Nezuko's Rat's Nest

I might be the world's most sad tourist. When I went to Japan a few years ago, I was sick for most of the trip and did a lot of just hanging around in bed with media and friends. Here I am in the UK, and I had all these plans to do walking tours of Huddersfield while DK was at work, and instead I've been sick, hanging around in bed reading and farting around on the internet.

The hanging around with DK while he's not at work has been brilliant, and to be honest that's the real reason I came to England in the first place: to see the people I love here, not to see the place. But I do want to see the place. Maybe tomorrow will be better. Today was the first day I felt really wiped out by this illness, which I suspect has something to do with me not resting enough, so all I've done today is rest. And cough. I've about run DK out of "Chesty Cough" medicine and will have to go searching for more.

Apropos of nothing, why do English salt and vinegar potato crisps taste so much better than American salt and vinegar potato chips? Also, mini Scotch Egg Bites are NOT the same as Scotch Eggs. Next time I'll get the big ones.

DK and I do have a plan to put an end to the Tourism fail, though. On Sunday, at OMFG Early o-clock, we are boarding a motor coach (i.e. bus) to London! It's a six hour ride, and we're hoping my laptop battery will last that long. We'll stay in a B&B for two nights, which my cousin Josh has said he'll send me recommendations for, and visit my cousin and his family, and see London. London! And go to the theatre in the West End! We haven't decided what to see yet, but there are several tempting possibilities.

And then the following weekend we're going to see our friend Sna in Edinburgh, which will also be brilliant.

The tattoo has pretty much stopped hurting unless I bump or scratch it, which I'm trying not to do. It feels a bit like a healing sunburn, and it's only very faintly pink and warm. Also it's awesome. Also, catching sight of it having forgotten I have it is momentarily alarming, because the brain registers the red ink as blood.

I did manage three minor accomplishments today: I took the damp laundry out of the washer and hung it to dry, I did the dishes, and I answered my dad's math puzzle. My dad, if I haven't mentioned before, likes to quiz his children. Today he sent this:

Here is a question my secretary sent to me. Top honors goes the first correct respondent.

HOW DOES THIS WORK??
This coming year, 2011, we will experience 4 unusual dates.... 1/1/11, 1/11/11, 11/1/11, 11/11/11 ......... NOW go figure this out.... take the last 2 digits of the year you were born plus the age you will be in 2011 and it WILL EQUAL .... 111.

("Top Honors" consists of my sending you first the answer I gave to my secretary after spending 5-10 minutes on it.)

My answer was:

it seems to me that adding the last two digits of your birth year to your age achieved in that year will always result in the last two digits of the current year, since the age you are turning is the difference between your birth year and the present year.

For years prior to 2000, you get simply the last two digits of the current year. Cross the 2000 threshold, and if you were born before 2000, you get 100+last two digits of the current year. If you were born in 2000 or beyond, you get simply the last two digits of the current year. Calculating the difference across any century barrier would do the same, so a man born in 1867, turning 44 in 1911 and doing the same calculation would also get 111, since there is a divergence of 100 between the two century markers.

If you used all four digits of the birth year, then adding your age in the current year would simply result in the current year:

birth year=B
age turning in current year=A
current year=C

B+A=C

If using only the last two digits of the birth year:

birth year=B
birth year last 2 digits=b
age turning in current year=A
current year=C
current year last two digits=c

b+A=c+(C-B)

Math geeks amongst my readers may commence applauding or mocking me as they see fit.

Morning pages were supposed to resume yesterday; you may have noticed that they didn't. I've had a headache for three days now, varying in intensity from mildly annoying to OMG go away and let me sleep. Ibuprofen has not touched it, light bothers my eyes, and when it's at its worst, I've had brief dizzy/queasy spells. I've had to resort to afternoon naps every day. Caffeine seemed to help a bit tonight. A couple of friends asked if it was a migraine.

Now let's talk about migraines. I don't get them.

See, when I was a kid, my mom got frequent migraines. They were hellacious things that caused such intense suffering for all around her that when I was a very small child, I thought the words "I have a headache" were sort of like swearwords, and I practiced saying them under my breath and out of earshot of the grownups, and waited for lightning to strike.

When I was six or seven, my mom started seeing a psychotherapist and ultimately worked out that her headaches were caused by anger. Which she had a lot of. I mean, man, if you took all the anger she was using to make headaches, and added it to the anger that just leaked out of her all the time, and the way I was a lightning rod to her Tesla coil of anger... Yeah. So in my mind, migraines are horrible things and a strong sign of the crazy.

I don't have the crazy.

OK, that's a lie. I, like everyone else I know, have a little touch of the crazy. But my crazy does not take the form of anger-induced headaches that make me hurt other people. My crazy takes the form of occasional depressions where I hibernate and get nothing done. It takes the form of rebelling and hiding from the world, and feeling like a terrible person.

Also, for the last several weeks, I have been not at all in a down cycle of the crazy. I've been in a great mood, getting things done, socializing, being productive. (And not doing the housework because I was getting things done, as opposed to not doing the housework because I couldn't scrape up the energy to try.)

I've been blaming this headache on the sinus infection I just finished the antibiotics for. Or maybe it's related to allergies from the mold all the recent rain has bloomed, and the early spring tree pollens. Or maybe it's because of low pressure from the Pacific storm front that is moving in. It feels physical. So it can't be a migraine, right?

Except I'm pretty sure that migraines are physical, and that lots of people get them without it being a sign of the crazy. Also that they tend to run in families. That a lot of headaches that people call sinus headaches are actually migraines. That things like low-pressure fronts can trigger them. And that there are medications that could help. So I'm cautiously wondering if this might be migraine after all. In which case I could, for example, go see a doctor and see if there is possibly something that could help (just as long as it wouldn't involve several years of psychotherapy and a diagnosis of the crazy.)

I don't know, I just really, really wish this headache would go away. It's right in my forehead (thus I was thinking sinus) right behind my eyebrows. It's not a stiff neck, stressed-out sort of headache: those tend to creep up the back of my skull, and I don't get those often at all. This is the kind of headache I usually get, only it's lasting longer than it usually does.


And I suppose the fact that I even have a "usual headache" is a little telling. I almost always blame it on sinus issues. Except, well, my nose isn't particularly clogged and I just finished those antibiotics. And decongestants didn't help any more than the ibuprofen did.

So tell me, readers who are familiar with migraine, does this sound like that? And if so, what the heck can I do about it?