pins'n'needles

pins'n'needles, originally uploaded by hradcanska.

Yes.

I tried it.

And I'm here to write about it.

As those who have been keeping up with me in person/via email/Twitter/gchat, etc. know, I have been MEGA-plagued with allergies this season. Like, worst ever. Like, can't sleep through the night. I'm stumbling around like I have a newborn, but no - I just have snot.

Not coo', yo, not coo'

I finally faced the fact that my allergies weren't going to turn the corner and get better. I went to my doc and got a prescription for a steroidal nasal spray that I'm supposed to use every day. From Feb. through July. Every year.

Yeah. I won't even take Advil if my head is not splitting open, so that didn't sit very well with me. While I have the sprayer as a back-up if necessary, I decided it was time to explore acupuncture. I read a book about it (well, about Chinese Medicine generally) and I've wanted to try it. Except, you know, for that whole fear of needles thing.

Step 1: Find an Acupuncturist
I used a combo of yelp and my insurance's "alternative roads" provider list. (That may not actually be the gag-inducing name, but it was something pretty close.)

Step 2: Consultation part of the Appointment
Making an appointment was painless once I actually decided to do it. My acupuncturist sat down and asked me a number of questions about my symptoms, about my health generally, and about my diet. Then, I hopped up on the table (a massage table) and she felt my pulse(s) and had a look at my tongue. From my tongue alone, she told me A LOT about my general constitution. It was kinda creepy, and kinda cool.

Step 3: Needles!
I had 15 needles. FOR REALZ! Actually, let's back up. The needles are NOT what you're thinking of: they are not hollow, so they are thinner than any of the ones you've had during injections. Having one inserted is like .... pressing your fingernail against your skin. You know it's there, you feel a bit of a pinch, but it isn't really painful. (And I'm not saying that in the "this won't hurt a bit" way - it really doesn't hurt.)

She opened the package of unused needles in front of me and then... the placement. I had a needle between my eyebrows, 2 on either side of my nose, 3 down each arm (sort of elbow-ish, wrist-ish, webbing between thumb and ring finger-ish), and 2 on each foot (ankle bone and top of foot.)

Once the needles were in, I rested on the table for 1/2 hour. I think I drifted off, or pretty close to it, a few times. She removed all the needles and I hopped off the table.

And was able to breathe through my nose. This is HUGE.

just .... no.

10:31 PM vijay8680: Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

can we chat?

10:32 PM bussyyyyyy ????????????

maisnon: do i know you?

vijay8680: no

can we know eachother ?

friends ???

maisnon: um, no thank you

10:33 PM vijay8680: why ????????

memento

I found that little toy you gave me. You know - the inside joke? I sat there and held it and thought of you. Not even you, really, more like memories of the things we did, and the places we went. Meals shared, glasses of wine, laughs shared. I felt sadder by the second because it's all so firmly in the past.

But then I realized I was romanticizing it all: I don't miss you, exactly. I miss the you I thought you were. And that, sadly, never really existed.

no wonder I loved it ....

Place d'Armes - courtyard, originally uploaded by maisnon.

New Orleans is one of the two most ingrown, self-obsessed little cities in the United States. (The other is San Francisco.)


- Nora Ephron

the big easy

Look out - I am en route!

55 Fiction Friday: Haiku table edition

Friday worked at a dot.com back in the day, and had a table that it adorned with haikus written by coworkers. A selection:

Goth club
black black black black black
black black black black black black black
black black black black black

dreaded 404
error: cannot find page
the web is not mine

billy dee, muse
Oh, Colt 45
divine amber pungent brew
Sooth my ailing soul.

Fishing is alright
But you mostly just stand there.
I guess you could sit.

Pedestrian

J.M. Fischer sign, originally uploaded by maisnon.

Weekend update, y'all!

My Saturdays are more-or-less spoken for right now: I am doing Hike for Discovery, a fundraising/training program through the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. This means I get up WAAAAY early Saturday morning, drive somewhere beautiful, and them tromp over hill and dale. And take photos. Then, I get in a car and drive home and walk gingerly during the afternoon.

