Happy Leap Day!! I love this day, it makes me smile just by existing and how many things can do that? The idea that we’re ‘losing’ enough minutes over the course of four years that we can shoe horn in an extra day is awesome. Plus, my lovely sister, Blanketgirl got married on Leap Day in 1996. So happy third anniversary to her and husband!!

Try Neil Gaiman before you buy! American Gods is available in its entirely online for free for a limited time only please go read!!! If you do not have the patience to read the entire thing, I recommend page 27-31 – love it; best sex scene ever written ever. Also, pages 212 [starting with 'Later he was never...']-215 are wonderful – so much love for Neil. Both of these happen to be sex scenes, but I assure you the rest of the book rocks.

Since our plans for visiting Stoat and Mal last weekend were thwarted by their absence, we have moved plans to this weekend; in theory tomorrow. I’ve been dreading it all week and I couldn’t figure out why. It came to me this morning, even though I feel lonely and socially isolated with this illness interacting with people is hard. I cannot hear them and the listening device is only so good. I had a long chat with Weasel and we’ve decided to not go. I feel so stupid cancelling, especially because of such a lame reason – I feel uncomfortable. I don’t know, perhaps it is valid; I spent so much time being in pain and miserable and now that I’m on an even keel I want to stay here and not be uncomfortable.

I’ve bought an amplifier for the telephone from RNID [they who help the deaf]. I’m hoping this will make it easier to talk to people. I miss talking to Horatio, we used to talk every day. Now we’ve scheduled once a week so I can pump myself for dealing with the frustration. I want my hearing back so badly. I’m tired of silence, tired of missing things.

Weasel and I watched The Queen last night and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Firstly because Princess Diana’s death was a tiny blip on the radar in my Small Town, USA. Secondly because I got to finally understand how the nation, the government and the royals reacted. Thirdly, we got to see the Royal family behaving like a family; watching telly, eating, hunting and being horrid to each other. On the same page we got to see the Blair’s at home. This is what entertained me the most: Cherie cooking dinner, in an apron and burning the fish sticks. This small scene seemed soo wrong to me on so many levels, I loved it.

Jenn.nu asked about pet names recently and I thought I’d take a moment to tell you that as well as Weasel, my wife is also known as Karrot, Peanut and Magical Princess Weasel. Horatio is also known as Bunny, The Boy, Giuseppe and Peanut. I use Peanut for both so when I am a bear of little brain I’ll have one I know works across the board.

Weasel calls me ‘mon petit chou-fleur’ sometimes, I reply ‘mea culpa’ it makes us both laugh.

My Mom and I were talking about prayer in school and she said she thought it was a good idea. Her thinking was just to give people a minute or two of quiet reflection time where they could centre themselves spiritually according to their own particular faith. I disagreed and set-up an analogy for her. Picture 7-year-old who had no formal spiritual education at home, let’s say his parents came from two different religions, couldn’t agree on one and just decided to abstain. Then let’s say that prayer time at school comes up and our hero has no idea what the hell is happening because he has no education in that area. Does the teacher then tell him to sit quietly while his classmates pray? Does the teacher teach him to pray in their own religion? The other children seeing our hero not praying might use this as an excuse to exclude him or ridicule him. Plus, he is 7 – does he have any religious views? Does he know what the hell this is about? No. I think she understood my point and just might change her mind, but I doubt it. The problem is that her community is religious, the world she knows makes sense in those terms. Unfortunately, a great number of American people are the same in their communities so prayer in school makes sense. You cannot apply rules on a national level when they only logically apply to a handful of communities or states.

Know what I love. I mean L.O.V.E. After a nice, hot shower; after drying off; after applying three different kinds of sweet smelling lotions… putting on all new fresh from the laundry clothes. They’ve got that slightly stiff feel and they smell amazing. I smell amazing from my lotions and potions, we just compliment each other and everyone feels good.

