More on the Migraine Front

I went to see my neurologist today, and this just keeps getting stranger and stranger. What I thought was a side effect of the medicine, moments of extreme disconnectedness, are actually a part of my type of migraine. They are migraines without pain.

I've never heard of that. I didn't know that was even possible. I thought a migraine, by definition, included the pain part, but apparently they encompass a whole range of other factors, too, including the "depersonalization" I experience, that feeling of being suddenly separated from what's going on. He's calling it, at least on the paperwork, a "migraine equivalent." I guess I always have to be different....

The doctor said that having the pain part gone with the Topamax is a good step, and that most people continue to improve gradually for up to six months of taking it. I've only been on it about a month so far, and things have gotten a lot better. I only get the headaches or "moments" now when I'm very stressed, and they're not nearly as painful as they used to be. The other medicine he gave me helps me to alleviate most of the pain that remains if I can take it fast enough, too, so maybe I'm finally headed for a solution, no pun intended.

I'm stepping up my medicine for the last time (hopefully) starting tonight, but he said that the side effects shouldn't be as strong this last time. I'm hoping that this will be the last week of being so far off my game and that normalcy, such as it ever is for me, can return. I'm tired of feeling like a debilitated person.

They did take about 12 vials of blood for labwork today after I left his office. He wanted to check various things to make sure that the Topamax isn't causing adverse chemistry changes in my body and that it will be safe for me to resume some other medications that I was taking for another doctor. I gave the phlebotomists a story to tell over lunch.

I hate needles with a passion, and to have to sit there with a needle in long enough to let them fill twelve vials was an effort of great will for me. I got a firm grip on the table in front of me, refused to look behind me where my arm was stretched across another table having the blood taken, and just took deep breaths until it was done. I think they were scared I was going to fall out, but I've done this a lot in my lifetime of various bizarre medical crap, so I know by now how to "be a big girl" and give blood without running away and hiding under or behind various pieces of medical equipment, which is what I'd truly like to be doing instead.

Once the results of the blood work come back, the last big piece of the puzzle should be in place, at least for now. I just keep thinking that everything is going to hit equilibrium at some point. I'm tired of riding the pendulum swing back and forth. I need a little peace and stability.

Rainy Evening

I've written about it before, but the sound of rain on a metal roof is truly one of the most soothing sounds in the world. It's been so dry here, and we've needed the rain to clean and refresh everything, but there's the simple spiritual soothing of being warm, dry, and flannel-pj-clad on a cold and rainy night in late autumn.

Nights like this throw my mind back to nights in Japan when I'd have to ride my bike home in rain. I had a rain suit that kept the worst of the wet out, and I managed to varying degrees of success the art of riding a bike while holding an umbrella, but really nothing helps when you have to ride a bike in the rain. The cold damp drops creep into the bones, the cars full of warm dry people race past, and by the time you can get home, it feels like you'll never be warm or dry again. I would go up the three flights of stairs to my little apaato, turn my tiny heating unit up, and stay in the shower and the deep Japanese bath until I felt myself start to feel less like a block of ice and more like a human being again. Sometimes, I can still feel that chill, like the last bits of snow that stay in deep shade and don't melt.

Having lived through nights like that help me appreciate these other nights, these nights of central heating and easy dryness. When I stepped out of the church tonight, I had only steps to go from sanctuary door to the door of a four-wheeled sanctuary from the rain, and as I watched the leaves drifting down from almost-bare branches in the light of my high beams, I was grateful not to be on that silver five-speed bike trying to get home on a dark November night.

New Fridge

Today about 11:00, two delivery men, after disentangling their truck from the cedar tree next to my house, brought a lovely stainless steel, French-door, freezer-on-the-bottom refrigerator to my house and set it up. This replaced a refrigerator that had been in the house since I was a child. I'm guessing the old one is more than twenty years old. It's been a part of this house for as long as I can remember. There have always been a jug of sweet tea and a block of cheddar cheese in it along with whatever other common daily foods and holiday delicacies have passed through it.

I felt ridiculously sentimental to see the old thing loaded up and rolled out. Even though its time had definitely passed and it had started to leak cold water on my floor on a regular basis, somehow it felt like a member of the family leaving. If it hadn't come down to the point of my worrying about coming home to a dead refrigerator, I probably wouldn't have changed it out, but there are some things that it's better to be proactive with.

The new one looks great, and for the first time, I don't have to bend over to see what's in the fridge. I can simply open the door and look. Being so tall, I was always having to just about crawl into the old one, especially when it came to the crisper drawers. This new one has clear drawers and shelves which I think will be good for helping me remember that I have things like apples and carrots before they get nasty.

