eor

Yesterday was major league suck. I had all the side effects of mood altering drugs, with none of the prescribed effect. I was lower than a snake's belly in a dry well in death valley. Now, that's low.

Today is better. Less side effects and I might even be getting some of the intended effects. Pretty music is once again pretty, although the rest of the world is too much to face.

"Off like a feather,
he floats through the heather,
and Blackberry calls him a tune
in his track." -- Kate & Kathryn "Hunting the Hare"

Thanks for the concern over my health and listening to my moaning.

Yesterday I cut my caffiene intake by about 50% and my refined sugar intake by a similar amount. Today I've managed to avoid the caffiene alltogether. I'm not planning on cutting out caffiene entirely, just taking the sugar out of my tea and cutting way, way down on my soft drink consumption. The withdrawl headache will probably hit tomorrow, so I may have a cup of tea in the morning to take the edge off.

I had today off from work, so it was easy to be good. Hit the treadmill for a little while. Did some other minor exercise periodically throughout the day to keep my metabolism up. Got a fair amount of stuff done around the house. Didn't attack the pantry like a starved shark, even though I've had the munchies like massive. The tension in my chest melted away at different points in the day, but still reappeared.

"On the bus today,
I met the queen of LA,
At least she said she was,
And who am I to say.
She was 65,
and full of life" Concrete Blonde "Still in Hollywood"

As you may have noticed, we're back from vacation. Had a nice visit with a goodly proportion of my family. On the unfortunate side, my brother-in-law has a tumor in his kidney (severity yet to be determined) and lesions on his liver (origin and severity yet to be determined). He went in for more tests the day we left. I haven't heard the results yet.

Florida was warm and sunny and typical Florida. Every now and then I'm tempted by the thought of enduring warmth, my body deals less and less well with the cold. Then I realize what an awful place it is in so many ways and suddenly the cold isn't so bad anymore.

Tomorrow it's back to work. Like clockwork, dreaming about work came back as soon as I got back to Maine. Really subconscious, I don't get paid to be there in my dreams, cut it out.

No firm New Year's resolutions. I do feel I was rather poor about communicating with friends and relatives this year and I have the intention of doing better this year. So some of you may actually hear from me this year. If that is something that thrills and excites you let me know and I'll move you toward the top of the list. If it disgusts and terrifies you let me know and I'll move you to the bottom of the list where you'll be safe.

I had a big long thing running in my head about friendship and attraction, but the allergy meds I took over an hour ago are kicking in big time and coherent sentences are rapidly becoming untenable. Goodnight.

The other day I read on the BBC site about a study that showed a correlation between consumption of high fructose corn syrup and the occurrence of gout. This is a nice thing to know since the only other wisdom about gout that seems to apply to me is cold feet aren't good and dehydration isn't good. It's really hard to have warm feet all the time in Maine and at some point I'm sure to lack hydration.

Another good reason to cut down on the soft drinks.

derien is once again resting on the couch in a post anesthesia nap. She was asking when she could eat Indian food, which is an indication that she's not feeling too bad.