Massive headache

I've got a huge headache, bad enough that I'm thinking of taking some painkillers. I don't usually do that because they have a rebound effect. I might feel better now but then later I'll get a rebound headache from taking the pills so I'll take some more, which will give me another rebound headache. I actually get significantly fewer headaches since I stopped taking medication for pain, but sometimes when it's very bad I have to take something.

When I say painkillers I'm including stuff like tylenol and ibuprofen. When I was first diagnosed with Pseudotumor Cerebri I was taking tylenol two or three times a day and had some liver damage. Once I stopped taking it I felt much better.

Fantastic day

I got up this morning and had a headache, which makes about eight days for this particular headache. We're switching my medicine for the intracranial hypertension and I'm kind of hoping that I'll get used to it and my headache will go away. If it doesn't I'll have to go back to my old regime, which is playing holy hell with my blood sugar.

I find that when I have a headache I usually feel better if I can move around, get some exercise, stretch my shoulders and neck so I did, worked out until I felt better. Then I sat down and worked on this first draft I've been working on forever, really almost a year, and finally, praise Jesus, finished it. That's an incredible relief. It's an awful mess and I may not do anything further with it but for now I'm happy it's finished.

I've been listening to Mika today; a great choice for fun, happy music that's easy to work out to. Then I got caught up on one of my email accounts. Now I'm getting caught up on Battlestar Galactica. Good times.

Totally groovalicious day

I finished my column very early. I've been trying to write 200 a words a day starting on Monday so I had very little to do today. Then I another thousand words in the Gabriel book, coming up to close to 30k, which is nice.

Took the boys out to dinner. Up to book 11 in the Series of Unfortunate Events.

But best of all, headache tolerable enough that I didn't have to take ANY painkillers! Whoop!

Little, Big; Lords and Ladies and crazy dreams

I was at the Goodwill a couple of weeks ago when I saw a copy of Little, Big by John Crowley. I stared at the cover for a minute and thought "If you liked Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell you'll like this book." Was that my voice or did I read it somewhere? I didn't know but I decided to trust it and bought the book, despite the fact that it was hardback and cost like four times as much as a paperback.

When I got it home I looked it up at Neil's blog and read that it's one of his favorite books and how its about to celebrate its 25th anniversary. I decided if I've waited to read it for this long I could certainly take my time reading it so I've been reading a chapter a day.

A couple of days ago I came to something that shocked and horrified me. Despite my wish to ration the book out I turned to the next page to see what was going to happen and read the words "Twenty-five years passed." Sigh. This just proves that cheaters never prosper.

I woke up with a god awful headache, the kind that I would like to take something like darvocet for, but since I haven't got any I took some milder stuff and didn't move my head until two in the afternoon, when I felt about forty percent better. I was able to read after awhile and finished Lords and Ladies by Terry Pratchett. I haven't laughed that much over the last few of his books I've read, mostly I think because I can see how much they mirror current events and how sad those events make me. But I didn't see that subtext in this book so I was able to be much more amused. I laughed a lot (something I'm convinced is helpful for headache alleviation) and enjoyed it very much.

I was also very interested to compare the attitude towards the fairy world in both books, the characters in Little, Big seem fascinated by the fairies and long to interact with them while they are quite terrifying and awful in Lords and Ladies. I'll be curious to see what how the Little, Big characters feel at the end of the book.

I had a dream that I killed eight men last night. It was kind of complicated and I did it to save myself and a whole bunch of other people (on a ship? something) I stabbed on in the neck, three more in the chest and bashed in the heads of another three. The final one turned some sort of incendiary device on me but I attacked him and turned it back on him. My rationale was that he wasn't going to kill me with it, it was just going to be very, very painful and I was bigger and stronger than he was so I had a chance if I tried to take it away from him. Turns out I was right. But maybe he caused my headache? Who knows.