Unsolicited Advice

So yesterday was fun. On my way home from the park, some dude charges up to me on the platform and starts asking me why girls "ignore you like that". I thought maybe I'd accidentally hit him with my bag or something, as I had my earbuds jammed in and was busy trying to break into a stubborn bottle of seltzer while I walked so I could take more painkillers, but no. Evidently he'd hit on me at some point in the past, and I didn't give him the answer he wanted. This is totally possible; I ignore guys who hit on me on the T, because that is not what trains are for. I don't want to reward asshat behavior. I didn't give him the answer he wanted this time, either. I dodged him by not getting on the D train he thought he was following me onto, and called the transit cops in case he came back. Had a nice chat with one of the dudes in the info booth, who turned out to have a brother working homicide out in Phoenix. He told me that if the creepers do anything arres...

I was working concessions at a show last night, where I met a pleasant fellow who turned out to originally be from Brazil. He was an older gent, with a bad back, and walked with a cane. We talked about fire codes, culture shock, and learning foreign languages in school. Presently, another fellow came by to see us in the back, where I was stationed with the baked goods. I waved at him. "This is my husband," said the brasileiro . This passes entirely without comment in my circles. I don't comment either, but I remember living in a place where that would have been less an introduction than an open rebellion against society. I remember being in college, and meeting people who told me they were gay before they told me what their names were, because it was the best way to find out right off the bat who was going to freak out on them, so they could find someone else to talk to. I shook hands with his husband, and wondered if that was how he wound up here in the States. I...

I gave up and spent most of yesterday curled up in bed. I hurt a lot less physically; for some reason, a metric fuckton of dextromethorphan to the brain seems to reboot a lot of things, often including angry nerves. I've no idea why. It's not even an analgesic; I use it for pain control when I've run out of other options because it's a dissociative, and if you're not in radio contact with your body parts, it's really hard for them to bother you. [It's an NMDA receptor antagonist, if you're curious. A friend of mine who's taken recreational doses of DXM and has had nitrous oxide for dental surgery says they feel more or less the same. This also inadvertently creeped out the dentist. She'd done the first quite a few times before the second, and was sufficiently used to handling herself in that state that she was able to chatter and ask questions whenever he took his hands out of her mouth. Most people do not ask for their loose teeth back, and th...

Neuropathic pain is interesting. I'm not just saying that because I topped out on OTC painkillers for the day hours ago and progressed to feeding myself dextromethorphan -- although, admittedly, that does help. Intellectualization is sometimes the best way to get through the day with a plurality of your marbles intact. It doesn't hurt quite the same way as other things do. It's poorly-localized, for a start. If you sprain your ankle and then try to put weight on it, your ankle immediately goes OW FUCKER DON'T DO THAT. There's definitely damage, and it's definitely your ankle; you couldn't miss it if you tried. If you get to the clinic and the doctor grabs your foot and tries to move it from side to side, you'll shout the exact same thing at him that your ankle shouted at you, and you will immediately be able to point at the part of you that you want him to stop poking at, at least until someone gives you a whole fucking lot of Vicodin. When a nerve i...

I've never particularly understood Amy Winehouse. The fuss, I mean. She was very talented, but the attention paid to that took a distant second to the attention paid to her problems. I mean this in the most respectful and non-judgmental way possible, but the woman was a total train wreck. One of the reasons I end up digging into the lives of a lot more men than women here is that for some reason, women don't seem to be allowed to be famous for being clever unless they are also completely dysfunctional. It's not usually very interesting. I've dealt with way more dysfunctional people in my life than I ever wanted to -- including, sometimes, me -- and there's not really a lot of variation. Most people who torpedo their lives repeatedly will do it the same way every time. Everyone, from children all the way out to the odd serial killer, who lies about who they are or what they're up to is hiding the same damn secret, which is that they want to avoid whatever react...

A friend of mine recently wrote a piece about having Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. In it, she says flat out that she doesn't really talk about it because she doesn't want pity. People behave weirdly when you tell them you're feeling chronically lousy. I feel especially lousy tonight (ed.: last night, at this point). I am extremely cranky, although not as cranky as I was earlier, because I have holed up in my room and taken a fuckton of drugs. I am cranky enough to explain why I occasionally respond to expressions of sympathy by developing a twitch and looking like I want to punch something. The tl;dr version is that kind words and sympathy solve a class of problems that can be summed up as "not enough emotional support". This is not a problem I'm having. The problems I'm having are more like "major limb has decided it wants to hurt and not really work right for no reason" and "heat makes me shut down so completely that the most complicated thi...

It's not terribly hot out, and it wasn't threatening to dump rain this evening, so Jazmin and her boyfriend and I went out to see the Independence Day * fireworks this year. For reasons that escape me, Independence Day celebrations have standardized over the years into 1) drinking a lot, 2) barbecuing an assortment of meat products, ideally over open flame, and 3) setting off as many fireworks as you can get your grubby little hands on. The unofficial fourth option, after screwing up one or more of these, is 'trip to the local ER', which will of course endear you to the many fine people who have to come into the hospital to work while everyone else is throwing parties. The City of Boston leaves the first two things for you to take care of privately, but throws itself into the third with alacrity. Much as the New Years Eve celebrations are televised from Times Square in New York City, the Fourth of July fireworks are broadcast nationally from the Esplanade in downto...