Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

Catch-up stuff while I try to get my brain into gear (I think the differential is cold or something -- it's turning over but there's no drive)...

When I posted my "ego" comment, there were some ideas being bounced back and forth afterwards about how one would actually organize such a competition that never got written down. But now Interrobang has jotted down some of her own thoughts on the subject, so maybe I should get around to describing some of what I came up with, later. (One thing we agree on is that judging is mostly subjective, which is why I figure a reasonably large panel of judges is required ... and my vision definitely rewards both adaptability and ability to read and respond to feedback in real-time.)

In any case, it seems I need to attend Flipside some day.

I've still got the notion of Turing-machine programs implemented by contradancers (or other types of line-dancing) percolating in the back of my brain. The notion of a "square root dance" kind of amuses me.

The UPS package I'd been waiting for was a DVD player, a gift from a friend. Unexpected when he told me it was coming, though obviously not a surprise when it arrived. Right now the only DVD I have is the one he sent me by regular mail, but now that I have the capability ...

There are a lot of things I actually need right now, and a DVD player is a mere luxury, but one cool thing about gifts is getting something I want (or didn't know I wanted but will enjoy) that I never would have gotten for myself (whether for not being able to afford it, or just not treating myself to that sort of thing, or whatever other reason). So there are "relief" gifts -- "Thanks, I was wondering how I was going to afford one of these" -- and "Ooh!" gifts -- "Thanks, I never would have gotten this for myself but I love it" -- and this is an "Ooh!" gift. And I am grateful.

Especially since this was really an "out of the blue" gift from an unpexpected direction.

I emailed back and forth with a friend who's been known to do some plumbing work, and he concluded that I need to call a "real plumber", which I will do -- though by that point I'd gotten so stressed-out about the whole matter that I decided to crash and put it off until today. In the meantime, the problem appears to have magically fixed itself again! Yes, I do still plan to call a plumber, since I don't know why it happened or when it'll do it to me all over again. But this is a mixed blessing -- I can take a shower today (after I clean the yuck out of the tub), but it makes the problem an "intermittent", which could make it harder for the plumber to diagnose. (As a troubleshooter, I hate intermittent faults. Bleah.)

And the front rooms of my house still smell of smoke from that fire on Tuesday. Faintly enough to not be uncomfortable, but significant enough that when I walk into one of those rooms I think, "Oh shit, what's burning?"

I know I've got a lot of comments to go back and respond to, and maybejustmaybe I'll get around to commenting on some of y'all's posts that I flagged as commentworthy but haven't had a chance to come back to. Today there's one long-postponed entry I want to write, and I've got a lot of "Absolutely Must Do This Week" stuff to finish outside of LiveJournal.

But the way my head feels today, after enough sleep, made me realize that a big chunk of my feeling crappy yesterday was a low-grade migraine or a migraine-precursor that hasn't left yet. And I no longer have any migraine drugs, so I'll have to hit it with Canadian OTC codeine+caffeine and hope that does the job. (Heartfelt thanks to the friends who brought me the codeine recently. And the non-narcotic painkillers so that I have something besides the codeine to lean on for muscle pain that's not quite intense enough to warrant narcotics. I'm still scared of running out just because I have no health coverage right now, but I don't have to worry about running out soon for a while.)

The upside is that the codeine won't make me as sleepy as Midrin would. The downside is that codeine isn't as effective as Midrin against migraines, and doesn't seem to stop them from coming back the next day the way Midrin does.

I've got a bottle of Monty Python's Holy Grail ale that my brother gave me for Christmas. I want to drink it and enjoy it. But every time I look at it, I've just taken drugs that shouldn't be mixed with alcohol, or my head feels bad enough that I don't want to throw alcohol at it, or I've got somewhere I need to drive. Well, it'll still be there when I'm finally feeling well enough, don't have other drugs in me, and don't have anywhere to go.