I have been slashed, and not in a sexy way.  Rather, something sharp has slashed diagonally up the front of my calf (the leg, not the animal) leaving this black and red furrow.  The really strange thing is that this part is usually covered by the trouser leg, but there is no gash in the trousers, only in my skin.

I am not sure when it happened, but my guess would be sometime yesterday.  It did not hurt at the time, obviously, or I would have looked.  It still doesn’t hurt, not in the least. I can see it but I can’t feel it.  Perhaps the nerve cells in that area are dead from some other reason, or perhaps it somehow evaded them all.  The cut seems to be quite shallow.  There is no sign of serious inflammation around it – the area may be marginally redder, I am not sure.  I had almost felt better if my immune system had taken this a bit more seriously…

Then again, perhaps my immune system would feel better if I took this a bit more seriously, too.  Because I am not really planning to do anything about it. I would if I had discovered it at once, but now at least a day has passed.  With papercuts and similar I have found that if I just squeeze out a drop of blood and keep them dry for a day or two, they will heal completely; but if I wash them, they will hurt and get inflamed and take a week to grow.  I am not sure it is the same here, given that this is much larger, but it does look like it’s scabbed already, so it is probably a bit late to mess with it.

In hopefully unrelated news, I got sick at work today.  Not sick and bored with work, which is surely rampant in this world, but feeling unwell and having a number of gastrointestinal symptoms as well as shivering and extreme sleepiness.  It reminds me a bit of the fat poisonings I have described in the past, although not quite.  It started with a sudden sleepiness, which was a bit of a surprise since I had a good, deep meditation this morning as soon as I woke up.  At this time it was almost lunch break, and I napped a bit in my chair.  Waking up, the rest of the symptoms progressed, until I was shivering with cold and put on my outdoors winter clothes. After this I once again grew unbearably sleepy and napped, waking up feeling pretty good.  Strange episode.

I don’t think I have eaten all that much fat the last couple days.  I did eat something new last night though, a cheaper brand of noodles imported from Thailand by one of our low-price chains.  I really doubt they would make me sick though.  I’m not having any of them tonight even so.  There is only about 10 grams of fat in one package of noodles, but it is palm fat, the unhealthiest  fat you can get except for trans fat.  Usually noodle makers write these as “plant fat”, which makes the casual customer think it must be super healthy like olive oil.  In fact, however, palm fat is worse than animal fats for your arteries.  Buyer beware!

In other news, I broke the bathroom faucet here in Nodeland.  Now the water keeps running until I turn off the main water intake.  In the Mothhouse, the mixing unit for hot and cold water in the shower is broken.  The shower still works, but it is leaking cold water, not gushing but quite a bit more than dripping.  So now I am renting two houses with their water turned off.  That is quite an accomplishment, but not an impossible one for someone who has lived for more than 50 year!  Many strange things can happen in so long a time, don’t you think?  May there be many more years, and I will seek to faithfully entertain you with the strange things as long as I can.

I woke up this morning (yay!) and while my left upper arm was still tender, it was no longer stiff and as painful as when I went to sleep. So that was a success, I think!  On the other hand, or leg rather, my thighs hurt every bit as much as yesterday.  It was hard enough to get up in the morning, and whenever I have been sitting for a while, I walk like one of the old men in a nursing home for a little while.

When I say “get up” in the morning, I mean it quite literally.  I don’t sleep in a raised bed, but on an old rubber-foam mattress on the floor of the bedroom.  I had an old double bed for many years, quite possibly as old as I, but it more or less fell apart under me during my last years in the original Chaos Node.  So when I moved, it was destroyed and thrown away. This may have been providential, as a double bed is very nearly the only furniture – at least that is not nailed down – in the Mothhouse.   Anyway, as it is now, getting up is not a matter of swinging my legs out of bed, but literally getting up from the floor.  Normally this is not a problem at all, and it went well enough today too, but not as easy as usual.  Hopefully this won’t be a problem if I really grow old. Then again if I relly grow old, I should be so thankful just for that. Growing old, for most of us, means we have lived a long time.  (Except the very few people who have progeria, obviously.)

Even though our outward human form may be moving gradually toward obliteration, our inward human can still be renewed day by day. I should take heart from that, but that  does not mean I won’t try to maintain my presence in the world of form given the chance. Thus the flu shot in the first place. To be bluntly honest, that I also avoid becoming a biological weapon of mass destruction is merely a side effect.  I did it mostly to save my own hide.  But at least I can have a good conscience about it, always a good thing.

