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Saturday, September 24, 2011

ambrosia & W1L 030: Write one leaf about your favorite font.

I haven't much to say except that I'm writing this now (which is not when this is going to get posted...) because I have acupuncture tomorrow, and I know this pain in my hands will recede for at least a day or two (until I'm back in the costume lab, sewing), so I can afford to type this out.


This is a long story about acupuncture, and it might be really boring, and I just reread it and the tenses are all over the place, so you can scroll to the outfit at the end if you like. I will not hold it against you, even if you have a nice body.


I just wanted to say that this is going to make me sound crazy, but acupuncture makes me cry.


The first time I went, it was in a fit of desperation because I have tendinitis (from making too many friendship bracelets for myself in one sitting, yes, lamest injury ever) and I couldn't take my anti-inflammatory medication anymore after it made me have heart palpitations. (Actually, do palpitations only refer to a fast heartbeat? Because I think mine slowed down to like a sleeping heart rate. At any rate (ohoho), it was some kind of arrhythmia that made me breathe too hard and feel drowsy.) I needed my tendinitis to heal because I was back in school and could barely do the programming homework for my Ruby class because typing hurt, and I had to eat takeout for every meal because cooking hurt, and I had to be really particular while taking notes in class because writing hurt, and possibly most annoying and least important of all, my hand-sewing was taking me forever because holding a needle hurt.


I mean, yes, my hands still hurt, but it's the difference between shooting pains up my wrists and being able to floss my teeth by myself.


So the first time I went to acupuncture, my acupuncturist decided to start with my right arm. He stuck two needles in my left ankle, and it felt like... he described it as an electric current, but to me it felt like my lower left leg was getting buzzed in the alcoholic sense. At that point I already had tears streaming down the sides of my face, but I assumed it was from the panic and horror of having tiny, almost-painless needles stuck into my body. (They really are almost painless. For the most part, they feel like quick, sharp pressure on the way in - not pain - and you can't feel them once they're in.)


Then he added two more needles, this time to my right ankle, and I started really crying, hard, like it was getting hard to breathe and my head was getting stuffy. He (and I, and my mother, and the receptionist who came in to see what the noise was about) assumed it was from panicking about needles, so he quickly did my right arm (a couple more needles, almost completely painless) and lit a flame or something to heat up the arm needles.


By this time, I was sobbing uncontrollably and choking for air, and I thought I was having an adverse reaction to acupuncture or something. I felt mentally clear but kind of confused about why I was crying so much because I didn't feel panicked. My feet and hands felt really weird, like they'd fallen asleep and all the blood was rushing back, and then my mom tells me that my hands tensed up in a sort of gun shape and went all rigid. I kept crying for like an hour and then fell asleep.


And my hands felt a hundred years old but also fully functional.


So I went back the week after, and this time I braced myself for the needles, thinking it was just the shock of having needles in me that caused my bizarre reaction last time (and knowing that I haven't panicked while getting any other needles stuck in me since before I could read). We only needed to work on my left arm this time, because that was where most of the tendon pain seemed to be coming from. (He applied (a lot of) pressure on different parts of my forearm to determine which parts were sore.) So the first needle went into my arm, and my eyes started watering, but I'm fine. I'm expecting it. Then the second needle, which actually hurts going in, but in a really deep, muscle-achey way that my skin doesn't register at all. Then a few more until there are five stuck in my arm, and then comes a little flame and that limbs-waking-up sensation. There are tears dripping all over my temples, but it's all good and the needles come out.


Then he tests my arm again with some pressure, and we discover one more area that's really sore, so he decides to do another little needle session on my left arm. First needle, I'm completely fine. Second needle, and holy shit, I feel like I'm in Tangled and Rapunzel just hit me over the head with a frying pan, except instead of I don't know, grease, this is like a frying pan of grief, because I don't just feel sad. I feel like someone died and I just found out, and I am bawling on the table and am somehow really relieved that I figured out what was happening.


Then just one more needle and some flames, and I'm done. The sobbing actually subsides while the needles are heating up, and I think I'm done. I like to think it was because of my excellent emotional control and the fact that I started counting powers of two and the Fibonacci sequence in my head in order to deactivate the emotional centers in my brain. Anyway, after the needles come out, my mom hands me some tissues to clean up my face and I feel this wave of incredible sadness about absolutely nothing that makes me cry uncontrollably, like a baby, all snot and ugly faces, and I'm pretty sure I was like wailing, which is embarrassing.


And then it went away. I decided to go to the bathroom because for some reason I always have to pee really badly afterward, despite having just cried out half my body weight in water, and as I was washing my hands, I just felt so fucking sad again and started bawling.


And then I was fine. And then as I was exiting the building with my mom, I started crying again, and then I was fine. Really happy, actually. My arms felt really tired and heavy, but nothing hurt when I moved my fingers, which was such a relief.


So that was my acupuncture experience and that's what I'm going in for tomorrow.


Also I had to write erotic literature for my Female Sexuality class, and I'm going to post it eventually. The requirements were that it had to involve safe sex ("eroticizing safe sex" was the topic) and be at least a page long. Mine is just creeping into seven pages, and I'm totally judging myself for that, but I think it's justified because I find emotionally charged things sexier, and I took five and a half pages for establishing the relationship.


Anyway here's an outfit that's kind of boring but which I really liked because this sweater is the sweater of gods:



This sweater is not made of ambrosia, but if Greek gods ever wore knitwear, it would definitely be togaic variations on this sweater. Togaic is not a word.




Sweater: thrifted. Longsleeve: Target. Skirt: secondhand, gift. Tights: generic. Boots: Steven by Steve Madden.

BY THE WAY, ENTER MY $100 SHOPBOP GIVEAWAY. You literally just need to leave a comment with your name and email, and it doesn't close until October 2nd. Also your odds are still not that bad because I haven't even hit 50 entries yet.


And to my anon Danielle who left one of those comments that make my whole week, yes, let's be friends! Send me an email, or pop by on tumblr! (Tumblr's a lot of fun!) Or Twitter!


And to all you lurkers who I am guessing exist, PLEASE SAY HI! Sometimes I feel like I'm shouting into the void (which I'm okay with, but it's more fun to hear other people's thoughts).



I write stuff after the jump.

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