A Heartfelt Letter

[My loyal and clutch girlfriend saved me from writing today by writing a letter to a good friend. This is why I love her even though she claws frantically in her sleep.]

Dearest Alcohol,

First & foremost, let me tell you that I'm a huge fan. My friend, you always seem to be there when needed. The perfect post-work cocktail, a beer at the game, and you're even around during the holidays, hidden inside chocolates, warming us when we're stuck in the midst of endless family gatherings.

However, lately I've questioned your intentions. While I want to believe that you have my best interests at heart, I feel that your influence has led to some unfortunate consequences:

1. Phone calls: While I agree with you that communication is important, I question the suggestion that any conversation of substance or necessity take place after 2 a.m. Why would you make me call my friends when I know for a fact they do not want to hear from me during the day, let alone at night?

2. Eating: Now, you know I love a good meal, but why do you suggest that I eat a taco with chili sauce, along with a big Italian meatball sandwich and some stale chips (washed down with wine and topped off with a Kit Kat after! A few cheese curls & chili cheese fries?). I'm an eclectic eater, but I think you went too far this time.

3. Clumsiness: Unless you're subtly trying to tell me that I need to do more yoga to improve my balance, I see no need to hammer the issue home with frequent trips to the ground. It's completely unnecessary, and I’m tired of playing detective with the black and blue marks on my body in the mornings. Similarly, it should never take me more than 45 seconds to get the front door key into the lock.

4. Furthermore: The hangovers have got to stop. This is getting ridiculous. I know a little penance for a night’s debauchery may be in order, but the 3 PM hangover immobility is completely unacceptable! My entire day is shot. I ask that, if the proper precautions are taken (water, vitamin B, bread products, aspirin) prior to going to sleep/passing out face down(!) on the kitchen floor with a bag of popcorn, the hangover should be minimal and in no way interfere with my daily activities.

Alcohol, I have enjoyed our friendship for some years now and would like to ensure that we remain on good terms. You've been the invoker of great stories, the provocation for much laughter, and the needed companion when I just don't know what to do with the extra money in my pockets.

In order to continue this friendship, I ask that you carefully review my grievances above and address them immediately. I expect an answer no later than Wednesday at 3 PM (pre-happy hour) on your possible solutions and hopefully we can continue this fruitful partnership.


Your Biggest Fan,

Eliana

The Anatomy of a Migraine II

Last week, I talked a little bit about suffering from migraines, more specifically what usually happens to me when I suffer from one.

I've been given several tips on how to get rid of them aside from the quick and dirty powerful painkiller route, including a temporary respite from the pain by digging your finger a bit above your right eye socket and massaging the meaty part between your thumb and pointer finger. The advice that was practiced on me and managed to pass on to another seemed to be the best way around it.

When my boss came into our office, she found me with my head on my desk and looking all which ways of haggard. It didn't take long for her to put down her things and volunteer to give me a neck massage. "I'm an expert at this," she assured me.

And an expert she was. After remarking how astonished how such a pretty calm person can have so much tension in her neck and shoulders, she quickly went to work BRINGING THE PAIN. So I do have muscles so tense, they're almost firm as a bone, and with the force my boss was putting on my tense tissue I had moments thinking they'd just snap. It was a good pain, mostly, the pain you know that you'd benefit from later, but some of it was just plain PAIN.

"I think I need a break," I said to my boss a few times, after she laid her strong, slender fingers into my neck, and she agreed...I was working on a big project and reassured I needed to take it easy. Little did she know that I was subtly trying to tell her I needed to take a break from extreme tenderizing she was doing to my neck.

I finally asked her to stop, when I thought I couldn't take any more. After a little cool down, I realized I had some trouble keeping my head up; my neck was so wobbly. She managed to dissolve the tension from my neck and shoulders. Just to take some extra precautions, she also advised I do a headstand against our filing cabinet, which I did.

After all that, I still had a bit of pressure where the headache was, but within two hours, it was completely gone, and did not suffer from any of the post-migraine wooziness that usually comes along with it. My neck was a wee tender the next day (quite possibly because my skin was slightly bruised...!), but I felt great.

