( Health TMICollapse )

In equally annoying health news, I went to an allergist today and described my reactions to perfumes and flavorings. Her conclusion is that I'm essentially getting contact dermatitis on my tongue and throat when I inhale/ingest things I'm sensitive to. I noted that the problem had gotten a lot worse since I started taking the Zoloft; at first I thought it was related to the Zoloft-induced dry mouth, but that side effect has mostly gone away. However, upon Googling "contact dermatitis artificial flavor", I find this note in a case study of a woman who developed an allergic reaction to artificial cinnamon:

Contact allergies are common in the skin but rare in the mouth due to the protective role of saliva against the accumulation of allergens

Welp.

It's true that my mouth is still dry; it's just not dry enough to really bother me most of the time. In addition, the Zoloft continues to cause a bit of acid reflux, which is probably making my throat more sensitive to other irritants. Hooray! Bodies are fun.

Conclusion: once Readercon is over, plus a week to make sure there's no post-Readercon fuckery this year, I'm going to get my doctor and therapist's approval to go off the Zoloft. It's definitely been helpful, but I'm feeling a lot more settled, and most of my anxiety these days is related to--surprise!--being scared of food because I don't know when it's going to make my throat feel like it's swelling up. I keep being glad to have the Zoloft to help me deal with that, but it would be even better to not need to deal with it. In the meantime, lots and lots of peppermint candy (and a search for lemon or other citrus candies that have no artificial flavors or sweeteners, since citrus is naturally mouthwatering), and probably going back to taking Pepcid with the Zoloft.

Also conclusion: the allergist was not entirely useless, but pretty nearly. I mentioned the Zoloft dry mouth and she didn't say "It might be worth taking a closer look at that". She expressed surprise that Claritin appeared to help with the reaction but offered no suggestions for alternatives. Bah.


You're welcome to comment on LJ, but I'd rather you leave a comment on the Dreamwidth version of this entry. The current comment count is .

Mocha and I have been schooling in the Pelham lately. With spring and all, she’s gotten a bit strong and opinionated, plus I did something to my left thumb and can barely bend it. So I needed to ride with two hands (not, not gonna try to teach myself to neck rein with the right hand, it would be far too confusing for a rather particular and precise mare. Ahem) while still using some curb elements–ergo, the Pelham.

But things are getting busy with Miscon coming up and various end-of-the-school year things. It’s a good time to back off a wee bit on conditioning and both of us catch our breath, then build back up with frequent short works, then lengthen them out with ground schooling work for bending and flexion.

Therefore, tonight we rode in the snaffle, and no boots. Boots to Mocha are a cue, we’re either going into the show ring or we’re doing a fairly light ride. She’s more relaxed and less on the muscle…but as I realized tonight, less on the muscle does not mean we’re not doing some high level stuff.

She lined out with lots of energy, and my first cue that–ahem–light work these days might mean something other than it used to was when she offered up lead changes on the rail when we usually do them during warmup. No drama, no fuss, just a lead change in response to an unconscious weight shift. Hmm. So I asked again, keeping the rein long, doing a light rein squeeze and leg. Change.

I didn’t ask for the change every two strides–that does get her hot and bothered–but we did calmly and serenely change every four or five strides. She remained relaxed throughout.

And from there we did a few fancy didoes and such, involving random direction changes and small voltes with lead and direction changes…girl sure seems to like that sort of work.

A good ride. Long rein throughout, I never really took up much of a contact, did most of our work by leg, seat, and leaning the rein on her neck. She remained soft in the hand and mellow, despite all the changes and twists and turns.

I think she really likes that kind of work.

Then afterward, a nice long grooming with lots of cookies for her and just a quiet, relaxing groove for the two of us. The sort of night horse people dream about.

Mirrored from Peak Amygdala.

This entry was originally posted at Peak Amygdala. You can post here or there.

Fascinating discussion on "All In With Chris Hayes" about how a tornado works.



