If all goes well

Sorry to have been silent for several days, but it has been... a time. That's the polite way to describe it.

Dark days. Crippling headaches, inability to deal with even SEEING food; actually eating it was out of the question.

Plus, to add insult to injury, one of my eyes seems to "like" pointing in its own direction. As long as it's not the direction the other eye is pointing in.

I feel like Steven Universe's "Amethyst," who (in the episode "Indirect Kiss") broke her gem and, in her words, acquired a "googgly eye"...

I recommend the cartoon. Not the googly eye.

Some new herbal treatments. One is easily and safely recommendable... Barley tea, mugicha in Japanese, quite good for UTIs and something you can drink by the gallon without a single worry. Won't even send you into diuretic madness, like some other teas will. Quite important, if you're in the Cath Club and don't want to be kept... busy, shall we say.

Also went to another one, which works for ME but for you, who can say? So we'll leave that one off the table for now.

Made it to Vegas, even, to an international conference at which I presented. Was the opening presenter. No pressure, eh? But I survived. Somehow. Sort of...

But what a trip it was!

And I think I've hit the wall. Time for a bit of computer business, then time to herb up and lie down. And thereafter... who can say? With luck, today will conclude with my attendance at a sake pairing.

If all goes well. Arthur C. Clarke, in the book 2001, said that was a favorite saying among astronauts...

If all goes well.

Maybe five

Man, yesterday really drove the whole "M.S. people need to stay cool" thing home.

So, following doctor's orders to "get out of the damned house," I went on a lunch adventure with a friend. My magical phone had alleged a high temperature of 87, I figured that if I go pushed through the heat quickly and stayed in nice cool roos, I'd squeak through.

Turns out the temp was actually 103, and that's "high in the air" temperature, not the "significantly hotter" of wheelchair height in a world of asphalt.

I was all too close to "completely 100% unable to control my legs in any way," which includes inability to transfer from/to anything, and what passes for "normal" nowadays didn't return until hours at home, lying down, in the air conditioning.

If I go outside today while the sun is up, it'll be before noon... I'll open the door, say "My that's hot," and go back inside. Ten seconds, maybe. At most.

Maybe five.

After all...

Life's pleasures nowadays are simple, but definitely pleasurable...

Something I enjoy eating. (Trickier than in days past; this nonsense has gone way beyond "finicky eater." Sometimes even thinking of eating sits wrong.)

A bird I've never seen before, zooming through the back yard.

Smelling the differences between wind off the distant mountains and off the local hills.

Hearing the Song of the City change, from day to night, and hoow each day is different.

Just watching myself change lanes on the Nostalgia Highway... First remembering the Goode Olde Days back at Yale, then years later, a time when I was running the rock band that played at Prep football games. (A reminder to self: stay here, now. There ar many paths to enlightenment, but "nostalgia" isn't one of them.)

The indulgence of watching a cartoon I like, that touches my heart. I've been enjoying Stephen in  Stephen Universe and his relationship to a very dear character, Connie. I think the road has already been laid... I think it's clear that she loves him, and is a worthy co-adventurer.

Some days are for adventures, like going across town to see doctors. Or going within town to get new glasses. Or maybe go to a store. Or wheel by Ten Ren for some tea. Or lunch, even, keeping in mind the "if I'm eating" above.

A successful transfer from anything to wheelchair or vice versa. Sometimes even an enjoyable (even better than a worry-free) one.

Making the cat happy. Always a moving target... But I do what I can. And sometimes I even get a purr.

Which is just fine.  good" doesn't have to be "huge" just to be "good"...

After all, every day is a once-in-a-lifetime experience, is it not?