December 28th, 2004
I’m such a freak. Maybe it’s only self-serving. I don’t know how I can believe things as small as a smile can help but not believe my vote matters.
But I do. I feel like every action you perform on the world around you makes ripples. And those ripples can make other things happen (or stop them from happening), which of course makes more ripples. A smile can go to the shores of the Indian Ocean. So can a curse.
It’s why I think it’s important to be polite. Not mouthing formalities-polite, but letting people know when you appreciate their work, and being gracious enough to overlook it when somebody screws up (sometimes people are assholes, but more often, they just screw up), and being generous with people who have very little reason to care anymore.
I feel like the most basic form of charity is a smile. You see a real smile on the street from a stranger and it’s like a little spark of joy jumps from them to you. Maybe it’s because they see you. Maybe it’s because one of the things a smile says is, “You’re not alone.” I always feel a little bit stronger when somebody smiles at me, often– maybe even especially– if no words are exchanged. It’s a very bright moment.
Probably because of the ADD, I think that days are made of moments. People are a collection of their moments, and their reactions to those moments. Things happen, or don’t happen, because of an accumulation of moments. Bad things happen because of dark moments. A smile could stop the dark moments from overflowing, or be the final peg in the Litebrite of freedom. *shrug* Or it may just make somebody feel good and be just another moment. It’s worth doing. It makes the world a better place than it was before I smiled, even if it’s only on an atomic scale.
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December 28th, 2004
This journey’s flake-out was my various medications. (I dread the honeymoon packing flake-out. Hopefully whatever it is will be remedied in Las Vegas.)
It wasn’t a horrible disaster or anything: I take birth control pills, and Strattera, a ADD drug. I was near the end of my Pill cycle anyhow, and I’d been wondering a lot lately if Strattera was actually doing any good or if it was a giant placebo effect. So, I did enough research to convince Kevin that discontinuation(1) would not make me a raging or suicidal bitch(2) and… discontinued for the duration of the vacation.
It was educational! I no longer feel like it’s sugar pills providing no benefit! The first sign of discontinuation was the incredibly active, vivid dreams I had starting the second night out. The second sign was horrible trouble paying attention to Kevin when he was answering questions I’d asked him about poker. The third sign was intensified distaste for being trapped in a plane and wild hyperactivity afterwards. I was pushing around our Smarte Carte singing and cheering and racing in circles.
So there you go.
(1) Apparently you only have withdrawal from illegal drugs. If they’re legal, it’s ‘discontinuation effects’. Important note for doing research with Google!
(2) Strattera has practically no adverse discontinuation effects, according to my research.
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December 28th, 2004
I’ve returned from visiting Kevin’s family for Christmas. I had many pleasant experiences, but the trip wore me out more than previous trips have. I’m not really sure why.
o We ate at Rose City Diner, a childhood memory of Kevin’s that was shut down and just recently re-opened. I had fried chicken, and it was yummy.
o I went to Hollywood for the first time, and explored the big temple complex at Hollywood and Highland. Then I discovered the handprints at the Chinese Theater. Then we ate at Cantor’s, which was another Experience, and quite an enjoyable one.
o I played a 6 hour session of Texas Hold’em in the annual Christmas poker game (on the day after). Actually, I lost all my money about five hours in and switched to being the dealer. I was the third person to do so. I’d been concentrating so voraciously throughout the game that when I no longer had cards to play, I turned into a total chatterbox. After last year’s unpleasant game, I had a lot of chats with Kevin about poker strategy, and practiced a lot of hands… unfortunately, while I think I played reasonably well, I got terrible hands. Fortunately, Kevin made back my money plus some. 
