stillsostrange | Entries tagged with perfidious meatpuppet

This is an update for anyone interested in the state of my IUD. Because I know so many of you are.

( Cut for terrifying feminine mysteries )

Nothing to see here, folks. Move along.

Current Mood: working

I am now the mostly proud and mildly uncomfortable bearer of an IUD. A Mirena*, to be precise. The insertion was only slightly more unpleasant than a regular pap smear, and nowhere near the ordeal I've heard others tell of. I gasped once when the pressure became uncomfortable, and then it was over a minute later. The whole thing took about five minutes, including the pap. (That was after I had to wait for the ultrasound results**, though, and after my left ovary trolled everyone by being impossible to locate. That took longer.)

The only negative side effect is the cramps, which even my uterus isn't superhuman enough to shrug off. I suspect these are the cramps most women encounter monthly, but I haven't cramped since I first started the pill at 17, so I find the sudden discomfort and mild nausea rather disconcerting. Hopefully it will be gone soon--I'm willing to skip climbing tonight, but I don't want to skip the Duran Duran tribute at Elysium.

ETA: And three hours later, the cramps appear to have subsided. I shall move forward with dancing as planned.

* If one can bear a Mirena, can one also become a Mirena-wraith?

** My uterus is not full of bees. This is a little disappointing.

Current Mood: uncomfortable
Current Music: Johnny Hollow - This Hollow World

Today I started physical therapy for my treacherous left knee. The therapist thinks the trouble is less quads and more IT band. My future has become endless weighted stretches. But he didn't tell me to cancel Warrior Dash, so that's something. (I get the feeling that physical therapists are used to people doing stupid shit against medical advice.)

I suppose I should get back to the endless survey questions eventually, but today I'm going to dust off the first line meme (short story edition only) in celebration of finishing "Snakebit."

For those of you new to this meme, we post the first lines of various unfinished projects in hope of finding inspiration.

"Flood"

Nan doesn't mean to fall asleep--she never does. But Evie's soft breath and the steady creak of the ceiling fan lull her, till her eyes sag and the worn paperback slides from her fingers.

"Salt"

The sea left footprints.

"Serpentskirt"

All Souls Night and the gutters still brim with shed Hallows skin. Broken glass crunches under Jane's boots as she carries an amp to the van, glittering beside limp feathers and cracked sequins, tattered black and orange fliers. One hell of a party, she heard--Sixth Street is still subdued and sleepy. But even for the day after Halloween and a Monday to boot, the crowd is still better than last night's in Dallas.

"Spore"

"I got it from my girlfriend," the boy says. "Ex-girlfriend." Color rises in his light brown cheeks. "Wow, that makes it sound bad. Simpler too, I guess."

"Waiting For the Train"

When it's raining here you hear the trains. You hear them other times too, with the tracks so close, but the dusty heat of summer bakes the sound out of the air, till it gets buried under cars and trucks and TVs and voices and all the other small-town noises. But when the rain comes, and the trains come, the whistles carry all over, low and mournful and rumbling in my chest.

Eternally untitled queen in the tower story

She watches from her tower as the sky burns.

Ash rains from scabbed clouds, drifts in grey-silver sheets toward the broken ground. Razored black rock cracks again, leaking flames and the hot blood of the earth. Heat seeps through her windows, shimmering against etched glass, and no matter how much incense she burns her room still reeks of the end of the world.

Current Mood: awake
Current Music: Zola Jesus - Vessel

I missed last week's valkyrie report, so have a week and a half's worth.

Thursday - Gym. ~3 miles elliptical.
Friday - 4 hours dayjob.
Saturday - Dancing. And a lot of walking back and forth between clubs.
Sunday - Dayjob, dancing.
Monday - Yoga, climbing. Crow pose! A whole two seconds of it.
Tuesday - 1 hour gym. A very good day. More weight added to my deadlift, and more taken away from my pull-up assist. 4 hours dayjob.
Wednesday - Run/walking, 5k. Sadly, despite all the foam rolling and stretching, my knee still locked up at 1.5 miles.
Thursday - Rest day due to fresh tattoo. 4 hours dayjob.
Friday - 4 hours dayjob.
Saturday - ~45 minutes at the gym. Pull ups, push ups, and 1.5 miles on the elliptical. Dancing, dancing, dancing.
Sunday - Dayjob. No dancing. I am a badass, but not that much of a badass.
Monday - Yoga, climbing. Three seconds of Crow!

