Quick Health Update
Since this is my sole means of communicating with several people, a brief installment of, "What's Still Wrong with My Neck; or, Why I Don't Have That Chapter This Week Either".
I got to go over the results of those x-rays with my physician. Unfortunately, I didn't get any *prints* of the x-rays (I wanted to keep them with my CT scans from college), but the primary purpose was served: they actually showed something wrong, which is almost certainly fixable.
This is ten million times better than going to doctors with incessant migraines or knees that won't bear weight and having to hear, "Sorry, can't find any problems." That's awful, because there's nothing to do, and you still can't walk (either because your knee hurts too much to stand on, or your head hurts too much to do anything but lie in a pile of ache -- luckily, those days are past). No, this time there was an actual, visible problem! Three cheers for x-rays!
See, I had thought the muscle spasm was taken care of once I regained mobility in my neck. Not so! The magical power of radiation showed that my muscles were still more locked up than was healthy -- to the degree that the muscle spasm/tension was screwing up my spine and causing the residual pain I'd been having. ::sigh:: As I learned when I was about 8 or so, that time my Dad took me with him to the chiropractor, the entire spinal column is curved, providing efficient strength and support, much in the way that a recurve bow is made of awesome. I don't fully understand these things, from a medical perspective, but I know they're true, and I know it's bad that my neck bones had been pulled straight by my surrounding musculature.
The fact that the muscle tension problem hadn't actually been fully resolved explains so much. Like why I've been exhausted, to the point that I've been sleeping an extra hour or two every night (for a total of 7-9 hours) but simultaneously waking up with the symptoms of having slept less than three hours... causing an endless litany of issues, the most amusing of which is my apparent inability to count past the number three reliably. I kept ending up on fourteen or so, and having no idea how I'd gotten there, or occasionally noticing myself thinking up numbers in entirely random order. (4... 10... 7... Wait...) Three-plus weeks of getting the equivalent of 2.5 hours of sleep per night will do that to you.
I've been issued a regimen of stretches and exercises to do five times per day, which I'm 95% certain are helping (I took more than enough ballet to learn the difference between stretching right and stretching wrong, and between "good pain" and "bad pain", and the tremendous all-over whimpering ache I've got right now feels properly like the complaints of muscles goaded into moving after have gotten used to being frozen for a month). The doctor okayed me to keep taking herbal supplements, which I'll be doing only in quantities recommended on the package.
So there you go. I'm looking forward to getting more rest in nights to come such that I have enough mental capacity to produce prose. And poetry. Since this silly chapter decided that all my narrative problems could be fixed through a combination of renga formatting and heroic hexameter. Here's hoping it gets past beta. Kids, don't ever try this at home.
And speaking of renga (I swear it's relevant), I bring you the latest in my series of Explanatory Videos for CLAMP Manga. If you missed my Tokyo Babylon videos, they're on this playlist.
The following is a BRIEF, NO DOUBT INSUFFICIENT, AND NOT REALLY SAFE FOR WORK introduction to characters in X, to the song "X" by the band X[-Japan]. You may or may not know this, but the manga was, in fact, named after the band. If my information is correct, this happened because the band said unto CLAMP, "Dude! You should totally name a manga after us!" The song (again, if my information is correct) was written in honor of the manga as well, but it's not like they ever use the name "Kamui", so if someone comes across an interview that contradicts me... what do I know? I'm not in the band. At the very least, it's appropriate for the purpose of that video, which is really not to explain X quickly and simply. It's way too much information, presented way too fast, designed to give people a place to start asking questions and a sense of the atmosphere before I start in on a longish presentation. Don't worry about anything you didn't get to read, and just go with it. I, myself, always forget to read the words at all as soon as Arashi is on screen... Oops. That being the case, I happily offer up my ability to answer questions about the series, and recommend to everyone that they read Tokyo Babylon and X someday if they have any interest whatsoever in social commentary allegories where human compassion and goodness do battle with equally human cruelty and apathy -- or stylish, brutal apocalypses triggered by the fact that the Earth has a will and a desire to live, and that industrialization, oil spills, and other such things have caused the Earth to get very, very angry. (You wouldn't like the Earth when she's angry.)
Right. Video. Have fun.
Now, this is where the renga comes in... in that the first slide on this next video contains a bit of one. Shirahime-Syo, where I've tried to summarize the four individual short stories CLAMP wrote inspired by traditional folktales, tied together by the idea that "Snow is the tears of the Snow Princess". It's a lovely volume, beautifully drawn, and I urge you to look up the whole thing. There's only time in 3 minutes to give a brief concept sketch. I'd link you to the scanlation I used, but the creator's website appears to be gone. Obviously, the best way to read this is by finding a copy of the official release. Since there's no "official" Shirahime music, the song is "Follow Me Down" by Seanan McGuire, who also deserves support.
