Bring Your Towel, Fat Edna, and Blog 'Til You're Pain Free

Lil' bits of interesting ideas may be all I'm capable of for this post, so here they come.Apparently I'm kicking off a "Science Fiction Authors Biography" streak, because now I'm wading my way through Wish You Were Here, the official biography of Douglas Adams, the man who treated this terrestrial reader, and millions of others, to the indescribably wonderful Hitchhiker's Guide series. Oh, bless you, Chicago Public Library. I've only read the prologue, and it's already a ton of fun.

Too funny to go unrecorded, an overheard: "Well, you're fat, too, and I don't even know Edna." (Followed by a "hanging up the phone" gesture, from someone venting about a family member's tendency to talk a lot of negativity about people unknown to her.)

It's remarkable how reading someone's blog can make you feel like you know them, and emotionally tie you into their lives. There have been two instances recently where bloggers I've followed for just a short time have encountered adversity and difficulty, and I (and many others) have reacted with the same care and concern I would for a "real" friend. Instance one: my friend Nudle (who I know through Nancy) turned me on to a blog that was well-written and very engaging, and suddenly the author became sick, began undergoing chemo, and then fell silent. That author's son offered some explanation in his own blog. She's plugging along but decided to stop chronicling her experiences. I still think of her. Instance two: a Chicago comedian, writer and performer I hadn't met but had read was in a terrible car accident, and, months after I wished him well on the Bastion, sent us a message letting us know he's getting better. Truly, the Internet is made of people.

Today I'm going cold turkey off my pain meds. I'm feeling remarkably good, and am miles ahead of friends I know who have had similar procedures and were still in terrible pain and totally dependant on others at this point in recovery. I don't tolerate pain meds all that well, and they have a tendency to give me really crummy nightmares after a certain point, as they are starting to do now. Nightmares of the apocalyptic and, unfortunately, terrifically detailed and intricately plotted kind. I'm really sick of it. I'm also eager to reclaim my diurnal clarity of mind. (Yeah, "diurnal" is the opposite of "nocturnal." Didja know? I didn't, 'til I googled it.)

To prove my relative level of strength and hardiness to myself, I'm going to trot off to the gym after finishing this post, and put a very slow but victorious half-hour in on the treadmill. Take that, recovery timetables!