Unmusic

The Wrath of (Dr) Khan

nobody@vox.com(Unmusic) — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 18:01:47 +0000

I was really looking forward to going back to work today after 2 weeks' leave for my operation. I haven't had a single conversation with anyone who isn't my boyfriend, my mother, or my best friend.

But then a migraine struck on Friday night and I haven't been able to shake it since. Three day migraines are new to me. I've been suffering with them for 10 years, but because I don't turn up at the doctor's office vomiting or crying, I don't get taken seriously. And advised to take Ibuprofen.

Normally I get a migraine, take some Migraleve and lay down in a dark room for a few hours and then I feel shaky, but okay. NONE of my tricks have worked this time. So I went to the doctor's today and sat there patiently explaining that it wasn't "just a headache", and that I wasn't trying to score drugs... finally I got prescribed something ("Except this is for acute migraines," said the doctor, as if mine was just a flirtation...) only to find out that none of the pharmacies in my zip code stock it.

So I'm waiting for The Boyfriend to come home so he can courier it over to a bigger pharmacy. Hopefully I shall be back at work tomorrow, but I'm not counting on it.

Gr.

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QotD: Make Me A Match

nobody@vox.com(Unmusic) — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 13:47:07 +0000

Have you ever played matchmaker? How did it go?

Once. Accidentally. He had a roving eye, and she was too needy - and a real bitch, actually - once she landed him, she ignored me! It was all very boring, and came to a head one night when he showed up with another woman. And of course suddenly I was a shoulder to cry on for the next month. Which seriously impinged on my social life.

But then he's dead now, and she's in Kuala Lumpur. Let that be a lesson to all would be matchmakers out there.

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Gasp! Swoon! etc.

nobody@vox.com(Unmusic) — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 08:13:45 +0000

Ryan Reynolds

I just discovered Ryan Reynolds' MySpace. He's hot AND funny AND a geek. Swoon.

If you ever find yourself in a position to speak at a funeral, a great thing to not do while eulogizing a dead loved one, is to wipe away the tears, muster up a really brave look on your face, gaze off into the distance and say, "It's up to me now." This works especially unwell if you don't know the dead person in question, or any of the attending mourners, and just happened upon the buffet table in the reception lounge while looking for the pisser. Because while sometimes it may feel pretty darn nice to do a bit of public speaking after a free meal, it can also feel pretty horrible having the shit knocked out of you by a wildly unpredictable and surprisingly nimble granddaughter.

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They broke my face

nobody@vox.com(Unmusic) — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 12:49:06 +0000

Post op

7 days ago I had surgery for a deviated septum and I am feeling uncommonly sorry for myself. This is partly due to the 1,000,001 horrific recovery stories I read on the internet beforehand. I mean, this sort of thing is going to put the fear of god into you:

...The anaesthesia really did a number on me [...] and it took many, many, many nauseated hours before I even started recovering[...]

When the doctor ripped the well-crusted packing out of my nose [...] my gut reaction was to punch him as hard as I possibly could, then run far, far away. Searing, blinding, face-smashing pain...

I, however, was surprised how together I felt when I woke up in the recovery room. My nostrils were packed with mini tampons, but I was chatting happily with the nurses who wheeled me back to the ward. Then I spent a contented hour or so cheerily texting and phoning friends, marvelling at how out of it the other patients were looking.

Then the morphine wore off.

After that it was inexplicable and uncontrollable sobbing, bleeding and vomiting (sometimes all three via the same orifice) all the way. And a sudden flashback to the anteroom where the surgeon told the nurses he was going to "flush her sinuses with a cocaine solution". So basically I was.. what? Having withdrawal?

When the chipper young Irish nurse came to remove my packing the next morning, I was wide awake and counting down the hours till I was discharged. But 8am took forever to come. I now fully appreciate my dog's attitude of "okay, let's go!" when we exit the vet's surgery and she's hanging around while I pay the bill. Every second sentence out of my mouth was "...But I'm still being discharged at 8am, aren't I?"