I was a new person. That little session was a testament I gotta make sure take better care of myself and that I need to exercise a bit more...stretch those neck muscles after holding my head up looking at a computer screen all the time.

I also wanted to pay this new knowledge forward, ready to assist those who may be suffering from what I had to. My opportunity didn't take long, as that Saturday my friend was our other friend's party completely down for the count and was about to drive herself home in such a terrible state. I quickly went to work on her, but showed a bit of mercy. Everyone could see the noticeable difference after a nice massage did for her - though I couldn't help the little lump of stressed muscles in her back which I'm sure caused a lot of the pain. I'm glad to know she got that looked at and I hope is feeling much better.

I'm sure there's supposed to be a lesson behind this, and I am now poised to lay on some awesome wisdom on you, so here I go:

Migraines suck. It's not easy to massage your own shoulders/neck, so hope that you know a no-mercy type of person to go to Tenderizing Town on your neck muscles to relieve that bad boy. You'll thank me later for it (Heck, I may help you myself).

Less Writing, More Pictures

Man, it's tough coming up with witty writing. Instead, I'm just gonna post some cool pictures I found today.

Here is a picture from wiki of the beaches of Normandy 55 years ago:


Here is a picture from APOD of the moon rising over Turkey:


Here is a lolcat from lolcat thing:

The Anatomy of a Migraine

[Writer's Note: There will be a part of this entry where I'll be talking about some TMI stuff people may not want to read about. Don't worry, I'll indicate when that part comes and goes. Just wait for my sign. <3cmr]


Those of you who have had a real migraine would agree: they're up there on one of the worst things ever, and know the difference between a migraine and "A really bad headache." Okay, they're not the really worst things ever, but unlike sore throats, sinusits, most, if not all forms of cancer and most debilitating diseases, I would wish a migraine on my worst enemy.

My getting migraines are usually few and far between. My first real migraine (aka not a really bad headache) was in July of 2007, since then, I've had at least one a year. Crazy enough, I've had two within a month's span, the last one being yesterday (Thursday).

I knew I was in denial when I felt the pressure on the right side of my head. "Maybe it's sinus pressure..." I thought to myself, as I showered with a runny nose.

I took some pain reliever in hopes it would go away by the time I was at work, but my ability to smell the most subtle things, like the dough I smelled as I drove by the donut place, or being able to pick out the different types of exhaust as I walked to my office, perhaps really smelling the dust of all the construction in my office should have tipped me off.

"Maybe I'm just hungry..." Still trying to convince myself, as I heated up a can of chicken noodle soup for myself and ate it with crackers and drank lots of water.

That's when the nausea set in.

**********TMI TMI STOP READING HERE TMI TMI**********

My head felt even worse, and now the stomach was doing all kind of horrible on me. I kept convincing myself, "Keep it down, keep it down." But my stomach said that it's time to let this sucker out! "No!" I kept telling myself, "It's nothing bad I ate, and throwing up will NOT make me feel better!" But just like a few weeks ago, I felt crappy enough that it was worth the try.

Just like a few weeks ago, though I had no one else in the office with me at the time, I hurriedly took the keys to the restroom area and made my way to the toilet.

And just like last time, even though I had something in my stomach, barely anything came out. I had my glasses off at the time, but when I was pretty much finished, I noticed the floaty bits of yellow on the surface of the water looked like an uncanny cartoon rendition of a tyrannosaurus rex. Even in my moment of suffering, I had to appreciate the absolute beauty in misery by witnessing it, and for that moment or two, I felt not that crappy.

I would have taken a picture of it if I didn't rush out of the office to vomit, and I very well couldn't have run back to my office to return with a camera at risk of it floating into something else or someone else coming in at that time and witness me return to a toilet stall with vomit in it with camera at hand. Maybe if people are absolutely curious, I may be able to recreate it to an approximate image stored in my memory.

Making Vomitsaurus Rex, as I expected, didn't make me feel better at all.

