The Bog of Lost Scholars

Friday Five is going for profundity this week. Alas, I’m not too profound:

1. What do you most want to be remembered for? My writing.
2. What quotation best fits your outlook on life? It is better to go down in flames than to trip over a rock on the seashore and drown in two inches of water. — Everdeen Tree, Latin professor
3. What single achievement are you most proud of in the past year? Paring down my unfinished craft projects from twenty to ten.
4. What about the past ten years? Finishing the first drafts of two novels in a six-month period.
5. If you were asked to give a child a single piece of advice to guide them through life, what would you say? Learn to be amused by your own ill-luck, and don’t take your good luck too seriously.

I hate tetanus shots.

The shot itself barely hurts at all. But then the muscle ache kicks in. Moving my right arm hurts; it’s not quite keeping me from everyday actions, but it’s no fun. Lifting that arm over my head is an exercise in Manliness, rather like getting tied to an anthill to prove one’s fortitude. Lying on my right side is impossible, at least if I want to get any sleep.

And today I feel slightly feverish, though that might be an aftereffect of an overly late lunch too. Bleah.

Ah, well, it’s done for another ten years, and if I see solid research by that point that says my risks from the vaccine outweigh my risk of contracting tetanus, then I can always forgo it next time. (I’m about ready to switch doctors anyway. I’ve never had much rapport with this guy, and someone who’s patient-oriented isn’t going to say “I’ll be right back” and then spend five minutes in the hall talking golf with a friend who stopped by. And I’d arrived ten minutes early for my appointment, and wasn’t seen until forty minutes after my appointment time. True of a lot of doctors, granted, but still! I wonder if I could just pay to get blood drawn and analyzed once a year, and just leave it at that? I see the gyn, so that system’s checked out, and I give blood regularly, so my iron and blood pressure get checked routinely. Do I really need to bother with an annual checkup?)

Actually, what I really want to find is a good nurse practitioner.

Meanwhile, ouch ouch ouch.

Friday Five:

1. What brand of toothpaste do you use? Whatever’s cheapest.
2. What brand of toilet paper do you prefer? Whatever’s made from recycled paper if available; otherwise, whatever’s cheapest.
3. What brand(s) of shoes do you wear? Whatever black leather velcro-fastening sneakers are cheapest; Land’s End corkbed sandals because they’re a third of the price of actual Birks; and whatever brand fits my wide foot, is reasonably sturdy and comfortable, and doesn’t cost an arm and a leg. (Do we detect a running theme here?)
4. What brand of soda do you drink? I don’t drink soda much these days. On rare occasions, though, I want to recreate an old childhood pleasure of drinking cola, eating buttered popcorn, and reading C. S. Lewis’s Narnia books. On those occasions, the cola will not be whatever cola’s cheapest; it’ll be Blue Sky or another “natural” cola. (Occasionally I like to drink ginger ale too, but only when I’m out somewhere, so the brand is whatever’s being served.)
5. What brand of gum do you chew? I don’t, though as a kid I loved Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit. (My mom regularly had gum in her purse, probably to keep us kids from throwing low-blood-sugar hissy fits when we were out shopping.)

For much of the past few weeks, the weather’s been muggy and overcast, the latter due to smoke from slash-and-burn agriculture in Central America. (Yes, folks, air masses don’t care about national borders!) Then the smoke cleared up a bit, and it was just early-summer hot (90s, but not 100s yet).

Fortunately, Mesoamerica isn’t the only region that sends us weather.

Yesterday morning when I left for work, it was about 80F (26-27C, for the three Canadians in the audience) and muggy. Enter strong north wind and cold front — I call them prairie province exports, since they feel like they’ve dropped straight down from Manitoba. At noon, when I crossed campus for lunch, the temperature had dropped low enough that I wanted a sweater.

It was 64F/18ishC when I got to work this morning. Bliss. Of course, it’s still supposed to get up to 86F/30C later today, but that’s still in the comfortable range for me. It’s May, and today’s high will be below 90; I’m happy.