August 31st, 2005 at 8:13 pm
(Better Living Through Chemistry, Interstitial Cystitis)
I got taken off of the Yasmin the other day. I think it is for the best but I will have to admit that it helped my bladder even more than I thought and I actually considered taking one today because my bladder hurt that much. I am going to talk with the gyno in September and then my uro in November and see about estradiol cream and the possibility of it helping with fewer side-effects than the Pill. I’m convinced that my IC symptoms are mostly influenced by hormones. I’m even considering the NuvaRing, even though it freaks me out that it chills in your vagina for so long.
Speaking of medicines… I had to go back on the Prosed today and I had to whip out the Darvocet. I thought it was going to be bad when I went off of the Yasmin but I was sort of hoping it would have been milder than this. Also, I stood on concrete for about 4 hours today and that doesn’t help. Yeah, standing on the concrete was for a good reason and all… we bought all of the interior finishing supplies for the cottage (which absolutely rocks and I don’t mind gloating just a bit… we have put a lot of work into it). We got the paint, trim, panelling, baseboard, crown moulding, flooring, plus some landscaping items as well. I was a little mad at myself for not taking my medicine with me but I’d been feeling so great on the pill, bladder-wise, that I had gotten out of the habit.
While we’re on the subject of building materials, I have to say that the aftermath of the hurricane has me worried. I feel very badly for the people and animals who are now suffering so greatly. I am glad that I have a good, dry place to live and that all of my loved ones are safe and nearby. The Midwest may be a cultural backwater but at least we don’t have a lot of horrific natural disasters. I know it sounds selfish but the hurricane has really put a dent in the amount of ATV traffic here since gas is so expensive- fewer rednecks are zooming around. Less noise, less fuss.
Other than that, I finished my latest theme last night and I’ll be putting it up tomorrow when the Layout Marathon is officially over. Hellboy was a bit wonky but I still like him… however, he has to go because the layout is not as crisp as I had wanted, despite the extra work I put into him.
August 30th, 2005 at 6:14 pm
(Rants)
You know, it is easier to be a coward and to be shitty when you leave no contact information when you tag. I am really thinking of taking down the tagger over yonder because more often than not, some 14 yr old gets her panties in a twist and instead of acting like a polite, civil human being, she acts like a nasty little shit because “oh noes! teh fyl iz kerrupted!111 It iz ur fault!oneoneoshiftelevenangst! I hates u, internets loozer fial-kerrupted persin!”
Are you paying? Did anyone get hurt? Did any property get damaged? No. Then act with a little decorum. I guess nearly-anonymous snark makes people’s self-esteem feel better.
August 30th, 2005 at 11:36 am
(Cats, Thoughts)
I think a lot of cat owners are guilty of putting human feeling and reasoning behind their pets’ actions. I know I am but then again, I look upon them as little people with fur, claws, and fangs rather like the Garfield quote. And, if you believe in certain forms of reincarnation, I guess it’s possible that some human wasted his/her human life and wound up in a cat body this go-around. Or maybe they were rewarded. It depends on how you look at it.
Anyway, I have a cat whose behaviour, while charming at times, is rather disturbing and downright perverse at other times. The feline I’m referring to is Doodle, a male black and silver tabby we rescued from the pound last year. Doods has always been a little different- his head and body are more angular than your regular cat’s. He’s more observant but at the same time, he is more perverted than any animal has a right to be.
I think he had an anal fetish when he was a people because he gets way more out of hiney-sniffing than the “Hi, hello- oh, that’s You. Ok,” that a normal cat gets. For example, Roly will come into a room and do his feline greeting ritual with Neddy, take a quick whiff to make sure Neddy is indeed, still Neddy, and that’s the end of it. *hehe* Doodle, on the other hand, will enter a room and fasten his nose to the nearest cat arse he can find and stay that way for 5 minutes or until the other cat becomes agitated by this and chases him off. He will also groom the area if not chased off. And I don’t mean just groom, I mean lick with slow savour as it it were a can of tuna.
Doodle’s behaviour is not limited to cats, however. He may jump up on Eloric’s lap and then spend several minutes smelling one place on his arm until Eloric gets freaked out and makes him get off of his lap. Sometimes at night he sneaks under the covers and I wake up with whiskers tickling my knee because Doodle has been attracted by that particular joint and feels the need to sniff it. I’m glad I don’t sleep naked. I evict him and he goes and finds himself something else to do. It is freaky. We bathe and we don’t rub freeze-dried shrimp on our bodies before relaxing of an evening.