I won’t be going to the Mothhouse today either.  Perhaps tomorrow if my legs have thawed.  So much for the plan to go there four days a week. Life is an ongoing series of surprises, is it not?  But that’s part of why it is so interesting.   At the doctor’s waiting room yesterday I once again heard an older woman (about one generation older than me, I’d guess) talk about how the seasons and even the years were just racing by. That terrifies me.  I really hope and pray that it will never happen to me in this life.  As long as I keep being surprised, keep learning something new and keep reflecting on what happens to me and on what I do, I think the days will be filled with new memories, and the seasons will be like a wide river where you can barely see the other side, not a small stream you can step over and forget.

You may not have thought this about me, but I did not notice until a couple days ago that my municipality has offered flu shots to people outside the “risk groups” since December 1 – and even then, I did not take it until today.  It is certainly not because I am afraid of needles, like one young woman who was there. But let us not get too far ahead.

Yesterday work had an early meeting, so I could not get the shot then. (It is only administered during work hours, but luckily these begin 8:30. I expected the small rural clinic to be packed at that time, though, since most people outside the risk group are probably working. Besides, I need my sleep.  So I decided to come after 9, when most working people would have left.)

The waiting room was not quite empty, but under half full. The receptionists were busy with the phone, but once I got to them, I got a small photocopied form to fill in my social security number, name, and tick 4 sets of boxes about health, allergy and vaccination. The doctor was supposed to evaluate it if there were allergies even if these were not related to egg (which is the stratum for growing the virus). I am pretty sure my allergy to bird down, cattle feed and rabbits would not in any way interfere with the vaccine, but they never even asked what the allergies were.  (Except on the form, where egg was a separate ticky box.)

After about an hour, I was called into the lab where a nice lab girl asked what arm I wanted the shot in.  I picked the left, of course, since I am quite possibly the most right-sided human alive that has not actually had parts of the brain removed.  I score 10 out of 10 right on Desmond Morris’s handedness test.  (I was about to write handiness here,  thank you Sims 3!)

Sometime in the lab – I can’t remember if it was before or after the actual needlework – Lab Girl had to register me in their database, as I had never been to the doctor there.  That is right, I came in February 2006 and had never been to the clinic before.  I never even changed my state-sponsored doctor from the one I used in Søgne.  I have only gone to the doctor in emergencies in the meantime, and not many of those either luckily.  And I probably won’t go there again.  I assume my next doctor will be in Mandal.  It is almost a shame, since this is possibly the only time in my life that the clinic has been within easy walking distance from my home. Oh well.  Notice that they did not have the option to import my data from my previous municipality. That would be too easy, eh? At least it was not the actual doctor spending time filling in name and address and social security number, although I would not be surprised if they do that too.

After getting the shot I was asked to stay in the waiting room for another quarter of an hour. They did not say why, but presumably it was in case I got a bad reaction (anaphylaxis).  You would want me to collapse in the clinic if at all, rather than in the traffic.  But no such thing happened.  The only thing I felt at the time was a pleasant warmth around the area of the sting.

That has changed over the day.  Now, late at night, it hurts so much that I have started wondering if there may be a secondary infection. I don’t remember whether they disinfected the skin before plunging the needle in, I know I didn’t.  On the other hand, the needle was pretty thin, I barely felt it.

That reminds me of the conversation I overheard in the waiting room. The swine flu is the big issue in such places, for natural reasons, even though perhaps half or even less of the few patients came for the flu shot.  Two of the other patients were talking quite freely, I certainly did not have to strain to hear them.  The younger one had thought about the flu vaccine but did not want to because she did not like needles.  I can’t imagine why, needles are sexy, but I did not comment of course.  I am not quite as crazy as I may come across here.

The needle, as I have already mentioned, is actually the least of it. Over the course of the day my upper arm has grown more tender and painful and a bit stiff.  It is now definitely the most painful spot on my body, although I doubt it will be enough to keep me awake.  For most of the day however it was less painful than my thighs and bottom. I assume these were affected by my rapid march on asphalt with backpack for nearly an hour last night as I returned from the Mothhouse.  (I wisely decided to not go there today.) Where is a good butt massage when you need one? You know I would have done it unto others.  Well, some others at least.

Hopefully the arm won’t get worse than this, in which case it beats actual flu by an order of magnitude or two.

Yesterday my head cold was gradually fading, while the throat was still pretty much useless for talking.  (I had hoped to dictate a few minutes each day to my computer.)  Anyway, this is the way things usually go – after a couple days, the cold creeps down from the head to the throat and sometimes the bronchies, where it gradually fades away.

This morning, the head cold was back.  Eyes and nose running, sneezing like a wild beast. The only difference from earlier in the week was that my temperature did not rise at all, while the first time it has crept close to the fever limit but not over it.

It is entirely possible that I have just had two colds on top of each other.  After all, the sneezing, coughing and hacking people on the buses and other public spaces could well have two different virus types.  Perhaps the first was one I got on the bus to Grimstad, and the second one I got on the bus to Møll.  It would fit with the time interval, although I am surprised they would take that long to spring out.

