three tiny stars

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Stroke…stroke

I had a weird twinge of sadness today for rowing…I haven’t thought about it for a long time, but I miss it.

Certainly I was never that great at it, but I WAS probably the best among the 5 or 6 of us who were continuously involved on our team. Because of that, I was the person sitting in the stern, setting the pace for the other 3 rowers. I’m not sure where this skill came from, but I was surprisingly good at keeping an even rhythm and being able to estimate our strokes per minute without watching the digital monitor.

That’s what made me think of it today out of nowhere, actually…the term for the person who sets the pace is the stroke. Maybe it was fate.

I wish I could have that experience again now. Not go back to that time, but just enjoy it the same way. Have the same excitement that woke me up on Saturday and Sunday mornings at 5:00, go out to row for a few hours, and then work at the bookstore for the rest of the day. Have the same people around me. Trying to do it now would involve a lot of money, trying to fit myself into an existing group, and accepting that I am not #1. I think that was also the reason I never pushed myself to row at Stetson: I wasn’t ok with not being the best on the team. What a stupid reason, though.

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10-word movie review

Fight Club * (The Matrix - Keanu + James McAvoy) = Wanted

Very awesomeist.

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Things I Approve Of, #1

I’ve never been interested in spontaneity or change just for the hell of it. When we were kids, my brother often tried to convince me to switch bedrooms with him, or drawers in the bathroom. And it’s a mark of how much I hate change that I never once agreed to the room switch, even though I hung on his every word and went along with just about any other plan. I did grudgingly agree to the drawers once or twice, but I DIDN’T LIKE IT.

I have no problem with getting into a rut. I like to eat the same thing for breakfast every morning for six months at a time, and then perhaps I’ll switch to something else for the next six months.

So when I decided a few months ago that I was a bit tired of my toothpaste brand, it was kind of a big deal. I didn’t want to waste money on something I wouldn’t like, so I did my research and bought a small tube of one that I thought could be my new staple.

I bought Aquafresh Extreme Clean, in part because I liked the packaging, plus “micro-foam” sounds awesome, and probably also because their commercials worked on my subconscious.

So I was very excited to try it out for the first time. That excitement lasted approximately 11 seconds before my brain registered the fact that my mouth was ON FIRE. That stuff truly hurt. It’s called Whitening Mint Experience, not Flaming Fireballs of Burning Burning Hell…should I have known?

I’ve been keeping myself on a very tight budget lately, so I was reluctant to buy another brand-new toothpaste, but I didn’t feel like I had a choice. I need clean teeth, you know? Then I realized that I now have a *guest bathroom* so I will leave the pretty packaged Aquafresh there for all my guests to use! Brilliant!

Next try: Crest Pro-Health. Also had intriguing commercials. And kept me in the toothpaste aisle for like six minutes trying to decide if I needed the regular one and Crest Pro-Health Night. Luckily my new mental budget-monitor was like, “Are you kidding me? What a scam!”

That night I gingerly applied some to my toothbrush and started brushing slowly, as if somehow going slowly would make the fiery explosion less extreme. But no! This stuff is FABULOUS! It has this strange warm taste effect, but is way calm and lovely.

And that is why I have written this 446-word post on it. Because I highly recommend it to everyone, not just people whose mouths are lit on fire from standing three feet away from a jar of extra-mild salsa.

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Update: Lasers hurt like a mofo

So I had the first experimental laser treatment on one arm this morning. That hurt like a bitch, yo.

I’ve gotten a lot better at dealing with pain in this past year….somehow I magically got over my fear of needles, to the point that I am now able to give myself injections five days a week. So when the doctor asked me this morning if I was nervous about the laser, I was all happy and “No!”

Then I thought for a minute and asked, “Should I be?”

He said it would hurt somewhat, so I was like, eh, whatevs, can’t be that bad, right? Oh yes, yes it can. Luckily it only took about five minutes, and the pain following that only lasted for about an hour.

I wish I had been taking pictures in stages because initially it looked like a bad sunburn, and then a few hours later developed into something splotchy and bumpy like hives. Beautiful!

5:00 pm: ooh and now it’s a big white blanched area. If it stays like that, I think it means it worked! Halle-farking-lujah!

7:00 pm: Um, never mind, it’s not white so much as blotchy and looks like a coyote has been chewing on it. I’d post a picture but I don’t want any fainting going on.

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Laaaaaaaaaaser

I saw my doctor last week, and when he asked if I had any more questions, I asked him what I could do about my arms. The lower half of my upper arms has been bright red at least since I was 16, and I’ve been assured by more than one dermatologist that it’s because of KP.

But this time, the doctor got out some sort of magnifying loupe and looked at my skin, and then told me that it wasn’t KP at all: it’s tiny blood vessels (telangiectasia, or dilation of superficial blood vessels). Basically, it’s rosacea on my arms, which he said he’s never heard of or seen.

So for 12 years, I have been attacking my skin with seriously every treatment ever devised for KP. None of them ever worked.

Turns out that treatment for KP—scrubs, acids, peels, Retin-A, etc—is the absolute worst type of thing to do to rosacea. ACID.

My doctor also has a skincare clinic in his office, and he asked if I’d be willing to let him experiment on me. He wants to try laser treatment, which is usually used for other blood vessel type disorders. He says I don’t have to pay him if it doesn’t work, but he’s going to take pictures and try to document everything in case it does. (Could I be medically more weird?)

Anyway. I’m excited about the laser. And frustrated that no one ever thought to check to make sure it was definitely KP, even after none of the treatments worked (I’m looking at you, dermatologist who I’ve been seeing since I was 11.).