A Break Before Completion

I'm sitting beneath a painting by Van Gogh of an outdoor café bathed in yellow light. It's a comfort zone in eastern Jackson Heights.  It's been some time since I've made the time to have someone fix me a casual breakfast.

I had a scare this morning as my feet were swollen when I awoke.  Usually my ankles go down as I sleep and my feet are seldom edemic in the first place.  Things are getting worse as my lymphatic system starts a slow shutdown.  My grandmother and great-grandmother both died drowning in their own fluids, and I'm destined for the same fate.  Mom got lucky and inherited her father's metabolism and will outlive me if she doesn't meet with a serious injury at the nursing home.  She ensured my legacy of allergies intolerances and weak immune system by smoking during her pregnancy.

This place apparently became a Natives some months ago, a chain of Colombian restaurants; there's a larger one closer to where I live which serves as a dinner theatre.

Appropriately enough Nelly Furtado was on the radio when I came in.

With a heel which may either have tendonitis or a mild fracture, I was terrified into taking a walk out to the next community.  The round trip walk will rack me up 3 miles.  It won't do me much good if I don't do it again tomorrow.

I ordered a Colombian style breakfast, except it also will have a chorizo.  Aren't they Mexican?  Maybe not.  Anyway I'll be sparing with that or the additives will compensate for the walking and flare my entire body for 3 days.

They predict heavy rains today but there's no precipitation anywhere near the region on maps.

While most of the graphics are by me for Burn2,  there's an animation of an EMH's thought processes which I'm using from a graphics repository for RP and Trek fan sites.  You see Virginia, back in the days before social networking when everybody made websites, there were these people who offered superior graphical elements for non-commercial webpages in exchange for a link to them.  Linkware they were called.  The Brit LCARS site has linkware, fair use on the Playa with appropriate credit.  I'll have to use my profile and this blog to credit the creator.  I'd never take credit for something I didn't create.  Ever.

Breakfast is big.  Eating the carne asada and rice n beans mixed with egg; the arepa con queso and chorizo are coming home.

I'm back and my foot is now normal. I think after I finish the parcel I'll take another walk. Then work on my skin, then work on the freebie pack of skins, then work on the free Tee Shirts I'll offer on my parcel.

Yes I missed press day, won't be immortalized on a hand drawn map of the playa, or appear on Designing Worlds, but I believe you'll find my place worthwhile if you take the time to walk through it.

Don't Drink & Drive

Don't drink and drive.

Ever.

This means vehicles, heavy machinery, your fists, or an Internet-enabled device.

You will always hurt someone.

Always.

You can devastate them with bullshit just by saying words. 

Saying "sorry" and other expressions of apology are so rare these days.  It seems to be reserved for the brave or twelve-stepper while the rest gouge deeper out of a false sense of pride, say they were joking, or - the worst offense of them all - turn it around and make the victim appear as and feel like a hated, despised criminal.

No, the western world of the 21st century is no more civilized than the rest of the planet.

Sometimes sorry isn't enough.  Being online under the influence will hurt people online to such a degree like rearending a compact full of little kids at a red light.

The question is, if you're sorry and truly regret that alien sentiments left your mouth or keyboard, and sorry isn't enough, what more can you do to make up for it?  Start thinking up a year of special service you could offer for them to show the sincerity of having admitted error once you've made it clear to everyone else that you were referring to yourself when you said what you said.

Being under the influence is no excuse.  If you're drunk or high then either lock yourself into a room away from everyone and breakables and sleep it off or watch TV, or go to rehab. 

Or I start to blog about you.  The only thing worse than degrading my downtime is hurting others within my sights, especially my friends.

Doctor's Appointment or "The Big Eep"

Nervous.

Dreading. 

Dreading nothing will get done today.

Dreading I'll undergo a procedure.  Not good with lying on my back - well the last time he inclined me - and whine about the tourniquet.

It was six years ago when I came for a ganglion cyst resting on the tendon on my other thumb.