Having the packing removed was a bit of an ordeal. She squirted saline solution up each nostril and dragged out the tampons while I held a kidney dish under my chin. It's a bit like having a wet weasel pulled from the back of your brain via your nostril. And with each one came blood. A lot of blood. Much of it was going down the back of my throat, too. And it just kept coming until the nurse got very pale and said things like "Oh dear" and "Oh god you're so young" and "I'm not very good with blood, you know".

Then another nurse came and there was a whispered discussion about whether I'd need a blood transfusion and an extra night in hospital. I fully believe that I only stopped bleeding then because I willed it. Then The Boyfriend showed up and I went from 0 to fully packed and dressed in 30 seconds. They strapped a sanitary towel to my face, gave me some painkillers and I zoomed out of the door.

I have never been so thankful to be home in my life. I have spent the last week on the sofa, mostly zonked on painkillers, although this weekend I have done an unwise amount of geeking, which only goes to show me that geeking in this condition is unwise. I get thumping sinus headaches, my nose hurts like a motherfucker but I can breathe through it a little. Thankfully my work sent me an enormous bouquet and a card, and I have 7 more days' leave.

So why aren't I slumped on the sofa watching My Big Fat Greek Wedding? Good question! Bye-bye...!

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How I learned to stop worrying and love Shakira

nobody@vox.com(Unmusic) — Sun, 18 Feb 2007 16:59:42 +0000

I like The Pixies. I like Boards of Canada. I like Pavement. And I like Shakira. I genuinely like a lot of her music, and think she's brave and funny and a bit odd. Some of my friends laugh at me for this. But they're often friends who use the word "chav" to describe people.

I think the best way to share the love is to look at her video for Objection, which is infinitely more entertaining than anything po faced by The Strokes...

Shakira begins by enjoying a steamy tango with some no-good dirty Lothario.

But! Then he throws her to the ground and leaves, sparing her only a parting glance, even as she shakes her bottom at him!

Shakira's dancing then becomes very aggressive.

So she jumps in her car, her head barely popping over the steering wheel, and follows him to a bar, where he hooks up with his hateful, surgically enhanced girlfriend, Pete Burns.

Enraged, Shakira turns into a cartoon and charges the couple, punching out the dirty cheater and puncturing Pete Burns' breasts.

But we realise this was just a daydream -- what actually happens is that Shakira attempts some flimsy violence but is strongarmed by the lothario and then thrown into a glass table.

Then Shakira's superhero friends Zuperhombre and Guano turn up and save the day!

Shakira puts the next stage of her revenge into action...

Then takes a break to dance like a robot and play a B-52's style guitar solo.

And we realise that Shakira has the dirty duo tied up on spinning wheels while her band practises! Oh, Shakira, you wag. As the song reaches its climax, the wheels break free and the couple spin away, presumably to their deaths.

And Shakira ends the video with a triumphant little private Salsa session.

Moral of the story? Don't tango with lotharios and if you do, make sure you have some superhero mates, murderous intentions and kick-ass salsa moves. That said, I really don't like Hips Don't Lie. You can watch the video for Objection here.

PS: Yes, I do have a lot of free time at the moment. Why do you ask?

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Winds of/and Change

nobody@vox.com(Unmusic) — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 22:09:32 +0000

A gale is blowing through London tonight. Anything not nailed down has fallen over. Someone at The Boyfriend's work was almost decapitated by a roof tile that smashed through a window. The silly wooden pagoda my previous downstairs neighbours erected in the garden looks like an advert for When Ikea Flatpacks Go Bad.

My biggest bugbear is that the wind fucked with my journey home. Tomorrow is Moving Day at work, so this afternoon I packed up all my work crap and brought the rest home. For a low-maintenance, jeans-and-sweater girl I seem to have amassed a whole lotta coats and shoes in my desk drawers. So, lumpen and teetering, my bags and I arrived at my local Tube stop to discover it was shut. So I trudged a mile (never carry a plastic bag when the wind is strong) to King's Cross, only to find all the overland lines were closed. There were police everywhere -- at first I thought there had been another terrorist attempt. But then discovered that the storm had littered trees across the tracks. So the police were there for... colour?

