A day off work means time for lazy internet surfing.  As usual, I'm far behind where it comes to technology and social media and things like that.  The other day I asked my grade eights to explain "Tumblr" to me.  After listening to them for at least 20 minutes I still have no idea what it really means or why one does it.  Or why it must be misspelled.  Strange.

The other thing I don't understand is "Pinterest" which is something that recently started appearing on my friends' Facebook accounts.  From what I can gather it's a place where K sticks pictures of foods she wants to cook, LF uses it to save pictures of decorating ideas for her house, and for JE it is a place to post his children's artwork.  I still don't understand how it's different from a Facebook photo album or why it has abruptly become so popular.

Sometimes I wish things would stop changing so I could catch up.



*

tachycardia

I like my doctor.  This doesn't mean I like going to see him, because I hate it.  But as it's one of those things that needs doing, I'd rather see him than any other doctor I have had so far in my life.  He's very pleasant.  I have a terrible case of White Coat Syndrome, and with him I only feel like I might faint from nervousness for the first few minutes of the appointment rather than all the way through.

My appointment this morning was interesting.  It was just the yearly check-up thing, no specific concerns.  But he took my pulse and blood pressure and noticed my racing heart.  A racing heart is typical for me when I go to the doctor's office -- but I guess it was racing extraordinarily fast.  Enough that it worried him a bit.  He asked me a billion questions about my sex drive and whether or not my ears ring, whether I ever feel paranoid or depressed, whether my chest feels tight and painful... and so forth.  In the end he was a bit stumped, probably because I don't really have most of the symptoms he was concerned about, and yet, he really felt that my heart was too fast even with White Coat Syndrome taken into consideration.

So.  I got to have a blood test to check for hypothyroidism.  I don't really have most of the obvious symptoms associated with hypothyroidism (weight gain, swollen neck, depression, fatigue) but I do sometimes experience tinnitus (ear ringing) and have once in awhile experienced dizziness.  And there's these crazy red eyes I've developed lately, which I thought were associated with either hayfever or allergy to make up.  Apparently they can also be a symptom of hypothyroidism.  Or hyperthyroidism.  Or something.

And I also got to have my first ECG (electrocardiogram), which is a heart test.  I had to go to another office for that test where a man stuck paper electrodes all over my chest, arms, and legs, and then attached wires to them that looked quite a bit like the wires that connect to the computer router in my house.  (It is possible he was uploading information from my brain into a computer.  He won't find anything useful.) He looked alarmed when he saw my heart rate too and asked me if I was experiencing any shortness of breath.  Nope, I feel normal.  Or maybe, this isn't what normal feels like.  Maybe I just feel normal for me.  Because I have always had a racy heart, for as long as I can remember.

All this was mildly worrisome, but mostly it really made me wonder about my past experiences with doctors.  I have had several different doctors over the years, and in the diffferent cities where I have lived.  And I have grown accustomed to them noticing my heart rate and saying, Wow, your heart is fast.  (yep)  Did you drink a lot of coffee today?  (yep)  Are you nervous? (yep)  But no one has ever pursued the issue beyond that point.  It makes me wonder, if my heart rate is really so unusually fast, why is this the first doctor that has ever tried to find out why?  Which brings me back to the original point, which is that I like my doctor.

*

Have you ever heard that your allergies can change every seven years?  I don't really know if this is true or not because I read it in some stupid fashion magazine which assured me that the fact that I am currently allergic to eye makeup does not mean I will always be allergic to it.  Apparently in just seven years I might conquer my allergy to parabens or whatever it is that makes eye makeup so toxic to me.

Fortunately I am not a very makeuppy kind of person so I can wait.

But I have my doubts about this seven year theory.  I've been allergic to ragweed ever since I could (not) breathe and that hasn't changed one bit.  And latex, well, it's been more than seven years since I last came in contact with latex... and it still strikes terror in my heart and other parts.  Seven years doesn't touch that kind of fear.  I am unconvinced.  And unwilling to test.

And if applying eye makeup is likely to make my eyes turn bright red and burn all day, I probably won't want to test that in seven years from now either.

What if I keep developing new allergies every seven years until I am allergic to everything?  A life without latex, pollen, erythromycin, and makeup is still pretty liveable.  But imagine.  What if I become allergic to... wine?  Or popcorn?  Or wine!  Life could become pretty miserable, couldn't it, if this seven year theory is true.


*

I have a little list.

It has taken awhile (five years-ish) to accept the reality that I cannot manage our garden by myself.  It's just too big.  I do the mowing, and Shawn usually trims the edges.  But that's not, of course, all there is to it.  We have a weed problem in the back corner of the yard.

I've tried letting it go wild, thinking it would look nice and lush and jungly in contrast to the neatly trimmed grass.  It doesn't.  I've also tried taming it, and ended up covered in bug bites, thorn scratches, and allergy-ridden to the point of being unable to breathe.  (And still not much progress in the taming.)

We have a very large yard, and neither the tools nor the skills to wrangle it effectively.

Today is a day off work for me (hooray for this lazy province that doesn't work on Easter Monday) and I have a landscaper coming to visit and look over the property and give me a few estimates on what it would cost to do some work.  Weeding for sure.  Tree trimming.  But also, I'd like a nice brick bed for my daffodils who are currently trying to slide down the hill in the front of the house.  And it would be nice to have a fire pit on the patio, wouldn't it?  These are the kinds of jobs I'd probably mess up if I did them myself, so it may be worthwhile to pay someone else to do them properly... depending upon the cost.  I've made a list, a very long list, and I am looking forward to seeing what the landscaper thinks he can do with it.



*

I wrote it for you.

It surprised me to find synesthesia described as a neurological condition; synesthesia, I thought, was the way the mind was meant to work, one sense triggering another to create a whole understanding.  I stopped explaining that I liked 6 because he was affable and generous, and disliked 7 because she was calculating and cruel.  But not because it stopped being true, only because it seemed to waste time to talk about it.  These things were obvious.  Doesn't everyone see music in colour?  No, they don't.  Sometimes it looks like oscilloscopic waves.  But wait, you don't hear sparkles hit the pavement when it snows?  (Not since I moved to Vancouver, where the snow doesn't make sparkly sounds.  Vancouver snow mostly just says blop.  Or whuhh, when it starts to accumulate.)





*