"I can give you cortisone."

"That didn't work last time."

"Then it should be excised."

"Let's do it."

Flashback eleven years before...

... In an HMO on the Long Island Jewish Hospital campus, I was referred to a hand specialist for a ganglion cyst on my left middle finger.  The cortisone shot felt cold, but other than some unpleasant side effects nothing happened.  We had to schedule an outpatient procedure in the HMO's surgical room.  The resulting experience was immortalized in an APAzine.  
In 2005 I gave him a copy of the mini-comic.  He got a kick out of it.

I don't know anyone else who walks around recording their diagnoses. He always did, except now people transcribe them for him.

Anyway he has his own place, his own building and not some shared clinic.  His own surgical equipment in the exam rooms?  He has full surgical facilities.  The one I was in six years ago was where the impromptu procedure took place.  He doesn't know yet that in the six weeks waiting for this day that I'd seen the proverbial unknown devil and had X-rays and a diagnosis, except I can no longer straighten my left thumb out as much as the other.

In the exam room.  This is an exam exam room. A laptop. Pretty screensaver I remember from back then is also on a wall mounted monitor.  He ski's I see...

Been moved to another room - definitely equipped for surgery.  I remember this room. I wonder if my description on the phone in August gave them a little heads up of what I had?

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Back at work a day later. 

He heard the 2 month history, gave me the hurts-like-hell shot, and took all of 8ish minutes for the procedure. Was rather relaxing. Then Dad and I went to a really good Kosher Deli nearby.  All this prospect about sedation for a little snip was such BS. 

I knew it would be sore today etc, but it means I get full use of my hand back, and that means everything to me.  From the first moment after the procedure I could bend my thumb again. Maybe by the end of the week I can "flick" things, hold up a cooking pot with two hands, zip up a jacket as we see 50sF for the first time since April, make a sincere fist...

Well okay, everything in its time.

Snurky Wins a City of Concorde Race!

It takes someone with courage to admit they're wrong or afraid in the face of impending destruction.  I was scared shitless on Saturday night. I hadn't felt like that since the night of 9/11.  We were very lucky in our community.  Two communities over there was damage from a tornado, and earlier in the local bus' route there were downed trees.

Look at all the people who can't admit they're wrong or get caught in lies built up over time, desperate to keep an image. 

And what is an image if not a reflection of one's actions?

No not the other kind of image.  Any one of us could like like any other one of us if we wanted.  If I had a dime for every common dirty shaven kendoll hunk moose in second life who thought they looked better than anyone else, I'd own an estate and unlimited tier.

I mean image as in reputation, especially buying using money to earn fake friends and make oneself irreplaceable yet feared. Even if I had that kind of money, I just wasn't brought up that way to have such an inclination.  What a waste of life and everyone else's time.


People were shocked I didn't have a place at Burn2, particularly after having experienced my own rite of passage in SL this past year and an eagerness to express it in on the playa after being unable to commit to a spot last year. 

To be honest only Snurky entered the lottery;  I didn't feel it was right for two avatars on the same computer to try out for that.  I made a Campsite application which was rejected; despite a hyperdetailed form to fill out, the winners were supposedly picked at random.  If you can believe that, well... 

Maybe it's for the better.  The event is still rife with hypocrisy if my run-in with their SL8B presentation is any indication.  And that first meet-up for the applications left a rather negative impression: someone as a horned beast sitting on a throne overseeing everybody dance in fire isn't what I'm about.  Talk about the biggest group affiliation in the western world... 

I'll just make some skins for a freebie pack and hopefully get to finish a couple of builds for their DMV (I can't script as you know).  Of course I'm disappointed I don't have a spot, but I don't have money to buy one and I learned long long ago that art is like showbiz: a lot of talents and only a few get the time of day. That's just the way it is.  I applied for a couple of DJ spots. If I get them at least then it will be something. Whatever happens happens with them.


