Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

[Because of what's coming up on Friday, I'm going to lean on a theme this week.]

"Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual and intersex are natural persons irrespective of their masculine and feminine gender and they have the right to exercise their rights and live an independent life in society." -- the Supreme Court of Nepal, ordering that country's government to enact laws to guarantee the rights of gay LBGT people, 2007-12-21

[And yes, I'll permit myself the obvious editorial comment here. That's the entire 'agenda' right there in a nutshell: that we're people and deserve to enjoy the same protections of our human rights as other people do, and to not have governments or societies sanction discrimination against us merely for being or appearing G, B, L, T, I, or Q.]

In the wee hours the throat pain and coughing diminished enough that I could stop gargling with spirits and just use very hot, very lemony tea to sooth it. (Basically piping hot strong lemonade with a token trace of other flavours, really.) Today I'm in much less pain but still breathing very shallowly and trying not to yawn lest I start a coughing fit, and cannot lie on my back. So I guess I'm back to about where I was late Saturday. Might manage to drag myself out for more cough syrup (and lemon juice!) later, depending on how I feel about standing/walking/driving.

One thing about sugar substitutes is that they don't seem to have any throat-soothing effects -- sugar-free cough syrup works well enough anyhow because of the drugs in it (and since the regular stuff tastes so vile to begin with, I don't see making it taste a little worse as being a big deal), but sugar-free Ricola cough drops don't work quite as well as the with-sugar ones, and the hot-lemonade trick works better with sugar or honey (though when it comes to flavour alone, I make lemonade sweetened half with stevia and half with sucralose). So between sucking on a lot of cough drops, sugary hot homemade throat-soothers, and consuming about as much whisky yesterday as would normally last me a month, month and a half (more than 400 ml I think, looking at what's left in the bottle), my blood sugar is staying a bit high. At the moment I'm considering being able to breathe a higher priority, but I'll be happier when I can breathe and swallow comfortably and bring those blood glucose numbers down, all at the same time.

I haven't heard Perrine sneeze today, so maybe yesterday was just random after all. *whew*

I'm used to having strength available but at the cost of pain if I use it: I can lift that but it's going to hurt; I can carry all of these but I won't be able to move tomorrow or the day after; that sort of thing. Being really weak, not being able to exert force no matter how hard I push, even when I decide it's worth the pain, is awfully frustrating. Looking forward to that symptom going away, as well.

Still absolutely no clue what the shooting was about on Friday, whether anybody was hurt, or whether the police have a suspect. Took a closer look at the bullet hole in my neighbour's fender, and had the urge to mount funky lighting in it so it'd look like a peephole into a furnace ... or a laser diode so on foggy days it'd look like a gun port for an energy weapon. Pretty sure that neighbour would think I was nuts, so not going to mention these ideas to her.