I find myself just walking through the kitchen and looking at it or just going by and opening one of the doors. I'm sure this fascination will pass, but it's nice to have something new and reliable. I guess every twenty-five years or so, every appliance is entitled to retirement.

Top Five Wishes for the Holidays

As I'm thumbing through magazines and facing the monumental task of trying to figure out what the heck to get my family and friends for Christmas, I was sort of facetiously making a list of what I want for the holidays for myself. If anybody is looking for a gift for old Cygnus this year, here are my top five:

1) Plane Tickets -- To where you ask? Any-freakin'-where-not-here, and that includes central Alabama, eastern Minnesota, Northern Alaska, and other non-touristy destinations. Actually, if the fairy godmother was coming around with the magic wand, I think I'd like tickets to either England or Japan. Right. I'm sure she'll get right on that.

2) A Dodge Charger -- loaded, dark blue, a minimum of chrome, with the BIG Hemi, please. Go ahead and stuff the glove box full of cash for the inevitable speeding tickets, too, probably.

3) Diamond studs -- No chips for me. I want at least a half carat per ear. If I can't get a ring on the finger, I'll wear those diamonds in my ears.

4 and 5) I'm willing to use up two positions on the wishlist for this one last impossible dream: The mythical tall, smart, funny, faithful, Christian guy who reads, speaks at least one other language, likes to travel, and is possibly even from another country altogether. If Santa can swing this one, he can keep all the other stuff on my wish list.

Emergency Room

There's something about going to the hospital that suspends reality. Time stops. No matter whether one is inside for a few minutes or a few days, that same feeling of dazed disorientation has to be overcome.

Mom called me yesterday about 8:00 to say that she was feeling nauseous and had been hurting off and on the night before with what the doctor had told her was probably a kidney stone. She felt like she needed to go on to the emergency room to get checked out, so I went and got her. We spent the next six hours in one of Podunk's big medical facilities waiting on results.

They did x-rays, scans, EKGs, and ran all manner of tests only to tell her that they thought it was some sort of deep muscle pull caused by her doing too much heavy labor in the yard, something that of course, she's right back out there doing today. Her nausea abated, and by the time we stumbled out into the parking lot again, things were fine. Sitting in that tiny exam room was surreal, though.

Mom and I did have a chance to sit and talk for awhile. It seems like it takes some sort of crisis for us to do that these days, which is not a good thing. After everything was over, we had lunch in the hospital cafeteria, and I took her home. I got back home by about 3, but it seemed like I'd been gone for days. We always have some weird stuff during Thanksgiving. I hope this is it for this year.

Top Gear

I have become hooked on Top Gear. If you've never seen it, it's on BBC America, and although it's primarily a car show, it's also hilarious. They do some huge project each week involving a bad idea and motor vehicles. The two episodes tonight had a convertible minivan that wound up catching fire when they took it through a car wash and homemade limousines. I've also seen episodes where they did amphibious vehicles and a tractor competition. It's a riot. Their projects almost never work, and the results are almost always guaranteed to be disasters. I also love the speed tests. They have some of the world's fastest cars being tested. I'd love even to stand near some of those cars just for the adrenaline rush. Just looking at them on the screen makes my little muscle car loving soul drool. Basically, if you like cars and humor, check out Top Gear. You won't be unamused.

Casablanca

TCM really did me in tonight. They had The Philadelphia Story on and then followed it up with Casablanca, so it's after midnight, and I'm still watching. Both movies are favorites of mine, but has there ever really been anything that compares to Casablanca?

I'll never forget the first time I saw it. IU had a free film series called City Lights that showed classic movies on the big screen, and my friends and I used to go see them. I got to see several wonderful old films that way, and Casablanca was one of them. I wish Podunk would revive its wonderful old movie palace downtown and show some of these great films there. Seeing Casablanca on that big screen, as is the case with any film, really made a difference.

There have been too many wise words written about it for me to add anything worth saying except my admiration. Every time I see it, the film just gets better and better. It's like a gem held in a strong light; facets sparkle and come to attention as it turns.

One of my favorite moments in the film comes when the German troops are singing some anthem loudly in Rick's while all the other patrons are very silent and sad. Then suddenly, Lazlo hurries down the stairs, strikes up Rick's band into the French national anthem, and and the entire cafe rises and sings. As the camera pans across the faces, tears are in their eyes, even the eyes of the cafe girl Yvette who has been dating a German officer. Eventually the Nazis are completely drowned out, and they stop singing altogether. It's a powerful moment.

Uh-oh....TCM just announced the next film: North by Northwest. I need sleep, but it's Cary Grant and Hitchcock......