Anticipating the 7Seas Fall Fishing Festival in October.  Maybe I'll achieve hall of fame there?  I'll make more customs to debut at a spot. I have some ideas for that.

I think looking back that I still have more than enough to work on. :)  I'm certainly in a better place in SL than I was a couple of months ago. Still venture into New Babbage once a week for a Radio Riel event dominated by decent folks.  It works best that way.

Hurricane Fever

Writing about a hurricane.  Not something we do here. I'm not good without electricity.  Like most people with thyroid probs, I run into problems with heat.  And with my thumb it will be quite a challenge to sharpen pencils and charcoals by hand.  With my immune disease (and for the umpteenth time: it's not AIDS) I  have a weak digestive constitution and get sick from food which is a tiny bit off. And that's of the food I can eat.  Lighting matches to start a burner - hmm didn't think about that.  Which hand does that?  Ah, holding the box firmly...

I Go it Alone (OOC)

A Weight Watchers habits evaluation years ago concluded I need to ask for help more. It's true. Aside from whining to friends about this or that, other than asking dad many years ago to drive me to the ER or staying at his place during bug treatment, I haven't asked for help.

I've been alone with my current medical plight. Apparently I'm a susceptible candidate, and attempting to install my own deadbolt lock in July pushed me over a line. Not just pain but limited function of my left thumb and it's getting worse.

It took 3 weeks to see a hand surgeon, 6 since it all began. The X-rays looked picture perfect. "Flexorpollicis longus tendonitis" he calls it, something which would require a 15 minute procedure to prevent an inflamed tendon from getting further aggravated.

But not today. He'd have to set up something at some surgical facility off Union Square. In a week or so. It's Labor Day in "or so." And I should have someone "take me home," which is really not possible in Manhattan. Dad doesn't do Manhattan.

In 3 weeks my regular hand surgeon's appointment is up. He has surgical facilities on the premises.  I should explain the "regular" bit:  In 2003 on the spot he operated on my other hand to remove a ganglion cyst from my right thumb. This was 11 years to the month after he took one off the base of my left middle (bird?) finger.

Do I regret not paying through the nose for the locksmith in the first place? This wasn't anticipated. Maybe I should have asked my neighbor for help...

Someone made a custom splint which doesn't let my thumb bend, and it makes a difference. I should wear this while I sleep, the doctor said.

I have a ride for Nassau County.  There's a 99% chance I'll go with the doctor I know, with dad driving me.

Before then it's 1-1/2 hands typing. You'll see even less capitals as the weeks pass. I'll see less mobility and more pain. The way the weather is going right now isn't helping.

Hurricane Bernadette

 Well that was interesting!

New Toulouse was hit by a hurricane over the weekend.  I missed the bulk of special effects by the time I heard about it, and arrived while the place was flooded.  I managed to hitch a ride on a roof that was adrift.  Several people sat on crates while it navigated through the flood waters in search of survivors.  At one point a couple of us heard what could have been snoring.  We were told it was zombies. 

Uh oh.

We drifted past the Jardin district, which is set on higher ground and was largely unaffected, but hitting the main sim and Bourbon the shops and homes' first levels were submerged and goods damaged.  One artist refused our offer of a dry roof ride in favor of lamenting her ruined paintings.

Then gunshots.  We were near the cemetery.

Oh boy.

I was given "essence of broccoli" and advised that zombies hated vegetables.  I went a step further and wore a pumpkin on my head.  I extracted a gourd shooter from my inventory.  Then I headed back to the Bayou. 

Being a hologram has its advantages.  No need for an oxygen source comes in handy in flood waters.  I walked the perimeter of the Bayou and Algiers but heard no zombies.  With the waters all murky I probably would have hit a moaning local anyway.

The waters have since receded in New Toulouse.  Other than one casualty of sorts everybody was accounted for.

I'm a little curious though why the New Babbage Marines were represented in the cemetery fight if they exist in another century?

Anyway I was tipped off that there was a video account! So take a look