Well I am the specialist queen. I went to a headache clinic for the first time, yesterday. I guess most people don't know that I've had chronic headaches since I was around 20--not sure exactly when they started. I've seen them get progressively worse over the years, usually measured by how I wore my hair... I used to be able to wear ponytails... then only pigtails... then only barrettes... and now nothing, because the second I put up a strand of hair, I get a headache. I also used to avoid wearing my glasses on a bad day, because they exacerbated the headache; now I don't even know where my glasses are, because I never wear them. Sometime last year the headaches increased to almost daily, which is when I finally told my doctor, who sent me to this specialist.
So doctor-lady told me they aren't migraines, but chronic tension headaches--which is what I had already surmised, given my Google obsession with my illnesses. Tension headaches are what everyone gets. Mine may have been exacerbated by stress (can anyone say Stats class?), but not necessarily--the thinking is that some people may have faulty wiring when it comes to tension. Being tense is just what we do! And since tensing a muscle strains it, and you're tensing all the time, pain builds up--muscles get all crapped out. When she felt my neck and back, she said my muscles are as hard as her desk (then she rapped the desk).
Til now I've been taking Tylenol with codeine, but I knew I needed to be switched to something preventative instead, which is what they *do* with headaches. She prescribed amitriptyline, of which I will take 30 mg each day before bed--and best case scenario, it reduces my headaches to a couples times per month.
They think that the drug helps tension type headaches by changing your perception of pain, and by reducing tension. I looked the drug up, and it's actually an anti-depressant! So I'm going to have a cheerful winter. Woo! It was originally developed for people with a nervous disposition, and it makes you drowsy and sleep deeper. I'm supposed to take it before bed. But she said take it a couple hours before, so that it wears off in time for me to be able to wake up.
I took my first pill last night (and did NOT take it early) and I must say... though I woke up once because Sherry was yelling at me, I KERPLONKED right back to sleep. And when my radio went off at 10 it took awhile for me to hear it... and then I set the alarm to ring in 30 more minutes , and went KERPLONK again. This should be great fun. Between my flu shot, my happy mood, and my Kerplonking 8 hours of sleep, I will pass the winter Gleefull and Unsick!
Anyway, it will take 2-4 weeks before I see if there's a result. In the meantime, I'm going to track down a dentist who can fit me with an NTI device, which might help attack one of the possible sources of my tensing--that is to say, clenching the teeth all night.
Friday, October 26, 2007
Friday, October 19, 2007
Monday, October 15, 2007
Well I'm not the Dalai Lama... (love that)
I shouldn't be posting again--I have stuff to do before I can get to bed, and I'm sick, and I have to spill me blood in the early morn and then hit class and talk about Behaviouralism. But...
There's this old cliche about how women become their mothers as they get older--what did Wilde say? A woman's only tragedy is that she becomes her mother, and a man's is that he doesn't. Anyway, it's scary to see it happening to you especially when you have TWO mothers.
I recently decided that since I spend half my life in my pajamas, it's time to start investing in Great Jammies. I can't be wearing old jogging pants and t-shirts all the time. So I've been buying a few as I see them on sale - right now I'm wearing cozy flannels with ice skating monkeys.
But the thing is... my stepmother always had an Excellent Jammie collection. In fact, the only good nightgowns or pajamas I owned she always bought me. And so the inexorable process of turning into my step-mother begins... Thankfully I, you know, LIKE her.
Step-mommy is not the Intellectual of the family--she leaves the navel gazing to my dad. I mean, she's a smarty-pants... she's the type who puts all her work into something, so she's the top of the class in any schooling she does. She's a pilot, she's taught flying, she took aircraft maintenance, she did art classes, and God knows what else--she was taking courses when I met her, when I was 9, but I don't know in what. She taught herself to remove the paint on doll faces and she repaints them and sells them and gives the money to an orphanage in Mexico. She packs the boxes so well, they probably arrive at the buyer's home on the wings of angels. (She has 279 positive rankings on eBay - none negative. Here's her web site.)
Step-mommy is also a gorgeous red-head with a tiny little waist, and always had a snazzy wardrobe, and long painted nails and makeup. She's probably part of the reason I can't stand it when some of my guy friends are judgmental about things like makeup and fashion--my stepmother would have on her purple belted snowsuit with matching lipstick and earmuffs, and hauling her ass to shovel the snow in the drive. Or she'd be checking the oil on her engine, with her manicured nails and her fur coat. My step-mother is Dolly Parton.
She won't be the person to get the *heavy deep* advice from--if you go to her with a problem, she won't pull out the hidden psychological meaning, or divine the subtle social realities for you. She'll be sympathetic, and then she'll tell you to stop whining and get on with your life. (She's sort of Cognitive Psychology: I don't know what's causing your problem, but here's how you fix it--stop doing it.) And you need someone like that in your life too. While I love to Process an issue to death, I think she taught me to balance that with a good attitude--a sense of when it's time to stop talking and start acting. She went in for the whole Positive Thinking fad of the 80s, and I can't say that hurt me either.
