Have you heard of Wordle?

Thanks to a post on the Knitpicks Blog, I found Wordle ... a tool that creates a "word cloud" of the words you use most frequently on your blog.

Here's mine:


Hmm. Apparently I need to talk about work less, and knitting more.

Anyway, try it, it's fun - you can change the colors and the font and the numbers of words you use. I think it only does the first page, though, which is why mine has a lought about migraines and pain and beta blockers. Ha!

Let me know if you do one - I'd love to see it.

Better living through science

Seriously, people. I've found a drug that's better than Xanax, and I don't have to go to Dr. No and talk about my feelings to get it.

Beta blockers. Yep. It's the way to go.

You may say, well, Divine Miss M (I like my nickname from Duc, I think I'm sticking with it), beta blockers? Do you have an undiagnosed cardiac abnormality?

Nope. Migraines. Bad, bad migraines. Migraines that last 3-4 days and that I get 2-3 times a month. (You do the math to see how many migraine-free days I get.)

The good side of beta blockers? I'm totally calm, I don't care, and nothing fazes me.

The bad side? I'm constantly nauseous and have to stay flat on my back. Which, of course, means I can't knit, which is definitely a negative ... unless I can figure out how to knit while laying completely still. Of course, I'm hoping that this will turn into a good side when I'm into my skinny skinny jeans. Ha!

For those of you who don't get migraines, my head hurts so badly and I'm so nauseous that I literally cannot move my head. At all. Sound/light don't bother me, but moving my head is agony. As I was leaving for the doctor yesterday, Mochi - who gets terrible migraines herself, so bad that she ended up in the hospital once - said, "So, Miss M, if the doctor asks you how bad the pain is, pretend you're a regular person."

I did. The doctor asked me to rate my pain on a scale of 0 to 3 - 0 being no pain and 3 being can't do anything, and although I wanted to pick 2 (painful enough to curtail my regular activities), I went with the 3. Then of course told the doctor I would have said 2, but realize I walked around on a fractured ankle for a week and a half.

So not only did I get beta blockers, I got a combo painkiller/tranquilizer for the pain. You know it's a good drug when the pharmacist says, "You cannot drive while taking this. Not only can you not drive, you cannot do anything requiring concentration."

Fortunately that leaves 98% of my activities (including work these days) available for me.

To sum yesterday up, I'm $75 poorer, 5 vials of blood lighter and I've added a neurologist and endocrinologist to my roster of specialists. To top it all off, I have walking pneumonia. (Lest you think I was exaggerating with the whole laying on the couch and acting tubercular thing.)

For those of you keeping track, that's the THIRD time this year I've had pneumonia. Anyone have a healthy lung to spare?

No one? Funny enough, I can't work up the energy to care.

Beta blockers, people. There's a reason they're banned at the Olympics.

Happy anniversary to me

I just read what Duc wrote ... jeesh. Oh well. That's Duc for you. But anyway, I was just talking to him and said something about it being the 17th, and he said it was the 18th, and I said ... no way.

It's my four-year blogiversary.

Seriously. Four years. I don't think I've done anything for four solid years, with the exception of hold down a job. And when I realized today was *the* day - even though I've made about twenty jillion mental notes to remember, we see where that gets me - well, I had to rouse my tubercular (thanks, Duc) arse off the couch and mark the grand occasion.

That's all. Sorry, no giveaways or fabulous presents or anything, just my sincere gratitude for sticking with me and listening to me and pretending that I'm interesting.

Okay. That's all. Back to the couch.

Mel can't come to the blog right now

Hi folks, it's Duc here.

The Divine Miss M is laying on the couch right now, editing and looking like she's in the running to play some tubercular opera character, so I've been given rights to write a post. It's true. Mostly because something so funny happened last week, that I had to share it with you. She wanted to, but she can't seem to put three words together when she leaves Dunder Mifflin. (Which is why I find it's odd she's editing, since she just asked me how many "f"s were in "efficient.")

Anyway, here's the funny story. Her high school boyfriend - the one she used me to make jealous at French Club dinners - found her on Facebook. (She says this is one more reason to hate that damned site, besides the fact it always suggests that she should be friends with her Idiot Ex.) (The "Idiot Ex" is me, not her - although I'm sure she'd agree with it, if she weren't so busy trying to Be The Better Person and all.)

Okay, he didn't really find her. She found him, and wondered if it was him, and sent him a message. She got a message back - 18 months later! - where he said, basically - and I'm paraphrasing here - that he couldn't remember who she was. By the way ... this was her high school boyfriend of nearly three years and her prom date. (I think he's a right ass, to be honest.) Then he said he only remembered her because of another girl, which, if I recall correctly, he cheated on Miss M with. She had a boyfriend too. And they were both born-again Christians, which means the other girl was (to quote Charlotte because Miss M made me watch this episode of "Sex and the City" the other night) "Up-the-Butt Girl."