Beowulf's Backside

I had a chance to see Hollywood's new attempt at interpreting Beowulf yesterday, and my feelings are a little mixed. There were, as I expected, several glaring inaccuracies, omissions, conflations, and a heaping helping of juvenile sexual references and crudities. I didn't really expect them to stay true to the storyline.

Hollywood can't seem to do that anymore, no matter what the story at hand. Every director has to put his fingers in the pudding, for some reason. Never mind the fact that the piece of literature in question here has been doing fine on its on merit for more than a thousand years. I'm sure some twenty-first century visionary best knows how to jazz it up. I always wonder at the pure hubris of the motion picture folk sometimes when it seems as though the most popular and lasting interpretations of most literature-to-film productions are the ones that stay closest to the originals. Take the Lord of the Rings series, for example.

Anyway, descending the soapbox and coming back to the matter at hand, it was an entertaining little bit of fluff. I enjoyed it. I don't think I can use much of it in class because there was too much flesh for the classroom, including lots of Beowulf's derriere in the fight scene with Grendel and, of course, the much-advertised naked-golden-Angelina-Jolie monster.

The creators of this particular screen play, one of whom was Neil Gaiman, an author I love, also decided to explore themes I didn't particularly find present in the original epic. While it bothered me a little at first, after thinking about it more, I find myself increasingly liking the direction they took the story. It's less about invincible heroes and more about peeling back the curtain to look behind the legends. It's not my beloved epic poem, but I think it's okay in its own right. Maybe for our time of flawed figures, it's more important for us to peel away that curtain to look than to look at the cloth of gold time has drawn across.

A Good Man Gone

Today during 7th period, I got a message from my mother that one of my former teachers had passed away. Since my mother was a teacher, too, I grew up in the halls of a high school. Her colleagues were a part of my childhood memories and the halls of that school were my playground. I remember this man not just as a teacher but also as a part of that childhood, always present in his room across the building from my mother's. Even once I had graduated, whenever I would go back to visit or to see Mom on my way home from college, he was always one of the people I'd go by and visit with.

I just sat at my desk and cried. It's hard for me to believe he's gone. It seems like I just saw him yesterday, like I just talked with him in the halls of that other school a moment ago, and today I was told that he's gone for good. He was about Mom's age; they started teaching at about the same time and taught for about the same length of time, so he wasn't an elderly man, but cancer is no respecter of age, as we all know.

He had retired from the school where I had known him for so long, but he had gone back to work again, as it seems so many retired teachers do, and the last I'd heard of him, he was happy with it. He was one of those life-long teachers who I think of as being "called" to the field because of his great passion for sharing the knowledge that he loved with his students. Today the world is just that much darker for that much passion and concern being gone from it. He will be missed by those who know what it is to have been his students. He was a good teacher and a good man.

A Quote

Just found this and am putting somewhere where I won't lose it...

"Develop an interest in life as you see it; the people, things, literature, music -- the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself." -- Henry James

Mothership

I ordered this about a month ago after seeing that it was coming out while I was cruising around iTunes one day. It came yesterday, and this morning, I drove to school listening to "Heartbreaker". Ahhhh.....

I love all kinds of music, really. I listen to just about everything except rap, but sometimes, there's nothing that will do except Led Zeppelin. I haven't had it in my CD collection for a long time, though. I haven't wanted to just buy one CD because I like so many songs, and funds haven't been sufficient in the old budget to spring for the box set. When I saw that Mothership was coming out, I was thrilled.

I know many music aficionados sneer at the "greatest hits" collection, and in truth, there are some bands whose every disc I own, but for the most part, I just like to have a collection of great songs by an artist that I can rip to my iPod or throw in the CD player. If I have every track from an artist, that's usually because I've been getting every album as it came out. It's true that there are a couple of songs that I do wish were present in this collection that are not, but that's what iTunes is for, after all....

I've made myself a nifty little playlist that's made up of three hours of the Stones and Led Zeppelin, and tomorrow afternoon once all my little darlings have headed back to their respective domiciles, I'm going to crank it so loud it shakes the mortar from the bricks, clean up my room, water my plants, unplug my electronics, and peel out of the parking lot to the blissful freedom of Thanksgiving holidays.

Utopia

I'm currently reading Thomas More's Utopia for a course I'm taking, and I'm wondering why I never took the time to read it before. So many of the ideas in this small book appear elsewhere, especially in their dark forms in dystopian literature. It's amazing how very closely the dark universes of 1984 and Brave New World take the ideas in Utopia to their ultimate conclusion if the base precept is that mankind does not really have his fellow man's best interest in mind.