Imagine, if you will, that you have just finished eating a delicious bit of cheese pizza lovingly prepared by your wife. Now imagine that there are bakery fresh chocolate chip cookies in the kitchen and small, wide-mouthed tumblers that are just perfect for milk and dipping. Imagine the sweetness of that first cookie, the second and even the third and fourth. Then imagine your delight when you realise that there are five cookies in the bag. Oh, the sweetness of the fifth cookie with the remaining milk… finally some good comes into my life. I previously enjoyed bakery cookies from Sainsbury’s, they only provide four cookies so when I got the Tesco cookies I wasn’t expecting the power of the fifth.

Eating and exercising have been an issue for me my entire life. More so now because I cannot exercise to the extent I would like. Additionally, the steroid I’m on has a tendency to help people put on weight. My thinking is that right now, I’m trapped at home a lot and I spend a fair amount of time in pain. There is a shortage of joy. I know that I love food, I also know that it makes me feel better, so I have decided that as long as I keep my fruit and vegetable intake where is should be, focus on whole grains as much as possible and exercise as much as I am able, I am allowed to indulge in a bag of cookies once in while. These cookies are the highlight of my day today.

The great website/self-promotion campaign continues. I’ve removed a few banners and added some other ones. I tried a fancy banner manager for WordPress but it sucked because it only worked in Internet Explorer. Still not entirely sure what I think of the whole banner thing yet. I also got BlogRolling links put in place, I’m not 100% pleased with the layout. I’m sure I’ll get there with all of this.

Eleanor dropped by on Sunday. She told me that she’s resigned as a director at work and is just regular employee now. I’m becoming increasingly convinced that when I’m well enough to go back to work, there will be no work to go back to. The picture she’s painted of the current situation is not pretty. Did my absence over the last five months make things worse? No, in fact, I think that this was inevitable – it was a question of when not if. In fact, I think my absence has sped the process up, which is good. I want see how this plays out. I won’t be hurting if the company goes, I’ve talked to an employment agency before and they seemed to think it would be very easy to place me. Additionally, my salary requirements are small thanks to Weasel. I feel bad for my employers, but they brought it on themselves. I’m glad that Eleanor got out while the getting was good.

Oh god help me. I found another shop on eBay selling American foods. So many yummy things that I miss. I’ve been good this time and only got things I needed though [Cream of Wheat!, Miracle Whip!].

Speaking of shopping, getting a speed and distance fitness training watch of some sort is a complicated process. There are so many wonderful products to chose from, each more expensive than the last. I’m totally putting it on my birthday list so everyone can put 20p towards it.

I’ve been playing FreeRice.com pretty non-stop, I love it. Circumlocution [roundabout language] was one of my words recently and I fell in love. Words words words so much love love love.

With reading all of these… blogs [gag] I’ve noticed that I very much enjoy reading people’s conversations. I’ve never had anything suitable to share. Until now:

Ezekiel: “If hummus were a person, I’d totally marry it. Or at least carry on an illicit affair. The British tabloids would have a field day.”

Horatio: “‘Woman marries dip’” – that would be The Sun”

Ezekiel: “That could apply to any number of marriages!”

We’re so cool.

Can I ask what the point of the stock market image and random gibberish spam e-mails are for? Way back in the day when the internet was young, spam actually had a point – there would be a sales-pitch, proper grammar, structure and a URL to give you more information. What are the new version trying to get? They don’t want me to click anything, there’s nothing to reply to… what are they achieving? What do they want? Seriously, I want to know.

I’ve been reading Junk Food Science for a few weeks now and she is always highlighting the fact that the diseases that we have been told are caused or exacerbated by being overweight are the same diseases that show up in people who are stressed, perhaps about being overweight. The social stigma that comes from it, the pressure to change our eating and exercise habits, the worry about our health [!!]. Then I read about people who are on the other end of the scale – who are very slim. They have it worse in some ways because people feel that they can comment on it – say awful things to their faces and it is okay because they’re thin.

My rule of thumb: never say anything about anyone’s weight ever. Never. The only time I think it is remotely acceptable is if someone comes to you and says that they’ve been working really hard at the gym and they’re pleased because they lost five pounds. Then and only then can you say anything and it had better be something like, ‘well done you!’ And then you can ask what their favourite machine at the gym is or if they have a favourite recipe. You technically haven’t commented on their weight or their appearance, but you’re totally supportive.

