sunrays and saturdays

I just took that online SkinID evaluation to see what kind of products they recommend for me. I have no intention whatsoever of buying them. The website's dumb enough to tell you what the active ingredients are so all you have to do is go and buy cheaper, generic versions of the same stuff. Plus, they recommended almost the exact same regimen that I already use. They just charge twice as much for it.

I'm still a little swollen, but I'm feeling much, much better. I feel more like myself now instead of like a lazy slug with a watermelon for a face. Drugs and oral surgery will do that to you I guess.

I've been a little too zonked to look at things myself, but it sounds like we're in for a major ice/snow storm over the next couple of days (it's in the mid 60s right now...how unfair). It wouldn't worry me so much if I didn't have to fly to San Antonio on Sunday afternoon with a layover in Dallas. Let's see, I'll be flying with American Airlines. If I do recall correctly, my sister flew American in a wimpy rainstorm with a layover in Dallas and was delayed about seven hours. This should be even more fun. It's also supposed to rain half the time I'll be in San Antonio due to the same storm system too. So much for a sunny and warm getaway.

I woke up at 11:30 this morning. God it's good to be lazy after going through the three weeks of hell since Thanksgiving. Even though I don't have class I'm still going to try to go in tomorrow to get a good start on my research.

By the way? Holy crap I need exercise. The most physical activity I've had in the last month has been walking to and from my car every day. Granted, I have to park about two blocks from the Weather Center, but that's still not enough. It's nice today, so I should go out and do something. Maybe I'll walk a few miles and actually appreciate that it's going to be almost 70 today whereas it would be in the 30s if I were in Iowa right now.

Something has been wrong with me for the last month or so. I can't seem to concentrate on anything for more than a minute or so at a time, and even when I get my head together enough to do it, it almost seems like an artificial concentration of sorts. By artificial I mean that it feels like I'm forcing my brain to focus, but it doesn't seem to store anything even when I try, like there's some kind of wall blocking me from learning or remembering anything. The rest of the time it feels like my head is swimming around in some kind of fog where I have no bearing whatsoever on what is going on around me or what I'm supposed to be doing. I stare off into space for ungodly amounts of time and find myself not thinking about a single, god damned thing. For example, I went in to talk to Flory about the 311 final and to pick up my last lab. He has this binary electronic clock on a shelf in his office, and I asked him about it. I remember him explaining what the first couple of lights meant, but about the time he started explaining how to read the minutes, it just felt like my brain shut off. All that was left of me was a blank stare. When he was explaining how the grade distribution looked, I started to do it again. Jeremy's been getting on to me lately for not listening to him, too. For instance I'll ask him a question about whatever we're talking about, and he'll just give me this ridiculous look and tell me that he just said that like five minutes ago.

It's kind of an on and off thing, though. Some days I feel like I'm running at 100%. I understand everything we do in class, ask good questions, and even point out calculation mistakes on the board. I feel like myself on those days, and it's a good feeling. The rest of the time I just feel like slapping myself across the face in some attempt to wake me up.

Yes, I know I have a lot on my mind at the moment with the personal things going on, but I've dealt with worse before and have been fine. I've also been getting decent sleep. Not great sleep, but between 6 and 10 hours every night, which is enough for me to function on. I also realize it's the end of the semester, and considering the shitty schedule I had this Fall, I wouldn't be surprised if I'm getting a little burned out on classes and schoolwork.

I just hope Christmas break will serve as the vacation it should be and allow me to regroup at some capacity. Next semester is going to be crazy as fuck, too, and I need the time off before it starts.

So. Fucking. Full. I never learn my lesson when it comes to ordering food at Hickory Park. Everything is good there, and the desserts are among the best I've ever had, so I always order some at the end of the meal thinking I have just enough room left in my stomach for it. Of course, I'm always wrong about that and then end up in pain for the next several hours while the overstuffed tummy works to digest everything.

I had forgotten until 30 minutes ago that I have a Stat exam at 8am tomorrow. Time to cram, which will be difficult since all my body wants to do is sleep. I can't stop sneezing either. I sneeze when I eat too much, no lie. It has been a trademark of mine since high school. My aunt does it, too, so apparently I inherited some kind of itchy nose gene that didn't kick in until after I hit puberty. Not too much I can do about it I guess. *shrug*

Here's a lesson in bone stucture ladies and gentlemen.