Dolly Parton's put down in song her own life advice, and this is her newest release, and it really reminded me of Step-mama. Not only is my step-mother a small town family girl like Dolly, and a Fashion Chick (though thank God my stepmommy hasn't had all the scary face lifts), but she also apparently has the same Salt of the Earth approach. So here be my Dolly-steppy song.
There's this old cliche about how women become their mothers as they get older--what did Wilde say? A woman's only tragedy is that she becomes her mother, and a man's is that he doesn't. Anyway, it's scary to see it happening to you especially when you have TWO mothers.
I recently decided that since I spend half my life in my pajamas, it's time to start investing in Great Jammies. I can't be wearing old jogging pants and t-shirts all the time. So I've been buying a few as I see them on sale - right now I'm wearing cozy flannels with ice skating monkeys.
But the thing is... my stepmother always had an Excellent Jammie collection. In fact, the only good nightgowns or pajamas I owned she always bought me. And so the inexorable process of turning into my step-mother begins... Thankfully I, you know, LIKE her.
Step-mommy is not the Intellectual of the family--she leaves the navel gazing to my dad. I mean, she's a smarty-pants... she's the type who puts all her work into something, so she's the top of the class in any schooling she does. She's a pilot, she's taught flying, she took aircraft maintenance, she did art classes, and God knows what else--she was taking courses when I met her, when I was 9, but I don't know in what. She taught herself to remove the paint on doll faces and she repaints them and sells them and gives the money to an orphanage in Mexico. She packs the boxes so well, they probably arrive at the buyer's home on the wings of angels. (She has 279 positive rankings on eBay - none negative. Here's her web site.)
Step-mommy is also a gorgeous red-head with a tiny little waist, and always had a snazzy wardrobe, and long painted nails and makeup. She's probably part of the reason I can't stand it when some of my guy friends are judgmental about things like makeup and fashion--my stepmother would have on her purple belted snowsuit with matching lipstick and earmuffs, and hauling her ass to shovel the snow in the drive. Or she'd be checking the oil on her engine, with her manicured nails and her fur coat. My step-mother is Dolly Parton.
She won't be the person to get the *heavy deep* advice from--if you go to her with a problem, she won't pull out the hidden psychological meaning, or divine the subtle social realities for you. She'll be sympathetic, and then she'll tell you to stop whining and get on with your life. (She's sort of Cognitive Psychology: I don't know what's causing your problem, but here's how you fix it--stop doing it.) And you need someone like that in your life too. While I love to Process an issue to death, I think she taught me to balance that with a good attitude--a sense of when it's time to stop talking and start acting. She went in for the whole Positive Thinking fad of the 80s, and I can't say that hurt me either.
Dolly Parton's put down in song her own life advice, and this is her newest release, and it really reminded me of Step-mama. Not only is my step-mother a small town family girl like Dolly, and a Fashion Chick (though thank God my stepmommy hasn't had all the scary face lifts), but she also apparently has the same Salt of the Earth approach. So here be my Dolly-steppy song.
You better stop whining, pining Get your dreams in line And then just shine, design, refine Until they come true!
Saturday, October 13, 2007
sick and behavioristic
Sniff. I'm sure I had some things to say here... but I'm sick and my brain is fuzzy. And I'm just trying to figure out what a behavioral approach to political science would be exactly.
As I stroll through my week I think "that's funny, I should blog that" but now it's all gone, gone, gone. School marches through my brain, obliterating everything in its path, aided and abetted by shnuffling nose.
As I stroll through my week I think "that's funny, I should blog that" but now it's all gone, gone, gone. School marches through my brain, obliterating everything in its path, aided and abetted by shnuffling nose.
Monday, October 1, 2007
Saturday, September 29, 2007
naturally selected hair
Years ago I used to do my own hair cutting, because I didn't like most haircuts at salons. Most haircutting people types are too wussy, they don't do anything exciting. I always say--do what you want! And the result is death by boredom.
But I returned to Cheap Salon Land the last 3 times (that is, one haircut per year, because that's all I had time for), and the first two times went pretty okay--the cuts weren't exciting, but they had nice shape, they fell well. But the last time threw me back into Hmph!-land. I didn't like the way it hung, or the shape of it or her technique. To me, a good haircut means your hair looks decent even when you roll out of bed, or it dries funny. That last cut was very hit or miss, as far as Boring Hair Days go.
Meanwhile in Hair Colour land... I had gone as blondie as I could with bleach, but that meant leaving the bleach on for 2 hours, which brought my hair to the consistency of straw. So, like, vegan... but straw.
So now I've decided to leave the bleach on less long, and go back to darker yellow, which is where my roots are now; but in the meantime I have all this bright blonde hair leftover. And of course, what's the real purpose of bright blonde hair? Well, to die funky colours, of course!