92 miles out of Hobbiton.

I have new shoes, and will probably make another go at running on Wednesday despite of common sense. But I have also taken the wise advice of a friend and made an appointment to get a referral to a sports medicine clinic to have someone look at my leg. I realized this weekend that the prospect of not running anymore makes me angry, and I want to do something about it.

Perhaps tomorrow I'll get back to the inane survey.

Current Mood: indescribable
Current Music: Ulterior - Body Hammer

Still not much good a posting. I'm trying to keep the Valkyrie reports to once a week, but The Book isn't solid enough to start posting metrics on yet. My kingdom for a meme!

Random fitness stuff: I straightened my arms in Wheel pose tonight, after months of suffering. My yogini was delighted, as was I. In less delightful news, my left knee completely killed my run on Saturday. We went five miles, but I only managed to run 2 of those. The stiffness I sometimes get turned into serious pain at 1.5 miles, and continued to hurt any time I ran after that. The knee also bugged me while dancing Saturday night, but that's more common. (It bugged me in flat boots on Saturday, but in heels on Sunday it was fine.) I realized I'm overdue for new shoes, which I will remedy this week, and I'm going to talk to my trainer about strengthening and stretching it out tomorrow. I suspect I also need to get a foam roller, and try to roll out my IT band more often. I will be very cross if one recalcitrant joint screws up my half marathon plans.

I did manage to implement GYTO last week, for two good writing days. Coffee shop writing is actually becoming very productive for me. And I love my baristas' musical taste.

Current Mood: hopeful
Current Music: Fans

I am a medical marvel. Or at least a dental marvel. I went in today for a root canal, only to have the root canal expert look at my X-rays, poke my tooth, and say "That's some crazy shit*. Go to a specialist. Hang on, lemme call one." He then talked to said specialist on the phone for a while, showed him my X-rays, and reported back: "He can work on it, but there's no guarantee that would be a permanent solution."

Apparently my tooth has something like a hell mouth**, and is disintegrating from the inside out. It's a pit of horrors contained by a thin layer of enamel. No cavity or trauma caused this: I am just that fucking special.

Which is how, dear reader, I came to have an appointment on Thursday for an extraction, and eventually an implant. As exciting as having titanium screws in my skull sounds, the part in between where I spend several weeks toothless does not appeal to me. But the idea of getting a stopgap treatment only to have another abscess later--or worse, to have the tooth crack--appeals even less.

I should have asked if they could just give me a titanium jaw full of shark teeth, but my insurance probably won't cover 50% of that.

* Perhaps he said it more tactfully than that.

** You say root resorption, I say hell mouth. Let's call the whole thing off.

Current Mood: cranky
Current Music: Delerium - Incantation

So, if you missed the update to yesterday's entry, my fears were confirmed. I had an abscess in my gum, which has been drained*. I have a root canal on Tuesday. This caused me to miss my father's birthday yesterday, as well as Exquisite Corpse, and will cause me to miss a chance to wear the worm suit for work on Wednesday. This makes me rather crabtastic.

On the upside, my head is no longer a pulsing mass of putrescence and pain this morning, so I can go to work today. This is a positive because a) I'm dressing up for Comic Book Day, and b) I'm seeing Avengers tonight, and I would feel guilty if I did so after skipping work. On the slightly less upside, by 9 in the morning on the 5th of May, it was already too damn hot for my costume. For fuck's sake, Texas. Throw me a bone here.

* Before this procedure:

Me: "There is no optimal outcome that involves a mouth full of pus."

Dentist: "You said it, not me."

Current Mood: annoyed
Current Music: A self-slurping cat

The buzzing sound a dental drill makes. At least that is my fear. There is a Bad Thing happening in my mouth, and I will go to the dentist in a couple of hours. Of course, I'm terrified that I already know what it is. That word starts with A. And the A-word leads to the R-word. The R-word sometimes leads to the V-word, which means I would miss Comic Book Day tomorrow.

I'll be over here, keening and rocking for a bit.

ETA: Sometimes I hate being right.