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The Whole Consciousness: Day 24 - Part 8.
Jan. 24th, 2011 03:20 amLactose intolerance, eh? Did you know it's almost 02:30? I could be sleeping right now. Instead, I'm going to go eat some ice cream. And cheese. Because nothing stirs up nightmares like cheese. Which may be an old wives' tale, but since I've actually had some pretty wicked awful dreams under the influence of cheese, perhaps it's not so faulty an idea.
Some lucky people, those special lucky people, don't produce enough of the enzyme lactase, to break down the sugar (lactose) found in milk. This can be caused by simple luck of the draw, or it could be a secondary condition due to problems in our good friend, the small intestine. Right around where the villi get flattened during celiac disease, is where lactose is supposed to be broken down. If the villi can't do their job, and no enzymes get spat out to deal with the lactose, the lactose moves swiftly on through, stopping at nothing, on its way to freedom. As such, people diagnosed with celiac disease are often also told that they will be sensitive to lactose, until the gut begins to heal.
Unless, of course, you had lactose intolerance in the first place, in which case, bully for you, you just can't spit out the enzyme, regardless of the state of your intestinal villi. This is very sad. I can attest to this.
Also very sad is when you continue to eat lactose, delicious, delicious lactose, even when you know what the overall outcome is going to be. Why would they make cheese quite so delicious? How else am I going to meet my stupid daily calcium requirement? Exactly. Ponies.
Even though I know I shouldn't be eating this cheese, it doesn't seem to be stopping me. Even the consequences seem inconsequential when compared with the delicious taste of this cheese. Damn you, cheese.
I'm currently reading through my Google Reader feeds (as I eat this forbidden cheese), and it appears I'm still back at the beginning of January. Everyone's wishing everyone else a happy new year, people are making resolutions, and Macaulay Caulkin and Mila Kunis have broken up. That must be really quite sad. Especially so, since I didn't even know they were dating until they broke up. Again, not like I care so much, but if they're going to mention it 8 or 10 times, I'm going to remember it. Also, it turns out Pete Postlethwaite died. Not even a clue as to who he is. Also, they want to amputate Zsa Zsa Gabor's leg. I hope that by the time I catch up to more recent news, someone will have actually made a decision.
Once you find out that you're lactose intolerant, you begin to find that *every* *single* *thing* has milk in it. Obvious things, like ice cream, cheese, and, well, milk, and more obscure things, like meatloaf (huh?) or that frozen chicken breast Lisa was eating. I'm sincerely at a loss as to what kind of sauce to use on my pasta, since the tomato sauce is a big no right now, due to the tomato acid issues, and everything else seems to be cream-based. I am faced with conundrums like these every day. It's a sad world.
Cheese, universally, isn't much of a problem. There's enough fake cheese-flavoured loaf out there to coat a small city in cheese sauce. It works well enough. Milk is easy enough - either drink the lactose-free kind, or soy/rice milk, depending on the application. Ice cream tends to lend itself to trickiness. All milk-based ones are out, obviously. Soy is out, since I'm allergic to uncooked soy, and it's not like you can (or would want to) bake your ice cream. Finally, you happen on rice ice cream (rice cream?), but then you discover that it's full of nuts, which you also happen to be allergic to. So you either give up on the delicious, or you take the risk of anaphylaxis.
I'm trying to clean up the living room while I write this and eat cheese. I've discovered we have a lot of money sitting around on the floor. Change from various and sundry, I guess. Still, I think we could fund a third-world country just with the coinage I've found on the floor.
My goal is to finish tidying the living room before I got to bed, which means I need to hurry up this snack, have my stomach decide whether or not it's going to handle it or just give up the ghost, and then finish up the tidying. The problematic part of this isn't so much the tidying as it is the coming across of things that I just don't know what the hell to do with. We have about eighty billion coats, which I suppose we will need to wear in the coming months, but damn if I can figure out where to put them in the meantime. Seriously, I would settle for any place other than the floor, which is where they currently are.
So, I guess that packing is like a particularly malicious bowl of ice cream. Hmm. No, wait. It's kind of the exact opposite. With packing, the whole process kind of blows, but you are generally happy when you finish and accomplish something and can put it off to the side, whereas the bowl of ice cream is delicious while you're eating it, but the results leave something to be desired.
Yep, it's now past 03:00, and I don't even remember a thing I've just written. I suppose this will make it somewhat amusing to go back and revisit at a later date. Or incredibly embarrassing. Seriously, the words are just kind of tumbling out my fingers without really stopping anywhere in the brain to consider whether sense make good.
And so I shall leave you pondering. Do you really want that bowl of ice cream? Or would you rather be in my living room packing? If the latter, please enquire within, because I'm kind of tired of doing it. Who knew we had collected so much stupid clutter in the time that we've been here? And who knew that so much of it actually belonged to *Ruy*? Well, I could have guessed, considering that he comes home at the end of the day and essentially shrugs off everything attached to him. Clothes, bags, receipts, you name it, it's off at the end of the day. For me to find while I'm cleaning up and excessively headdesk.
Word Count: 1085
Word Count to Date: 15740
Some lucky people, those special lucky people, don't produce enough of the enzyme lactase, to break down the sugar (lactose) found in milk. This can be caused by simple luck of the draw, or it could be a secondary condition due to problems in our good friend, the small intestine. Right around where the villi get flattened during celiac disease, is where lactose is supposed to be broken down. If the villi can't do their job, and no enzymes get spat out to deal with the lactose, the lactose moves swiftly on through, stopping at nothing, on its way to freedom. As such, people diagnosed with celiac disease are often also told that they will be sensitive to lactose, until the gut begins to heal.
Unless, of course, you had lactose intolerance in the first place, in which case, bully for you, you just can't spit out the enzyme, regardless of the state of your intestinal villi. This is very sad. I can attest to this.
Also very sad is when you continue to eat lactose, delicious, delicious lactose, even when you know what the overall outcome is going to be. Why would they make cheese quite so delicious? How else am I going to meet my stupid daily calcium requirement? Exactly. Ponies.
Even though I know I shouldn't be eating this cheese, it doesn't seem to be stopping me. Even the consequences seem inconsequential when compared with the delicious taste of this cheese. Damn you, cheese.
I'm currently reading through my Google Reader feeds (as I eat this forbidden cheese), and it appears I'm still back at the beginning of January. Everyone's wishing everyone else a happy new year, people are making resolutions, and Macaulay Caulkin and Mila Kunis have broken up. That must be really quite sad. Especially so, since I didn't even know they were dating until they broke up. Again, not like I care so much, but if they're going to mention it 8 or 10 times, I'm going to remember it. Also, it turns out Pete Postlethwaite died. Not even a clue as to who he is. Also, they want to amputate Zsa Zsa Gabor's leg. I hope that by the time I catch up to more recent news, someone will have actually made a decision.
Once you find out that you're lactose intolerant, you begin to find that *every* *single* *thing* has milk in it. Obvious things, like ice cream, cheese, and, well, milk, and more obscure things, like meatloaf (huh?) or that frozen chicken breast Lisa was eating. I'm sincerely at a loss as to what kind of sauce to use on my pasta, since the tomato sauce is a big no right now, due to the tomato acid issues, and everything else seems to be cream-based. I am faced with conundrums like these every day. It's a sad world.
Cheese, universally, isn't much of a problem. There's enough fake cheese-flavoured loaf out there to coat a small city in cheese sauce. It works well enough. Milk is easy enough - either drink the lactose-free kind, or soy/rice milk, depending on the application. Ice cream tends to lend itself to trickiness. All milk-based ones are out, obviously. Soy is out, since I'm allergic to uncooked soy, and it's not like you can (or would want to) bake your ice cream. Finally, you happen on rice ice cream (rice cream?), but then you discover that it's full of nuts, which you also happen to be allergic to. So you either give up on the delicious, or you take the risk of anaphylaxis.
I'm trying to clean up the living room while I write this and eat cheese. I've discovered we have a lot of money sitting around on the floor. Change from various and sundry, I guess. Still, I think we could fund a third-world country just with the coinage I've found on the floor.
My goal is to finish tidying the living room before I got to bed, which means I need to hurry up this snack, have my stomach decide whether or not it's going to handle it or just give up the ghost, and then finish up the tidying. The problematic part of this isn't so much the tidying as it is the coming across of things that I just don't know what the hell to do with. We have about eighty billion coats, which I suppose we will need to wear in the coming months, but damn if I can figure out where to put them in the meantime. Seriously, I would settle for any place other than the floor, which is where they currently are.