Then there is his whole relationship with Thurien. Thurien chases him around the house and beats him up with his massive 6-toed paws and… Doodle likes it. If you keep him away from Thury, he whines and frets because he seems to want to be hit on. Thurien beats him and then they jump up on the ottoman and have a nice nap. My cat is into S&M, apparently and he is the submissive one. He’s been a lot happier since we got Thurien and since Thury started kicking his ass for him. Sometimes Doodle comes up and looks at me and then at the grey kitten and it’s as if he’s thanking me for him.
It’s totally cute when Doodle comes into the bathroom and shuts the door behind him. For a while there I just thought he was a narcissist and liked looking in the mirror on the back of the door but no, he’s shutting the other cats out. It’s a little odd to be in the shower and to hear the door close like that but if you let yourself forget what a pervert he is, it’s neat. Sometimes he’ll come in and not get the door closed all of the way and he’ll look frustrated and stand up and give it another push. This is especially funny when another cat is looking through the crack. Sometimes he’ll shut himself in the bathroom when no one else is in there. I don’t know what he’s doing then and I don’t think I want to know.
But sometimes I have to wonder about Doodle and how he got this way. We were good cat parents and never showed him any furry pr0n. We had him neutered. Oh well. Different kinks for different cats, I guess.
August 29th, 2005 at 3:55 pm
(Aquired-Taste Updates, Better Living Through Chemistry, Interstitial Cystitis, Rants)
Just finished updating A-T. Only four sets this time, I’m afraid. Still… go if you need brushes. /pimp
Better living through chemistry is not working here, I’m afraid. I’m beginning to think the trade-offs of being on Yasmin vs. suffering for a week when not on Yasmin are not worth taking yet another pill. Of course, the Yasmin is not just another pill, mind, it’s another pill that seems to be causing more problems than it’s worth. I should like to get an IUD but living where I do, I am willing to bet that it is damned near impossible to convince a gyno that for me, having childrens is not a good idea *points at thick record full of medical problems*. I shall have to raise the vasectomy subject with Eloric again. I think he half thought I was kidding the last time I mentioned it. Well… perhaps I’ll consider the Nuva-Ring first. *sigh* After all, agony is not a desirable thing.
It sucks, having to choose between one agony and another. Either the bladder makes me suicidal or I get a host of mental and physical side-effects that I inflict upon myself by taking a pill every evening. Yeah, the IC’s better but crap- all of the other side-effects add up to be just as bad. No energy, intestinal cramps from hell, no libido, medium-grade depression, breakthrough bleeding, and anxiety. That’s just from the first pack. I wonder how I’ll be feeling after the 3rd…? This is not working out the way I had hoped. Not at all. *bler*
August 29th, 2005 at 10:44 am
(100 Words)
… their bodies, hatred on their faces. They chased her out of the house and threw her payment of three shell beads into the mud at her feet. Some of them spat at her from the other side of the threshold while the withered crone fixed the bar of iron in the doorway. Apple had scooped the beads, mud and all into her pocket to save spending extra time in their ugly presence and plodded home with heavy steps, her face carefully blank. Their hatred shouldn’t have mattered to her, she had reasoned, willing her tears to stay behind her black eyes. Gratitude wasn’t needed; she only needed people to use the healing on because if you squandered the power, it would leave you.
Everyday she and Bruehadda kept their little rituals with which they honored the earth and the spirits of the land: a twist of incense lit, a small dish of meal left outside the threshold, a whisper under an especially sacred tree or words breathed into the tiny slate-roofed spirit house that stood on a short yew pole behind their cottage. The villagers were hardly bothered to honor the land or its powers unless it was festival time or if they wanted something for themselves- rain on parched stands of birches, fertility for themselves or their cattle, blessings on the beer. Even then they liked to do things second or third-hand by whispering their desires to a particularly esteemed oak tree that lived in the center of a field of golden ground rice or to the ancient blackthorn tree that dwelt amidst one of the eldest stands of birch trees that stood a nice walk from Hallowell. They would leave strips of cloth stitched with their family mark hanging on the thorns of the blackthorn, other threads spelling out their desires, if they were literate; otherwise they left cloth strips in the appropriate color to their need. At the oak tree they left strips the same strips weighted down with small stones. They may or may not pray in those holy places before slinking off, shamed, should a neighbor catch them appealing to the earth spirits instead of the deities of the Way.
Once a moon, Apple and her mate would go to each tree and gather up the strips of cloth and sort them according to the needs sewn into them to prepare the proper responses. Bruehadda…
August 28th, 2005 at 11:19 pm
(News, Rants, Thoughts)
I’m on the other computer right now so I can’t post all of my parcels of 100 words. Well, I could, if I wanted to re-start the laptop but I just don’t feel like it. Besides, huge chunks of words are easier to read than 100 words at a time, I find.
