Ordinary Day

My question for the Internet this evening: who in the WORLD told Michael "Heckuva Job, Brownie" Brown that it would be a good idea for him to be on the Colbert Report? One word: bru-TAL.

I think my favorite quote from the entire interview with Stephen was, when Brown was talking about how FEMA could turn on a dime, "What dime were you standing on during Katrina?"

Short day at work today, because I had to go to the doctor's and get marching orders for what to do about my long-term Synthroid intake. Dr. Marshall asked me a few basic questions about how I'm feeling, and seemed generally approving, which was good. She says that I am to continue on my current dosage until the 12th, at which point I need to go up to 75mcg; then, on the 26th, I need to go up to 100mcg. This is because of her estimate of what I'll need based on my current body weight, though it'll be interesting to see how this adjusts once I get back into my regular exercise routine--and how I adjust. I'm already feeling the difference of having a stable level of Synthroid in my system; as I posted about yesterday, I'm more mentally alert, and though I am not yet too wired, I can kind of feel the potential for becoming so. It's like I've had almost but not quite too much caffeine, only without the added buzz in the system that caffeine gives me.

I've also haven't slept the entire night through the last couple of nights, but it's not yet problematic--just a matter of being a much lighter sleeper than usual right now, I think, as I try to get adjusted to the new stuff in the system. We'll have to see if this keeps up. And I may even have to cut back farther on the diet Dew--just because the last couple of days at work, when I've had my obligtatory two daily cans, I can feel the caffeine in my system almost nudging me over from 'alert in a good way' to 'jittery in a not good way'.

Oh, and my voice is coming back. My singing voice, that is; my talking voice has sounded normal for days now, unless I try to shout or unless I talk for too long. I can't quite belt out proper Great Big Sea ditties yet, though there have been moments that I've noticed an improved ability to hit the low notes in "John Barbour". I am hoping this holds true. It would be nice to have clearer notes on the bottom of my range!

Anyway, since I was leaving work early regardless, I took the opportunity to run a couple other errands as well, picking up cosequin for the cat as well as my next round of contact lenses. This made the afternoon a Long String of Busses, as I had to hit a total of four busses to get from Microsoft to the Polyclinic to the University Vision Clinic to the vet to the bus stop by the University Village Shopping Center to home. *whew*

Not much else to post about tonight. I'm reading up on all the hugely disturbing things going on with the Katrina aftermath; I've donated what little solarbird and I can spare right now to the Red Cross. I'm going over in my head exactly what I want to say to my Congressdroids about the criminal levels of incompetence that have been going on in regards to what FEMA's doing, and when the right time to say it is. I am feeling a cold white wrath about the entire FEMA affair, and yet, part of me is also plaintively pointing out that despite all that, the highest priority remains helping as many of our people down there as possible. Trying to find the balance between these things is saddening and headache-inducing, and it only gets more so as I get my strength back, both physical and mental.

I've been monitoring the National Hurricane Center page, too--just out of a lingering sense of forboding about how the rest of this storm season is going to go. We've got two more hurricanes out there, Maria and Nate, and Tropical Storm Ophelia is hovering near Florida and may go into hurricane mode. We've got a bit to go yet with the storm season and we're already to O on the alphabet. I find myself hoping fervently that this year we will not find out what happens if you run out of alphabet before you run out of storms.

I think that under the circumstances, even if I get a rejection letter tomorrow (tomorrow being the Magic Day on which Luna will tie Tor for longest turnaround time on responding to me), I'll be pretty happy nonetheless. I mean... I have a safe place to live, food and clean water, utilities, access to medical treatment, and the luxury of leisure time in which to actually write something. It's very easy to forget what blessings these are, sometimes.

Tonight, I start Chapter 15 of Lament of the Dove.

Days until release of The Hard and the Easy: 1 month, 4 days
Days without a rejection letter from Luna: 3 months, 12 days
Wednesday miles: 2.65
Miles out of Hobbiton: 329.4
Miles to Rivendell: 128.6

I'm starting to get to that stage of recovery where I get up in the morning feeling mostly normal, feel like I can do a lot of stuff as per normal through the course of the day, find my attention wandering a lot, fritter the morning away, and then finally try to haul myself together enough to do something. I expect that in a little while I will be crashing for the afternoon nap, but until then, I hope to at least get an LJ post out, a few bills paid, the mail checked, and a word or two written.

My weight waffled back up a couple of pounds, but this seems to be in the normal course of fluctuation rather than anything related to the surgery. I've been hovering around the same weight I had before the surgery, which interests me since last year I had a big drop that I had attributed to system shock. Apparently my system is not quite so shocked this time around. I'm good with that.

I'm hoping to maybe walk to the bottom of the hill and back today. That's about a mile, and I could go to the mini grocery store and get Gatorade to help power me on the way back up the hill. It's either that, or treadmill. I want to do at least some form of exercise today, to try to get back into the swing of things. Of course, Thursday solarbird and I go to CascadiaCon, and I don't know yet what sort of exercise facilities they will have at the hotel, but hopefully there will be something.

I did actually write last night, which pleases me, even if it was less than two hundred words. Slowly, although plagued with an erratic attention span even now, my brain is coming back online. Minimal Percocet is helping with that; my throat has surprisingly not hurt much over the last couple of days. Mostly I've just been feeling the presence of the stitches, and getting a little queasy if I get too active.

It all gets put into perspective, though, when I listen to the radio reports and read the online news reports about Hurricane Katrina. I'm worried as hell about all the folks down there, because even though the hurricane itself didn't turn out to be quite the behemoth that was feared, it still packed a wallop. And all the post-hurricane flooding promises to be an even harder punch to the region. I'm also deeply concerned about what more might be on the horizon--I mean, hurricane season lasts until November. I very much hope that Katrina was the biggest beast this season had on the agenda. I'm not normally the praying type, but I do have a mental ping out to whatever Powers May Be that Katrina doesn't have a nasty brother or sister planning to follow her act.

To steal a phrase from a friend of kathrynt, it definitely puts all my recent adventures into the category of "petty First World problems" and makes me grateful that all I need to deal with is getting stitches out of my throat and taking Synthroid. Beats the hell out of having one's city effectively destroyed and facing the prospect of being without power or other utilities, not to mention a home, for the next many weeks.

Days without a rejection letter from Luna: 96
Days without a rejection letter from Nadia Cornier: 78
Monday miles: 0.2
Miles out of Hobbiton: 321.9
Miles to Rivendell: 136.1