So, I guess that packing is like a particularly malicious bowl of ice cream. Hmm. No, wait. It's kind of the exact opposite. With packing, the whole process kind of blows, but you are generally happy when you finish and accomplish something and can put it off to the side, whereas the bowl of ice cream is delicious while you're eating it, but the results leave something to be desired.
Yep, it's now past 03:00, and I don't even remember a thing I've just written. I suppose this will make it somewhat amusing to go back and revisit at a later date. Or incredibly embarrassing. Seriously, the words are just kind of tumbling out my fingers without really stopping anywhere in the brain to consider whether sense make good.
And so I shall leave you pondering. Do you really want that bowl of ice cream? Or would you rather be in my living room packing? If the latter, please enquire within, because I'm kind of tired of doing it. Who knew we had collected so much stupid clutter in the time that we've been here? And who knew that so much of it actually belonged to *Ruy*? Well, I could have guessed, considering that he comes home at the end of the day and essentially shrugs off everything attached to him. Clothes, bags, receipts, you name it, it's off at the end of the day. For me to find while I'm cleaning up and excessively headdesk.
Word Count: 1085
Word Count to Date: 15740
The Whole Consciousness: Day 24 - Part 7.
Jan. 24th, 2011 03:18 amOoo, the next two subjects are just *so* interesting. My hair, and how I feel about lactose intolerance. Well, at least it's better than the one on chairs? Yeah, that one went nowhere quite fast, apparently.
So, I have brown hair, normally. It's currently blonde. I don't think that it has set out to try and be my natural colour for a few years now. It seems like every time my roots grow back in, I choose another hair shade. Some have been successful: I was purple for my sister's wedding, bright pink for TSE, blonde leading up to TSE, a really ugly bluish black sometime before the blonde, and a purple that faded and faded and faded until it was kind of the colour of red wine. It's not that I have a problem with my natural colour, I just happen to like all of the other colours better.
However, due to the subtle undercolourings of my brown hair, my blonde never seems to get past this slight reddish tint. I mean, the front of my hair is currently kind of flaxen, but the overall effect is one of strawberry blonde. Not a bad colour, but not precisely what I was going for. Also, blonde is generally only ever a stopping stage on the way to bigger and bolder colours. This time, I think I'm going to go for blue.
Speaking of hair, I currently have way too much of it. It's just this huge mop of hair on top of my head. I'd say it's like I'm growing a mullet - business in the front, party in the back - but it's kind of a party all over my head.
I have had bangs ever since I can remember, and the one annoying thing about them (other than the fact that Emily Deschanel *really* can't pull them off), is that they grow too long, too fast. I'm finally to the point where I'd really like to grow out my bangs, and tuck them aside, but it's like, right when you need those motherfuckers to grow at an exponential rate, they clam the fuck up and don't grow anymore. If I didn't want them to grow, they'd likely be down to my feet by this point. They just never seem to be long enough to tuck behind my ears.
My hairstyles throughout life kind of went shoulder-length, some form of ugly bowl cut that made everyone think I was a boy (I didn't have the huge tits back then, you see), long, longer, longest, shoulder-length, Carter à la Season 7, super-short, and this... *thing* that's currently happening on my head. Now, Ruy wants me to grow out my hair, which is sort of happening involuntarily. It's growing, whether I like it or not. I have a hair appointment booked with my old hairdresser soon, which should get me at least a trim. Something to take the weight of all that hair off of my precious head. Ruy thinks she'll probably butcher it. I think I could probably live with butchered at this point. Butchered is good, as long as it's shorter.
Which brings me to my next point. I have been going to the same hairdresser almost literally since I was born. She's been cutting my hair for 25 years, and the rest of my family's hair for at least that long. She's moved places about 8 times in 25 years, and we keep following her. I think she's finally working out of her basement, which she always threatened she'd do if she ever got tired of walking the literal 10 minutes to work.
Very nice lady, but has been giving the same style of cut since the 70s, and it's, well, it's always a lot poufier than I wanted it. I'm almost afraid I'll go in there next week and find that I have somehow ended up with that one cut I've always hated. For the 49 millionth time.
It's not even about feeling pity and going to her because she's been our hairdresser since time immemorial. This whole situation has made me realize how much I despise stylists in general. The first stylist I ever went to that wasn't Lynda, the stylist said very nasty things about my haircut (never mind that I had attacked my hair with scissors in frustration), generally made me feel like crap, and made me wary of ever getting another hair cut outside of the comforts of my childhood again. The second one I went to was from the same place. She was nice. I just haven't had the time or the money to go there again. Which is unfortunate, because I have needed a haircut for what seems like about a bajillion months now.
Also, I can't seem to read and follow hair-dying instructions to save my life, to the point where I always seem to end up with a burning scalp or pink streaks down my ears. The price I pay for fun hair.
Well, that's just about exhausted the topic of my hair. Long story short? There's too damn much of it, and I'm actually starting to get tangles in my hair again - something I thought I'd left behind with the long hair.
Speaking of hair, Ruy got his hair cut today. However, he did not get his beard cut (very much). He reminds me of an odd root vegetable. Possibly a turnip or a rutabaga. Whatever it is, he resembles it, and resembles it well. I guess I should be thankful that my hair doesn't grow like his. When his hair grows, it doesn't really get long, it just grows... out. It's almost amusing if it didn't paint me a grotesque mental picture of his father from the early 80s.
It's funny, as a strictly straight-haired person, I have never wished for curly hair. I just don't see why it be advantageous. I'd have to spend hours in the shower getting all the shampoo out of it, I'd never be able to get a comb through it, and I'm sure I'd be one of those fortunate people who kind of look like they got their finger stuck in a light socket.
Word Count: 1033
Word Count to Date: 14665
So, I have brown hair, normally. It's currently blonde. I don't think that it has set out to try and be my natural colour for a few years now. It seems like every time my roots grow back in, I choose another hair shade. Some have been successful: I was purple for my sister's wedding, bright pink for TSE, blonde leading up to TSE, a really ugly bluish black sometime before the blonde, and a purple that faded and faded and faded until it was kind of the colour of red wine. It's not that I have a problem with my natural colour, I just happen to like all of the other colours better.
However, due to the subtle undercolourings of my brown hair, my blonde never seems to get past this slight reddish tint. I mean, the front of my hair is currently kind of flaxen, but the overall effect is one of strawberry blonde. Not a bad colour, but not precisely what I was going for. Also, blonde is generally only ever a stopping stage on the way to bigger and bolder colours. This time, I think I'm going to go for blue.
Speaking of hair, I currently have way too much of it. It's just this huge mop of hair on top of my head. I'd say it's like I'm growing a mullet - business in the front, party in the back - but it's kind of a party all over my head.
I have had bangs ever since I can remember, and the one annoying thing about them (other than the fact that Emily Deschanel *really* can't pull them off), is that they grow too long, too fast. I'm finally to the point where I'd really like to grow out my bangs, and tuck them aside, but it's like, right when you need those motherfuckers to grow at an exponential rate, they clam the fuck up and don't grow anymore. If I didn't want them to grow, they'd likely be down to my feet by this point. They just never seem to be long enough to tuck behind my ears.
My hairstyles throughout life kind of went shoulder-length, some form of ugly bowl cut that made everyone think I was a boy (I didn't have the huge tits back then, you see), long, longer, longest, shoulder-length, Carter à la Season 7, super-short, and this... *thing* that's currently happening on my head. Now, Ruy wants me to grow out my hair, which is sort of happening involuntarily. It's growing, whether I like it or not. I have a hair appointment booked with my old hairdresser soon, which should get me at least a trim. Something to take the weight of all that hair off of my precious head. Ruy thinks she'll probably butcher it. I think I could probably live with butchered at this point. Butchered is good, as long as it's shorter.
Which brings me to my next point. I have been going to the same hairdresser almost literally since I was born. She's been cutting my hair for 25 years, and the rest of my family's hair for at least that long. She's moved places about 8 times in 25 years, and we keep following her. I think she's finally working out of her basement, which she always threatened she'd do if she ever got tired of walking the literal 10 minutes to work.
Very nice lady, but has been giving the same style of cut since the 70s, and it's, well, it's always a lot poufier than I wanted it. I'm almost afraid I'll go in there next week and find that I have somehow ended up with that one cut I've always hated. For the 49 millionth time.
