Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

"[...] But they also don't want to be labeled homophobes. That is, although saying 'gay marriage shouldn't be allowed because I believe gay sex is icky' is actually a less terrible argument than anything they've got -- hey, it's not flagrantly internally incoherent, it's basically honest (I'll wager), and who doesn't believe that on some level people steer, morally, by emotional attraction-repulsion drive? -- it's considered embarrassing. (Homophobia: the yuck that dare not speak its name.)" -- John Holbo, "Really Really Bad Arguments", Crooked Timber, 2009-04-09 (emphasis added -- DGA)

[Not that I -- nor, as far as I can tell, John Holbo -- think this excuses 'gays aren't quite people and don't deserve to be treated fairly' arguments (just before the bit I quoted, he wrote, "[...] the editors surely don't personally think anything so awful, although Sullivan is perfectly right that their argument makes no sense whatsoever unless they do."). Mostly I wanted to quote enough context to support the bit I really wanted to pass on, that I bolded above: "Homophobia: the yuck that dare not speak its name."]

Ironically, between writing the following and typing the command to post it, I fell asleep. Which was a good thing. That was at about 3:45 this morning. Beyond this paragraph, I'm going to let it stand as I wrote it this morning...

Huh. When the sun came up and I hadn't slept (because I'd fallen asleep the previous afternoon and woken in early evening), I should've given up on sleep and taken the codeine after all, 'cause even without the codeine+caffeine, here it is a couple hours shy of the next sunrise and I still haven't slept. (If I had to spend a long stretch awake, why couldn't it have included when I needed to be driving to rehearsal?) If I'd known I wouldn't sleep regardless, I would've gone for the etra pain relief. Feh.

(I did manage, with extra tramadol and naproxen, to get to the point that walking around the house wasn't excruciating to my knees and back, but my arms & shoulders hurt enough to make other things difficult all day. It was some improvement, but not enough so to satisfy me.)

That's just how things happened to work out today. But I will indulge in one bit of out-and--out whining: I'm really fed up with the whole "Princess and the Pea" thing my skin has done about five nights out of eight lately, where a flake of my own damned skin on the sheet feels like a cracker crumb, a poppy seed (not sure how that got there) feels like a thorn, and an actual cracker crumb (I do know how that got there) feels like a medium sized chunk of gravel. I think (hope, at least) that if I can get other fibromyalgia symptoms back under a semblance of control, this (which I'm assuming is fibro-related) will go away. In the meantime, it sure doesn't help with the sleep problems.

So far the most effective thing I've found for helping me get to sleep -- and it tips the odds a bit but isn't reliable -- is to jack my blood suger up a fair bit above where it ought to be.^[1] I'm thinkin' that any one instance of that probably doesn't hurt me too badly, but I'm pretty sure the damage is cumulative, so it shares one^[2] of the problems of using alcohol to help me sleep: I can't afford the long term effects of using it regularly (or even irregularly at any pace higher than "once every two or three blue moons"). I need a way of pushing my body toward sleep that doesn't involve a gradual poison.

If I'm feeling well enough to stand for a while and coordinated enough to chop and stir things without dropping them all over the kitchen floor, preparing a high-fat, high-tryptophan meal that also has enough carbs to push my blood glucose up, does add extra kick to the sleep-allowing effect. But a) I'm never going to slim down enough for a coupe of cute skirts I want to wear again if I keep doing that before bed, and b) it doesn't seeem to work again the next two nights after a successful tryptophan-bomb. Oy, my confounding metabalism!

Well, time to close my eyes and try counted-breath meditation again, in case trying to fall asleep finally works this time. Ah, for younger days, when staying awake too long at a stretch was because interesting stuff was happening all around me at a con and I didn't want to miss any of it, instead of just because my body won't sleep yet.

[1] I know some of my friends will hate me for calling 180-200 mg/dL disturbingiy high when they routinely see readings higher than that, but considering that the ADA says to try to keep it under 180 and a somewhat convincing and voluminous web site suggests that 140 is actually the level at which damage starts accumulating, since I usually can keep my sugar below about 140 if I pay attention, then it makes sense to consider pushing it to 200 to get to sleep a questionable-at-best trade-off and probably a just plain bad idea.

[2] Fortunately it doesn't share the "if I drink enough to put me to sleep I'll wake up still drunk", risk of addiction, and "I don't particularly like feeling drunk" problems of alcohol. Okay, the waking up still drunk part was based on the results of a single trial, but given the quantity of alcohol that experiment required a similar outcome next time seems likely, and waking up drunk was unpleasant enough that the idea of repeating the experiment to be sure really doesn't appeal to me.

Okay, that ~10 hour sleep I had this morning/afternoon did me some good. Muscle pain levels are in the annoying-but-mostly-manageable range, and I feel more alert and awake than I have in a couple weeks -- it feels like I'm thinking clearly instead of trying to push thoughts through a fuzzy acrylic blanket covered with dust. Alas I have a fairly bad headache and I'm still dizzy, so I don't know how long this blessed feeling-like-my-brain-is-my-own stretch will last before the headache and dizziness take their toll on my stamina and I get groggy-tired again, but let's see what I can manage to get done while this window is open. Not going shopping tonight, despite needing a few things, 'cause I'm sure that'd burn spoons too quickly. But if I feel as good tomorrow as I did an hour after I woke up today, I'll try to make it out to a store or two then.

I woke briefly around noon and fell back asleep, and I remember that I woke up out of a dream in which I was teaching in a largeish school (a public high school, I think), and was frustrated by not being able to hold the students' attention ... so I started teaching in verse, and they all dug it, and they remembered stuff better for quizzes. I woke after a conversation in a hallway with an administrator who asked me whether it was true that I had taught an entire lesson in iambic pentameter.

"No, I never did that," I replied.

"Really. Because I've overheard several students talking about it."

"I'd never do that. I only switch to iambic pentameter when I get stuck and can't continue in the meter that I started the lesson in. I never start with it. I prefer dactyls."

The weather has been confusing. Chilly yesterday, frost warning overnight, really warm this afternoon. Perrine's extra winter layer of coat is coming out in clumps. She'll jump up on the bed to ask for treats or attention or the brush, and there'll be a bit sticking out two to four centimeters at some crazy angle from some part of her body, which come right off in my fingers when I grab it. Then she sniffs at it as though I'm offering her a toy.

Unsurprisingly, she's been asking to be brushed a lot lately. But she's taken to playing a little power game, trying to make me go to her with the brush, instead of coming within easy reach. She asks for the brush, I pat my lap if I'm sitting or my chest if I'm lying on my back, and instead of coming over she just asks again more emphatically and tries the to do puppy-dog eyes. Or she comes over, accepts a few strokes with her usual squirmy, purr-ful enthusiasm, then walks just out of reach and complains that I stopped. I'm half-annoyed and half-amused. If she insists on staying in an inconvenient spot (out of reach or at a funny angle for my arm), I put the brush down.

I haven't had to cut any mats out of her coat in the last few weeks, I think (my sense of time is unreliable right now, more so for memories of stuff that happened on extra-dizzy days). I don't know whether this is because the springtime shedding lets proto-mats come off as clumps before they get a chance to mat, because of something else, or just random. I haven't been brushing her that much more, I think (though I did wrestle her into keeping still long enough to comb out one small mat that was forming last week) -- and during the winter mats appeared even when I'd recently brushed her.

I'm still amused at how large a chunk of fur I can cut off of her without making a noticeable difference in her appearance (nearby fur sort of leans over to fill in the void), but I'm happier not having to use the scissors.

( Cat shedding weather, poetry dream, and how I'm doing (well compared to other recent days, not great) )

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