The chip winner for the night was Cathy, but Patrick, Kevin’s brother, had the star for Most Impressive Comback.
o Change of environment and change of drinking water always kills me. Twice I drank a few sips of wine and was immediately attacked by agonizing stomach cramps: instant hangover from too little water. On poker night, I drank water religiously through the game so I could indulge after I was out of the game. It mostly worked.
o Christmas: Kevin had spent two days feverishly searching for stores that stocked his desired presents to Patrick and me. He eventually gave up and printed out images of the items and boxed those up as IOU vouchers. I’m pretty happy with what he actually gave me, though: iLife ‘04 (aka GarageBand, a piece of music loop and editing software), a perfectly sized laptop bag (that is, my 12 inch laptop fits into it and there’s room for two accessories and that’s it) and it makes me happy because it’s as light as a bright memory. So tiny! I had been using a messenger-style bag for my laptop and I hated it as it wasn’t safe at all. I also got a midi-usb cable so I can connect my keyboard to my laptop. Yay! The boxed papers were a gift certificate to my health club’s spa, and a specific digital camera. However, since I KNOW how much the iLife and laptop bag cost…. well, the camera seems like too much on top of that! So we will talk. Whim has already suggested several other alternate gifts but whim typically misleads me.
I also recieved a new wireless router, and a gorgeous microfiber down blanket from Cathy (for my unheated office), and a beautiful glass sculpture candle-holder and diary from Patrick. And Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories! Must finish the first one now.
Kevin and Cathy got their Roombas. ^^ It was a fun little exchange, with Cathy deeply excited about Kevin’s robot, and then Kevin hauling out hers (unwrapped) from his suitcase. It was a great moment. We played with CathyRoomba some, of course, and it seemed to do well on her wooden floors and scarce carpeting.
We also plugged in KevinRoomba at home, and after a couple of hours of charging I convinced Kevin to try it out. The little guy survived our deeper carpeting and made a valiant attempto to vaccuum a hall that hadn’t been vaccuumed since Thanksgiving (but isn’t a high traffic area); it’ll take a while before the Roomba can whip our dog hair problem into shape.
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December 28th, 2004
I slept amazingly well. It’s funny how much I am glad to be home from the holidays. More later. Spam cleanup first though.
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December 22nd, 2004
Here I am, in Pasadena. I read Patricia McKillip’s Song For The Basilisk yesterday and today and greatly enjoyed it. The reason I read it was because Raymond gave me Alphabet of Thorn, along with a Look and a stern lecture. I think he’s been giving me the lovely McKillip hardcovers for a while because they’re always on my wishlists…. and yet I haven’t read any of them. This is because I love her work so much. No, really, it makes sense.
Anyhow, it was exactly what I love about her stories.
We went shopping some today. I bought some cheese and olive oil and vinegar for the Maginn household. I’ll try to remember to document them when we eat them. Kevin and Cathy spent hours searching for mysterious presents for Patrick and I, without even a hint of success. I’m very curious but Kevin is frustrated by the failures so I’m not being a pest.
We installed FFXI down here so I could take care of my garden. Got the big harvest today and while it wasn’t as big as I hoped it would be, it was still pretty reasonable.
Now Kevin and Patrick and some of Patrick’s friends are playing Smash Bros. Melee. Cathy gave Kevin and I Christmas ornaments, an ice cube Santa, some frosted candy, and some ornaments from the Rudolph claymation movie. Also, I got the Christmas gear in FFXI… the ornaments are a bit cooler.
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December 20th, 2004
Yesterday we sort of spontaneously went Christmas shopping. We eventually found a present for Kevin’s mother. We went to two malls and two Borders. It was exhausting! Then I dragged Kevin and Ray into a restaurant we have often passed at Bellevue Square, Z’Tejas. It always smells good and the menu looked acceptable, pricewise.
Inside, the decor was very southwestern. I was a bit dubious; atmospherically, it felt like a Chilis. I decided to have fajitas.
Much to my surprise, there were no fajitas on the menu. It was a relatively small menu, with some interesting custom chicken dishes and a number of fish dishes and a few beef dishes. We got the Tres Tejas appetizer, which was chips and salsa, queso and guacamole. They also provided us with yummy cornbread in a cast-iron pan. It turned out they would have refreshed the cornbread but we had to decline the offer to do so. The salsa was good, and the queso and guac were excellent.