It's not even about feeling pity and going to her because she's been our hairdresser since time immemorial. This whole situation has made me realize how much I despise stylists in general. The first stylist I ever went to that wasn't Lynda, the stylist said very nasty things about my haircut (never mind that I had attacked my hair with scissors in frustration), generally made me feel like crap, and made me wary of ever getting another hair cut outside of the comforts of my childhood again. The second one I went to was from the same place. She was nice. I just haven't had the time or the money to go there again. Which is unfortunate, because I have needed a haircut for what seems like about a bajillion months now.
Also, I can't seem to read and follow hair-dying instructions to save my life, to the point where I always seem to end up with a burning scalp or pink streaks down my ears. The price I pay for fun hair.
Well, that's just about exhausted the topic of my hair. Long story short? There's too damn much of it, and I'm actually starting to get tangles in my hair again - something I thought I'd left behind with the long hair.
Speaking of hair, Ruy got his hair cut today. However, he did not get his beard cut (very much). He reminds me of an odd root vegetable. Possibly a turnip or a rutabaga. Whatever it is, he resembles it, and resembles it well. I guess I should be thankful that my hair doesn't grow like his. When his hair grows, it doesn't really get long, it just grows... out. It's almost amusing if it didn't paint me a grotesque mental picture of his father from the early 80s.
It's funny, as a strictly straight-haired person, I have never wished for curly hair. I just don't see why it be advantageous. I'd have to spend hours in the shower getting all the shampoo out of it, I'd never be able to get a comb through it, and I'm sure I'd be one of those fortunate people who kind of look like they got their finger stuck in a light socket.
Word Count: 1033
Word Count to Date: 14665
Chairs. Now, chairs are something interesting. They allow you to take a load off your feet, and sit down. Without chairs, we'd really be up a creek without a paddle. We'd all have sore bums from sitting on the ground. That said, over the course of my lifetime, I have discovered that I have a *complete* inability to sit still when forced to sit in a chair for an extended period of time. I can never find room for my legs, my tailbone always becomes sore, then my back starts to go. Or it could be that I generally have the attention span of a gnat when I'm made to sit and watch something in a chair.
In my opinion, chairs have been around for just about always. I imagine that cavemen sat in chairs (made of stone), just after they discovered fire. Dinosaurs sat on chairs (made of trees), and sat around discussing great literature. I just imagine they probably got a lot more comfortable as the years went by. You know, once pillows and the word "comfortable" had been invented. In fact, comfortable as a word, probably came about as a result of the invention of couches. Couches, sofas, chesterfields, whatever you like to call them.
Reading the above paragraph, you would think I never learned about the evolution of man. I did, I'm just not interested in expounding on it in a treatise about chairs. Even if this treatise on chairs has already and will probably wander away and get lost on its way back, because it was hungry and needed to stop and get cookies.
I can bring this back around to chairs, however. Today, Ruy and his dad came and took away some of our furniture and boxes, so the apartment is emptier. I mention this, because chairs *may* have been one of the things that left with this week's furniture load. Or not. Maybe they just got moved to somewhere where I'm more likely to trip over them. For owning so many chairs, we sure don't do a lot of chair-sitting. Which brings me back to couches.
While we lived with Ruy's parents back in late 2006, 2007, there was this couch/futon from Ikea that I always thought was kind of nice. Then it came with us to our apartment out near UBC, where it began to fall apart like a house of cards, if a house of cards cracked ominously in several places. By the time we moved out of there, we had duct-taped pieces back together, reattached metal pieces, and held up the flagging, sagging couch with an entire collection of the Encyclopedia of Philosophy. I hear the couch is just barely still standing today, at Ruy's mother's apartment. Then, we got my sister's old couch, when she and her husband moved and bought a (frankly) much nicer couch. It's a serviceable couch, but it's not nearly long enough, the colour is fading, and the entire thing has seen better days. So, come April and the new apartment, we're going to get a nice, new couch. Unfortunately, it will likely come from Ikea. I had no idea just how crappy their furniture was, until I started living with Ruy, who owns some of Ikea's finest. You know, I've bought many useful items from Ikea in my day, and not one of them can I sit on. Because if I did, it would probably break. Actually, their lamps aren't very good either, and they use weird proprietary lightbulbs. Yeah.
I am not currently sitting in a chair, which is unfortunate, because my back is kind of killing me, and I think I could use some fine lumbar support.
Ruy is watching the Dune miniseries, and so far, it's pretty bad. And I mean bad in the sense that I've seen (most of) the actual movie, with Kyle MacLachlan and his chin, and Sting in his desert speedo, and everything, and this is actually worse. Who knew such a thing were possible?
Either way, it's distracting me from my treatise on chairs, and I'm kind of nodding off anyway, so I might as well end this here. Blehhh. Hopefully, tomorrow will bring a whole new wealth of words. Also, I think I'm hungry. Yay.
Word Count: 710
Word Count to Date: 13632
In my opinion, chairs have been around for just about always. I imagine that cavemen sat in chairs (made of stone), just after they discovered fire. Dinosaurs sat on chairs (made of trees), and sat around discussing great literature. I just imagine they probably got a lot more comfortable as the years went by. You know, once pillows and the word "comfortable" had been invented. In fact, comfortable as a word, probably came about as a result of the invention of couches. Couches, sofas, chesterfields, whatever you like to call them.
Reading the above paragraph, you would think I never learned about the evolution of man. I did, I'm just not interested in expounding on it in a treatise about chairs. Even if this treatise on chairs has already and will probably wander away and get lost on its way back, because it was hungry and needed to stop and get cookies.
I can bring this back around to chairs, however. Today, Ruy and his dad came and took away some of our furniture and boxes, so the apartment is emptier. I mention this, because chairs *may* have been one of the things that left with this week's furniture load. Or not. Maybe they just got moved to somewhere where I'm more likely to trip over them. For owning so many chairs, we sure don't do a lot of chair-sitting. Which brings me back to couches.
While we lived with Ruy's parents back in late 2006, 2007, there was this couch/futon from Ikea that I always thought was kind of nice. Then it came with us to our apartment out near UBC, where it began to fall apart like a house of cards, if a house of cards cracked ominously in several places. By the time we moved out of there, we had duct-taped pieces back together, reattached metal pieces, and held up the flagging, sagging couch with an entire collection of the Encyclopedia of Philosophy. I hear the couch is just barely still standing today, at Ruy's mother's apartment. Then, we got my sister's old couch, when she and her husband moved and bought a (frankly) much nicer couch. It's a serviceable couch, but it's not nearly long enough, the colour is fading, and the entire thing has seen better days. So, come April and the new apartment, we're going to get a nice, new couch. Unfortunately, it will likely come from Ikea. I had no idea just how crappy their furniture was, until I started living with Ruy, who owns some of Ikea's finest. You know, I've bought many useful items from Ikea in my day, and not one of them can I sit on. Because if I did, it would probably break. Actually, their lamps aren't very good either, and they use weird proprietary lightbulbs. Yeah.
I am not currently sitting in a chair, which is unfortunate, because my back is kind of killing me, and I think I could use some fine lumbar support.
Ruy is watching the Dune miniseries, and so far, it's pretty bad. And I mean bad in the sense that I've seen (most of) the actual movie, with Kyle MacLachlan and his chin, and Sting in his desert speedo, and everything, and this is actually worse. Who knew such a thing were possible?
Either way, it's distracting me from my treatise on chairs, and I'm kind of nodding off anyway, so I might as well end this here. Blehhh. Hopefully, tomorrow will bring a whole new wealth of words. Also, I think I'm hungry. Yay.
Word Count: 710
Word Count to Date: 13632
As far back as I can remember, my favourite colour was yellow. I have no idea why. I don't actually remember even liking the colour yellow all that much. Maybe we all decided that since my two favourite stuffed animals were yellow Popples from the time I was born, until, well, they still kinda are, that I must love the colour yellow.
As a teenager, I loved purple. That love for purple lasted right up until I graduated from high school. Then, I discovered neon. Well, that's not strictly true. Some scientist out there discovered neon, I just liked fluorescent colours. There was a time when I wanted to relive the fashions and colours of the eighties and early nineties, but it was unfortunately about four years too early, and no one made anything in bright colours. I still say I probably brought the trend back, though. I had really awesome neon socks that I wore all Grade 11 and 12, and people were always commenting on them. I still have them, actually, though they're probably buried somewhere with all the rest of my clothes because our apartment is currently absolute chaos. I think they remain my favourite socks, because they've certainly stood the test of time - 10 years is a long time for any pair of socks to last.