I have been in a reclusive mood lately, shielding myself even from the internet as I feel it is too much of a bother to try to get on-line and express myself. The Yasmin is frying the inside of my head and all I want to do is sleep, read books, listen to a little music, maybe watch a little telly, and say my mala. This contact thing burns right now and I am adverse to it. I’ll update everything that needs updating fan-listing and clique-wise tomorrow.
The brush site will have to wait until I GIMP my swirlies and scan and GIMP some of the other shezzy I’m turning into brushes this go-around. Soon though. Soon.
I went out amongst THEM the other day… first time since June or so and I was reminded why it is that I don’t go out amongst THEM. They are stupid and they try to suck my IQ out of my eyes by prattling on about fashion or by letting their sproggen run about free-range trying to knee-cap people. They turn the bad techno up LOUD ENOUGH TO JAR THE FILLINGS OUT OF ONE’S TEETH simply by walking past AmberZombie & Bitch and they stand about drinking overly-sugared “coffee” and block the aisles with strollers only slightly smaller than SUV’s. They don’t write one’s order down properly at the steak house thereby forgetting half of it and then try to tell me that I told them wrong. This is why I am a recluse. OK. Part of the reason I’m a recluse: I am not wired to endure the irritants and the stupidity one must endure to go out in public.
The neighbour burnt her tree, hopefully roasting all of the bag worms to death and preventing a town-wide infestation. Her yard looks a bit naked now.
And I am now going as this on-line thing is making me reclusive again.
August 25th, 2005 at 2:13 pm
(100 Words)
…for being a woman or a witch. Bruehadda’s people didn’t come but she hadn’t expected them to, after all of the heartbreak and shame she had brought to them, being born with a witch-mark. And since she’d been so long from the village, Ember was the only person, kin or no, there to represent her. She thought she would have been sad that no one turned out to share the joy of the hand-fasting but her heart was so full of her beloved that there was no room for sorrow.
Three summers had passed since Bruehadda and Apple’s hand-fasting. Bruehadda had finished her apprenticeship with Ember and had gone back up the foothills with her she-troth-mate to the village of Hallowell. There they kept a small cottage a small walk outside the limits of the village, close enough to be convenient in all kinds of weather but far enough away from the village to keep from insulting or alarming the folk who lived there. They had four full rooms, thanks to the healing in Apple’s hands and Bruehadda’s training in charms and potions, more than anyone in the village but the headman, the smith, and the trader. They both wore good tunics of soft nama wool embroidered with brilliant thread on the sleeves and sturdy boots of nama leather. The couple ate golden rice at each meal and had meat every day; such was their prosperity and honourable reputation with the villagers. Though the people might fear them and make signs to avert evil and ill-luck whenever they passed or when their names were mentioned, they still came to the women whenever they were in need and kept them comfortable with material goods.
The witches tended the villagers with a feeling that was half-proprietary, half pity.
“It makes me weep that they hate the hands that heal them,” Apple once said in a rare display of sadness.
She had been present at the birth of a baby where the mother bled so that her life had been despaired of. Apple had given the woman strengthening herbs in thick oak wine and laid her hands on her to stanch the mortal flow. Slowly the blood came less and less, then quit altogether. The mother slept peacefully and the womenfolk in the room all agreed that she would live. Then one of the old women brought out a twig of shrivelled rowan berries and a bar of cold iron scratched with the Avaunt rune.
“Get thee hence,” she screeched, brandishing the bar at Apple who sat limply beside the new mother, her strength lessened by the healing.
“Get thee hence! We’re all believers of the Way here, witch. Be gone and take your taint with you!”
All of the women present had made the gesture that turns the evil eye, the first two fingers of their right hand swept out and to the side of their bodies, hatred on their faces. They chased her out of the house and threw her payment…
August 25th, 2005 at 2:02 pm
(Artistic, Nature, News)
Well, I guess the neighbor’s bag worm infestation was worse than we thought as the county extension agent was over there today and told her that she had 48 hours to cut the tree down and burn it or else. Or else what, I dunno… but apparently the infestation is quite bad and threatens all of the pine trees in the town. *!* Though not a fan of pesticide, I’m going to discuss spraying all of our pines and yews with Eloric tonight. Bag worms are foul and disgusting. Take my word for it.
It turns out that I am allergic to Keflex, which could explain why I’ve been particularly off lately. I woke up with hives this morning and am hard-pressed to say what else it could be. I suppose it could be the hoodia I take every now and then to keep the ravenous cravings of the Yasmin under control but I would have thought it would have been apparent sooner. Oh well. At least the headache is gone 
I am working on new brushes now that I don’t have to have my head under a blankey all day. I might manage to update Aquired Taste this weekend. *heh*
I also have all of my words written for 100 words from the last few days. Of course, that is a separate post.
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