Not dead yet.

I've had a whole lot of Exciting Life Moments in the last year: I got married, I moved to Texas, I got laid off for the first time ever, I went to Prince Edward Island. Luckily my ulcerative colitis has been nice and quiet through most of it. (Well, my wedding day was another story, but definitely worthy of its own special blog post. I think I lost five pounds that day, and the scene wasn't even stressful. WHO KNOWS WHAT EVIL LURKS IN THE INTESTINES OF WOMEN.)

My only offering for the moment is an interview A. sent me about Mike McCready. Pretty nice stuff. The youtube comments, are, as always, enlightening. "Crohn's doesn't make your hair go white," etc.

Part one (more about his history rather than Crohn's):


Part two (more about Crohn's):


Today I spent about five minutes of work watching eagles sail around high buildings, grazing the edges of the top floors with their wing tips. I'm not sure if they were hunting amidst the clouds of smaller birds wheeling up there, too, but it was pretty awesome. Yep, there's my emotional UC moment of the day. I appreciate you, giant freaky-ass maneuvering birds of prey.

Anyway, rock on, Mister McCready! I miss your long hair!

Favorite summer foods

I love summer food. For me it involves a lot of alcohol (which is in its own summer food group cordoned off by velvet ropes) and a lot of corny things. These are the things for which I'll gladly give up a few hours of my life to sit on a toilet.

First place: Corn on the cob. There is no contest, really. Butter, salt, pepper, those kitschy stabby holders; they all add up to a glorious tender treat.
Penance: 1-2 days of IB.*

Second place: Corn dogs. Homemade are the best - you make the batter with yellow corn meal, flour, baking powder, butter, milk and a beaten egg. You then dip the dogs, fry them in oil, slather them with ketchup, and enjoy yourself into a myocardial infarction due to sudden arterial clottage. Delicious! I blame my Minnesota heritage.
Penance: 20 minutes of IB. These badboys shoot through the gut at the speed of light.

Third place: Tortilla chips, pico de gallo and extra sharp cheddar cheese. Wonderfully messy finger food, best enjoyed with a beer. Slice or grate the cheese, scoop up a bunch of salsa and mash it all together in spectacular regression. Eat it over the sink and you don't even have to do dishes like an adult later.
Penance: suprisingly, this one works well for me. I get by with my regular daily amount of IB, unless I drink a few too many beers with it, which results in a day of IB.


A. and I watched Into the Wild not too long ago. I'm adding it to the list of movies about Things I Will Not Be Able to Do (WAH) Without Packing A FoolProof Portable Medicine Chest. Considering how the movie ends, I suppose I should be grateful. Really, I'm more depressed about not being able to survive a zombie apocalypse without easy access to an abandoned Rite Aid or Salix factory.


*Intestinal backlash.
^{Image by Bien Stephenson}.

Back from the dead, or, archives are NOT dusty, musty or disorganized! What will it take for you people to understaaaaand

Unlike Spock, I've never been dead before, but a couple of days ago I hyperventilated my way through a week-long Archives class. A three-credit Archives class. That's right, we're talking:

1. Read two books and a boatload of articles and websites before the first class day.
2. Class meetings from nine to five-ish (the first day we were required to watch this, which was awesomely entertaining despite the baaaad American accent put on by pretty Liam Cunningham. Yes, that was how all Brits felt seeing Rene Zellweger fumble around as Bridget Jones, I assume), homework from five-ish to wheneverish. In my case that was generally midnight-ish.
3. Two to three hour long lectures.
4. A portfolio (see above homework) and poster project (see above image) to be presented to the class on the final day. I painted mine while watching both versions of The Big Sleep.

It was incredibly intense. I was gibbering on Day One and completely blasé by Day Four. It was also hard to turn off the focus and just relax with a giant Symphony bar, popcorn, and the entire doofy fourth season of Stargate Atlantis. (Somehow I managed it.) The good thing about the experience? A. was gone to Chicago for a conference so I wasn't distracted.