Following the Golden – or at least Silver – rule, I am not making any bus trips myself until this is gone.  I did a quick dive into the supermarket and got enough food for a couple days without sneezing on anyone.  And, almost miraculously, without anyone sneezing on me.  I washed my hands anyway.

If not for the Death Flu, I could start going over to Møll by now, bringing with me various things from here.  It would reduce the need for packing all kinds of small things later, and let me get used to the place, so the actual moving causes less stress.  It is calculated that moving shaves off almost half a year of your life due to stress, even if you move voluntarily.  (So does marrying, by the way, but the older spouse gets this back with interest if they stay married for numerous years. Not that this is in any way relevant.  Just thought you wanted to know.)

Having weekdays off from work is a rare thing indeed. If not for the Death Flu, I’d like to visit the mall east of Kristiansand – it is some years since last time – and try out their Burger King.  I have years ago lamented the lack of competition for McDonalds here in Kristiansand.  The city is certainly big enough for two burger houses, especially now with the university.  After all, there are lots of more classic restaurants. I am not sure how many Chinese, for instance, but at least two.  To have only one burger outlet is… well, un-American to say the least. We are supposed to be a more loyal ally than that.

But I’m not going to any eatery until either the Death Flu or I am gone. Nor am I going to shop except to keep the hunger at bay.  Nor am I going to travel unless I need to.  In a more advanced society, people would have taken this kind of precautions early and we would not have the rapidly mounting death toll we have now.  We could have delayed the pandemic until vaccine was widely available.  But I live in a country of stupid people (as there are no other countries, to the best of my knowledge) so here we are.  I’ll try to do my part. Even if right now it is only a cold.  Probably.

Temperature stabilized just below 38C, which is the informal limit for fever here.  It is still above normal, since I am generally a cold-blooded person, but along with the overall condition I’d say it was probably a rhinovirus this time, almost certainly not influenza.  I have had ordinary influenza sometimes and it never failed to produce a couple days of real fever, and also left me much weaker than I am now.  So I may have dodged it for this time. It is everywhere around here though.

I hope you will see the irony of using this screenshot from Sims 3 to illustrate this entry. On the other hand, I am highly unlikely to send you any photographs when it eventually is my turn.

I was sitting peacefully in front of my computer when suddenly my vocal cords locked up, or that’s how it felt. For a few seconds, I could neither breathe nor make a sound. Finally I managed to clear my throat enough to breathe again.  My voice is still strange and kind of thick, and I feel like I need to clear my throat, but there is nothing there, just my throat getting more sore the more I attempt to clear it. So I try to just let it be, as much as I can.

When something like this happens, it reminds me that each day literally could be the last. I generally don’t think or act  like that, literally I mean.  If I thought like that, I would not buy extra groceries on Friday or Saturday, because I would not expect to live on Sunday.  I would never sign up for any kind of subscription, since I would be dead before I could use it.

On the other hand, I wonder if I am not still taking it too far in the other direction. In theory, I am opposed to killing time – time is my life, after all. But in practice I do a lot of stuff for fun, like playing computer games. Well, mostly that, but some other things too.  I just don’t take life all that seriously while there seems to be a lot of it.  That’s a human trait, but there are still some humans who manage to break out of it.

Anyway, I guess it is not certain that I will even have the chance to say goodbye.  Of course, that holds for others too.  Perhaps I should try to live a little more as if this was THEIR last day too.  If I’m around to do that, I mean.

I’m still nervous about the whole dying bit.  A part of me still fears that I will have to pay in the afterlife for the fun I have had as an ego in this life.  Actually the theology of that is somewhat uncertain, but it is a widespread belief that there must be justice in the world, and if justice is not brought in this life, it will come in the next.  I hope not, in a manner of speaking. Because I have had a lot of awesome years, and I would really be in trouble if I had to spend my afterlife contemplating what I could have done to help others instead.  Even without fire and pitchforks, it would hardly be pleasant.  As it is, all I can hope is that whoever and whatever God is, I will be forgiven because God knew from the get go that I wasn’t better than this, and did not expect me to be in practice. “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!”

Anyway, once the Reaper’s scythe is out of sight, the pull of my ordinary fun life is back. And I guess it does not actively hurt anyone. But should that really be my highest aspiration?  I don’t honestly think so.  But it may be the only one I have fulfilled reasonably well so far. When I think about the murderous rage that used to be in my life, I guess doing no harm is something, if it lasts.  Still, I would like to set my sights higher, if I have the time.  If not, well, at least you know I don’t hate you, no matter who you are.  I suppose some who knew me long ago may have been in doubt about that…

What is the connection between aura and calming the waves of your mind?  Read on for the unexpected answer!

