wake up tired

The dreaming gets more frustrating as the week goes on, full of violence and mystery. In one part I was hiding the corpses of vampires under the house just before the wedding. In another, I was walking down the Drag with Melynda, who had a bike, and we were going to a pub located right about where the Co-op is in the waking world. So much weirdness. In the last part, I was angry at a woman in the grocery store, who was in my way or some such thing. I screamed at her in Russian and threatened her with a knife. Now what part of my subconscious did that come from?

It's raining, and I wish I was not working tonight. I would go hide in Metro instead.

bwahaha fear!

Few things are as funny as parodies of Jack Chick's evil little tracts. Run, don't walk to read the hilarity that is Darque Dungeon and bow before the genius. Don't forget to read the panel at the end!

scar on my palm

Rain is pouring down outside, the first real rain I've seen in months. Good for the trees, not so good for the smokers. The security guard said instead of running out into the rain to get to the parking garage, we could smoke at the far end of the front of the building. It's covered, and more than the requisite 25 feet from the door mandated by law. All was fine until one of the bosses decided she wanted to assert her authority and ordered us to move. It was exceedingly petty.

My right hand aches, thanks to last night's goofing around. When I was 13, I crashed my bike badly on a park trail, and ripped myself up pretty badly in the gravel. One rock, a little smaller than a dime, became lodged in the muscle that controls my thumb in my right hand. I had punched a hole almost through my hand trying to stop my fall, and true to my fear of doctors and needles, I didn't tell my mother. A few days later she noticed I was walking around with my hand curled up in a fist. One of the few times I've ever fainted happened when she tried to clean the wound out with a Q-tip. She dragged me off to the doctor soon afterwards, and I refused to let anyone cut open my hand or give me stitches. Doctor King pronounced that the wound would heel up fine on it's own, and that the rock would eventually dissolve or work its way out. On that gruesome note, we left the office.

My hand did heal up just fine, and I have a scar about half an inch long on my palm. I write with my right hand, and it's never given me much trouble other than the unsettling shift of the stone when I swing on monkey bars. Flash forward to last night when Alan and I are playing around, tickling each other and the usual sort of tired-but-still-awake antics before bed. He grabbed for my hand, and must have pushed his thumb across my palm. Somehow he put too much pressure on the rock inside the scar, and I felt excrutiating pain bloom. It was a few minutes before it abated enough for me to consider taking ibuprofen and stop biting my hand in desperate hope of off-setting the pain with other pain. The tension produced an instant headache, and I slept with my hand curled into a fist.

Today it's better, but still a little touchy. More often than not I catch myself tucking my thumb under my other fingers.

Because the Social Security office never answers their phones, and the weather was awful, I stayed home today. I did find an eye doctor who accepts my insurance and offers glasses in-house, so I can take care of that Monday. Just recently I've noticed how badly scratched my glasses are. My recent headaches are also a warning sign that my eyes are getting worse in front of all these computer screens and books with small print.

I'm halfway through Rasputin: The Last Word, and about ready to cheerfully maim this translator. The problems with the translation have continued, which seriously impairs my ability to enjoy this book. I was puzzled at how fast the book skipped Rasputin's life, compared to Moynahan's work, but Radetsky seems intent on pulling as many quotations from the Lost File as he can. Curiously, he delves deep into Rasputin's religious sayings, his philosophy and his religious fervor. He makes an excellent case for a man who flew close to enlightenment and then crashed hopelessly.

In the 70s, the author spoke personally with a woman who had been a prostitute in the pre-Revolutionary era and had been paid by Rasputin. She claimed he only looked at her naked body, and went away. He also told her something was wrong with her kidneys, and strangely enough in 1940 she had to have one removed. Her story fits in with secret police interrogations of the prostitutes patronized by Rasputin, who also claimed to have not had sex with the man. It is a very curious thing, but it seems as if Rasputin was engaged in a constant test of his body against certain temptations. This idea fits in well with the teachings of the khlysty, which he was frequently accused of being. Later, Rasputin would lose his battle and sink definitively into debauchery.

Still raining hard out there, tapping on the glass beside me. I want to be at home.