me and my druggie life

I'm on a step program to up the dose of my drug -- one pill for three days, then two pills for three days, then three for...ever. I'm up to two now, and today I felt sort of muscle-achee, like coming down with the flu. I'm actually relieved to see it's a possible side effect, and hopefully NOT the flu.

Arrested Dev and not the tv show already!

Before it was a tv show, Arrested Development was one of my fave bands, in the early 90s. They were like the Black Eyed Peas, but less sex more politics. Some of the songs were too self-righteous even for my righteous age of 20, but when they were On... they were on.

They have a new album out, and I'm glad to see it has How Far is Heaven, which they did a great cover of on a has-beens music show. According to this review, it's the same old problem: "The self-righteousness with which he expounds how spiritually and politically tuned-in he is would usually be enough to put you off, but when the music behind it is of such funk and rhythm, it's ok. You don't have to listen to the words."

Not to mention, rap is so dominated by gangster rap these days (K-os is one of the few conscious and popular rappers I can think of, and he's Canadian), it'll be nice to have AD back on the scene.

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Bill Adler is a hip-hop historian who helped write and produce "And You Don't Stop: 30 Years of Hip Hop," a five-part documentary series for VH1. He said Arrested Development was among the "last gasp" of a wave of socially conscious rappers who also were able to achieve widespread commercial and critical success.

"At that point, conscious hip-hop and so-called gangster rap were kind of at war with each other," he said. "I think the so-called gangster rappers emerged on top and they've really defined hip-hop pretty exclusively ever since."

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my future greatness

I was thinking about how PhD people get to be called Doctor. And it isn't fair, I want a title too when I graduate. So I intend to be called Mistress Terri or Mistress Corriveau. I could use the gender neutral Master Terri, but that sounds a bit too Oliver Twist.

Canuck tv

Gemini award winners in photos.

I'm happy to see Slings and Arrows getting awards--what a fanTAStic show. Such great writing.

And also Little Mosque, and Corner Gas--both of which I enjoy these days.

My Aching Head

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.

Monkey Jammies

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.

You better stop whining, pining Get your dreams in line And then just shine, design, refine Until they come true!

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.

loves me some wyclef