Ah. High School. It was such an innocent time.

And this was (mumble) almost fifteen years ago. God knows what the kids would get up to today.

(Please don't tell me. I get heart palpitations when I think of what Baby Girl will be facing in ten or so years.)

So I thought this was a rather hilarious story and I should tell it to you all right away. Miss M was less sure, but I told her you'd all love it. So send her lots of comments and tell her so, okay? Personally, I think it's funnier now that we're ... whatever we are. Because imagine if she had to laugh about this with some guy who didn't know "Jazzer" or "Jazzy" or "Jezzy" or whatever that asshole is calling himself nowadays.

Oh, and Jazzer also said that he'd lived all over the world. When Miss M told me this, I said she should write him back and casually mention that she'd lived in France and the North Atlantic due to her work as an international marketing consultant. Seriously, people - it's probably just as true as "oh, yes, I've lived all over the world and I'm so sophisticated and cosmopolitan I don't remember my prom date." Who forgets their prom date?

(I know mine. But I mostly remember dancing with Miss M. We danced to "Wishing on a Star." What, people, it was the 1990s. Give it a rest. "90210" wasn't being remade, leggings were still cool and "Baby Got Back" was at the top of the charts. And Miss M had mall bangs.)

I'm just saying. He couldn't remember her because he's too cool (I just typed "tool" and I think that's pretty accurate) and I remembered her even when I saw her sitting and crying in front of her therapist's office. Which just proves my theory that she should have dumped Jazzy Jeff all those years ago and gone out with me. Although if she'd done that ... wow, it's like the butterfly theory. I wouldn't have Baby Girl, but I wouldn't have alimony and child support, either. And I probably could have saved some years wasted surfing in Mexico and Hawaii and Indonesia, but I wouldn't have all those awesome passport stamps.

Tradeoffs, dude.

Anyway, Miss M says I have to wrap it up now and why am I still typing. I think she's worried about all the interesting things I could tell you. But I won't. Because I'd like permission to talk to you again.

This is Duc, over and out.

PS. (I know Miss M always adds them, so I have to too, for posterity's sake.) I got out of taking her to see "Death Race." I am not watching her drool over Jason Statham. A man has to draw the line somewhere, and that's mine. Yes, I know she sees most of her movies with SAM, and I'm okay with that. She's given me the whole "I don't want one man to be everything to me" spiel, and I'm not going to force her to change her life for me. And, people, if it gets me out of watching Jason Statham crash cars without his shirt on, well, all the better for me.

Don't think this is a trend

I really wasn't going to post, I just got online to check espn.com to see if Michael Phelps won his two races tonight so I could go to sleep. (I won't ruin it for you, but let's just say I'm not going to bed angry.)

Anyway, it was quite the day at Dunder Mifflin today ... as you may or may not know, we are in the middle of an extraordinarily busy period, which is why I'm working 60+ hour weeks, between work at work and work at home. Here's my typical day:

4:30 AM: alarm goes off. snooze.

4:40 AM: alarm goes off again. get up.

4:40 AM - 5:40 AM: shower, put on makeup, get dressed, blowdry/don't blowdry depending on mood, grab yogurt and diet coke, head to work.

5:40AM - 5:55AM: drive to work, listen to "Viva La Vida" about 4 times.

6:00AM: at desk.

6:00AM-9:00AM: get all my work done for the day - before anyone else arrives to derail me.

9:00AM-5:00PM: firefighting. all damn day.

5:00PM-6:45PM: finish everything I didn't finish between 6:00 and 9:00 AM.

6:45PM-7:15PM: drive home.

7:15PM-7:30PM: eat dinner.

7:30PM-8:30PM: watch some TV. catch up on editing and other administrative tasks that I didn't get done at the office.

8:30PM-9:30PM: catch up on various tasks and get ready for bed. More editing, if I haven't gone loopy by this point.

9:30PM-4:30AM: sleep.

You see how this goes. It's kind of wearing on my nerves, as in I'm so exhausted I fell asleep sitting up at my desk today. I'm thinking of taking a day off just to sleep. Isn't that the true definition of a "staycation"? As in "stay-at-home-to-sleep-cation"?

And in knitting news, I knit 2 rows on the scarf I'm working on. I'm counting that as way more, cause each row has 275 stitches.

Hopefully all is better in your world. I may not make blueberry pancakes, jam and syrup like Lee, but ... well ... I can write a 1,200 word article in 45 minutes. So there.

Confidential to Lee: is it pickle time yet? Can those cross the border? Because, honestly, the grocery store pickles are no comparison to yours.