If someone has lost/gained weight to the point where you notice [and you feel you have to say something] your best bet is to tell them they look really nice today. That comment will always be more appreciated than anything more specific. The end.

The injection on Friday totally kicked my ass. I’ve been nauseous and tired for the most part. Then for extra fun I have things like last night where I had what was the worst ’bout of flu known to mankind, but only for the night. I had a fever and my leg pain that moved into my arms last week decided to move into my entire body, every single muscle hurt – more so when I moved or put any pressure on it. I woke up long enough to take drugs and go back to sleep. I was too tired to figure out anything else. Sleep was probably the best thing for it anyway. I got 12.5 hours of sleep last night [9:30pm to 10am]. I wanted more but had to get up and take drugs.

Leg pain totally kicks my ass regularly too. Last week, I woke up at 2:30, went to the loo and then whimpered a lot until I woke up Weasel with it. I’d taken some drugs, I was just waiting for it to kick in. She very kindly rubbed my legs until I fell back asleep. I woke up again at 4:30, woke Weasel up again because I couldn’t have more of the paracetamol after two hours and I was in too much pain to think of the next logical solution. So she very kindly went and got me some ibuprofen [of course!] and rubbed my legs again until I fell asleep. I’d be totally lost without a Weasel on call.

I’ve been reading a lot of websites lately… okay, I’ve been reading a lot of … blogs. [I have got to stop vomiting in my mouth a little every time I see/say that word. I hate hate hate it. It ruined the intarwebs.] I have already said that I hate it when people write posts saying that they had nothing to say but felt obligated [why?] to update. I have found a new one: I hate it when people write posts saying that a wonderful thing has happened or that they have just received the best news, but they’re not going to share it because that might jinx it [wtf?!].

Why bother mentioning it at all? Why not just wait until the thing actually happens then tell all? I don’t know if it is a ploy to increase visitors? Thinking that people will be so intrigued that they’ll just keep coming back? It just annoys me, I have no interest in continuing with that shit. Even worse? If they write the jinx post then never ever spill, because they forgot they even mentioned it in the first place or it never comes to fruition. Grr. So to my three readers, if I have ever mentioned something in passing that requires some sort of follow-up please ask me to finish the god damn story. Thank you.

All this browsing has also highlighted to me that I have done very little to attract people to my site. In fact I never tell anyone in person about it and I feel silly promoting it on forums or mailing lists so really just a handful of friends visit [which is awesome, I love that I can keep all of you up-to-date with me so easily]. Anyway, this prompted me to check out a few of the blog [gag] networks and promotion tools lately and – my god – there are hundreds. Each more gaudy than the last. Self-promotion is not my thing, I feel that you have to have a certain amount of ego to pull it off and I’m not big on ego… plus all these programmes usually require a certain degree of participation and I’ve never had the time [or inclination] before. I like to think that anything I do join is joined out of a genuine interest in the site or I genuinely support the cause.

Which explains the new footer on my website. It is purely experimental at this stage, the one I really like – BloggerSwap is probably going to be the first to go because the banner they stuck me with is for ‘Nympho Girl’ and it has been there since I first put it up. I want the banner to change at least daily if they can’t be bothered to change it with every refresh. In theory I ought to be getting ads from the ‘Personal Blogs – My Life’ category, I would have thought that Nympho Girl would have been coming from the ‘Sex Blogs’ category. I’ve e-mailed them and asked about it, but I haven’t heard anything. I’ll try e-mailing again and if they don’t respond then I’ll have to take it down. I assume that if the banner here isn’t working properly then it is likely that my banner is showing in a unsuitable category too and annoying someone else and I don’t want that. I’ll probably get annoyed with all of them in two weeks and take them all down.