Unfortunately, we are not here to discuss my love of socks. I should make that a treatise for the next inevitable 10000 word catchup session. Someone (Lisa), remind me of that when I'm like, "I don't know what to write abouuuuuuut. *pulls hair out*." Holy Christ, I just punctuated the end of a sentence that wasn't strictly a sentence. I mean, I'm sure it's not listed anywhere, but I don't think you need to end an action with a period. Still, it just looked so empty without it there. In the words of my tomato-defending self from the other night: "Ew, sentence. Fuck proper grammar."
We are, however, here to discuss the colour green. I do remember that my favourite crayon colour as a kid was either forest or jungle green. Whichever. I hope Crayola doesn't make both, or that could get confusing. It was sort of turquoise, and it was indeed useful for colouring in trees. I wish I was colouring with crayons right now. Why are crayons so popular, anyway? I mean, I guess kids can't accidentally colour themselves with them, they're sturdy enough to withstand the grip of a child, and maybe they even wash out of things easily. Oh. Well, I guess that's an explanation right there, then. Still. They smell like wax. Actually, no, they smell like crayons. We all know that crayons have a distinct smell. The smell of crayons.
*pauses to take off her boots, because she has discovered that she is still wearing them for some reason, despite having been home for more than an hour*
Green is a versatile colour. Also, I feel like I'm throwing my Canadianness (Canadiana? Canadianity?) in your face every time I spell words with the extra u. What's weird is that it's not even like I grew up spelling with that extra u. In fact, I think we got told off in one of our English classes once (high school, university, middle school, whatever), for our inconsistent spelling. It's not so much that we all needed to spell "the Canadian way," we just needed to be consistent in the way we spelt things. From then on, it became a point of pride to spell things the "proper" way, and I have done so ever since. Just don't ask me about how many Ls there are in "travelling." We could be here for weeks debating.
There has never been a shade of green that I didn't like. From the bright neons to the military greens, I can't say I've looked at a shade of green and gone, "That is by far the ugliest thing I've ever seen." I've done that with shades of yellow, red, and orange. Dark yellow and dark orange are kind of pukey-looking colours, and I am *so* offended by light red, that it's unbelievable. Hmm. Does cyan count as a shade of blue, or a shade of green? Because I'm not so fond of that one either. I mean, I enjoy bright colours, but cyan is just so... offensive to the eyes.
When I first learned about colour-mixing, I learned what all kids learned - the primary colours: red, blue, and yellow (in computer terms, magenta, cyan (ugh), and yellow). I always just assumed that's what everyone thought the primary colours were. It turns out that that's only the case in subtractive colour-mixing. Additive colour-mixing's primary colours are red, blue, and green. All hex codes for colours in HTML, come from a mixing of different amounts of red, blue, and green.
For some reason, subtractive mixing leads to black. You mix blue and yellow to get green, red and blue to get purple, red and yellow to make orange, purple, orange, and green to get the (ugly) tertiary colours, and the tertiary colours to get the quaternary colours, until you end up at black. I can only assume that they call it subtractive mixing, because eventually, you end up with a lack of colour.
Additive mixing leads to white, and I understand it a little less. You mix red and blue to make magenta (makes sense), blue and yellow to get cyan (you've lost me), and red and green to make yellow (what?).
I only ever took art class (for three years in middle school), because I was outright required by the school system to do so. I was terrible at art. But the one thing I *did* gain out of it, was an appreciation for colour mixing. I mean, I learned that orange, purple, and green were secondary colours! And something about complementary colours, which is still kind of lost on me, even as I look at the Wikipedia article. I also learned the word "tertiary." I think that was probably the most I took away from that class. Also that you could lead me to a paintbrush, but I still couldn't not make a mess.
This wasn't really about the colour green. Meh. Close enough.
Word Count: 1045
Word Count to Date: 12483
As a teenager, I loved purple. That love for purple lasted right up until I graduated from high school. Then, I discovered neon. Well, that's not strictly true. Some scientist out there discovered neon, I just liked fluorescent colours. There was a time when I wanted to relive the fashions and colours of the eighties and early nineties, but it was unfortunately about four years too early, and no one made anything in bright colours. I still say I probably brought the trend back, though. I had really awesome neon socks that I wore all Grade 11 and 12, and people were always commenting on them. I still have them, actually, though they're probably buried somewhere with all the rest of my clothes because our apartment is currently absolute chaos. I think they remain my favourite socks, because they've certainly stood the test of time - 10 years is a long time for any pair of socks to last.
Unfortunately, we are not here to discuss my love of socks. I should make that a treatise for the next inevitable 10000 word catchup session. Someone (Lisa), remind me of that when I'm like, "I don't know what to write abouuuuuuut. *pulls hair out*." Holy Christ, I just punctuated the end of a sentence that wasn't strictly a sentence. I mean, I'm sure it's not listed anywhere, but I don't think you need to end an action with a period. Still, it just looked so empty without it there. In the words of my tomato-defending self from the other night: "Ew, sentence. Fuck proper grammar."
We are, however, here to discuss the colour green. I do remember that my favourite crayon colour as a kid was either forest or jungle green. Whichever. I hope Crayola doesn't make both, or that could get confusing. It was sort of turquoise, and it was indeed useful for colouring in trees. I wish I was colouring with crayons right now. Why are crayons so popular, anyway? I mean, I guess kids can't accidentally colour themselves with them, they're sturdy enough to withstand the grip of a child, and maybe they even wash out of things easily. Oh. Well, I guess that's an explanation right there, then. Still. They smell like wax. Actually, no, they smell like crayons. We all know that crayons have a distinct smell. The smell of crayons.
*pauses to take off her boots, because she has discovered that she is still wearing them for some reason, despite having been home for more than an hour*
Green is a versatile colour. Also, I feel like I'm throwing my Canadianness (Canadiana? Canadianity?) in your face every time I spell words with the extra u. What's weird is that it's not even like I grew up spelling with that extra u. In fact, I think we got told off in one of our English classes once (high school, university, middle school, whatever), for our inconsistent spelling. It's not so much that we all needed to spell "the Canadian way," we just needed to be consistent in the way we spelt things. From then on, it became a point of pride to spell things the "proper" way, and I have done so ever since. Just don't ask me about how many Ls there are in "travelling." We could be here for weeks debating.
There has never been a shade of green that I didn't like. From the bright neons to the military greens, I can't say I've looked at a shade of green and gone, "That is by far the ugliest thing I've ever seen." I've done that with shades of yellow, red, and orange. Dark yellow and dark orange are kind of pukey-looking colours, and I am *so* offended by light red, that it's unbelievable. Hmm. Does cyan count as a shade of blue, or a shade of green? Because I'm not so fond of that one either. I mean, I enjoy bright colours, but cyan is just so... offensive to the eyes.
When I first learned about colour-mixing, I learned what all kids learned - the primary colours: red, blue, and yellow (in computer terms, magenta, cyan (ugh), and yellow). I always just assumed that's what everyone thought the primary colours were. It turns out that that's only the case in subtractive colour-mixing. Additive colour-mixing's primary colours are red, blue, and green. All hex codes for colours in HTML, come from a mixing of different amounts of red, blue, and green.
For some reason, subtractive mixing leads to black. You mix blue and yellow to get green, red and blue to get purple, red and yellow to make orange, purple, orange, and green to get the (ugly) tertiary colours, and the tertiary colours to get the quaternary colours, until you end up at black. I can only assume that they call it subtractive mixing, because eventually, you end up with a lack of colour.
Additive mixing leads to white, and I understand it a little less. You mix red and blue to make magenta (makes sense), blue and yellow to get cyan (you've lost me), and red and green to make yellow (what?).
I only ever took art class (for three years in middle school), because I was outright required by the school system to do so. I was terrible at art. But the one thing I *did* gain out of it, was an appreciation for colour mixing. I mean, I learned that orange, purple, and green were secondary colours! And something about complementary colours, which is still kind of lost on me, even as I look at the Wikipedia article. I also learned the word "tertiary." I think that was probably the most I took away from that class. Also that you could lead me to a paintbrush, but I still couldn't not make a mess.
This wasn't really about the colour green. Meh. Close enough.
Word Count: 1045
Word Count to Date: 12483
Every night you cry yourself to sleep, thinking why does this happen to me, why does every moment have to be so hard?