This is a normal, healthy spine for an adult:



This is my spine:



I want you to notice the upper back and neck area. See the wiggle on the left? Normal spines aren't supposed to do that. See how my neck curves forward while the other curves back? That's not normal either. And believe me, that little wiggle and curve hurt like a fucking bitch. The chiropractor thinks that this problem started with my car accidents, particularly my most recent graceful performance of rolling in the ditch. It didn't hurt at the time, so I didn't think I had an injury. Well, lo and behold, my neck gave me its first fit about three months later, and it has been happening on a yearly/bi-yearly basis after that. I'm on round number three now. Most of my pain stems from the fact that the muscles on each side of my neck are trying to compensate for the curvature by tightening on one side and loosening on the other. At least that's what it was doing in the beginning. Now, since the problem has been allowed to progress for a year and a half now, the muscle spasms have spread into my shoulder muscles. Mr. Chiropractor said that the heat readings he was getting off the muscles in my neck are almost off the chart, so they're pretty badly inflamed at this point.

I was hoping for a quick snap, crackle, pop today and then be pain free forever, but I guess my problem is a lot more severe than I expected. It's so bad, in fact, that I have to see Mr. Chiropractor 12 more times over the next 2 months. Yeah, that works great with my already crazy ass schedule. Sheesh. I sure hope my insurance is going to pick up the tab for this shit.

NO CAVITIES!!! Woo hoo! I'm so sick of getting fillings. Apparently the last dentist drilled so deep into my tooth for a filling that he actually hit the nerve, so every time I crunch ice or eat something cold, the filling conducts the cold straight to the nerve. Fantastic. No wonder I've been getting sudden, intense jolts of pain whenever I ate ice cream, popsicles, or ice.

Now I work.

The doctor told my sister today that she has mono. That's right, the only sister I have and the one that is currently living with me has infectious mononucleosis. The incubation period of the virus before symptoms appear is 4-6 weeks, so she didn't get it in Iowa. Methinks I will wash her dishes twice from now on...and I might also be more lax about her running the AC all the time. I sure as hell don't want it, and I kiss too often to keep it to myself if I get it. The problem is that it takes a month or more for symptoms to appear. I could have it now and not even know it until July. I could be contagious and not even know it until July. WebMD says that pretty close contact is required to contract it, though, and I haven't exactly kissed her recently. We don't drink out of the same cups either, so I think I'm safe. I sure hope she's washing her own dishes very well.

Oh, and my mother wants to take me garage sale-ing at 8am tomorrow morning. Tomorrow is Saturday to those of you not keeping track. It's also widely known in my universe as one of two days off I have every week. Being the terrible morning person that I am, I have a strong feeling that Mom is going to have a grumpy Heather on her hands. I should go to bed now to get 9 hours of sleep, but there's no way in hell I could get to sleep this early. Blah.

You can certainly tell that the humidity is up. I put anti-persperant on not even five minutes ago, and I'm already sweating. I don't think I'll ever get used to humidity. I truly believe that your body is tuned into the climate of wherever you grew up, and it just doesn't know how to handle anything different.

For example:

I sweat like crazy and feel like I'm going to melt into a puddle whenever I get into high humidity locales, and I feel like I'm going to freeze to death whenever the temperature drops below 30.

However, a friend of mine grew up in Iowa City where it is VERY humid. He went down to south central Kansas to help with a wheat harvesting operation for a month or so a couple years ago, and he was continually getting nosebleeds because the air was so dry.

It's all in where you came from. I swear it.

Ok, I've had it. I'm tired of looking at myself every time I walk by a mirror and thinking "You need a hair cut" or "Why don't you color your hair? You look so plain and average." I'm scheduling a pro consultation this week. Hopefully they don't tell me that I need to have sorority girl blonde hair, though. That would make me even more painfully average on this campus. I just want something that makes me feel pretty. Considering that I'm female, I don't think that's an outrageous request. Whatever they do to me, though, I'm willing to bet that post snip-n-strip, I'll be spending an extra hour every morning blow drying and curling. Actually, I'll probably do it for about a week and then go back to the I-spent-30-seconds-on-my-hair-this-morning look.

Whatever the aftermath is, though, you better believe that my attention whoring ass will be posting pictures.