Story Time
This story isn’t mine, it is Horatio’s. He has a LiveJournal, but he doesn’t use it because he ‘hates the interface’. He is considering a WordPress.com account, so if you see him encourage him so you can enjoy gems such as these…

Once upon a time a young civil engineer was invited to join six other engineers to explore engineering solutions over a pint or two [or ten] in several local pubs then onto a birthday party.

The first half pint was enjoyed in solitude over a newspaper, then the party got started. Our hero is not a heavy drinker, he paced himself – one pint an hour over five hours. They managed to visit three local pubs in the end, before leaving the third pub our hero noticed that he was suffering from diarrhoea.

So when the taxi was called to escort our party of seven to the… well, party our hero asked to be let off at home. Sadly, he didn’t make it. One mile off from his safe haven he vomited, projectile to be specific. Coating the taxi [£30 to clean it please!] and hitting two friends.

This really is bad enough, but the pressure from the vomiting led to a … rear evacuation as well.

So covered in vomit and shit our hero got home, cleaned himself up and had an early night.

The lesson he took away from all of this? “I now believe that I am not suited to these kinds of social events. I like them a lot, but my body fails.”

While he relayed this story to me, I assured him that the taxi driver would be okay with his £30, Horatio wasn’t the first to be sick in his cab and he wouldn’t be the last. Additionally, I noted: Well, you don’t drink regularly, you haven’t got a base tolerance level. So anything above a pint is going to work on you. My advice is to start drinking at least three pints a day.

And to get the taste of that story out of your mouth, I leave you with this: when I plug my nose and blow the air comes out of my tear ducts because my Eustachian tubes are so blocked. It feels very strange.

P.S. I’ve updated my ‘The Illness’ page following an ENT appointment today – go look!

Last night I realised something. I’m in mourning – for myself. For the person I was until December 2006. For the person I will never be again. The permanence of WG is something I’ve had a very hard time understanding and accepting. I do okay most days, but then at times [last night] I end up crying. Visualising my face, my legs, my stomach as it was and looking at how they are now. Looking at how hard I worked [cleaning, cooking, work, cycling, the gym] and knowing that it’ll be a long time before I can work that hard again – if I ever can again.

I end up wondering how Weasel and Horatio can love this altered version of me when I’m having such a hard time with it. I hate wondering that. I know logically that they love me but I end up with this little voice in the back of my mind… just because I wouldn’t date me doesn’t me that no one else would. Learning that everyone has different tastes was a lesson I took a very long time to learn, I’m not going to let the little voice undermine me.

The only other time I’ve been in mourning for an abstract was when a boy I loved asked me to never contact him again. In my world he had ‘died’ and was no longer available to me, he existed in his world and in the world at large but I had to wear blinders. The question I ask myself now is, why didn’t I fight? Why didn’t I write back and demand more? It comes down to that question again, how could anyone love me?

Logically, I understand so much of what has happened to me. I understand what the various options are for the future, some worse than others. I can even carry on a conversation in a calm way. But trying to get my emotions to understand is near impossible. It’s that overwhelmed, scared, confused and angry little person in the corner who doesn’t understand why this had to happen to me. Why I can’t do the things I want to do… like go up the stairs two at a time. For at least 10 years I’ve bounded up stairs two at a time, I can’t anymore. I can barely get up the stairs one at a time holding onto the bannister. Logically, I know that I’ll get better, maybe not 100% where I was November 2006, but I’ll be better. Emotionally though, the me I knew is dead. How do a marry logic and emotion? Can I?

Is the future something that is set is stone, that is going to happen and you could in theory open a window and look at it? Or can you only see one version of one possible future that is so incredibly fragile that it could change because I sneezed?

I wonder because I have been watching Medium and very often the things she dreams involved someone dying and very often she prevents their death. Maybe they had to die for a reason she doesn’t know. She’s totally playing god. I wonder about this because I recently read Making History by Stephen Fry – spoilers ahead! – and in it, the protagonist prevents Adolf Hitler’s conception – he never exists. Protagonist ends up in a new future. This future doesn’t have Hitler, but it still had the Nazi’s lead by Rudi – only Rudi was worse than Hitler, he succeeded and wiped out all the Jews. In this new future there are no Jewish people – and racism, homophobia [being gay is actually against the law] and general intolerance run rampant. Luckily though he is able to correct his mistake and Hitler is born and the more tolerant and Jew-rich world we live in now is restored.

