Garth Bigelow - Thoughts - November, 2006

Today has been a day of ups and downs. I woke with all manner of muscle ticks and had trouble walking and coordinating. What started as an odd itch turned slowly during the day into a burning pain just under the skin in my major muscle groups and fingers. Around 2 I decided that this would be a good time to test my new pills. I had used one once while Tracy was here as a preventative measure, but this was my first correct use of it. The effects took less than a half hour to kick in. All the symptoms have been squashed, the trade being that my head feels like it has been filled with cotton candy. But that's a price I can live with today.

Tracy tried to remind me of a memory today via instant messaging. While I never had a very good memory one of the more frightening aspects of this disease is that I am slowly being robbed of my self. She nicely went on to describe the event in fair detail, while I don't remember it at all, its a very pleasant memory.

My mother sent an email full of exciting and wonderful news. Mom has been almost bedridden with pain for last twenty years and the other day, they managed to fix this. It involved Cortisone which I thought of as a temporary cure for the pain of injuries, but it seems to be having a lasting effect. And even if it isn't now she knows where to get more. This is a tale of hope for all us.

It's been awhile since I've posted anything. I've been in a bit of a funk and haven't been doing much of anything except watch TV.

I've been very stubborn about accepting money from family. I've always felt that if you can't survive on your own perhaps you shouldn't be surviving. My rant against Government has always been that if your own family and community are willing to help you through the hard times, well that says a lot about you. Today I realized the conflict in those two views and have loosened my decisions and discussed with my mother having her send me some funds each month that I will use frivolously for enjoyment.

For over a year I have been plagued by a smell in the kitchen. I would catch a sniff of it when I was in a small area of the kitchen but when I would investigate - nothing. I've had others with better noses try to sniff out the problem but to no avail. Today I solved it! That area of the kitchen is where I parse out my pills and it was while going this that I would catch that unpleasant scent. I would finish with the pills and try to find the odor. That smell of course comes from one of the pills itself. As single pill no smell - but as a whole vial it reeks.

I finally dragged myself out of the house (I go out when needed for errands, but hardly anything else) to see Shaun because he had called earlier and sounds rather coherent and energized. We discussed my plan for getting back on some kind of financial footing. We broke it down into a series of steps, and it will an exercise in madness to see if we get much ofg it done.

This inability to get anything started is incredibly frustrating. While I've been no stranger to procrastination in my life this is so totally different. Much like the Agoraphobic that can't leave his house, knowing that this lack of being able to create is in all in my head does nothing to make it more bearable. It just makes it seem like I should be able to find my way through it. Its almost impossible to explain and therefore totally deflating.

What I hadn't realized until this week was that the conditions that come with the damage to my Amygdala are permanent. I've gotten used to my symptoms being transitory; passing within a day or two. The cerebellum has lots of redundancy build in and an amazing ability to reroute around trouble areas. The more reptilian parts of the brain, like the amygdala do not. While my condition has been very nice in mostly staying up in the thought, memory and perception processing areas of the brain, this last dip into the deeper regions has resulted in effects that aren't going to go away.

Caren also explained that my medication levels are testing out to be too high. They think that the implant (which is really just a very thin wire) make have struck my spine causing the wire to flake a bit and therefore dissolve faster. While they could extract it and place another one, that seems a bit invasive and would require another a trip to Memphis. I seems easier to leave it in and just live with the mental lethargy. After all it does leave me more immune to the stimulus of the outside world and I assume it will run out early as well which leaves my mind alive in a way that I crave (of course then I can't really leave the house). This experience teaches me not to reschedule so that I get my regular team of doctors.

Determined not to fight my mind ruling my life, I set about breaking my unassailable tasks into sub tasks which seem too small not to be easily surmounted. If I do one per day at least something slowly gets done. Today I finally got the computer out of the box and the hardware hooked up. That was to be the whole task, but as that seemed too easy I did tomorrow tasks of installing the software as well. I might be on to something here.

Today I had planned to design some logos and work on learning the new DVD menuing program. Instead I designed all the logos.

I was unable to sleep last night, and as usual following an experience like that, I am barely functional today. So it's back to the couch and the TV.

I literally did not sleep a single wink last night. I went to bed around 1am, and gave up trying around 3am. I watched TV until the sun came up and them took 3mg of Xanax and dozed in and out most of the day (didn't even wake up when Bill arrived). Come night fall I was still able to fall asleep and sleep peacefully through the night.

I had a nice dream that I don't remember too well but Emil was in it. I have lots of dreams that take place in some derivation of Emil's house, but rarely have any with him. It was a pleasant treat.

In the morning I awoke to discover that my final eBay account had been suspended. This was the dreaded event that I knew would eventually come but did not yet have a full plan in place to deal with. Luckily between the limited range of emotional response left to me by my condition and the remains of the Xanax lingering in my bloodstream, I did not have a panic attack or even get very agitated. In fact I see it as, hopefully, the push I've needed to get things to level of emergency necessary for me to actually get things rolling.

My first course of action though is procrastination. I've given Shaun a few things to hopefully look into, and I laid the opening ground work for some stop gap measures, but basically I'm taking the weekend off to decompress and let the man in the backroom work his magic (I hope he is still back there).

Horrorfest is this weekend so I plan to go see all eight films, assuming that my over medication gives me the protection I think it does - and one great thing around unrated films is that you are going to see any scream kids or teens in the audience. Luckily Oviedo Marketplace Theatre is one of the places they are showing.