I do believe that, it's not over tonight, just give me one more chance to make it right. I will not make it through the night, I won't go home without you.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is me having a song in my head. Also, this treatise is supposed to be about Alanis Morissette, not Maroon 5. If it were about Maroon 5, I would just listen to all the songs, and type along with the songs.
So, Alanis. You know, I wasn't ever her biggest fan until Grade 10 English class when the girl who sat behind me insulted her music, and I turned around and said, "Well, actually, I *love* Alanis Morissette's music, so shut the fuck up." Except, in Grade 10, I didn't swear at people. Then I turned around and was quietly whatthefucked to myself and wondered why I had so staunchly felt the need to defend Alanis. After that class, I made it my mission to fall in love with her music. Just so I didn't make a liar out myself. Turns out I should baselessly defend artists more often, because it turned out I really *did* love her music. And spelled her last name wrong for years - WHY ARE THERE SO MANY DOUBLE LETTERS, AND YET AT THE SAME TIME SO FEW?
My defense of her wasn't entirely baseless. It was just based on two songs: Ironic (here's a hint, Alanis: it's not ironic, it's just bad luck) and Head Over Feet, which, if you think about it, is not a good representation of an artist. I would later hear You Oughta Know, which I can sing the ever-loving fuck out of in Rock Band, with all the bitterness intended in that song. Ruy has wondered why. I just shrug. I don't really tell him I spent a good many years being bitter and cynical, most of them high school. I will always remember driving around with my sister in my parents' new car (at the time), which had a CD player (which was a big thing, since, you know, the car we were replacing was an '86, and the next latest one was a '93, and the current year was *2003* - *and* we skipped right over the era of tape players in cars), blasting Alanis, and singing loudly (we were awesome). I will also remember finding out that You Oughta Know was supposedly written about Dave Coulier, which, ewwwwww. Somehow, that grosses me out less now, but at the time, wow.
I spent literally the entire last year of high school, surviving by listening to the album Under Rug Swept, which my sister obtained semi-legally for me while she was in Vietnam for work. Actually, the reason why Alanis made it onto the list of things to write about in the first place was because of the song 21 Things I Want In A Lover, which popped into my head while I was trying to decide 12 Things I Wanted To Write A Treatise About. I'm sorry, 12 Things About Which I Wanted To Write A Treatise. It amazes me that I first learned how to properly not end a sentence in a preposition (ha, I just wrote proposition - I should end *all* my sentences in propositions), because we had to learn about it for French. I can never understand how this *vital piece of knowledge* was never taught to us in English class, but was essential for French.
I could identify with every single song on that album, because I was 17, I would never have anyone love me, and I was suffering from as-yet-undiagnosed depression. I wrote several completely bullshitted (bullshat?) essays for English 12 the night before they were due, to the accompaniment of Precious Illusions. I aced every single one of those essays, was top student in English 12 in my year that year, and suddenly realized I could write. I bet it was the French prepositions that did it.
When So-Called Chaos came out, I had just gotten my first real job, which I hated and would come home during my lunch hour to cry about. I had also discovered Stargate SG-1 that April, Season 7 had just finished, we had yet to see about Season 8, and I so loved the fics about Jack and Sam having been promoted, before they were actually promoted. It was a glorious time in my personal fandom. Except when I burst into tears in a hotel bathroom in Boston after reading about Affinity. I don't think I'd quite learned to live in my own little delusion yet. See also the as-yet-undiagnosed depression. I cried about a lot of things.
Again, I identified with every song on that album, and it still stands as my favourite of her albums, if only for the fact that just listening to a song brings me back to the summer I turned 19, and all that angst I felt. Also, all the hate I felt for my boss at the time. I got up in the morning to Eight Easy Steps, discovered that the only way Out Is Through (truly), and that maybe This Grudge hit a little close to home. I made it through that job, though. Thanks, Alanis.
I hear she had a baby over Christmas, which is, you know, something people do in life. However, did she really have to live up to the culture of being famous and having money, by giving her son the weirdest possible name? Seriously, what kind of a name is Ever? Here's a hint, it's not a name, it's a word. I mean, it's a nice word, a really great word, but it's still not a name. On that note, I must see how Ruy feels about Cauliflower as a baby name.
Also, it turns out I can totally bring this thing around full circle by mentioning that Alanis is a vegan. Somehow, I'm not surprised.
Word Count: 1016
Word Count to Date: 11200
I do believe that, it's not over tonight, just give me one more chance to make it right. I will not make it through the night, I won't go home without you.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is me having a song in my head. Also, this treatise is supposed to be about Alanis Morissette, not Maroon 5. If it were about Maroon 5, I would just listen to all the songs, and type along with the songs.
So, Alanis. You know, I wasn't ever her biggest fan until Grade 10 English class when the girl who sat behind me insulted her music, and I turned around and said, "Well, actually, I *love* Alanis Morissette's music, so shut the fuck up." Except, in Grade 10, I didn't swear at people. Then I turned around and was quietly whatthefucked to myself and wondered why I had so staunchly felt the need to defend Alanis. After that class, I made it my mission to fall in love with her music. Just so I didn't make a liar out myself. Turns out I should baselessly defend artists more often, because it turned out I really *did* love her music. And spelled her last name wrong for years - WHY ARE THERE SO MANY DOUBLE LETTERS, AND YET AT THE SAME TIME SO FEW?
My defense of her wasn't entirely baseless. It was just based on two songs: Ironic (here's a hint, Alanis: it's not ironic, it's just bad luck) and Head Over Feet, which, if you think about it, is not a good representation of an artist. I would later hear You Oughta Know, which I can sing the ever-loving fuck out of in Rock Band, with all the bitterness intended in that song. Ruy has wondered why. I just shrug. I don't really tell him I spent a good many years being bitter and cynical, most of them high school. I will always remember driving around with my sister in my parents' new car (at the time), which had a CD player (which was a big thing, since, you know, the car we were replacing was an '86, and the next latest one was a '93, and the current year was *2003* - *and* we skipped right over the era of tape players in cars), blasting Alanis, and singing loudly (we were awesome). I will also remember finding out that You Oughta Know was supposedly written about Dave Coulier, which, ewwwwww. Somehow, that grosses me out less now, but at the time, wow.
I spent literally the entire last year of high school, surviving by listening to the album Under Rug Swept, which my sister obtained semi-legally for me while she was in Vietnam for work. Actually, the reason why Alanis made it onto the list of things to write about in the first place was because of the song 21 Things I Want In A Lover, which popped into my head while I was trying to decide 12 Things I Wanted To Write A Treatise About. I'm sorry, 12 Things About Which I Wanted To Write A Treatise. It amazes me that I first learned how to properly not end a sentence in a preposition (ha, I just wrote proposition - I should end *all* my sentences in propositions), because we had to learn about it for French. I can never understand how this *vital piece of knowledge* was never taught to us in English class, but was essential for French.
I could identify with every single song on that album, because I was 17, I would never have anyone love me, and I was suffering from as-yet-undiagnosed depression. I wrote several completely bullshitted (bullshat?) essays for English 12 the night before they were due, to the accompaniment of Precious Illusions. I aced every single one of those essays, was top student in English 12 in my year that year, and suddenly realized I could write. I bet it was the French prepositions that did it.
When So-Called Chaos came out, I had just gotten my first real job, which I hated and would come home during my lunch hour to cry about. I had also discovered Stargate SG-1 that April, Season 7 had just finished, we had yet to see about Season 8, and I so loved the fics about Jack and Sam having been promoted, before they were actually promoted. It was a glorious time in my personal fandom. Except when I burst into tears in a hotel bathroom in Boston after reading about Affinity. I don't think I'd quite learned to live in my own little delusion yet. See also the as-yet-undiagnosed depression. I cried about a lot of things.
Again, I identified with every song on that album, and it still stands as my favourite of her albums, if only for the fact that just listening to a song brings me back to the summer I turned 19, and all that angst I felt. Also, all the hate I felt for my boss at the time. I got up in the morning to Eight Easy Steps, discovered that the only way Out Is Through (truly), and that maybe This Grudge hit a little close to home. I made it through that job, though. Thanks, Alanis.
I hear she had a baby over Christmas, which is, you know, something people do in life. However, did she really have to live up to the culture of being famous and having money, by giving her son the weirdest possible name? Seriously, what kind of a name is Ever? Here's a hint, it's not a name, it's a word. I mean, it's a nice word, a really great word, but it's still not a name. On that note, I must see how Ruy feels about Cauliflower as a baby name.
