There's a Giant Environmentalist Conspiracy!

I think Sheryl Crow is behind the tp dispensers at work. They only give out two squares at a time.

Okay, okay, I'll stop, it was a joke and she just has a rotten sense of comedic timing.

From my cold dead hands. My tp tis of thee, sweet sheets of thickness-three, of thee I sing....

Hey, Sheryl Crow!

From my cold, dead hands!

You should seriously rethink your stupid-ass statement.

Perhaps all that highlighting shit seeped through your skull and curdled up your brain. If you get your wish that all people should use one square of toilet paper (two or three in those emergency situations doesn't fucking cut it, not when an average UC emergency is a bucket load more than you may be used to), you better tack on a damn good alternative for those of us who don't poop like environmentalists aresupposedto.

I think that global warming is REALLY caused by the excessive brightness reflecting off your lovely golden tresses; the ice caps will continue to melt unless you put a hat on.


Pic attributed to Patapat - Link

Where's my @#$%& crayons?

I have one final class period for the semester, and it is....a Poster Session.

We have badass Elmer's poster boards (provided) to cover with crayons or paper or glitter or whatever we deem professional (not provided) about a current ethical issue concerning libraries, and then we're going to stand them up and make everyone in the surrounding area look at them and comment. It is supposed to be great practice for all those poster sessions and presentations we'll eventually do at ALA or other conferences.

Then we're going to do face-painting and bob for apples, and then my mom is going to pick me up.

So will end my first library science class. I'm really worried it's going to get more difficult.

Pic Linkeroo

Leg - still weird. Brain - was there ever any doubt?

I've decided that my future painkiller use should be monitored. Therefore, next time I flare my way to the ER or find myself lying sideways in a hospital gown, the notebook or the laptop will be there, too.

My last trip to the ER, I got a fabulous nurse with a bottomless pocket full of morphine, an ER doctor with the hairiest hands and chest I've ever seen (bedside manner lost fifty points before he spoke, but he failed the belly-prodding test as well) and a saline drip. The morphine was wonderful, but I can't really remember how it felt. Just numbing, I guess.

For my first and only Grand Colon Tour, the nurses gave me a cocktail (that word, I love it in this context, though it needs something as effective as Molotov or gin before it to really get me going) of Versed and Demerol. According to the ineffable Internet and my nurses, Versed induces "conscious sedation before surgery to relieve anxiety and/or impair memory."*

I salivate at the thought of Versed. That is how good it was. At least, for me, and mixed with the Demerol. It did not dull all my pain, or the slightly patchy memories of lying on that procedural table, but it turned off the care switch in my brain. Nothing mattered, and moving seemed overrated. So I probably wouldn't be able to type, or write without stabbing something.

"Here comes the injection. Feels fine, slight burning sensation. A nurse gives me a waiver to sign. Haha, wait, I've changed my mind. Signing waiver...hospitals are boring, but I'm a little nervouajfdfddeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Drool, drool, drool.

Okay, so the after-effects were awful, but Versed plus Demerol minus invasive procedure equals incredible relaxation. And hey, look, some creative types figured Versed would make a super rape drug because of the induced amnesia. Oy.

I think I'll ask to be put completely under when the Grand Reunion Tour comes around in a few years.

In other news, the American Library Association publishes this. Thank god for obvious signs; ne'er will I doubt my professional path again.


*Link

Not last night but the night before.

Day one:
I seem to be losing some necessary function of my right leg. It feels like something stretched, or that I slept on it wrong. When I hobble around a bit to accommodate it, I appear to have an ever-lovin' stick up my ass.

The hobble makes for some Cherry Darling comparisons. (I could take that as a compliment, I guess. Hot Rose McGowan! Zombie-smashing abilities!) The pain itself begins with a dull ache in the morning, high in the pelvis and inner thigh and then worsens steadily throughout the day, whether I sit or walk.

By late evening, the ache spreads down to my calf and I start thinking about Shadowlands and horrible virulent bone-eating cancers. Hot water does not help. Elevating it or reclining does not help. Stretching the leg produces varied results between uncomfortable and relaxing, but ultimately does nothing for the pain.