I've been thinking about this blog and how remiss I've been in updating, well, with any frequency at all. I have another blog at Livejournal, which I update nearly every day with (obviously) fascinating tidbits. The normal course of action would be to say, [Forget] you, Jobu!* and end this blog. The smart, less stressful thing to do would be to combine the two blogs. But I'm not going to do either (insert idiot, abnormal comments in their rightful places, please). I like writing about UC here. I write about it on the other blog, too, but not as much.

This makes me think about one of my biggest problems with UC - one that I often discuss with my friend Sasha. Sasha has persistent idiopathic facial pain, so occasionally we have conversations about chronic disease, chronic pain and the unpleasantness of taking bucketloads of medication. Out of all the things we talk about, the one I keep coming back to is passing.

"Passing" in our parlance refers to the fact that on our good days (and sometimes, on my bad ones) both Sasha and I can generally pass for healthy people. No one can look at us and say, unequivocally, that girl's diseased or she has chronic pain or she downs horse pills. In general, no one has to know about our disease unless we tell them.

This is a confusing way to exist. On one hand, I can go to work and class or hang out with friends and not feel like I'm being patted on the head or doused with sympathy. On the other hand, it makes explaining about the disease (what I can't eat, why I shouldn't drink coffee [oooh boy], why I have ninety pill bottles in one of my cupboards) a lot more awkward; which also brings up the point of when is it proper to tell your new friend/boyfriend/work colleagues about your embarrassing, private bowel disorder?

My current answer to that question is 1) live over hard cider or online with a brief Livejournal bloodletting, 2) I'm so shamefully glad I don't have to talk to a new lover about this, and 3) never. According to number 3, I'm passing; at least at work I am.

It doesn't seem right. And yet, I've been at my current job for almost two years. It would definitely be awkward to bring this up now. Also, one of the most appealing things about passing is that lack of knowledge; it's not "I have a secret looloolooleelooloo," it's privacy. I can't think of a situation where my coworkers need to know about my UC, but I'm not long on imagination (surprisingly) in this area.

So, what do you all think about passing? Is it good, if you can spin it? Is it bad, because UC/whatever chronic disease IS a part of a person and to pass as healthy serves to deny that part? I know UC has changed me. In light of that, passing feels like cheating or lying.

What do you think?

You can tell me I'm full of shit. It's true!





*Come on, edited-for-television is ALWAYS better. As with all things, see Robocop. (Which I hear Aronofsky is remaking. NOT a happy camper, here.)

There are some disappointed searchers out there

We're all wild about Google search in library class. For one, it's something librarians hear about when patrons have difficulty searching the library catalog: it should search like Google, why doesn't it suggest substitutions for misspelled words like Google does, just what the hell is a Subject Heading search and if it's so important why haven't they had to use it before? Etc, etc.

However, whether it's the fault of Google or the varied topics on my blog or the poor searching skills of users, I can't deny that some people must reach my blog in error. They must be incredibly puzzled.

Some samples:

expired yogurt
"ladies leave" and robocop
"they'll fix you"
(I should be running a Robocop fansite)

"up my nightgown"
(Mmmm Hmmm.)

1 day expired yogurt
bouffant dogs cost
can eat expired one day yoghurt
can you eat expired dairy products
dog face women
(Wha? And I know exactly why they ended up here. Sheesh.)

can you eat expired yogurts?
horseapples work
house prescribes cigarette
hugh laurie smoking cigarettes
living with someone with ulcerative colitis
(HAHAHAHA. That one was A., wasn't it? Poor fellow.)

lurker at the threshold plot summary
read online lurker at the threshold archive
(That person was exceptionally disappointed)

okay to eat expired yogurt
tudors boobs
what can we do from expired yogurt

There were a lot of UC, Crohns, medication and surgery keywords, too. So I guess it evens out. But DAMN. There are a lot of indecisive yogurt eaters in the world, aren't there?

Another quickie update

I finished the semester, turned in my final papers, AND had a lovely root canal. With the semester over, I should have time to post more soon.