**********TMI TMI SECTION OVER TMI TMI**********

With the nausea a little better but still present, I was progressively getting worse and the pressure on the right side of my head became even more intense. I was so close to just closing the door to my office and sprawl out on the dirty, dirty floor and tried all my pressure point techniques.

I resorted to lay my arm out in front of me and place my head upon on it, allowing my forearm to smush my eyeballs into my head, creating a sort of pressure that relieved the pain from my head. After staying in that position for some time, I tried lifting my head to see if it was gone, but I should have known that as soon as I lifted my head to face my computer screen, the pain came roaring back and I was back in the same state, if not worse.

Just as I lifted my head from another head down, eye smush attempt, an office mate came in with a tuna salad concoction she made, inspired by one I did on my own, and as soon as she walked in, I could smell the tuna and spices she put in it. I had to refuse in the nicest way possible without tackling her to the ground as I wanted to bolt to the bathroom once again.

Tune in next week to see what happened when my boss came into the office to see me in this state...

Steady Onward

It's time for another drunk post I think.

You know what's sad? Our knowledge being limited by our imagination.

You know why? Because our imaginations are feebly limited.

This idea is dandy for those who don't realize this, but imagine what unthinkable possibilities there are in the universe! It's impossible, but try because it's the only way to near conceiving such things.

Consider 10,000 years ago a nomad conjuring the thought of the thought of the thought of something as abstract as the internet. Sure, maybe a super genius through heavy meditation may conclude that it may be nice to have a massive depository of information accessible at an instant. And he may conclude that maybe, somehow, it'll be possible to share thoughts with others instantly. But how probable is that?

Given how fast our knowledge is accumulating, who knows with what we'll be astounded come thirty years. Look at the iPhone. LOOK AT IT. What would you have made of this ten years ago? Having access in your palm to more information than all of human civilization has had access to since the inception of cuneiform.

Can you imagine what people 10,000 years ago would think of the iPhone? (It's a good book.)

Now you see how feeble is our imagination.

PS Have you seen shows or read about those ridiculous assertions regarding life on other planets? Some scientists (I'm sure at producers' behest) have surmised at life on other planets. On massier planets, some say, all living creatures will be squat and eat helium-filled floating fish while hopping around on their one foot.

Remember the futurists of the sixties predicting cars zooming across the sky propelled by nuclear reactors with ten ton robots at the wheel? They're the same quacks trying to predict life on other planets today.

IN CASE OF EMERGENCY

Dear Readers: You're going to have to bear with my semi-self-indulgent entries. I'm sure to get it out of my system soon. If not, you're just going to have to deal with it, won't you?

I got the opportunity to catch up with a friend during a long drive home this morning. This friend just finished her Masters program at UCLA (GO BRUINS!), and we were talking about all the graduation hoopla. In that conversation she asked if I could photograph her for her graduation photos. I was flattered and honored she asked me, and I excitedly accepted. She then told me that she's never taken graduation photos before, which I told her that wasn't such a big deal, and that my mom's insistence caused me to have two batches of awkward-looking graduation photos.

From there, the subject somehow got to my college graduation picture and my telling my friend that she has to promise me, should I ever go missing, she needs to make sure that the picture they use on the reports and what not is NOT my UCLA graduation photo.

No, I don't have a digital file of that image to share with you, and I'm glad. I'm not saying it's a bad picture...it's actually a fairly decent photograph, but I really don't like how I look there. My hair looks like a well-tamed helmet framing my face, and I put on a bit of makeup that looks fine but very...doll-like. It just isn't me.

I will take this opportunity to make you, my reader(s), to promise me by hook or by crook that any of my 2003 UCLA graduation photos are NEVER used should I wind up missing (Besides, that was six years ago to the month, so it's not the most accurate and up to date photograph).

