thinks she's a puppy and is actually around 12 years old. Senior doggeh. But she is very clever and sweet and loveable, and we go for walks every day. She's always happy to see me, and now that she has had a trim and a bath she is sooooo SOFT. Everywhere we go everyone remarks on how beautiful she is. They're right. I love my puppeh dog.

And now for something completely different.
I have knots in my neck and shoulder. They've been slowly forming over the last week in spite of my attempts to persuade them otherwise. They refuse to cave in to threats of force. Nothing I've been doing all day will get rid of them, and they have yet to even make a statement of their demands for negotiation. Uncivilized anarchists, I'll see them destroyed, just you wait. I can feel them plotting a migraine, so I am authorizing a preemptive strike with naproxen sodium bombs. Let's see how stiff you are after some Aleve, you disturbers of peace, you!