I managed to elbow my way onto a Tube and promptly got pushed over by several men. Then a kind lady gave me her seat. And instead of savouring my coveted seated status, I spent the ride home worrying that I must look elderly. Or pregnant. Or both.

Tomorrow I get to work from home while the Men get on with moving our crap over to the new office. Other people in my team who are meant to be working from home tomorrow have mysteriously developed problems with their internet connections. I suspect they will sit around playing with their Wiis all day.

It was sad packing up the Web Office. On Monday we move into our other, open plan building. But for a year and a bit we had a little slice of geeky private office heaven. So many memories. Making the new temp regale us with Christmas carols in 2005 (he was Jewish, we later discovered). Our nativity scene from last year, which was made of ceramic cows, Moomin figurines and a model donkey from Spain. Racing swivel chairs. Shooting tiny pig figures with a plastic gun. Playing tickle tag.

I feel almost melancholy. And the wind whistling through the gables doesn't help.

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Nausea validation: try it, you might like it

nobody@vox.com(Unmusic) — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 15:19:20 +0000

I was wondering when the migraine would strike; I have been eating erratically and had a few (very) late nights. This morning the headache and fatigue came knocking. I decided to come home after lunch rather than wait until I was vomiting, then taking a 20 minute Tube ride home. I'm feeling better just being at home rather than at work, and I plan to collapse on the sofa with some tea and TV in a minute.

I just had to record this strange observation first:

On the way home from the Tube station just now I passed a woman coming out of her house. She looked about 35-40, plumpish, and was wearing a fleece. That warm, domestic, mid-afternoon smell of laundry liquid followed her out of her door, and the fleece, her plumpness, the time of day (midweek early afternoon - everyone else at work), the smell of laundry liquid and all its connotations made me retch.

I know I have a migraine and nausea accompanies it, and I'm not judging her in any way, but it was the utter bland, domestic ordinariness of the situation that struck me, and I think the retching was telling me this is not for you. You are not meant to be at home in the middle of the day folding sheets, having coffee mornings, or getting ready to pick the kids up from school. There is nothing wrong with this, people do this every day and manage to be exceptional people, but it is not for you.

Just a few weeks ago I was entertaining the thought of being a mother. I became panicky because I thought my biological clock was ticking. I happily envisioned future mes, mothering, staying home, maybe taking some time off to have a family and do some home studying, being a wife, cooking. But I can't remember the last time I felt a sense of rightness, of being in the right place at the right time, doing the thing that I'm supposed to do.

Except I did feel that this week: on Monday, at band practice.

Again, I'm not judging or belittling people who choose a domestic life -- I have great respect for those who do. And I know there's so much more to that side of life than just the biased things I've listed here. And I may yet choose it one day. It's just interesting, after all these years of not knowing who I am or where I'm supposed to be, to have two such opposing, extreme reactions in the same week.

Or maybe it's the migraine. Who knows?

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Metatwitter

nobody@vox.com(Unmusic) — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 13:39:33 +0000

My favourite Ask MetaFilter topics today:

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A little slice of me

nobody@vox.com(Unmusic) — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 19:42:32 +0000

Well, this is called Unmusic, and it feels like a good time to share a little of my music, so here it is: Pretty Me (2709kb).

An old song, tentatively recorded using new software. Not a finished product in any way. Consider it a demo of a demo. So there we are. Enjoy! Or not, obviously.

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Very Good Things

nobody@vox.com(Unmusic) — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 13:00:17 +0000

Steve Pavlina imparts wisdom (again) with his article, The Courage to Live Courageously:

When you look at your overweight body, admit that you really want to be fit and healthy. When you light up that next cigarette, don't deny that you want to be a nonsmoker. When you meet the potential mate of your dreams, don't deny that you'd love to be in a relationship with that person. When you meet a person who seems to be at total peace with herself, don't deny that you crave that level of inner peace too.

Get yourself out of denial. Move instead to a place where you admit, "I really do want this, but I just don't feel I currently have the ability to get it." It's perfectly OK to want something that you don't think you can have. And you're almost certainly wrong in concluding that you can't have it. But first, stop lying to yourself and pretending you don't really want it.

Spoke to me, anyhow.

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