I have this blanket that’s super soft and warm. My mum gave it to me years ago. It’s just perfect.

Except in one corner there’s a tag that’s sort of scratchy and itchy. So I always make sure that’s at the bottom where it won’t irritate me.

Invariably when I’m cold and I grab the blanket in the middle of the night, it’s all backwards and I end up with the tag in my face or by my arm and end up having to turn the thing all around to get it right.

Every so often I stop and think: I could just cut off the tag. Then there won’t be an itchy corner, and I will never have to worry about whether or not the blanket is right-side-up or up-side-down.

But I never actually cut off the tag.

Because I am worried that without the tag…

I won’t actually be able to tell if the blanket is right-side-up or not.

This week went by particularily fast. Or was it two weeks? It feels like only last night I was tinkering with the Arduino 1.0 library stuff. There were a couple weekends in there too, I think. It’s all just condensed into a blur. Stuff happened. I slept. I worked. That could have been any day. Or every day.

This has led me to think more about time in general, and how I perceive it. I think I have a pretty good grasp of seconds, and minutes. Hours are ok. Days… one or two, aren’t bad. When it starts getting up into the weeks thing though, that’s where it all starts to blur for me.

Thinking about it while coming in to work this morning, I feel like I have a fairly good grasp of time, as far back as the day before yesterday, and as far forward as the day after tomorrow. Beyond that though, it all just compresses together.

Except not these last two particular days, they’re very blurry.

I haven’t been able to sleep. My insomnia went into overdrive, I’ve been up till about 4am two nights in a row, but still waking up at the usual time in the morning to go to work. I don’t even use an alarm clock.. I just get up when I wake up, and that happens fairly consistantly at the same time most days, to get me to work on time. Even when I haven’t had enough sleep, it seems.

Needless to say, there hasn’t been anything to report, other then, “Still alive. Sleepy.”

By my estimation, it’s now been 20 days since I last had my meds. The abrupt drop-off from almost 2 years on significant dosages of mind-altering chemicals down to zero, continues to have side-affects. Though fortunately I think the affects might be starting to wane. Maybe.

It’s hard to say, actually. Maybe the effects are diminishing, or maybe I’m getting used to them. I’m hoping that my brain isn’t permanently broken, from suddenly going off the pillz.

I still get the dizziness and the ringing in my ears, though the ringing is not as loud I think. Instead I get a rushing in my ears, like I can hear blood flowing through my head. The rushing sound does correspond with increased dizziness, like I’ll get a Woosh! Woosh! Woosh! sensation in my ears at the same time as the world does a sommersault around me.

I’ve also found that sometimes I lose track of the here-and-now. It’s hard to describe. Like the other day I was driving along a road I am very familiar with, heading back to the office after visiting a supplier. There’s the WooshWooshWoosh in my ears accompanied by the moment of dizziness, and suddenly I don’t know where I am or where I’m going. I don’t recognize the road, nor do I remember why I’m there. So I just keep driving and after 30 to 60 seconds the details come back. I figure out where I am and then figure out where I’m headed.

There’s also frequent headaches and constant aches and pains, fevers, and what feels like swolen lymph nodes in my neck, but I can’t be sure now if that’s all part of the withdrawals, or if maybe these are symptoms of some other new and exciting condition that’s just coming up.

In any event, I’m glad to be off the meds. Hopefully it hasn’t broken my brain or caused permanent damage, what with running out and then the doc and his staff being unresponsive in producing more.

Happy solstace, joyous Yule, and all that.

Winter is now upon us, and although the days will start getting longer, they will continue to grow colder, for reasons I’ve never fully grasped.

Seriously, it’s like the seasons are 45 degrees out of phase with the tilt of the Earth’s axis in relation to the position of the planet’s orbit. Today is the day that the sun’s rays have the most air to go through before hitting those of us on the northern hemisphere. Today’s the day that there’s the least sunlight on the northern hemisphere. Why is it that the coldest day’s don’t hit till February?

Half the time it’s still winter-cold and snowy when the vernal equinox comes round in March! That’s not right – by then the days and nights are the same length, and the sun’s energy is much less oblique and more perpendicular, so there’s way less atmosphere – yet the real warm days don’t hit till after the summer solstace!

It just doesn’t make sense. Like I said – the seasons are 45 degrees out of phase with the whole scientific-explanation thingy.

I had a dream last night about coming completely undone. I seem to be in an ever-increasing state of general befuddlement, punctuated by moments of extreme focus.

Like, when I’m on a task, I can really focus in on it and get at it, whether it’s work or fun or whatever. But in between tasks, half the time I’m clueless. I forget where I’m going, what I’m supposed to be doing, I can’t even remember for more than an hour things like what day is it, what month is it, what season is it? At times I have to concentrate to remember left and right. I make lists all the time, and then if I forget the list or I forget to look at the list then stuff doesn’t get done.

Like there’s so much going into my brain, it’s full, it’s on overload. To quote Homer Simpson, “Remember that time I took a home winemaking course, then forgot how to drive?” well ok it’s not quite like that. 🙂

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So I was on my way to work this morning, when I grabbed a coffee and a blueberry muffin.  The muffin was really sweet and yummy, and then it hit me – what’s the difference between a muffin and a cupcake?

They are both similar in shape and size. They both tend to wear little pleated paper skirts. Unless I miss my guess, both can be made in a ‘muffin tray’. And both come from the oven. So what is the determining factor that one is a muffin and the other is a cupcake?

My first thought was that the latter has frosting and the former does not.  But then, I realize that this is probably not a definitive basis for classification.  I am certain that I have seen things advertised as muffins, yet which bear frosting. 

What Is It?

So then I think, if it’s not something obvious then maybe it’s something internal, genetic.

Although my understanding of biology is somewhat shaky, I have read somewhere that one determining factor of whether two things are the same species or not, is if they can mate and have viable offspring. So if a muffin and a cupcake can couple and produce an offspring that itself is fertile, that means that muffins and cupcakes are the same thing. Now I’ve never seen a mufcake or a cupfin (that I know of) but absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Cupcakes and muffins do not generally associate with each other, due to social pressures. One is a breakfast food and the other is desert. It’s like the Hatfields and McCoys, they aren’t allowed to fraternize with each other.

Now, before I go kidnapping cupcakes and muffins to start some twisted pseudo-scientific cross-breeding programme, I think I will try and explore a few more less-crazy options. I’m thinking, the experts at Get Frosted! may be able to help shed some light on the classification.

In the meantime, I will continue my own daily research. I know they make chocolate muffins… if I can locate a bran cupcake, that may confirm my suspicions.

How am I supposed to know when this stuff works, anyways?

I’ve read all the literature I can find, and it’s really good about describing what the side effects are, but actually nowhere does it describe what the desired effect is.

Is it supposed to make me feel good? Or just make me feel less bad? How much less is enough? There ought to be a way to measure or meter it, so you know if it’s working or not.

Hmph.

In other news, I discovered there’s actually a WordPress for Dummies book, so I might pick that up to start figuring out this new fangled stuff.