It is not anywhere near excruciating or anything like that; it is just constant. Since I don't have a machine gun or Anthony Hopkin's pursed chilly affections, I'd rather have my leg back.

Day two:
Maybe I am just getting old?

Day three: (today)
It's baaaaaaaaack.
Side effect of medication, poor sleeping position, or maybe end-of-semester insanity?

Libraries and the ladies' - the hidden link

Yes, you too can experience the wonders of General Reference questions.

Thanks to Unshelved.

Isn't that precious?

When I was little and we had jellybeans,

(everyone should mistrust stories that start out like this, normally, because they either evoke this air of starving gentility and Scarlett O'Hara beating her fists into the earth, or your grandma talking to you about something while you watch television most un-surreptitiously over her shoulder, in the days before you learn to appreciate things like that, but this story is actually nothing like that! It's good! Find out! Keep reading!)

I would pretend they were pills that I had to take, to cure whatever wasting Romantic Illness I had contracted. Mom says that any amount of actual medicine taken in such quantity would've been fatal in and of itself. I still maintain the potency of the pills was quite inadequate for the ferocity of my pains. And the bag of jellybeans or mini-eggs or fruit snacks would gradually flatten, and I'd run around outside for about five hours.

The weird thing is that these days, when I take my handful of actual weaponized pharmacologicals, I know my liver and spleen and whatever other gizzardy sweetmeats filter me out are rotting away inside under the chemical overload, and I still (sort of, somewhere, parenthetically) enjoy the takin' of the pills.


There is something too false about a confession like this - it feels TOO confessional, but (unlike a little girl who can't help spilling the beans about Mom's Christmas present stashed in the garage) contrived. But it's troooo.

(Now would be a good time to tell you I'm planning on printing this out and sending it to Post Secret. Damn. It isn't short and snappy and sloganified enough for that. Maybe with extra small font...)

The after-Easter jellybean sale will get me through this hard winter, and I'll never go without treatment again.

"And I was like, suh-WEET."

I am going to take this every wrong way possible. Liver problems? What liver problems?

Blue Agave and IBD, that Heady Mix

It's going to be one of those nights.

Hoo boy.

Today was my coworker E's last day. We ordered nine silver trays of Indian food from the restaurant down the street and stood on the sidewalk in the drizzle, waiting for our ride back. The smell alone (it crept all over me, I think that my coat is completely and irreparably [deliciously] smelly) was enough to get things roiling. But just to make sure I had two heaping plates of butter chicken, hot-hot eggplant and lamb curry. I like to play this little testing game with coffee, too. You never know. One day, the shits may not come.

Found an old article today about Lialda, the newest treatment for "active, mild to moderate ulcerative colitis." Mild to moderate means, I think, NOT pancolitis? But it's a once-a-day regimen, as opposed to the horse-pill-gobbling that Colazal necessitates. Side effects include:

1) Flatulence (really, how can they be sure about that with UCers? A. makes a point of telling me that my UC had NO exponential effect on my flatulence...)

2) Acute intolerance syndrome - which exhibits very UC-ish flare symptoms, so how you would tell, I have no clue.

3) Headaches, yo! Why do all mesalamine drugs cause this? I'm gonna leap and say it's probably not from an increase in brain power, but I've been wrong before. Wait.

And for some new information (to me) about "mesalamine medications."

4) "Reports of renal impairment have been associated with mesalamine medications. Caution should be exercised, and LIALDA should be used only if the benefits outweigh the risks." The fuck?

Luckily for all of us with chronic bleeding asses, Shire Pharmaceuticals (creators/proponents of LIALDA) has this nifty site, Managing UC, in order to better promote bowel care* and take care of their customers** while gaining a lot of insight into what your random IBD sufferer thinks about. (Today: chocolate, books, ass, in any order.)

It's funny. In my first library science course, we had to design and pitch something like this to the rest of the class, a faux pharmaceutical company database of their "patient" information. The biggest question we faced in the Q & A following our presentation?

"How do you keep this ethical, when you're a business and your patients are really your customers, and may be better off with a different medication?"

I am watching you, Shire. Your cutesy hobbity name doesn't fool me.



*Erm. My ASS.
**I dare them to call me their patient. Also, see *.

Flickr Link