Tight schedule this morning. Got up, got the last of eBay ready for Bill to process. By email handheld a few customer that were freaked out by the suspension. Then off to Massage Therapy at 11am. A quick breakfast at Gram's, and off toward Oviedo. The Theatre is very hard to find. Off the highway the Marketplace goes in three directions, but there is no sign saying which one goes to the theatre. Once you finally pick the right one, three different signs lead you in the right mall section, but from there the entrance marking is completely obscured by foliage. Had I not been driven there a couple times I never would have found it. As it was it took every second of the extra time I plan into every trip.

To be honest (about being dishonest) I had planned on buying one ticket and staying for all three movies. The armed guard (I exaggerate) at the door for the very first film let me know that wasn't going to fly.

Being as the first movie was at 1:45 there were only a hand full of die hard fans there. The film was called Reincarnation and was by the director of Grudge, a superb Japanese film, and Grudge2, a horrible piece of crap on almost every level. In fact Grudge 2 is so bad that my working theory is that they had him signed to multi-picture deal and he wanted to make absolutely sure that the series stopped there. So I really didn't know what expect. Well, it wasn't as bad as Grudge 2, but few films are. The first eleven thirds of the film seem very very slow in build up. Thankfully it then completely eliminates having a middle and jumps straight to end that is slow, unsatisfying but just might have mad some kind of sense - which a lot of Japanese horror movies do not. The film builds five separate levels of reality, which would have been fun if the pace hadn't been crushed by the attempt. Also I saw no reason that this film would get an unrated rating. There was a woman who reminded me quite a bit of Pixie back in the early days of convention working and we discussed the general crappiness of the film on the way out.

Forty minutes to kill until the next one (all are in the same room) and the large hamburger I had for lunch is still sitting heavy in my gut, so I browse around Borders Books and see a couple computer books I'm interested in but I'm blowing my discretionary funds on the films (having zero income is slowly starting to impinge on my consciousness) and then look for a cheap drink and end up with a two dollar water. Not cheap but still a buck cheaper than upstairs in the cinema. While sitting in the food court, I notice a rather cute teenager licking the metallic banister. She goes on to do this over and over. I notice several others are watching her now. I become more intrigued with the watchers. Then I notice she keeps glancing at one of the watchers, who is actually a couple, and slowly realize she is taking direction from them and they are taking notes. A sociology experiment in the works. I continue to watch the watchers, noticing that I am the only one that seems to have spotted the controllers, until both my water and my time are up. I ask the couple when I pass what the experiment is: "Breaking a social norm" is all they say.

The second film is Unrest. I arrive, there is sound for the pre-show, but no picture. Pseudo-Pixie has taken her same seat and we joke about the incompetence. BTW: the trailer for Hostel 2 both looks good and was pretty funny. Unrest was, as it pretty much had to be, better than the first film. One thing I liked is that the characters felt real for the situation. No one was doing really stupid things and pretty much everyone's reactions felt uncontrived. It also had a couple of pretty unusual images. I don't know if cadaver rooms at teaching hospitals have a tank like that or not, but it was plausible, creepy and had never seen one before. For a slasherless slasher - there was plenty of blood, gore and ick but all the slashing happened while the story was elsewhere - it had a fair amount intensity. I think I'm liking it more now writing about it than I did at the time. One thing I did dislike is that the director chose to use disorientation to build suspense, but to a degree that it just became frustrating and tedious.

I had to find something eat to take my meds. PseudoPixie turned down offer of the food court claiming that horror movies and food just didn't mix with her. Might have been true, might have been code for "go away strange man", I'll never know. Me personally I'm intrigued by any middle aged woman sitting alone in a horror movie. But that's me.

I looked for the smallest thing I could find that looked fast and healthy, which ended up being a chicken salad wrap, which I had trouble eating. Perhaps horror movies and food don't mix with me either, or perhaps that burger was still having it's way with my stomach. But I choked down half of it and then got back to the movie too early because I had the start time wrong. It was for the best as it was now after 6pm and it was a much fuller theater. PseudoPixie's spot was taken by the time she arrived and she disappeared behind me. This time we got through the same pre-show, same trailers - third time for both; I expect I get them five more times over the weekend - without incident then the screen froze. We sat, laughing a little, for what felt like five minutes, when it started running. We started clapping, but soon realized we have no picture and everything stopped again. The kid in PPs place started talking with me about what I thought of Unrest, and the row in front joined, and some behind and to the right. We had a pretty good talk, and I was surprised at how well my recall was working; someone would describe something and 9 times out of ten I was the one coming up with the title. That doesn't happen much any more. There was a surprising amount fo agreement on what were the good and horrible horror movies of the last several decades. Finally the film started.

Dark Ride was the one for today that I had had the most hope for. It was easily the best of the three - but Unrest is gaining ground as time goes on. The build up was far superior to the horror part, with some decent characterization for a horror movie, and a great speech that introduced the hitchhiker character - one of the first to die, and a lot of the life of the film died with her. The plot was predictable, with my first and only guess at the outcome coming when it was setup, but still it was fairly energetic at getting there. Judging by that, you'd think I liked it less than I did, but the sum was greater than the parts.

Tom and Mike/Mark/Mongo (something with an M) introduced themselves after the film. I might see them there tomorrow.

As I knew I would I had a hell of time finding my way out. I almost got creamed right off the bat when a car ran a stop sign. As has always been luck I took several wrong turns and a few wrong highways and ended up where I needed to be, and then drove home. I dislike driving night. And now this tired body is off to bed.

I don't know if that means I'll be posting more or less, but don't worry if I don't post for a while.