Migraines: 10
Menstruations: 4

Emergency rooms: 0

Number nine yesterday. Number god-damned fucking nine yesterday day. I'm fucking 35 years old. I should be done with these horrible things. I run. I exercise. I eat all the good stuff I'm supposed to eat. I don't smoke. I don't drug up. I don't toke. I have problems consuming bubbly drinks or even caffeinated ones. Why the hell do I have these totally fuck-up-your-life throw-you-down-and-step-on-you stupid mi-fucking-graine headaches. I'm tired of them! TIRED.

My grandfather had them. My father had them. How did I become so lucky as to inherit them from the male side of my family? My grandfather outgrew them. My dad lost the pain of his. Of course, if we go back another generation, the migraines come from my great grandmother, my dad's dad's mother. Argh.

I guess we all have our burden. We all have that one quirk that makes us who we are, that one burden that shapes our lives. I have my migraines. Kris has his Crohn's. Chris has diabetes. Everyone has something. If we don't, we probably make it up.

My friend Robin Saxen (who I've sadly fallen out of touch with) and I were once comparing childhoods. I thought mine was bad, then heard hers. I consider hers much worse and said as much. She replied, "We all have our burdens. Who's to say which burden is heavier than the next? We have them, we carry them. Your load is never more than you can handle."

Yeah, I miss Robin.

I'd like to think I chose this burden. That, before I was born I was given a menu of fantastic features I could have, with the associated burdens that go with them. That I chose all my good qualities, and thought to myself, "These headaches? I can manage them. I can bear them, because I know the gifts I have in compensation."

Because my gifts are many. And my blessings are more.

Migraines: 9
Menstruations: 4

On my journey to mom's house for the weekend (a girlie weekend! Whoo!), I flew out of San Jose to Phoenix on Southwest. Kris hates them, I like the free trips. Go fig.

At any airport, there are little things that happen that, well, shouldn't annoy me, but so often do. On most trips even.

As I was walking to the security line, another passenger was walking in front of me towards the line entrance. Usually, I'll just cut under the rope, as the distance to walk is shorter. This time, however, since there was another passenger in front of me walking to the entrance, I would be jumping in front of him by cutting under the rope. So I walked around. Turns out, the passenger I would have been cutting in front of wasn't going to the security line, but I had no way of knowing that.

So, into the line I started walking. From the entrance to the end of the line is all of maybe 10 yards. When I was about five yards from the end of the line, two people cut under the rope and step in front of me. Great.

Another I can comment, but not condemn sort of situations. Here they are doing something I do all the time, but not being any where near as courteous about it. Grrrrrrr....

Fine.

I can be an adult about this.

So, I wander through the security gates. (And didn't get searched! Holy Jesus how I've been blessed! I didn't get searched! A record of one time for me now!)

Did you know you have to present your boarding pass to exit the security gates now? Yes, that's right. Present your pass to enter the checkpoint. Present your pass to be scanned through the metal detector. And present your pass to leave. I'm so glad we don't live in an occupied militaristic society. How unfortunate that would be that you would have to present your papers to travel.

Off to gate A5 and into the A line. Southwest has this really nice "print your boarding pass from home at midnight" feature, so I had already "checked-in" to my flight. Thank goodness, as I arrived at the airport at 11:00 am for my 11:35 flight!

As I'm waiting at the end of the A line, after talking to various people about which line was the correct one, and discovering several B-group passengers were deliberately standing in the A-group line so that they could move to the front (clever they, one of them called me Canadien), I set my stuff down at the end of the A line.

A few minutes later, a women came up, asked the people in front of me which line was the A line, and plunked her crap down in front of me.

What the?

The back of the line is after all the other passengers, not just the ones you talk to.

As my usual vindictive self, when the A line was moving and crowded funny (because the B-group people in the A line stopped moving forward because they weren't in the A boarding group), I walked around the crowd and cut back in front of the line-cutting woman.

The tragic part, I think, is that she was someone who I would normally approach and start a conversation with. She was about a decade older than me, but seemed easy going and approachable. shrug

My favorite part of the journey? The kid kicking my chair in flight. Let me tell you how joyous the thump, thump, thump of little feet is on the back of an airline seat can be.

Thump, thump, thump

Much to my surprise, I had a date with number 8 yesterday. For those paying attention, that's two in two days. Two less than 30 hours apart. Two moments of blindness so close together.

I went to practice yesterday evening. I didn't play particularly hard. I couldn't: my ribs hurt, my left shin hurt, my head hurt, and I'm woefully out of shape.

Still, I played as hard as I could. My defense was sorely lacking. I was able to anticipate fairly well, but couldn't quite turn sharply enough to keep up.

After practice, we came home and I started doing a little work on the UPA site, catching up a bit on the problems.

After a bit, I noticed I couldn't see very well. So, I went out to talk to Kris, asked him to look at a site bug for me, popped another codeine (did I mention I'm almost out?), and went to sleep.

I woke at about 1 am and worked again on the UPA site, until 3 or so.

Sigh. Migraines winning 8 to 4.