I have tasted Vanilla Coke, and it is the nectar of the gods.

I was walking down the street with a friend on the way to work when I saw a huge display of it in a shop window. I dragged him in, bought a box, brought it to work and passed them around. The general response is that it’s okay; some people prefer Cherry Coke, others adore the Vanilla. I am one of the latter.

It tastes exactly like my Vanilla Schnaaps/Coke blend, but without that sharp alcoholic feeling on the back of your tongue. I so desperately do not want to become used to this taste. I want to make sure it’s a treat every time I drink it. I’m also afraid they’ll just yank it from the market without warning, so I’m considering stocking up on it against that very nightmarish occurance.

In other news, Ceri thoughfully sent me a link about some research they’re doing on the brains of musicians. Evidently they’re discovering that:

Musicians have bigger and more sensitive brains than people who do not play instruments, scientists revealed yesterday.

The professionals, who all performed regularly, showed 102 per cent more activity in their auditory cortex than non-musicians. Activity in the brains of amateur musicians was on average 37 per cent higher than in those who did not play an instrument, the researchers said in a report in Nature Neuroscience. The auditory cortex consists mainly of “grey matter” or nerve cells called neurons, which are interconnected by long filament-like axons, or “white matter”.

All the math and stuff can be found here in the news report.

Ceri suggests that I wear a helmet to protect my apparently valuable auditory cortex. How fortuitous that I will be looking into Blue Cross today.

Good gods. When did we pass 2000 hits?

Well. Our bathroom is yellow.

See, we went to Home Depot yesterday to look at paint chips for the kitchen, and we ended up buying the paint we’d decided on for the bathroom. Being temporarily useless at anything requiring a reaching movement, I was shut out of the exercise while my husband painted.

It’s, um, yellow. Lemony yellow. The colour of whipped egg yolks with a bit of sugar in them. It’s not as dark as we’d expected; we were hoping for more of an deeper tone to it as it dried. It’s not awful; it’s just, well, different.

It’s going to take a bit of getting used to, I think. It’s definitely better than the stark white was.

On other fronts, NSW was (as usual) a terrific session, very character-driven as opposed to action-oriented. We got our new mission parameters: go into occupied worlds and incite rebellion. Sounds good, and very Star Wars-y; it presents a vast variety of potential situations. No one seemed to mind that I spent the session standing, leaning against the wall, or flat on my back on the living room floor. Chairs appear to aggravate my back.

Bank errands, then an interview on Pagan weddings, then work this afternoon. Then we’ll see what state we are in at the end of it all, and if ye old spine can stand (pun unintentional, I assure you; there’s not much humour in me when it comes to this any more) a public ritual tonight or not.

Hmm. I’ve been looking over the last few entries, and I seem to have a one-track mind. Just to prove to you that I’m not completely obsessed with my back:

NSW tonight! Blasters and Force points have already been packed and are waiting by the door!

I’m sitting perched on my ergonomic kneely-chair, which is certainly not serving me ergonomically at the moment: my feet are up on the knee part and Maggie in on my lap. I keep bending down to kiss her between her ears, which is lovely and soft and she smells good, but the motion is not serving my back well at all!

I’m feeling rather foolish and guilty this morning. I came home from work early yesterday on the edge because I couldn’t stop my back from hurting – my Secret Weapon was useless. Trying to explain it to someone, I used the feeling of being hit with a baseball or a bat as a comparative image – you know, that sudden breathless feeling? Another good one would be if you’ve ever fallen flat on your back while on ice skates: you feet are in the air, then you land square on your back. If I had to register the pain on a Pain-O-Metre, I think it would end up being surprisingly low. It’s just the eternal-ness of it. It hurts to breathe. (Not to mislead you about the pain, though; the Pain-O-Metre would indeed register spikes, when I try to move a way my spine decides I shouldn’t, and I get spasms. Lovely.)

Anyway, what ended up happening is that when I got home, I fell onto my bed and realised that I couldn’t get up. I shed a few angry tears, then dozed a bit until the husband came home. He had to call someone we were supposed to pick up to take to an evening gathering to tell her he’d be late. She ended up calling back to tell him the gathering was cancelled.

Now, sure, other factors were likely involved, but, as usual, I feel responsible. I know they really wanted me there, but I couldn’t face an hour in the car, let alone wandering around a forest. Ergo, common sense says I had to stay home. Not being able to get out of bed is usually a good indication of this. However, it doesn’t change the fact that I feel dreadful. I feel like I’m lying to everyone somehow: I’m leaving work early, I’m cancelling outings… I know I’m making people angry, and it just upsets me more.

My husband made me take two muscle relaxants, which knocked me out as usual, since the brilliant medical world can’t seem to develop a muscle relaxant that isn’t also a sedative. While I was out, he picked up the fixings for dinner and made mushroom rice and some lovely pork tenderloin, which was yummy and very welcome when I woke up again a couple of hours later. I took two more muscle relaxants this morning, did the requisite dozing-whilst-knocked-out, and experimented with getting up. Now I’m trying to psyche myself up for work again. It’s raining, and I’ve been told that if it’s quiet, I can go home. We shall see.

Yes, I called the osteopath and put myself on their cancellation list. If someone cancels their appointment, they are to call me at home and at work, no matter when.

Maybe I’ll just lie still for two months and not move. And I keep coming back to the “what did I do to deserve this?” train of thought, no matter how I try to stay away from it.

Woke up this morning with my mouth dry and metallic, nauseous, heart racing, no feeling in my fingers or toes, absolutely certain that as soon as I got out of bed something horrible would happen. And naturally, this was one of the few days my husband decided to not wake me up to say goodbye, so I was alone.

Ah yes. I remember these. Panic attacks. Where your body tricks you into thinking you’re dying. Where something short-circuits for whatever undiscernable reason and you get flung into fight-or-flight without so much as a by-your-leave. I haven’t had one of these for a while.

I forced myself out of bed and decided to take a relaxing lavender bath with some Bach playing. Normally this would be a one-two combination that would have me calm again in no time. Instead, I got back pain in the tub.

What? What does my body (or my mind?) want from me? Does it want to be kept busy and tired all the time? Does it want room to relax and take a look around? No matter what I do I seem to run up against a wall. I don’t know whether my subconscious is panicking because it sees two months of not-working looming ever closer, or if it’s breaking down because it knows the end is in sight.

My husband broke my cat’s bowl last night, her beautiful perfect blue bowl that I threw myself on a pottery wheel over twelve years ago. It was the best piece I produced. When I saw it I just looked at it, feeling dull. Normally I’d feel more upset. I know, it’s just the cat’s bowl, but it was a piece of my artwork. He glued it back together, but it won’t leave my brain for some reason. It bothers me.

Okay. Deprived of Vanilla Coke, I tried this new 7-Up Tropical thing.

Remember Fresca?

It’s Fresca.