So back to my original pondering, is the future solid? Could you follow your choices out to logical conclusions, could you make careful changes to tweak one element of your life… like Homer Simpson and his time travelling toaster where life is perfect and raining doughnuts. But he doesn’t take the time to find out that the doughnuts aren’t called doughnuts.

Weasel and I had poorly timed lunch issues today so for dinner we supped on salad. My, but it was good. Three kinds of lettuce, four kinds of peppers, four kinds of cheese chunks, croutons, beetroot [none for Weasel please], cucumber, black pepper, dressing, spring onion, crunchy onion flakes… this was truly god’s salad.

It made me remember a time when someone told me I shouldn’t eat peanut butter because it is ‘fattening’. I only like apples when they’re dipped in peanut butter. So for years, no apples for me because the peanut butter was soooo bad. Then I grew up and I realised that our bodies need a little fat to live and be healthy, and peanut butter is one of the good ways [as opposed to a sugar laden candy bar anyway] additionally, I’m eating it with an apple. I’m totally getting my fruit portions on. In this same vein, I’m not a huge fan of salads without a decent amount of dressing, I want to have a little dressing with every bite you know? So is it better to have a little extra dressing covering loads of veggies or to not have a salad at all? I so wish I could go back 20 years and explain this to myself.

I spoke too soon yesterday, it turns out that Stoat and Mal are off visiting Nan this weekend so we’re at home today. Which is good because I’ve had a bit of a down swing. Woke up with my lungs feeling very strange, very tired too. I coughed a bit, rested a lot and had some morphine [only 10mls in two days - awesome!] and felt better. I am still taking 120mg morphine tablets though so it isn’t like I’m without painkillers altogether. I see GP again on the 25th so we’ll see if the tablets are reduced too.

Weasel and I decided to head to the grocery store and I rode my bike for the first time since October. I felt very wobbly and vulnerable, but there are cycle paths the entire way, it is flat and I went very slow. I miss riding my bike. There was rarely a day that went by that I didn’t touch it. I used it to go to work, to the gym, to the city centre, the rail station, shops… everywhere. Cycling is the closest you can get to flying without leaving the ground.

I’m on a mailing list with other WG people and two points have been nibbling at me so I’m a bit off mentally.

Point One
When I first joined they were talking about sleep. People said they needed a good 10 hours and I remember thinking that I was lucky, I didn’t need that much. I go to bed around 11 and get up around 8. However, as time went by it slowly changed. I try to go to bed earlier but I rarely mange it, I don’t know why but going to bed always triggers a coughing fit. It takes me ages to get settled. Once I’m asleep though I sleep well [knock on wood]. The thing is, my alarm has slowly moved back, it now goes at 9:10… but I have a very hard time waking up and I usually stay in bed until 9:30 – or 10 as I did today. I need to get up in the morning, I have drugs to take and ear drops to do.

So I cannot be so smug, I apparently need 10 hours and I’d like more. So now that I’ve realised this, I’m going put an extra push into getting to bed earlier. Sleep is the ultimate way to help me feel better anyway.

Point Two
One guy asked what about remission – the term that had been used to describe when the Wegener’s is quiet. He said he thought the term was inaccurate and a number of people replied that it is and they now refer it it as ‘quiet time’ and ‘flares’. So part of me is sort of realising [again] that this is a permanent thing. This is my life from now on. Not things as they currently stand [I hope!!] but dealing with this illness, the pain, watching every cold that shows up… this is my life now. It made me sad. I really loved my life before. I loved the exercise, the freedom, the relationships I had. I’m not ready to say goodbye to all of it yet. What if I never have a good long quiet time? What if I get six months then I’m back here again? Thank god for Weasel and her job, I couldn’t afford to be this ill on my own.

For those of you who also use WordPress – please check my About page. I’ve added links to the plugins I use to make my site so flippin’ sweet.