Also, it turns out I can totally bring this thing around full circle by mentioning that Alanis is a vegan. Somehow, I'm not surprised.
Word Count: 1016
Word Count to Date: 11200
It was a warm summer afternoon when I discovered coffee. At least, I think it was. I mean, maybe I had had coffee at some point before, but I really don't remember it. What I do remember is a warm summer afternoon, a day on which I had arrived early on campus for my psychology class, and was thirsty. Why I thought coffee would quench my thirst is entirely beyond me, considering it is both a diuretic and dehydrates you (possibly because it's a diuretic). But that's beside the point. That was the day I had my first mocha frappuccino from Starbucks. And it was good.
I have known people since high school, at the very least, who have either needed caffeine in order to function (there was this girl in my psychology class who got very angry if she didn't get her thrice-daily coffee), or used it as an aid in staying awake to study/finish projects/get through university. I have *never*, and I mean *never* understood that drive. It could be because caffeine has always affected me either too much or too little. I didn't drink a lot of Coke or Pepsi growing up, but when I started drinking it in university, I discovered that Pepsi had the reeeeeaaaaaaallly annoying habit of keeping me so awake, I couldn't sleep no matter how tired I was. I remember one night staying up and being bone-tired, but *completely* unable to yawn. And I remember really wanting to. I decided at that point that caffeine was not for me.
Then, I developed low iron stores, somewhere around being diagnosed with celiac disease, and I started drinking coffee drinks. And discovered the genuinely annoying trait that I could drink a coffee and almost immediately take a nap afterward. It continues. I spent a weekend at the Sanctuary Experience this past summer, plying myself with caffeine, and still managed to find a need to conk out for a nap in the middle of it all. Literally in the middle of it all. On the floor, outside the main room.
I'm drinking a coffee right this minute, and I can feel my eyes kind of closing, and my body going "Come on, you know you want to be all horizontal right now. Come on, just lie on the floor. Nobody will mind." But before I can give in, common sense kicks in, and goes "Uh, dude? No sleeping at Starbucks. You are not a homeless person." Except I don't think I actually call myself dude. I call other people dude. And wow, I have typed that word a total of three times, and it has lost allll meaning. I hate when that happens. It's like when you look at the word "visit," and decide it can't possibly have that many Is in it, it just can't! But it does, and you have to deal with how unfortunate that is and sit and ponder all the reasons why you can't possibly grab ye flask. Okay, I'm babbling.
Back to coffee. Except, no, wait a minute, my phone has gotten up and wandered away. *pauses to look for it* Nope, just buried in my purse.
...leadership.
Coffee. I cannot stand black coffee. I don't understand quite why anyone would want to drink something so bitter and disgusting. I need milk and sugar to make a cup of black coffee even semi-palatable, and even then, blarg. You won't ever catch me with one of those coffee-maker things, with the coffee grounds, and the water. Somehow, I'm just spoiled enough that I will only drink *espresso*. In tiny amounts. And it had better be surrounded with enough sugar that I don't know there's coffee in there.
I say all this, and there's a multitude of reasons I shouldn't even be drinking coffee, and half of them are stomach-related. I'm lactose intolerant, and my coffee needs to be milky in order for me to look at it without raising any eyebrow right through my forehead. I have Raynaud's Phenomenon (which would be a cool name for a band, you have to admit), which means that the blood vessels in my extremities (fingers and toes) vasoconstrict. By vasoconstricting, they go numb, because what I'm saying here in fancy words, means that my circulation is poor and caffeine doesn't help. It also means I get cold incredibly easy, which is a funny thing to say as I sit here inside this Starbucks with these freezing cold fingers, shivering because I can't get warm. I have gastroparesis, and while coffee itself is good as a motility agent (it moves things through), it hurts like a motherfucker to drink it. So, I mean, coffee is delicious and everything, but it's still going to end up being puked up in an unpleasant manner, my fingers will still end up numb, and everything short of the coffee sensors in my brain will hurt.
So, really, I should take up tea-drinking. I mean, it's one-half of my ancestry's national pastime (that is, it's the national pastime for one-half of my ancestry, not it's one-half of the national pastime for my ancestry), and it tastes good. I do drink tea. It just isn't what Starbucks is known for. They don't call it Starbucks Coffee for nothing. Well, that, and the acid from the tea tends to absolutely *flambée* my insides, which makes it not quite such a good idea after all.
In conclusion, I need to give up all pretense and start drinking water. Just water. Which I do already, but I could always stand to drink more of it. At least water doesn't eat away at your stomach lining like a pernicious hamster. Hmm. Unless it's a particularly bad morning, and even the water won't stay down. Still, nothing dilutes stomach acid better than water. I wish I was drinking water right now. Just a nice, tall cup of ice water. Somehow, I think it would sitting easier on my stomach than the coffee is right now.
Word Count: 1000
Word Count to Date: 10184
I have known people since high school, at the very least, who have either needed caffeine in order to function (there was this girl in my psychology class who got very angry if she didn't get her thrice-daily coffee), or used it as an aid in staying awake to study/finish projects/get through university. I have *never*, and I mean *never* understood that drive. It could be because caffeine has always affected me either too much or too little. I didn't drink a lot of Coke or Pepsi growing up, but when I started drinking it in university, I discovered that Pepsi had the reeeeeaaaaaaallly annoying habit of keeping me so awake, I couldn't sleep no matter how tired I was. I remember one night staying up and being bone-tired, but *completely* unable to yawn. And I remember really wanting to. I decided at that point that caffeine was not for me.
Then, I developed low iron stores, somewhere around being diagnosed with celiac disease, and I started drinking coffee drinks. And discovered the genuinely annoying trait that I could drink a coffee and almost immediately take a nap afterward. It continues. I spent a weekend at the Sanctuary Experience this past summer, plying myself with caffeine, and still managed to find a need to conk out for a nap in the middle of it all. Literally in the middle of it all. On the floor, outside the main room.
I'm drinking a coffee right this minute, and I can feel my eyes kind of closing, and my body going "Come on, you know you want to be all horizontal right now. Come on, just lie on the floor. Nobody will mind." But before I can give in, common sense kicks in, and goes "Uh, dude? No sleeping at Starbucks. You are not a homeless person." Except I don't think I actually call myself dude. I call other people dude. And wow, I have typed that word a total of three times, and it has lost allll meaning. I hate when that happens. It's like when you look at the word "visit," and decide it can't possibly have that many Is in it, it just can't! But it does, and you have to deal with how unfortunate that is and sit and ponder all the reasons why you can't possibly grab ye flask. Okay, I'm babbling.
Back to coffee. Except, no, wait a minute, my phone has gotten up and wandered away. *pauses to look for it* Nope, just buried in my purse.
...leadership.
Coffee. I cannot stand black coffee. I don't understand quite why anyone would want to drink something so bitter and disgusting. I need milk and sugar to make a cup of black coffee even semi-palatable, and even then, blarg. You won't ever catch me with one of those coffee-maker things, with the coffee grounds, and the water. Somehow, I'm just spoiled enough that I will only drink *espresso*. In tiny amounts. And it had better be surrounded with enough sugar that I don't know there's coffee in there.
I say all this, and there's a multitude of reasons I shouldn't even be drinking coffee, and half of them are stomach-related. I'm lactose intolerant, and my coffee needs to be milky in order for me to look at it without raising any eyebrow right through my forehead. I have Raynaud's Phenomenon (which would be a cool name for a band, you have to admit), which means that the blood vessels in my extremities (fingers and toes) vasoconstrict. By vasoconstricting, they go numb, because what I'm saying here in fancy words, means that my circulation is poor and caffeine doesn't help. It also means I get cold incredibly easy, which is a funny thing to say as I sit here inside this Starbucks with these freezing cold fingers, shivering because I can't get warm. I have gastroparesis, and while coffee itself is good as a motility agent (it moves things through), it hurts like a motherfucker to drink it. So, I mean, coffee is delicious and everything, but it's still going to end up being puked up in an unpleasant manner, my fingers will still end up numb, and everything short of the coffee sensors in my brain will hurt.
So, really, I should take up tea-drinking. I mean, it's one-half of my ancestry's national pastime (that is, it's the national pastime for one-half of my ancestry, not it's one-half of the national pastime for my ancestry), and it tastes good. I do drink tea. It just isn't what Starbucks is known for. They don't call it Starbucks Coffee for nothing. Well, that, and the acid from the tea tends to absolutely *flambée* my insides, which makes it not quite such a good idea after all.