This storm is now officially an EF-5, the strongest grade of storm known, with winds up to 210 miles an hour. According to the Huffington Post:

Several meteorologists contacted by The Associated Press used real time measurements, some made by Schumacher, to calculate the energy released during the storm's 40-minute life span. Their estimates ranged from 8 times to more than 600 times the power of the Hiroshima bomb, with more experts at the high end. Their calculations were based on energy measured in the air and then multiplied over the size and duration of the storm.

With that kind of power, it's a wonder we have only 24 dead (revised downward from 51 yesterday).

Watch Chris Hayes' coverage of this if you can. He's doing a spectacular job.

May 21, 2013 Progress Notes:

On Roadstead Farm

Words today: 2050.
Words total: 67,500.
Reason for stopping: P. is home, with both shrimp and pasta.  Dinner is coming.

Darling du Jour: Liars, I thought, with not a little scorn. And then reconsidered it. Perhaps this was what Heron had meant: farmhands and soldiers, wanting to see their hero so badly that they conjured him, passed around stories of such sighting or such passing-by, because then someday that grace might touch them, too.
Mean Things: The tentative web of bullshit is starting to unravel at a really inopportune time for everyone involved.  Using sex as a weapon in a totally unconventional way (certain people around here are almost disturbingly calculating.  And yet?  Good guys).

Research Roundup: Whether rabbit is halal; more map stuff, which is ever-present on this project; the copyright status of the song we did in choir in grade 10 or 11, for an unofficial soundtrack Easter Egg.
Books in progress: matociquala, Range of Ghosts.

---

This be Chapter 12; at least most of it, and some of Chapters 13 and 14 where they suggested themselves.  No brilliance today, structural or otherwise: just knowing where I'm supposed to go, and taking it there one step at a time.

I also made challah.  But that's the sum of my output today.

Got this one from rachel_reicheru:

Ask me about my top five anythings, food, activities, fandoms etc. Go ahead!

This entry is also posted at Dreamwidth. Comment at either location, as you prefer.

Sometimes I find myself in Arden even when I'm not expected
Even when the pages and the pageantry and the scenes and scenery are duke-bent
And the applause is elsewhere,
And nobody is looking at me,
I sit
In the itchy-sweet grass and I lick the air like fire and cream
I lick the air, and then the May day-dusking, it licks me back, and a thousand frogs sing a serenade for Arden.

For a while I walk with my sometimes-lover down on the knoll, and my sometimes-lover is a gallant fellow
An actor from Oklahoma, and we are imaginary and barefoot
And he says lover-like things all in pretend, and I circle him like a shark in Arden
And I whisper words of love right back at him, but really all I want to do is bite
Because that is what a shark would do in Arden.

Elsewhere there are thunderclouds
Elsewhere this moon is hidden
Elsewhere it is autumn, and it is not Arden
But I am not there
I am always in this garden, even when I'm not expected
Even when I'm not invited, even when I should be home and sleeping
Home and cleaning my room, home and making my bed
Somehow, by accident, by happy chance, by mistake
I make it back to Arden.

And though I do not stay, though I take the river way back home
And stop in at the sea to say my lines to the moon
Though I howl at the moon and the cormorants and the fisher cats
And come home and type it all down
On this superawesome machine, because let's face it, today of all todays,
I am the Qwerty Queen
The truth is (which will be true, oh
But just a very little while)
That everywhere I am
Is Arden.


***

Flock Theatre's As You Like It will run...

14 June: Opening Night (Connecticut College Arboretum)
15-16 June: Arbo
20-23 June: Arbo
27-28 June: Arbo
29 June: Hampton, CT

All shows are at 7:00 PM.

All the "Becoming Rosalind" poem-blogging ("plogging?") may be found under the "Worshipping Shakespeare" tag.

***

Poll #1914741 just a man and his will to survive
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 66

What kind of tiger?

Ticky?

A dream from last night ever-so-slightly too long for Twitter:

Queen Elizabeth had died and a young princess was being crowned Queen Anne. She was certainly not a princess that actually exists in real life. Long, lovely black hair that she wore down for the occasion, swept over her shoulder and flowing down the front of her white dress, obscuring all the medals and sash. She had thin silver crown.