Yesterday I chopped up my hair so that it has a better shape/wider bangs/more choppy uneven bits; and today I dyed the bottom layer an orangey red. I originally wanted pink, but it's Fall now, so I thought a more autumnal colour would be appropriate. And it will better match the orangeness of my blonde hair.
There's actually three colours (four if you count the two shades of blonde, five if you count the gray), because I'm also letting my natural hair colour grow out in the underlayer. I think I'm only allowed two-tone hair at work, but ummm... hopefully the dark underlayer will just seem like a trick of the light. Heh heh.
Anyway, so you can go to Facebook to see The Evolution of My Hair 2006-07.
But I returned to Cheap Salon Land the last 3 times (that is, one haircut per year, because that's all I had time for), and the first two times went pretty okay--the cuts weren't exciting, but they had nice shape, they fell well. But the last time threw me back into Hmph!-land. I didn't like the way it hung, or the shape of it or her technique. To me, a good haircut means your hair looks decent even when you roll out of bed, or it dries funny. That last cut was very hit or miss, as far as Boring Hair Days go.
Meanwhile in Hair Colour land... I had gone as blondie as I could with bleach, but that meant leaving the bleach on for 2 hours, which brought my hair to the consistency of straw. So, like, vegan... but straw.
So now I've decided to leave the bleach on less long, and go back to darker yellow, which is where my roots are now; but in the meantime I have all this bright blonde hair leftover. And of course, what's the real purpose of bright blonde hair? Well, to die funky colours, of course!
Yesterday I chopped up my hair so that it has a better shape/wider bangs/more choppy uneven bits; and today I dyed the bottom layer an orangey red. I originally wanted pink, but it's Fall now, so I thought a more autumnal colour would be appropriate. And it will better match the orangeness of my blonde hair.
There's actually three colours (four if you count the two shades of blonde, five if you count the gray), because I'm also letting my natural hair colour grow out in the underlayer. I think I'm only allowed two-tone hair at work, but ummm... hopefully the dark underlayer will just seem like a trick of the light. Heh heh.
Anyway, so you can go to Facebook to see The Evolution of My Hair 2006-07.
countrified & satisfied
Alright, I'm reading A Town Like Alice again. After finishing the 7th Stephanie Plum novel, I finally reached my breaking point. --> I never usually read past 3-4 books in a row of one author, because no matter how great they are, you get tired of their style; but I was trying to read all the Plum books in a row just for A Lark. Doesn't work.
I'm studying Southeast Asia this semester, and Alice takes place in Malaysia during the Japanese invasion of WWII, so I'm in the right mooood.
I must say I'm quite enjoying my Asia class. While I'm a bit tired, after 4 years of McGill, of talking about civil society, and the state, and authoritarianism, and democracy and the economy, etc. etc. etc. (a bit like reading 7 Stephanie Plums in a row), the prof spends a lot of time telling us about the countries. And the readings are very case studyish, and historical. I LOVE learning about countries.
If I look at a map of Europe, the countries all look like Individual Countries--because I've known people who are Swiss, Greek, Italian, Polish etc. You grow up just naturally knowing more about these places, and studying European history, and seeing European-set movies. But I hate it when I look at another region of the map, and it's just a big Blank. When I first studied the Middle East, it was just land with lines drawn over it; and I loved how, as I studied the region, it took shape in my mind. It started to mean something.
Studying sub-Saharan Africa last year was a bit tough, because most of the readings were so broad (eg. covering 6 countries at a time), so it's hard for me to Say Something about these places now. What's Chad? What do I know about Chad?? Or Benin? Or the Central African Republic? Or Guinea-Buissau? Ah well, I'll have to get there on my own.
I'm studying Southeast Asia this semester, and Alice takes place in Malaysia during the Japanese invasion of WWII, so I'm in the right mooood.
I must say I'm quite enjoying my Asia class. While I'm a bit tired, after 4 years of McGill, of talking about civil society, and the state, and authoritarianism, and democracy and the economy, etc. etc. etc. (a bit like reading 7 Stephanie Plums in a row), the prof spends a lot of time telling us about the countries. And the readings are very case studyish, and historical. I LOVE learning about countries.
If I look at a map of Europe, the countries all look like Individual Countries--because I've known people who are Swiss, Greek, Italian, Polish etc. You grow up just naturally knowing more about these places, and studying European history, and seeing European-set movies. But I hate it when I look at another region of the map, and it's just a big Blank. When I first studied the Middle East, it was just land with lines drawn over it; and I loved how, as I studied the region, it took shape in my mind. It started to mean something.
Studying sub-Saharan Africa last year was a bit tough, because most of the readings were so broad (eg. covering 6 countries at a time), so it's hard for me to Say Something about these places now. What's Chad? What do I know about Chad?? Or Benin? Or the Central African Republic? Or Guinea-Buissau? Ah well, I'll have to get there on my own.
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