For entrees, Kevin had a pasta dish. It had chicken in it and some sauce that they called ‘diablos’. It wasn’t as spicy-hot as the name made me expect but it was extremely flavorful and amazingly good. I had this dish that was artichoke-mushroom-spinach stuffing sandwiched between chicken breast halves, and with some kind of cream sauce. It was very very good.
Even Raymond’s hamburger and french fries were fantastic– the french fries were so hot they burned when broken open.
It was a really nice meal that was pretty reasonably priced, and it was much much much better than I’d been expecting when I walked in. I’d just been reading a book on dining in Paris, so my attitude was a bit more foodie than it would normally be, but even so, I was impressed.
Tonight is packing and cleaning. Tomorrow I leave work early and go get Jenna for dogsitting and then we take an evening flight to LA.
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December 16th, 2004
I seem to have lost the ability to telnet or ssh out of work. 
I would like to see Ocean’s 12 and The Incredibles, please.
Also, I would like my ear to be unstopped. Much advice to return to the doctor but I plan on delaying that until the last minute because, frankly, I wish to avoid more antibiotics at all costs and it doesn’t actually HURT much. It’s just stopped up, which produces some pain and partial deafness. It was draining all night, and would periodically wake me up by inducing nightmarish itching. Now it is just dry and stopped.
Sorry if my earsick is TMI.
I did most of my Christmas shopping yesterday. Yay! I also, hm, cooked myself a yummy steak dinner with gorgonzola cheese and bacon toppings, explored the dark lord’s front yard in FFXI and got to half a million gil (my current goal is roughly 5 million).
Today, I made some decisions re: my wedding cake and sent off an email to pursue that, and looked at some invitation stuff online. I should probably look at shuttle stuff for airplane on Tuesday.
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December 15th, 2004
Some Christmas shopping is done.
I finished the super antibiotic on Monday, but it did not return my ear to normal operation– the pain was gone but it remained stopped up. Today, it was more stopped up and has started hurting again. I am trying hard not to poke at it in the hopes that it’s just stopped-up-pressure pain.
The broad-spectrum antibiotic also had other deleterious effects on my system, which are too delicate to discuss here. Let’s just say I’m not a happy camper.
I just want this damn ear thing to go away before I have to fly next week.
I think I should be getting ROTK EE today.
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December 10th, 2004
So, I got put on amoxicillin on Tuesday morning. It pretty much didn’t help at all, and while I went to work on Wednesday I left early, driven mad by the pain and pressure in my ear. I got some earwax solvent from Walgreens and flushed my ear and then took twice the recommended dose of ibuprofen and lay around whimpering.
Thursday morning, I went back to the doctor, where he gave me samples of a new broad spectrum antibiotic and some vicodin (an opiate painkiller). That seems to be working better. Not in nearly as much pain and I believe it’s getting better. My ear is full of gunk but not nearly as swollen in the ear canal area.
Tomorrow we’re going to do marathon D&D, what Kevin refers to as ‘Insert Coin to Continue’ or ‘D&D FIGHT!’. No plot, hardly any roleplay, just a tactical combat game. We’re supposed to have our characters at least partially pre-levelled.
Kevin almost had to work tomorrow but got them to put it off until Sunday, since they didn’t bother to notify him until today, and he has all his work done. Yay, I guess?
This week has been a total wreck due to the ear infection. Oh, hey, I found out why the kiddies get ear infections more, especially middle (rather than external, which is what I have) ear infections: the tubes that connect their nose to their ears are shorter. That’s it. Isn’t that goofy?
I hope I remember to order my wedding cake before the end of the year.
Daddy, thanks for the news. I’ll be in touch soon.
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December 6th, 2004
I write up the most notable ones in the forum… the only use it gets these days.
I have an earache and I’m sniffly coughy sneezy.
We spent all weekend working on getting Hitherby Dragons: Primal Chaos into a publishable state. I browbeat Raymond into taking some still life photography to use for the cover, and then spent time wandering around nervously hrassing my two artisans. I’m not really that great at producing creative stuff but I seem to be an excellent (if guilty) catalyst for creativity in others.
I bet I have to go delete SPAM again. over 1000 comments somewhere. Supposedly. At least it’s not on current stuff.
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