Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

About that fire: they got the flames to below rooftop level by the time I had gotten dressed, as expected. Although it was clearly within walking distance, I took the car in case I had to circle around to find it or to find a direction from which to approach. As far as I can tell, it's on an alley or one of the teeny tiny one-block long streets that might as well be an alley, in the middle of a block: I could find police cars and fire trucks but could not see where the fire was from any of the streets I had access to. So call it two and a half blocks south of my house, south of Pratt and north of Washington, in the 1700 block. This puts it closer than any of last Winter's fires (but farther than the one catty-corner to me the year before that). Anywho, I came home w/o taking any photos.

Fires never go entirely out of season in the city, but for the past couple of years there's been a definite increase in fires in southwest Baltimore for part of the year. When I said "fire season" in my previous post, I was really talking about the fires in vacant buildings visible from my house. (I heard lots of sirens a couple of nights recently followed by news reports the next day, of fires in NW or SW Baltimore on the telly, but this was the first "oh, look at the smoke/flames, gee that's awfully close" one for me this winter. Most of the fires that "count" in my counting don't get mentioned on the news except statistically.) Last year was especially bad, with a string of what were then called arsons in vacant houses. Interestingly, when I asked the detective whether anyone had been caught for those during my photographically related detention, he said they were just homeless going in and trying to get warm and burning the houses down by accident. This explanation makes a lot of sense (and was the early hypothesis before they started talking about arson), but I was expecting the fires to start in that really cold snap right around Thanksgiving, or on one of the really cold nights since then, rather than this late and on a night that's not quite as cold.

Also, IIRC, last season's fires continued well after the coldest part of the winter.

As long as I'm typing ...

Last night I had a pretty severe headache, so I gave the Midrin another shot. Showered, dressed, made sure all the right music was in the right bag, still didn't feel well, sent my band leader email saying I was running late because I was waiting for the meds to kick in, took another capsule (that stuff tastes strange as well as bad[1]) ... and by the time the pain was down enough to think about driving to College Park, a) I would've only made it to the last half-hour of our two hour rehearsal, and b) I was extremely tired. Dunno how much of the tiredness was the sedative in the Midrin[2] and how much was leftover from fighting the headache, but I crashed. (I've also been sleep deprived lately due to insomnia, which may have contributed to the headache.) Fell asleep a few minutes after 21:00, woke briefly at 23:30, woke again for real just after 01:00 with the headache mostly gone but a lot of muscle pain in my legs (mostly my thigh) and a fair amount of hunger.

So I got up, took Ultram and ibuprofen (for the pain) and Mg (because I was also getting cramps in my calves) and Protonix (so my stomach wouldn't bug me later for forgetting to), made a plate of eggs (with broccoli, grape tomatoes, and onion mixed in along with the usual cheddar) and sat down to see whether I would wind up feeling well enough to knock a few things off my to-do list or sleepy enough to go back to bed. So far I'm halfway in between, which is a frustrating place to be, so I'm doing low-concentration stuff.

Saturday I wasn't feeling well enough to go to a Christmas party I'd been invited to in the afternoon, but it was still going in the evening when I finally did feel well enough. butterfluff's nudging me via email helped make up my mind to go. Sort of low-key (though the gift brawl was more entertaining than I'm used to that sort of thing being), and I actually had to lie down and close my eyes for a little while during it because my back hurt too badly from the fibromyalgia and I got too tired from fighting the pain, but it was really good to get out and see people face-to-face other than at a rehearsal or other focussed activity, for a change. Gee, socializing, something I really shouldn't need to write on my to-do list, but it seems that I do.

Sunday I didn't feel well -- probably stayed later than I should have at the party the night before -- and mostly caught up on sleep. Monday and Tuesday I had to run off to the photo lab and FedEx and the pharmacy (thanking my mother for giving me the money to pay for that Protonix prescription with the $75 copay), but the insomnia was back and I only got one hour of sleep all day Monday, and another few hours Tuesday.

Tuesday night I was feeling pretty run down, but I made it to Thrir Venstri Foetr dance practice anyhow. Said goodbye to silmaril, who I won't see again until she comes back from visiting her family, showed off the 8x10 print of the photo that got me detained by the Baltimore police (which I'll be posting somewhere soonish -- at the very least I plan on putting it in the Pentax Users Gallery, which I haven't submitted anything to all year (in 2001 I submitted a photo for each month, which was my New Year resolution that year)), spent too long searching the ground under my car after my keychain exploded, and came home still tired.

Yesterday I started on the Dork Tower books that Silmaril loaned me, procrastinated making a phone call to a bureaucracy that I'm dreading, and again slept very little. I noticed that the number of friends' journal entries that I've left open in browser windows in hope of getting around to posting comments later has gotten frighteningly large, and there are a bunch of entries on the friends pages I monitor (my own, plus friends of susboid and friends of genderqueer) that I've just skimmed and made a mental note to go back and read slowly later. I'm distracted, I'm tired, and I'm tired of feeling like this.

I wound up withdrawing dividends from one of my life insurance policies again -- pretty much emptied it this time -- to pay bills. I haven't had any assignments from my boss this month, so it doesn't look like I'll be getting a paycheck in January. I need to sell a bunch of photos, or get more photo assignments, or get more music gigs, or find a second employer who needs a programmer/analyst and can deal with my health limitations, ... or grit my teeth and deal with the scary-to-me process of starting the red tape to get SSDI or Welfare or something. <<shudder>> That shouldn't be as much of a bugaboo as it is for me. I've got "issues", ones that I haven't completely identified yet. *sigh* Maybe what I should ask for for Christmas is someone to hold my hand and walk me through the process.

And Christmas cards (and a "Happy Everything" card from browngirl) have started arriving. Seems like every year I'm surprised to notice how much I like getting them. I really must resume sending Groundhog Day[3] cards again.