Mishaps and other haps

THE BURNING CRUSADE EXPANSION IS GOING TO BE FANTASTIC!!!

OK, this is a good example of why I don’t drink much soda anymore and why I usually don’t drink soda at all in the evening. I drank 24 oz. of a caffeinated orange soda called Mountain Dew LiveWire last night … then I went to sleep around 11 PM and woke up again at 3 AM. Could not go back to sleep. So around 4 I got up and played WoW. Made coffee and took a shower around 5. Played WoW until time to leave for work this morning. (W00t! Ding 40!)

Yes, I will be exhausted later. It is going to be a long day, also, because things are slow at work.

But that’s OK– I have been really busy lately in general. Lots on my mind and I’m not quite keeping up with everything.
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Also, there’s an article today in the health section of the NY Times online about 20 and 30-somethings who have resorted to self-medication to sort out all of their various problems. It points to a New England Journal of Medicine study suggesting that *half* of the students seeking care at their colleges’ health services may be using anti-depressants. Apparently many continue with the pills long after they leave college. Some self-prescribe and trade up with friends. Trial and error. It’s a pharmacopia out there.

Now I have mixed opinions about this.

On the one hand, I have personal experience with the mental health gutter that college life can be.

But for a brief period, I had a roommate who was schizophrenic and I learned that there is a huge difference between temporary problems that reach resolution and problems that affect your entire life and require constant medication.

While I think it’s helpful to use prescription drugs to temporarily treat mental health problems that can be worked out with counseling, I am more skeptical about long term use of drugs to treat these conditions. Do people really *need* to be on Prozac for decades? What’s the point of therapy and working through the issues if the drug is key? What are the costs to consumers and insurance companies? What are the long-term side effects? Since a lot of the anti-depressants and psychotropic drugs being prescribed are relatively new, subjects haven’t been followed for decades to determine whether there are detrimental effects from long-term usage.

Anyway, if you’re interested, go to the NY Times website and read the article.

(My personal recommendation is that we need to identify which factors in college and early professional life are prompting people to rely on pills and whether there might be better answers. Sociologists, get cracking!)

I thought I was going to come home tonight and fall over and sleep. I have a very small headache. But it has been a very good weekend so far and I am in front of my computer, so I will yak about things for a minute.

Friday night I went with PhysOrg and family to see Comedy of Errors, which Deathwish was performing in (as Antipholus of Syracuse). We met up with Mlitiagrl, who was there with her mom and a friend of her mom’s. Play was well performed and Deathwish and others did an excellent job– both Antipholuses and both Dromios gave great performances and it was quite entertaining and funny.

PhysOrg, Mlitiagrl and I met up with Inle at Perkins afterwards and eventually headed back to our building, where there was some socializing. Then I fell over and went to sleep.

Saturday morning and early afternoon, we played a lot of WoW. Gauhar, Jlinth, Qlash, Montanni and Nodor were able to participate in the goings-on. Frabjous was running around doing things with other people and Bovia appeared for a bit. We managed to run *two* instances (Scarlet Monastery and Razorfen Downs) and picked up a lot of cool stuff. Montanni found a new helm and a new sword to keep and many other things to sell.

A little before 5, I headed over to PhysOrg’s place and we went downtown to have dinner with people. Afterwards, we went to see Seven Chances, a Buster Keaton film being shown as part of the Duck Soup silent movie series at the Overture Center. Now that was neat. Not only was it a funny movie, but it was accompanied by a live organ performance. And there was a “vaudeville” act before the movie that was entertaining– barbershop quartet, juggling, and an army of small kids playing violins.

As we were leaving, PhysOrg asked “Did you look up, Lisa?” and I took a look at the pretty glass dome ceiling in the rotunda of the Overture Center, enhanced by tubular blue lights. It is a nice facility, all around.

Trip for ice cream afterwards, dropped back by PhysOrg’s place for a few minutes, and then thought I should come home and fall over.

I really am starting to yawn, now– so maybe that’s a sign I’m sleepy. Good night!

Heading into what should be a fun and relaxing weekend. Which is good. This week has had some bumps and it will be good to unwind a bit.

I forgot to post that I bought Mario DDR this week, but I did and people should come over and play it after I figure out where I’m going to set it up– or maybe I’ll just take it over to the House of Luscher since the furniture arrangement there is more suitable to all kinds of bouncy activity.

I have been talking with various people about plans for the future for quite a while, most recently with Inle on Tuesday evening. It is very heartening to know that as a group we can work together to help everyone’s plans succeed. The next few years are going to be very interesting and hopefully there will be a lot of things to celebrate.

OK, entirely ready for this week to be over, so I am just going to drift off now …

Warning: This post discusses eyeballs, eyeball accessories, and personal sanitary practices involving eyeballs and eyeball accessories. Due to the sensitive nature of this post, some of you may wish to hit the “back” icon on your browser’s toolbar now

This morning I decided to replace my contact lenses and it has made a huge difference in the amount of eye goo that has accumulated in my eyes today!

Normally, no amount of rinsing and washing will rid my eyes of the eye goo that accumulates in the corners of my eyes and sometimes sticks to the lids. I find myself poking around in my eye during the day, trying to localize the goo, and extracting it in sticky, cobweb-like strands as it Occasionally floats in front of my iris/pupil and creates a haze over objects I am viewing.

Alas, the culprit is not progressive eye disease, but my own stupidity.

I typically buy about six months’ worth of contact lenses at a time. A pair is supposed to be worn for one month and tossed out. The lenses are designed to be disposable, regardless of daily cleaning practices.

