A Trilogy

On today's agenda:
Swiss Cheese Anyone?
Is there a sign on my back?
Penguins can fly!!!

Swiss Cheese Anyone?

If any of you know what it's like to deal with a chronic illness that affects your brain capacity, you might find this analogy especially meaningful. My friend, Stacey, and I are fairly silly when we talk online and we have come to refer to our lack of thinking capacity as "Swiss Cheese Brain". Some like to call it brain fog, some call it short term memory loss. Call it what you will, to me the swiss cheese analogy makes a lot of sense - I know the information used to be there in my brain somewhere, it just seems to have had a hole poked through it and it just isn't there to be accessed anymore. (Alternatively, it can also be called "Spongebob Squarepants Brain" but I prefer the cheese because there's just something about picturing a cartoon character living in my brain that just doesn't sit that well with me.)

Anyway, now that I've explained all that I can go on to talk a bit about my trip to visit the swiss cheese brain co-creator, Stacey. She lives in upstate New York (near Ithaca, which is where Cornell University is - where both my parents went to college), a very rural town with lots of cows and fields and farms so it's a different kind of rural from my town which doesn't have that many animals but a lot of cranberry bogs instead. I visited Stacey and her mom (and her brother, although I didn't see him much) from Thursday to Tuesday and even though I didn't do much at all during that time I got very worn out and I need to spend the rest of the week recovering from it. Most of the weekend was spent lying around on the couch in their living room watching the limited number of TV channels they have, Friends DVDs (that I brought), or talking to Stacey and/or her mom.

Stacey also has Lyme and NCS (dysautonomia - autonomic nervous system dysfunction), she sees the same doctor as me (which is how I got to her house - we both had appointments on Thursday so I just went home with her), and she and her mom are very understanding about everything. It's so nice to have a good friend like that who has been through so many of the same things as me. I spent a lot of time sitting up and talking to her mom (because Stacey was doing pretty well and was off with friends some of the time) about all kinds of things. Among the topics was very often discussions about my less than desirable outcome of my doctor's appointment on Thursday which made it easier to deal with. (If you want to read about my doctor's appointment, go to my caringbridge site and click on "journal history" at the bottom - it's in an entry from Saturday September 10th.) All in all, it was a good weekend.

Is there a sign on my back?

Okay, for some reason I feel like I attract guys that are either really annoying or really creepy (bordering on stalkerish). I won't name names but I want to talk about my latest experience with one of these guys. Over the weekend at Stacey's I met her boyfriend, Austin. He's nice enough (although only 17 so I felt like I was really old around him - Stacey is 20) and it was fine hanging out with him a little bit. On Sunday we hung out with Austin and two of his friends, Rob and...well, someone else (there comes the aforementioned swiss cheese brain). Rob is the one who I swear was flirting with me for most of the day. It was okay at first, but before long it became apparent that either he was just trying too hard or he's inherently an annoying person.

His idea of ways to impress me included: making up Shakespeare-like passages, speaking in fake foreign accents, speaking Japanese, trying to get everyone else to stop swearing around me, and then when I said I really didn't care if they swore (and really don't like people thinking they have to tiptoe around me) he started swearing loudly in the car. If it weren't for the fact that he was very obviously trying to show off and thinks he's the greatest person these things wouldn't have bothered me as much. But one of the biggest things I hate is someone trying to casually show off how great they are and how much they know. Needless to say, after a whole afternoon of being around him I was ready to get away.

So, seriously, do I have a sign on my back that says I only want guys to flirt with me who are really annoying or in some way just not "normal" (or at least not normal enough for me to like them). It has now been about 2 1/2 years since my last relationship and it would certainly be nice to meet someone who wasn't a stalker, excessively annoying, or someone who doesn't like me back. Someday...

Penguins can fly!!!



Yes, it has now been discovered that penguins can fly!!! Of course, they have to be in an airplane. So, this penguin flew home from New York yesterday and not only was I a flying penguin, I turned into a green flying penguin. The flights weren't that bad, but it seemed that flying coupled with not eating much (or maybe eating too much) didn't agree with my stomach and I wound up being pretty nauseous. I managed through the flights and was trying to keep drinking a lot and took Zofran as much as possible, and kept my bottle of vomitusheel (homeopathic nausea med) in my hand for most of the flights so I was still in one piece when I got off the plane. I was pretty dizzy and faint but I recovered.

Not only was I a penguin before I got on the plane, but I turned into more of a penguin during the flights. Or at least my feet did. I was wearing sandels which I guess was a mistake but I wasn't counting on there being freezing cold air coming out right onto my feet! During the first flight (from Syracuse to Dulles) it wasn't unbearable but I was pretty uncomfortable and just wanted to find a place to put my feet to get them warm. It was the second flight (from Dulles to Providence - yes, seems rather odd to fly down to Washington only to fly back up to Providence but I'll take it to get a cheap flight) that was really painful. About half-way through the flight my feet were numb and starting to hurt. I just wanted a blanket or something but Independence Air doesn't have blankets unless you buy a blanket/pillow set for $10 (you then get to keep them) so I just had to deal with it. I will remember for the future, though, to pack a pair of socks in my carry-on luggage in case it happens again.

Yours,
Penguini