For your convenience, I have picked out the photo I would wish to be used should I go missing:
Some may notice this is my current social networking profile picture (a few sites). This picture works on a few levels: It was taken at a time when I was feeling pretty sick, so I'm not looking my best, and I'm sure if I were to go missing, I may have fallen into some ditch or got lost in a cornfield and will look to some level of haggardry. The fact I'm in the picture with a purple mouse puppet conveys my general air of irreverence; you know I'm not quite myself if I wasn't.

Heck, let's be honest and if I were to be recovered from some sort of distress, I'm most likely going to look like this:

So look for that girl. There's a good chance I may be dirtier and smellier than in this video, so I warn you now.
(Sorry for subjecting you to that - I think you deserve to know the truth)

AGING! ADVENTURE!

For the five readers that actually bother following my entries, you may have noticed I've been kind of MIA on this blog. Most of that time was crazy times, part of that was crazy lazy times, and the other part was crazy in the fact that I was out there in the world, away from the computer and having real adventure!

I guess it all started when I started off my month house sitting for my friend, the same weekend I was going to help out with this really cool shopping event and help celebrate my friend's birthday by dragging him to a Dodgers game even though he didn't really want to. Then it was my sister's birthday and I went with her and Henjobin to celebrate her quarter century mark. The next day I was back in Orange County dressed the way I dressed an awkward prepubescent at a Yelp event, then kind of kicked of Birthday Week by eating a whole bunch of Korean BBQ, experimenting with making spicy chicken wings to BBQ, went to the beach, then to a Southern vampire party, then it was my actual birthday where I had a good breakfast in Long Beach and spent a few hours at Disney Californa Adventures before hauling back to LA to go to a Dodgers game against the Angels followed by fireworks! I did a few Memorial Day BBQ things, but I focused most of my energies to prepare for the 2009 Acura LA Bike Tour where I was going to ride 23 miles around LA at 5AM on Memorial Day.

And I have proof:


I even made a video:


It never seemed I could sleep in thanks to too much on my mind and my roommate's cat going into heat for the first time, and just when I thought I could get to sleep in, my friend calls me up asking if I can take her to the ER because she cut her thumb open cutting a mango. That took me to taking her to her Dr. in Arcadia, then to Irvine to pick up a house key, then to LA to figure out how to get home since it was decided I was driving up to Monterey to overnight in a hostel, which was pretty damn cool. Then I took the Amtrak down from Monterey to Oxnard, which took an entire day, but was a pretty nice ride (nicer with bloody marys). I made it home in time to make it to my friend's birthday party, and man, I'm still around to tell the tale.

Needless to say, I ended my year 28 with a bang and 29 has been pretty crazy. Let's see how the rest of my 20's rounds out...

PS - I have do have photographic proof for all of these things (and I do not exaggerate) I've mentioned in this entry, but I can only upload so much at a time. KBBQ? Spicy wings? Baseball games? Disneyland? Yeah, I got it. If you return to this post, I very well will link to everything mentioned here, or you can just visit my Flickr.

My Recent Weight Gain

It’s hard to deny the fact that you’ve gained weight when your stomach, as one of my friends put it, “looks like a watermelon, you stupid fat fuck. Get your lard ass to the gym already, you fat tub of shit.” I laugh stuff like that off because what else can you do, right?

Funny friends aside, I have no problem with my recent weight gain. My girlfriend calls me her Healthy Boy because I don’t know why the fuck she thinks this is healthy. She rubs my belly and says, “I like it! It makes you look healthy.”

“Healthy like an E. Honda super human sumo wrestler?”

“Sure, whatever.”

I mean, she encourages me to exercise--very tactfully I should add by asking if I’d like to go hiking with her. “Why? I’m already healthy,” I laugh.

I wouldn’t mind being actual healthy and not 17th century baroque healthy though. Hell, I’m not even Rubenesque, I’m just oblong. You know what else is oblong? Earth. Earth is oblong. I’m as fat as a fucking planet. All the fat cells in my body are colluding against my aesthetic. My limbs are twigs flailing against a basketball.

Anyway, I wouldn’t mind being actual healthy. It’s nice being able to walk with your own legs. Rolling isn’t a flattering form of transportation.