I was a flutist playing in the orchestra for the coronation. Anne started crying in the middle of her coronation speech. A crowd of ministers with pelican heads rushed to console her and guide her away from the crowds. We had to stop playing and wait for her to return. But she didn't.

Ages went by. We finally started playing just to entertain everyone, anything we could think of. Then no one could think of another song and we all got up and started dancing with our instruments and each other on the floor of Westminster Cathedral until the flute section all turned into crows and flew up to roost on the buttresses. Anne was hiding up there, too. Her black hair flowed under her gown to become big black wings.

And then: alarm clock.

A dream from last night ever-so-slightly too long for Twitter:

Queen Elizabeth had died and a young princess was being crowned Queen Anne. She was certainly not a princess that actually exists in real life. Long, lovely black hair that she wore down for the occasion, swept over her shoulder and flowing down the front of her white dress, obscuring all the medals and sash. She had thin silver crown. I was a flutist playing in the orchestra for the coronation.

Anne started crying in the middle of her coronation speech. A crowd of ministers with pelican heads rushed to console her and guide her away from the crowds. We had to stop playing and wait for her to return. But she didn’t.

Ages went by. We finally started playing just to entertain everyone, anything we could think of. Then no one could think of another song and we all got up and started dancing with our instruments and each other on the floor of Westminster Cathedral until the flute section all turned into crows and flew up to roost on the buttresses. Anne was hiding up there, too. Her black hair flowed under her gown to become big black wings.

And then: alarm clock.

Mirrored from cmv.com. Also appearing on @LJ and @DW. Read anywhere, comment anywhere.

I'm thrilled to announce the cover and existence of my next collection of short fiction: The Melancholy of Mechagirl, from VIZ media, and my awesome editor nihilistic_kid.




This is a unique collection--while Ventriloquism was a general collection of everything ever, Mechagirl brings together all my Japanese-themed short fiction. That turns out to be rather a lot. Some, or perhaps even most of you, know that I lived in Japan for several years and the experience had a profound effect on my work. I'm very excited to have all of it in one place, and with such an amazing cover and team behind it. I mean seriously, just look at that cover!

It'll be out in July and is available for pre-order now. There's also a brand new novelette called Ink, Water, Milk in it, along with some other rare, out of print, or new pieces. It'll also be simultaneously published in Japanese, which is very exciting for me.

Now, there's an elephant in the room, and even if you don't see it, I do, so I'm going to go poke it in the trunk.

Yes, this is a collection of fiction about Japan written by a white woman. Yes, that white woman lived in Japan because of the US Navy and her ex-husband being an officer in said organization and that is not a value-free situation. Culturally, it is quite, quite fraught. And when VIZ first approached me concerning this project, their first from a non-Japanese author, I didn't know what to think, whether it was the right thing to do. I have always tried (and it's not even close to my place to say if I've succeeded) to write about Japan with respect and quality and sensitivity to the fact that I am obviously and forever an outsider. Nevertheless, it was a period in my life that had a profound and indelible effect on me, and in writing about it I have always been trying to integrate and interrogate my own experience, both from within and without, without being overly kind to myself and my culpability or overly romantic or unforgivably ignorant or bullheaded concerning Japanese culture. That is always an iterative process. You circle the thing itself endlessly and never quite arrive at it. I could not have helped writing about Japan, it was always only a question of how I wrote about it, and I hope, I hope I have done well.

And ultimately, what decided me was that a Japanese publisher thought I did at least well enough to ask for this collection and put their weight behind it. And if I wrote these stories to begin with, I should be willing to stand by them as a body of work. This is a very personal book, full of feels, as the kids say these days. It is not a book that purports to speak for Japanese culture in any way, but one which speaks for its author, for a span of ten years of circling Japan and never reaching it, and a single woman's relationship with a nation not her own, but one which, very occasionally, sat down to tea with her.

Here's hoping you enjoy it. (And stay tuned for another collection post shortly! My new general collection, The Bread We Eat in Dreams, is coming out in December!)