It's curious how many systems have tried to incorporate portions of Utopia. I can definitely see shades of Communism in it, as I can also see ideas that politicians are still suggesting about the best way to run education, government, and trade. My favorite quote so far has been one related to politics, and paraphrasing without the book in hand, it says something to the effect of, "they never allow anyone to obtain an office who campaigns for it." As we stand in the aftermath of state elections and on the precipice of national ones, I rather like that idea....

I'm Sure It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time...

Today, the delightful weather called me out of the house, so I decided to go to town to pick up some things to take care of some repairs around the house. I ventured in to our new Bed, Bath, and Beyond and spent WAY too much money along with what must have been most of the rest of Podunk, and then I went on to Lowe's to get some fluorescent tubes for a fixture in my laundry room and some other things.

While I was in Lowe's, I noticed Christmas has erupted full-force. I toured the aisles even though I feel a bit queasy doing it before Thanksgiving because it's become a sad fact that if you wait until after Thanksgiving, some things get hard to find. Go figure. I figure someday we'll have to start getting things for Christmas January 1st.

I looked up at the displays on top of the shelves, and I saw the inflatables. There were reindeer, Santas, and something I'm not quite sure I've ever seen before, an inflatable nativity scene. This is the one that gave me pause. I'm not a big fan of the inflatables anyway. I figure Roux would have a grand time shredding them into colorful ribbons all across the yard. The figures in this one, though, had frighteningly little chubby faces and a big fan blowing air into them all the time.

I guess it's great that the religious aspect of Christmas is "catching up" to the Santa aspect in popular decor, but I'm not sure that plug-in, synthetic fabric, light-up baby Jesus and wise men is really the answer to putting the right focus back in Christmas. I guess maybe anything that turns hearts and eyes back to the birth of hope and love has some redeeming qualities, even if it requires electricity.

Broken Pottery

As I was driving in to school the other morning, I was listening to the radio, and one of my favorite songs came on, Casting Crowns' "East to West". There's a line in it that says, "Jesus can you show me just how far the east is from the west / ‘Cause I can’t bear to see the man I’ve been / Rising up in me again".

That song is powerful on many levels, but on that particular day my mind had been drifting to pottery, partly because we're coming up on the season of crafts fairs and pottery is my number one purchase at those. Probably another reason pottery had come to my mind is that the song just before ended with a few bars of an old hymn, the sound of which made me think of "Have Thine Own Way, Lord", one of my favorites.

We all have dark secrets that we hide. We all have internal flaws. The combination of those two songs and the image of pottery along with my recent teaching of Hawthorne drew my mind to the pottery festivals of Japan. Before a potter would sell a teacup, he or she would gently thump the cup or bowl to make sure it rang true. A whole, unflawed cup or bowl would chime softly. If there was some hidden imperfection, instead of a musical sound, a dull chink was heard instead. The flaw killed the musical purity of it. A potter who was proud of his or her craft would refuse to sell the flawed piece, and it would wind up as a reject headed for a pile of shards somewhere.

I always felt so sorry for those flawed cups and bowls. In truth, there were times when I wanted to go from stall to stall and buy them to give them a home. You see, I identified with them. I have always figured that if God were to give me the "thump" test, there's no way I'd ring pure and true. I wish I could say that I'd chime with a note that would bring joy to his heart, but I think it's far more truthful to say that I belong on the pile of shards. I'm just grateful that God is the master potter who can recreate flawed pieces and find a use for me despite these flaws, maybe even because of them.

Black Veil

Today I taught Hawthorne's "The Minister's Black Veil" and I decided to wear Father Hooper's veil in class. Even with Halloween being around, finding a long black veil wasn't possible, so I had to improvise. I used a sheer curtain panel and draped it artistically. I think I looked a little like a pleurant.

It was fun. Since I have that class first period, I put it on before the first period bell and stood hall duty in it before class began. I wish I'd had a camera in the hall taping the reaction of the students who weren't coming in my classroom. It was hilarious. Of course, all my students know me well enough by now that they were completely unphased. I am, after all, "that weird teacher" and in my classroom, I suppose, all things are possible. I like to think that I'm giving them things to talk about when they have their high school reunion.

Hawthorne is a favorite of mine, but The Minister's Black Veil is a true favorite. The physical expression of the internal reality that everyone has something to hide is as real today as it was then. It goes back to that quote by Issa that I love so much about walking on the roof of hell picking flowers. Today I thought about my own "black veil" that hides all the things I don't want the world to see, not necessarily hidden sins, but hidden secrets, things from the past. I wish I could lay it aside as easily as I slid my makeshift black veil off at the end of the period today and all those memories with it. Unfortunately, as Father Hooper understood, some things aren't quite so easily hidden, forgotten, or put aside as that.