I’m not sure how long my current (six months’) supply has lasted, but I am estimating 3-4 years.

I can’t remember the last time I changed contact lenses before today, which probably means that I had been wearing my old pair for a year or two. They have potentially been worn 12-24 times longer than their normal lifespan. BECAUSE I AM LAZY ABOUT THIS.

My sanitary practices involving the lenses vary. Some nights, I just take them out and toss them into their case with new fluid (which is supposed to “clean” everything automatically, but it’s expecting that you will toss your lenses after day, week, or a month). Other nights, I actually rub them a little to try to remove some of the daily film. Whatever I do, it is sufficient to keep foreign irritants out of my eyes, but it cannot keep up with the kind of mildly-annoying organic eye goo that accumulates.

However, less goo today! So I am hopeful that this trend will continue– I will have an eye exam next week and BUY more contact lenses within the next few weeks so that I can replace my lenses in a month … or two … and will not have to deal with eye goo.

I touch my eyeball and salute you!

Received text message a few minutes ago that the tumor has shrunk a bit, which is great news. It will be later this week before the surgeon determines whether surgery can done.

I’m sure Althea will update her website with more details at some point, so my Mom and others who have been following this and asking for reports should check it for information.

You know, if I really need to determine whether I have examined all sides of an argument, I should just refer the matter to PhysOrg. His way of thinking is logical, but it’s entirely unlike mine in some ways that are very useful. If I have missed something or am wearing blinders or need another way of looking at things, he’s the man to consult. This is good, I guess, because I sometimes consult with him inadvertently.

After a hiatus from massive gaming on the part of my usual suspects, our schedules are starting to busy themselves up a bit. Of course, there is the SR4 game we recently started on Sunday evenings and the WoW we smoke obsessively, 24/7.

But it looks like we will be starting a Star Wars d20 game on Friday nights (kind of late, after gym and visiting, I think) and TheLarry will be running a D&D 3.5 game on Tuesday evenings. So I get to sit down and roll up a character for that tomorrow.

Yeah. I am also looking forward to returning to the Wednesday night gym class I have been missing with Roger, the awesome instructor.

I keep raving about Roger to Tom and PhysOrg because they have never experienced that class. They get all the various Kellys and their look-alikes as instructors (think workout Barbie and her mostly-brunette friends) and I get the Roger.

Roger is funny, though. He is always doing these monologues about his kids and talking about random shit during class, particularly when we are cooling down at the end. I think he’s a candidate for muscle-going-to-pudge and he’s doing these exercises with us that are obviously not challenging to him (or shouldn’t be), but he makes these awesome groans and reflexive instructor noises when we’re doing repetitions of something (usually lifting some weights or doing some bends). And he’s kind of clunky– like he breaks the equipment and stuff. Things I’d do if I were a guy. It’s great! Roger is the best! I just wish others would join me in experiencing the full brilliance of Roger.

At some point, I am going to eat some bacteria-contaminated sprouts or something and my relationship with the salad bar at work will be over. But for now, I am still impressed by the salad a lot and keep piling enough vegetables on my plate to make it *weigh* like $6.50 (paying by the oz.), but luckily the salad bar caps out at $3.75. Theoretically, I could make my salad plate a HUGE mountain of legumes and it would all be fine.

AND I EAT IT ALL, VERY QUICKLY, BECAUSE IT’s TASTY!!!

Normally, I am not a salad person. I will pick at a salad that is mostly greens, tomatoes, and *maybe* cucumber and I do not usually order salads in restaurants for this reason. No calories (except for the dressings, most of which I don’t like) and not much substance. Not *really* a meal. This may seem particularly odd behavior considering that I am a vegetarian and sometimes I eat at restaurants that have not yet devised many vegetarian entree options for their menu (like Perkins, where I prefer pie and fries to salad).

But the salad bar at work is still *fantastic* on certain days. I usually skip it on kidney bean days because I don’t like kidney beans cold (in chili is fine)– but when they have chickpeas, one or more types of bean salad, and tabouli, I am totally spending $3.75 + tax on salad.

When there are legumes and nuts/seeds, I totally skip the cheese. I know that sounds like blasphemy, but really teh tasty is so maxed out that it could not possibly help to add cheese. And I prefer vinegar to creamy or oily dressings. Just plain red wine or balsamic vinegar, no oil.

But why do I sometimes feel alone in my zeal for legumes, in particular, when it would seem that these sources of plant protein are just about perfect?

I can think of three reasons that people are not promptly throwing out their packages of beef, chicken, and pork in exchange for legumes:

1) They do not like legumes as much as I do, or perhaps at all.

2) They experience gastro-intestinal discomfort upon consumption of legumes (this issue was briefly touched upon in a previous post months ago).

3) Legumes have been stigmatized in some social groups as “what poor people eat because they can’t afford other things” and some people avoid legumes because they don’t want to be connected to this stigma. Ironically, if more people ate legumes more often, we’d be able to throw more money into eliminating national and/or world poverty altogether because the resources tied up in raising and maintaining domestic livestock would decrease (it’s a lot cheaper just to produce that hill of beans, which might amount to more than you think).

I don’t know if people would be *willing* to make that kind of commitment because there are a lot of ways we could use money more wisely as individuals and groups (and don’t)– but it is just an idea that is coming to mind as I am digesting and my thoughts are wandering …

From the technical difficulties I have been having, I am getting the sense that my jpeg files are too large to insert in my LJ posts. Anyway, I took a pic of the Army of Muffins I assembled yesterday afternoon.

I updated my photo album with a Fall 2005 category and will try to post some updates now and then.