This entry was originally posted at http://psiten.dreamwidth.org/79821.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
I got to go over the results of those x-rays with my physician. Unfortunately, I didn't get any *prints* of the x-rays (I wanted to keep them with my CT scans from college), but the primary purpose was served: they actually showed something wrong, which is almost certainly fixable.
This is ten million times better than going to doctors with incessant migraines or knees that won't bear weight and having to hear, "Sorry, can't find any problems." That's awful, because there's nothing to do, and you still can't walk (either because your knee hurts too much to stand on, or your head hurts too much to do anything but lie in a pile of ache -- luckily, those days are past). No, this time there was an actual, visible problem! Three cheers for x-rays!
See, I had thought the muscle spasm was taken care of once I regained mobility in my neck. Not so! The magical power of radiation showed that my muscles were still more locked up than was healthy -- to the degree that the muscle spasm/tension was screwing up my spine and causing the residual pain I'd been having. ::sigh:: As I learned when I was about 8 or so, that time my Dad took me with him to the chiropractor, the entire spinal column is curved, providing efficient strength and support, much in the way that a recurve bow is made of awesome. I don't fully understand these things, from a medical perspective, but I know they're true, and I know it's bad that my neck bones had been pulled straight by my surrounding musculature.
The fact that the muscle tension problem hadn't actually been fully resolved explains so much. Like why I've been exhausted, to the point that I've been sleeping an extra hour or two every night (for a total of 7-9 hours) but simultaneously waking up with the symptoms of having slept less than three hours... causing an endless litany of issues, the most amusing of which is my apparent inability to count past the number three reliably. I kept ending up on fourteen or so, and having no idea how I'd gotten there, or occasionally noticing myself thinking up numbers in entirely random order. (4... 10... 7... Wait...) Three-plus weeks of getting the equivalent of 2.5 hours of sleep per night will do that to you.
I've been issued a regimen of stretches and exercises to do five times per day, which I'm 95% certain are helping (I took more than enough ballet to learn the difference between stretching right and stretching wrong, and between "good pain" and "bad pain", and the tremendous all-over whimpering ache I've got right now feels properly like the complaints of muscles goaded into moving after have gotten used to being frozen for a month). The doctor okayed me to keep taking herbal supplements, which I'll be doing only in quantities recommended on the package.
So there you go. I'm looking forward to getting more rest in nights to come such that I have enough mental capacity to produce prose. And poetry. Since this silly chapter decided that all my narrative problems could be fixed through a combination of renga formatting and heroic hexameter. Here's hoping it gets past beta. Kids, don't ever try this at home.
And speaking of renga (I swear it's relevant), I bring you the latest in my series of Explanatory Videos for CLAMP Manga. If you missed my Tokyo Babylon videos, they're on this playlist.
The following is a BRIEF, NO DOUBT INSUFFICIENT, AND NOT REALLY SAFE FOR WORK introduction to characters in X, to the song "X" by the band X[-Japan]. You may or may not know this, but the manga was, in fact, named after the band. If my information is correct, this happened because the band said unto CLAMP, "Dude! You should totally name a manga after us!" The song (again, if my information is correct) was written in honor of the manga as well, but it's not like they ever use the name "Kamui", so if someone comes across an interview that contradicts me... what do I know? I'm not in the band. At the very least, it's appropriate for the purpose of that video, which is really not to explain X quickly and simply. It's way too much information, presented way too fast, designed to give people a place to start asking questions and a sense of the atmosphere before I start in on a longish presentation. Don't worry about anything you didn't get to read, and just go with it. I, myself, always forget to read the words at all as soon as Arashi is on screen... Oops. That being the case, I happily offer up my ability to answer questions about the series, and recommend to everyone that they read Tokyo Babylon and X someday if they have any interest whatsoever in social commentary allegories where human compassion and goodness do battle with equally human cruelty and apathy -- or stylish, brutal apocalypses triggered by the fact that the Earth has a will and a desire to live, and that industrialization, oil spills, and other such things have caused the Earth to get very, very angry. (You wouldn't like the Earth when she's angry.)
Right. Video. Have fun.
Click to viewNow, this is where the renga comes in... in that the first slide on this next video contains a bit of one. Shirahime-Syo, where I've tried to summarize the four individual short stories CLAMP wrote inspired by traditional folktales, tied together by the idea that "Snow is the tears of the Snow Princess". It's a lovely volume, beautifully drawn, and I urge you to look up the whole thing. There's only time in 3 minutes to give a brief concept sketch. I'd link you to the scanlation I used, but the creator's website appears to be gone. Obviously, the best way to read this is by finding a copy of the official release. Since there's no "official" Shirahime music, the song is "Follow Me Down" by Seanan McGuire, who also deserves support.
This entry was originally posted at http://psiten.dreamwidth.org/79821.html. Please comment there using OpenID.