Studying the aura is a fairly common thing in various New Age circles, and these people take it quite literally. I have briefly seen my own, but I still believe it is just a way for the mind to visualize something that is really invisible.

Auras also appear in entertainment.  In the online game City of Heroes auras are available to high-level characters, and can be subtle or quite remarkable.  In Japanese anime, it is not uncommon to use auras to illustrate strong emotions or a contest of wills.  They are also used to animate magic or psychic powers.

But unfortunately the aura I am writing about today is my migraine aura.  Not all migraine patients have it, but for me it is actually the most spectacular part of the migraine.  As usual with migraine aura, it starts as a small point, kind of like the after-image after you have accidentally seen a reflection of the sun.  Gradually over a period of (in my case) a quarter of an hour to half an hour, it expands. It takes form of a circle (although in my case I seem to only be able to see the left side clearly) and it looks to me like it is made of many glittering shards.  Tiny shards, in many colors, hanging restlessly suspended in the air, making up the bright portal of the aura.

In the center is absolute nothingness.  Not black, not gray, just nothing. When the hole is small, my brain just pastes whatever is around int the hole, as if it abhors a vacuum. So when I look at a person’s face at that time, they seem to miss their right eye.  There is just no eye there.  The face is otherwise there, but the eye is missing.  Creepy!  Today it broke out on my way from the bus to work, and by the time I came to the office, it had advanced to the point where I was surprised to see that someone had removed the door handle from the locked door into our apartment.  Then I remembered the missing eyes from earlier episodes, and of course the door handle was there, it was just invisible when I looked at it.

I have used the image of my aura in at least one fantasy story I wrote.  I think it was “Shadow of Cneko” but it would take more time than it is worth to read through it looking.  It may have been a similar story, or both.  It certainly looks like something that could take you to a different world, once it has grown large enough:  A glittering portal surrounding a hole of absolute nothingness. Not the darkness you see when you close your eyes, but a lack of the very sense of vision. As if part of your brain is no longer aware that sight exists.  If you have not seen it, then I don’t think anything I say can get it across.  Our brain always creates images, but how to you imagine not being able to see a certain part of what is in front of you?

I have actually only had migraine a few times in my life!  I am lucky in that regard.  And I think I have had a spectacular aura every time.  Some people have no aura, just the pain.  For me, the aura comes far ahead of the rest. The first time I had migraine, I was a fairly young adult.  I had never had it before and only knew that migraine was a headache, which I did not have. Only a glittering portal to nothingness.  I was sure that my brain was severely damaged by stroke or a formerly hidden tumor.  At that time I lived only minutes’ walk from a family that were close friends, and I somehow made my way there.  They managed to get a doctor.  Neither I nor they had any idea that it was migraine. The doctor arrived after the aura was fading but before the headache had set in.  The queasiness may have started, I am not sure.  The doctor thought it was stress and prescribed some relaxant that would probably have fetched me a decent amount at the black market.  I don’t think I ever fetched it.  The “real” migraine set in shortly after, and I did not have much doubt after that what I experienced.

Today followed the same pattern, except I knew what was coming.  It was years since last time, but today I was careless. Reading in direct sunlight is the only thing I know that will set it off. The sky was lightly clouded and I thought it would be OK, especially since I have glasses that automatically darken in the sun.  I have barely had an attack after I bought them.  But today I had.

First thing after I came to the office, I put on my headphones and started playing LifeFlow 8, a brainwave entrainment track.  Until just recently, it was believed that migraine originated with the blood vessels in the cranium.  But today we know that the start of the attack is in the actual neurons, where a wave of intense activity arises and gradually spreads.  This makes me think it may be vaguely related to epilepsy, which also has some kind of aura warning in some people, but is far more drastic of course.  In any case, brain waves is something I have been experimenting with this spring and summer.  I reasoned that if I could create a standing wave in by brain through the use of the sound track, this would compete with the spreading wave of the migraine.

I would call the result a partial success.  The nausea and accompanying gut wrenching was quite unpleasant, but I have had worse. And the pain was a bit distracting, but I was able to do my work.  (Admittedly, this particular work is so familiar I could probably do it while too drunk to walk unaided. Not that I ever intend to find out.)  I am also lucky in that I am fairly resistant to moderate pain, although intense pain affects me like other men.  Still, I will say that this particular migraine attack was weaker than those I have had before.

To further put things into perspective, I had a surprise visit by a coworker who had just returned from 4 months of cancer treatment.  I’d pick the migraine, thank you very much.  And if you have a problem with migraine too, you may want to learn about brainwave entrainment and see if it can help you as well.  Especially if you don’t have a pretty aura, but even so, I think I will sacrifice the pretty if I can avoid the queasiness, malaise and hours of headache.  After all, I can always see a pretty aura in City of Heroes if it is that important…