In conclusion, I need to give up all pretense and start drinking water. Just water. Which I do already, but I could always stand to drink more of it. At least water doesn't eat away at your stomach lining like a pernicious hamster. Hmm. Unless it's a particularly bad morning, and even the water won't stay down. Still, nothing dilutes stomach acid better than water. I wish I was drinking water right now. Just a nice, tall cup of ice water. Somehow, I think it would sitting easier on my stomach than the coffee is right now.
Word Count: 1000
Word Count to Date: 10184
So, we begin, with gastroparesis, a subject that is, unfortunately, both near and dear to my heart. Gastroparesis is the partial paralysis of muscles in the stomach, making digestion anywhere from difficult to impossible, depending on just how paralyzed the stomach muscles are, or possibly just how many of them are paralyzed. Does the stomach have more than one muscle? I don't know, and damn if I'm going to go all the way to Wikipedia just to look this up, when I could just as easily pad out this piece of writing by wondering out loud (on paper. electronically). If the stomach muscle(s) are paralyzed, then any food you put in had better either be pre-digested, or very liquid in nature. You see, part of the stomach's job as an organ in the body, is to mush itself all around when food goes in, and pass the "no longer food bits," as I have taken to calling them (I'm pretty sure the actual term is chyme, but don't quote me on that), on into the small intestine, where stuff happens (and by stuff, I mean nutrients are absorbed).
And here we are at our first problem. Well, not exactly our first, but the one I'm going to talk about first, because we just got there in our little "chat" about digestion. And by "we," I mean "I, my metaphorical readers, and Lisa, my actual reader - HI LISA!" If something goes wrong in the small intestine, like, say the villi along the walls of the upper small intestine get flattened or something as nefarious, the small intestine doesn't absorb all of its nutrients, and malnourishment happens. Yaaaaaaaaay, malnourishment! I mean, no, boooooo malnourishment!
In the case of celiac disease, which we were never talking about, but now is as good a time as any, the protein known as gluten, specifically that found in wheat, rye, and barley, is considered a poison by the body. As such, when gluten comes into the small intestine, it flattens the villi, which would otherwise be absorbing nutrients. If this goes on for long enough, the villi get really quite flat, nothing gets absorbed, and everything races through the rest of the intestinal speedway, ending in... unfortunateness of the bowels.
Now, one could go on for years with this bowel unfortitude, because doctors will simply diagnose it as Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), which can be caused by, you know, just about everything under the sun, up to and including stress. If you could just go on with your life, but avoid all stress, you'll probably be right as rain again. Maybe. But how much of a catch-all is IBS really? Well, 3 in 100 Canadians has celiac disease. And those are the ones that actually *get* the diagnosis. So, how many more are suffering, but think it's just IBS? My guess is at least 10 percent. And that, metaphorical ladies and gentlemen and Lisa, is a big number. Kind of.
If you should, however, develop other symptoms, such as stabbing pain in your upper right abdominal quadrant, you may just be lucky enough to actually be diagnosed with something. I went through innumerable tests, at least 3 different prescription drugs *and* got a bonus diagnosis of Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease (GERD), before I was sent for a plenitude of blood work. My doctor, as a bonus, threw in a test for the antibody Immunglobulin-A tissue transglutaminase (shush, yes, I did take great pleasure in typing out all those big words). You know, just in case. Because we all just kind of assumed it was ulcers.
In a normal person, their IgATTG count should be below 20. Mine was over 200. Hooray! A diagnosis! Except, wait a minute, *what*?! Generally, a score this high is enough to say the diagnosis is highly likely, but in order to say for sure, one is generally sent in for a gastroscopy to see if you do indeed have flattened villi. However, up until you go in for that gastroscopy, you cannot start a gluten-free diet, and therefore feel any better. My mother moved heaven and earth to get me in for a scope *before I actually saw the gastroenterologist for the first time*, but it was still a summer I didn't enjoy very much.
The results, of course, found that I had celiac disease. That was 3 and a half years ago. And this treatise isn't about celiac disease, it's about gastroparesis. That whole thing was just a bit of a tangent. But a very informative tangent, I would say.
So. Last March (March 6, 2010, if we would like to be precise, and when you spend this much time in pain, you're really all about precision), I accidentally ingested an almond. An innocent little almond. However, since I am in fact allergic to almonds (and peanuts, I have since found out), this almond was not so innocent. Instead, it sent me to violently vomit my guts up for 90 minutes straight. This? Not pleasant. The following week, where I was in and out of the emergency room with severe abdominal pain? Also not terribly pleasant. The part where I would vomit up anything I ate that week? You guessed it, not pleasant. The last time I went to the ER (14 days after it all began), they told me it was likely just the flu. The... two-week flu, where I don't get any better, and don't have any other flu symptoms. You know, I get that ER doctors have to make fast diagnoses, and they aren't always right, but something about it being 10 and a bit months later and having an *actual* diagnosis, makes me want to return to the ER just to punch the man in the stomach and ask him if he still thinks it's the flu. Bastard.
I will save the 8 months before I finally got in to see my gastroenterologist, that I spent in excruciating pain, the gastroscopy that I was *entirely awake for* and thus traumatized about, and the number of times I have thrown up in 10 and a bit months, for another time. Perhaps never. Somehow, reliving it all sounds like a bad idea. Thus, I will leave you now with the knowledge that I am going to get coffee. Get coffee and then talk about it. Get coffee and then talk about it length.
I really hate tomatoes.
Word Count: 1064
Word Count to Date: 9184
And here we are at our first problem. Well, not exactly our first, but the one I'm going to talk about first, because we just got there in our little "chat" about digestion. And by "we," I mean "I, my metaphorical readers, and Lisa, my actual reader - HI LISA!" If something goes wrong in the small intestine, like, say the villi along the walls of the upper small intestine get flattened or something as nefarious, the small intestine doesn't absorb all of its nutrients, and malnourishment happens. Yaaaaaaaaay, malnourishment! I mean, no, boooooo malnourishment!
In the case of celiac disease, which we were never talking about, but now is as good a time as any, the protein known as gluten, specifically that found in wheat, rye, and barley, is considered a poison by the body. As such, when gluten comes into the small intestine, it flattens the villi, which would otherwise be absorbing nutrients. If this goes on for long enough, the villi get really quite flat, nothing gets absorbed, and everything races through the rest of the intestinal speedway, ending in... unfortunateness of the bowels.
Now, one could go on for years with this bowel unfortitude, because doctors will simply diagnose it as Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), which can be caused by, you know, just about everything under the sun, up to and including stress. If you could just go on with your life, but avoid all stress, you'll probably be right as rain again. Maybe. But how much of a catch-all is IBS really? Well, 3 in 100 Canadians has celiac disease. And those are the ones that actually *get* the diagnosis. So, how many more are suffering, but think it's just IBS? My guess is at least 10 percent. And that, metaphorical ladies and gentlemen and Lisa, is a big number. Kind of.
If you should, however, develop other symptoms, such as stabbing pain in your upper right abdominal quadrant, you may just be lucky enough to actually be diagnosed with something. I went through innumerable tests, at least 3 different prescription drugs *and* got a bonus diagnosis of Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease (GERD), before I was sent for a plenitude of blood work. My doctor, as a bonus, threw in a test for the antibody Immunglobulin-A tissue transglutaminase (shush, yes, I did take great pleasure in typing out all those big words). You know, just in case. Because we all just kind of assumed it was ulcers.
In a normal person, their IgATTG count should be below 20. Mine was over 200. Hooray! A diagnosis! Except, wait a minute, *what*?! Generally, a score this high is enough to say the diagnosis is highly likely, but in order to say for sure, one is generally sent in for a gastroscopy to see if you do indeed have flattened villi. However, up until you go in for that gastroscopy, you cannot start a gluten-free diet, and therefore feel any better. My mother moved heaven and earth to get me in for a scope *before I actually saw the gastroenterologist for the first time*, but it was still a summer I didn't enjoy very much.
The results, of course, found that I had celiac disease. That was 3 and a half years ago. And this treatise isn't about celiac disease, it's about gastroparesis. That whole thing was just a bit of a tangent. But a very informative tangent, I would say.