This has affected my Sundays as well. My recent pattern has been to make brunch plans in the Mission, cab in, and then take the long way home. I get in, usually, 2 miles of walking and the soreness works itself out. I've also discovered the absolute flattest path between the Mission and my apartment. Necessity is the mother of a lot of things, people!

This Sunday, helas, I had no brunch plans. Instead, I had BOOK CLUB! This is the book club I started on craigslist. Basically, I posted an ad seeking other people interested in a book club meeting in Noe Valley/Mission coffeeshops and reading fiction. Sunday was our third meeting. (We previously read The Yiddish Policemen's Union, and no one made it through The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano.) (More about Book Club in a future post.)

I want to focus on one small thing that happened at Book Club: we were gathering around a table, and I said that one person who had RSVP'd had yet to arrive. Emily pulled out a book and said "I hope it's Alex because I have her book." I said, "Oh! You know Alex?!" (Alex had not been able to make the prior meetings.) Emily said that she had been at the bookstore on 24th after our last meeting looking for A Thousand Splendid Suns (March's book) and found it waaaaay up high on a shelf. When she went to get the ladder, another woman was also moving it over. They joked that they had better not be trying to get the same book , ha ha! Which, of course, they were. Because they are in the same book club. Without having met before.

LOVE IT!

On the way home, satisified with intellectual chat and the promise of more books in the future, I took the photo I've been wanting to take for days. This sign was uncovered as a work crew renovated a little spot on the corner.

shrinkage

And the world gets a little smaller, still. (carteblanche is a law school friend who lives in SF.)

carteblanche: it's nice that roonie is back.
maisnon: um, you do know that roonie is in real life one of my best friends, right?
carteblanche: She is? Really?
maisnon: are we talking about the same one? (is there more than one?)
carteblanche: Is she ... ahhm... dare I ask - cute?
maisnon: yes .....
carteblanche: damn
maisnon: but wait, this can't be right - how do you know her? i.e. in what context/which blog?
maisnon: b/c I don't think MY roonie has posted pics?
carteblanche: Texas law grad?
maisnon: so, phew, not my roonie
carteblanche: ahh bummer
maisnon: (although my roonie is a law grad, and currently lives in TX)
carteblanche: well, you're on roonie’s blog roll.
carteblanche: wait - geezohpetes.
maisnon: uh oh, is it getting weird again?
YES
carteblanche: yes
maisnon: that is my very good friend
carteblanche: she rocks

..........

maisnon: do you mind if I blog part of our convo ?
I can change your name (to anything you'd like, even.)
carteblanche: Sure, whatever you want.
maisnon: oh - carte blanche!
carteblanche: LOL. As long as I don't look like an ass.
maisnon: I may just go with carteblanche
maisnon: man, I have a weird sense of humour

pb & j

Over the weekend, I was making myself a peanut butter & jelly sandwich and realized that I was using two knives: one for the PB and one for the J. Growing up, we rarely -- if ever -- had peanut butter in the house. Some of this is the typical "we're Indian, we didn't grow up eating cheese" thing, but most of it is because my little brother has peanut allergies. Using two knives on the rare, rare occasion of having peanut butter in the house was a way to limit the contamination of the jelly. I can remember just how illicit it felt, sliding the knife into the peanut butter and it's exact heft. The texture as it was spread against the bread.

But, in my kitchen, with the light making patterns on the floor, I didn't need two knives. In two and a half years of living here, my little brother has visited me once. During which time he consumed exactly zero jelly.

I looked at the two handles sticking out from similar brightly colored jars. I'm continuing and propagating old, vestigial habits. It's not that the double knife technique is a jarring interruption (other than washing an extra knife, it's meaningless.) I'm just feeling.... Thoreau-esque: I want to live awake.

55 Fiction Friday: three point one four edition

Friday thanks ashvin for the reminder that it today is Pi Day.

Joni warbled over the bar's scratchy stereo system about the Northern Star being constantly in the darkness. I swallowed the last of my beer, and thought of Juliet proclaiming that Romeo should not swear by the inconstant moon. Those chicas had it right: promises on astral bodies are romantic, but I'll take my constants mathematical.