Sweet, Sweet Codeine

Here on the first real, functional day of Spring in Ontario, I have been felled by a migraine of Biblical proportions. I get them rarely, but when I do, it’s like a neutron bomb seeping radiation from within my skull. The worst one I ever had was when I was living in Washington, DC. I had to leave work early because I felt it coming on, and the 45 minute subway ride was terrifying, as the pain started to build in accelerating increments. By the time I arrived at my stop, I was literally blinded by pain, stumbling –sometimes crawling– on the street to get to my apartment. That day, tragically, I didn’t have any codeine on hand, so instead I took every narcotic I had on hand –cough syrup, etc– and crumpled, weeping, beneath a hot shower, praying for unconsciousness, which finally took me hours later.

Well today it wasn’t that bad. I was at my parents’ house in Toronto, home of many of the fun drugs that old people collect, bless their weak atherosclerotic hearts. So I was able to down sufficient codeine to shorten my suffering to a mere 3 hours before the giddy joy of opiate delirium overtook me; and it is in that graceful state that I address you now, my droogies.

Those who’ve never experienced a true migraine cannot imagine its discomfort. It’s not just a bad headache, it’s a trembling down to the chromosomes, wherein the source of one’s identity –one’s very brain– is under siege. Since I started having them when I was a toddler, I was taken early on for epilepsy testing (since epilepsy often manifests as bad headaches). The test consisted of lying on a slab with electrodes in one’s skull while patterned lights are flashed into one’s eyes. Now, the night before, I’d watched a documentary on how doctors were experimenting with visual cues to put patients under for surgery, in lieu of anaesthetics. (Yes, that’s the stuff I used to watch when I was 8.) So naturally I was concerned that this so-called “test” was just a prelude to surgery.

I kept pestering the technician with frequent questions of, “Um, are you trying to get me to go to sleep?”

He was not a child-friendly type, and always answered, “Yes, yes. Go to sleep. Just be quiet and go to sleep.” That, of course, confirmed my suspicions and terrified me even more.

Anyway, I don’t have epilepsy. Just bloody migraines.

And now the news…

• Phil G., our “correspondent” from Syndey, directs us to this great aggregator site for his musings and the minutiae of his life 😉

• For us Grammar Nazis, Phil also points us to this blog, which has regular discussions on the topic.

• Today’s Daily Perv Link (TM) is provided by Abeer R.

• The news site of a friend of a friend is now up. It’s called South Asian Focus.

• EK Hornbeck sends us this story of a Canadian journalist being assaulted and warned to stop writing negatively about a particular Islamic group. You know, I blog here regularly on tolerance and anti-racism, especially where it concerns the West’s newly found hard-on for verbally bashing all things Islamic. But guys, please, help me out here by, you know, not behaving like violent fundamentalist assholes!

• EK also sends us this video clip of John McCain making light of bombing Iran. Et tu, Johnny?