So. Last March (March 6, 2010, if we would like to be precise, and when you spend this much time in pain, you're really all about precision), I accidentally ingested an almond. An innocent little almond. However, since I am in fact allergic to almonds (and peanuts, I have since found out), this almond was not so innocent. Instead, it sent me to violently vomit my guts up for 90 minutes straight. This? Not pleasant. The following week, where I was in and out of the emergency room with severe abdominal pain? Also not terribly pleasant. The part where I would vomit up anything I ate that week? You guessed it, not pleasant. The last time I went to the ER (14 days after it all began), they told me it was likely just the flu. The... two-week flu, where I don't get any better, and don't have any other flu symptoms. You know, I get that ER doctors have to make fast diagnoses, and they aren't always right, but something about it being 10 and a bit months later and having an *actual* diagnosis, makes me want to return to the ER just to punch the man in the stomach and ask him if he still thinks it's the flu. Bastard.
I will save the 8 months before I finally got in to see my gastroenterologist, that I spent in excruciating pain, the gastroscopy that I was *entirely awake for* and thus traumatized about, and the number of times I have thrown up in 10 and a bit months, for another time. Perhaps never. Somehow, reliving it all sounds like a bad idea. Thus, I will leave you now with the knowledge that I am going to get coffee. Get coffee and then talk about it. Get coffee and then talk about it length.
I really hate tomatoes.
Word Count: 1064
Word Count to Date: 9184
Wow. I'm so behind on this getyourwordsout thing that the following set of written words won't be a stream of consciousness, as much as the whole consciousness tumbled out of my head and onto the page. I am now 12000 words behind, give or take. At this rate, whatever I'm writing about today, I'm going to be writing an entire treatise about it. Okay, here we go, I'm going to pick 12 topics and write 1000 words about each. Because that is totally as easy as it sounds, right? Right. Okay, I'm going to write about gastroparesis (what better topic can I expound about right now, anyway, other than packing, which I just flat out refuse to talk about anymore because it angries up the blood?), coffee (because I'm sitting in a Starbucks writing this), Alanis Morrissette, the colour green, chairs, my hair, what I think of lactose intolerance, the time Ruy and I went to Tofino, what has become of my hometown, what I really think about Twitter, things I would or would not like to learn the history of, and my utter fascination with grocery stores. There, that's 12 right there. Some of those are going to really need to be stretched out, considering that I came up with almost all of them by looking around Starbucks and hoping for an idea to strike me. I mean, chairs? Really?
Word Count: 231
Word Count to Date: 8115
Word Count: 231
Word Count to Date: 8115
Packing up ye olde kitchen boat. That's not even a thing. But finally, Ruy is doing something that resembles packing and I could not be happier. Really, I could not. Also, in an odd state of affairs, Pegasus is licking my injured toe.
Oh yes, the injured toe incident. Well, yesterday wasn't the greatest day. I mean, Ruy and I went out and went places and picked up things and bought stuff for Europe, but as for packing, well, not much happened in the early part of the day. In fact, after coming home and puking my guts up from carsickness, I hauled a shit-tonne of boxes downstairs to our storage locker to finally get them out of the way. This, of course, involved going down their once to discover that Ruy had given me the wrong key to the locker, once again to bring up the trolley, another to bring down a load of boxes (and rearrange the *entire* frigging locker, which was pain-inducing), and a final one to bring down another load of boxes.
I hate carrying heavy things, and Ruy, well, let's face it, Ruy has kind of done fuck all in this move. I've been asking him all month to help me pack, to help me move things, to help me do just about anything, and he just... doesn't. Packing is something I loathe, moving is something I loathe even more, but to be made to do it all by myself? That's just unfair.
At some point between moving one set of boxes, rearranging the storage locker, loading up a new set of boxes and going back downstairs, Pegasus waltzed out the front door of the apartment. Imagine my surprise when I opened the door to take a new set of boxes downstairs, and there's my little kitten sitting outside the apartment. I have no idea at what point she got out, nor how long she had been out there, but I had to take a moment to collect myself and fuss over her.
Boxes got moved, eventually, when Ruy got home. Ruy got around to vacuuming out our storage and bunny room, eventually, and I scooped three litter boxes and then went to take out the garbage. The garbage got taken out, but when I came back into the building from the parking garage, I managed to catch my toe under the door. Cracked the nail pretty good, and ended up with a huge blood blister on a big toe, and fuck, did it hurt. This, of course, did not stop me from packing, but I did manage to rip off part of said toenail two days later, in another box-related incident.
What have I learned from this? I have learned that I have to do everything myself if I want it done in a timely fashion, Ruy is no help whatsoever in packing, this thing is neverending, and even when I try to clean out some of the damn piles of mess, I manage to grievously injure myself.
Word Count: 504
Word Count to Date: 7884
Oh yes, the injured toe incident. Well, yesterday wasn't the greatest day. I mean, Ruy and I went out and went places and picked up things and bought stuff for Europe, but as for packing, well, not much happened in the early part of the day. In fact, after coming home and puking my guts up from carsickness, I hauled a shit-tonne of boxes downstairs to our storage locker to finally get them out of the way. This, of course, involved going down their once to discover that Ruy had given me the wrong key to the locker, once again to bring up the trolley, another to bring down a load of boxes (and rearrange the *entire* frigging locker, which was pain-inducing), and a final one to bring down another load of boxes.
I hate carrying heavy things, and Ruy, well, let's face it, Ruy has kind of done fuck all in this move. I've been asking him all month to help me pack, to help me move things, to help me do just about anything, and he just... doesn't. Packing is something I loathe, moving is something I loathe even more, but to be made to do it all by myself? That's just unfair.
At some point between moving one set of boxes, rearranging the storage locker, loading up a new set of boxes and going back downstairs, Pegasus waltzed out the front door of the apartment. Imagine my surprise when I opened the door to take a new set of boxes downstairs, and there's my little kitten sitting outside the apartment. I have no idea at what point she got out, nor how long she had been out there, but I had to take a moment to collect myself and fuss over her.
Boxes got moved, eventually, when Ruy got home. Ruy got around to vacuuming out our storage and bunny room, eventually, and I scooped three litter boxes and then went to take out the garbage. The garbage got taken out, but when I came back into the building from the parking garage, I managed to catch my toe under the door. Cracked the nail pretty good, and ended up with a huge blood blister on a big toe, and fuck, did it hurt. This, of course, did not stop me from packing, but I did manage to rip off part of said toenail two days later, in another box-related incident.
What have I learned from this? I have learned that I have to do everything myself if I want it done in a timely fashion, Ruy is no help whatsoever in packing, this thing is neverending, and even when I try to clean out some of the damn piles of mess, I manage to grievously injure myself.
Word Count: 504
Word Count to Date: 7884
Nothing is as pleasant as the sound of two cats chomping away at their plate food. The same plate of food. Together. I simply cannot believe to two of them have gotten as far as eating from the same plate AT THE SAME TIME. It's like everybody finally went to kindergarten and learned to share.
Now, Pegasus is chasing a straw around the apartment, and man does she fucking love that straw. We are talking Tessa/Catnip Duck BFF standards here. Wherever that straw goes, Peggles is sure to follow. I could write a nursery rhyme, adapted for straws and Peggles. But originally about sheep. That is, the nursery rhyme was originally about sheep, and I didn't write it. But it wouldn't matter, because soon it would be about Peggles and Straw. I think I would end it, "And Peggles ran away with the Straw." I sure hope nursery rhymes are in the public domain by now, or I've just entirely stolen two of them for my own nefarious purposes.
Tessa and Peggles still fight, of course, but it's more like a sibling thing. I haven't yet heard the "everybody leave the room, cats are fighting" yowling noise I worry about, and I've left them both alone in the apartment for extended periods of time, and everybody's more or less unscathed when I get back. That I know of.
Word Count: 224
Word Count to Date: 6024
Now, Pegasus is chasing a straw around the apartment, and man does she fucking love that straw. We are talking Tessa/Catnip Duck BFF standards here. Wherever that straw goes, Peggles is sure to follow. I could write a nursery rhyme, adapted for straws and Peggles. But originally about sheep. That is, the nursery rhyme was originally about sheep, and I didn't write it. But it wouldn't matter, because soon it would be about Peggles and Straw. I think I would end it, "And Peggles ran away with the Straw." I sure hope nursery rhymes are in the public domain by now, or I've just entirely stolen two of them for my own nefarious purposes.
Tessa and Peggles still fight, of course, but it's more like a sibling thing. I haven't yet heard the "everybody leave the room, cats are fighting" yowling noise I worry about, and I've left them both alone in the apartment for extended periods of time, and everybody's more or less unscathed when I get back. That I know of.
Word Count: 224
Word Count to Date: 6024
