8lbs 4oz, healthy.  Long labor, lots of work for my wife (natural birth :) ).  I just tried to help out and be supportive.  Truly inspiring to be a part of.  Moving, bonding experience.  My wife is awesome.  And of course, there’s the wonderful prize at the end:

But don’t you worry my 3 (1?) loyal reader, there will be more video game/comic rambles.  Eventually.  No self-defenestrations, please.

Who, where: Me, at Lowe’s, looking for a replacement toiler flapper (new vocabulary word for the day) & shower head.

Who else: The guy that said it.

About what: In reference to my toilet!   (Trying to figure out the model…)

I know I’m not getting this across just right… but the way he said it was so chock full (what the hell does that mean!? Note to self: research!) of god damned awesome.

Manner:  With a straight face, thoughtfully, slightly wistfully.

He then went on to say something about like “That was their idea for dropping 1.6 fast”, or something to that effect.

BUT IT WAS ENGROSSING.

Seriously the guy at North Portland Lowe’s is like the best/most interesting plumbing guy ever because, in addition to seeming to know pretty much everything about plumbing – he also knows a shitload about plumbing history!  Yeah, let that sink in.

Moments like that make life slightly more interesting.

In conclusion: I haven’t yet been able to spot a model name/number (brand, sure) anywhere on our serene receiver of of all matters fecal.  So it could be “The Champion”… but maybe The Champion got tired of the media circus.  Even champions need quiet time.  [Insert all your bathroom jokes here.]

ANYWAY.

So the boys are trading/passing a weird little sickness that seems to consist of one fit of intense vomiting, then some tiredeness, then maybe some unfriendly syrupy diarrhea two days later.  But in between all that they are mostly fine (just slightly weird appetites).  So where was I?  Right.  The vomit.  #2 started throwing up in the car on our way to the park today (it was really sad!  Poor guy :( ) and we’d been coasting lately on the preparedness thing so did not have an anti-vomit kit and such in the car… so we cleaned him all up with some old (but clean!  to start…) bedcovers that we were going to give to Goodwill.  And the car well… that took more effort, later.

Anyway.  Skip ahead an hour or two.

Water emanation in basement.

Nothing to wipe it up with… oh hey there’s those old bedcovers that are already ruined and not particularly wet, just reeking of sickly sweet vomit (mostly milk, I think).  So yeah, I’ll use those to mop up as much of this brackish water as I can.

Anyway, it stunk. Stinks.  Blerf.  There’s still some water left.  And it kind of smells like vomit.

On the bright side, I installed a new garbage disposal all by my damn self last week.  Because the old one broke.  SIGH.  BUT STILL.  I plumbed.  Again.  It’s maybe the only homeowner thing I am not terrible at.

Anyway, the last two times Jen has been pregnant I’ve gained around 10 lbs, so I figured this time I would try for the opposite.  Or at least a holding pattern.

Before this, 197 was the lowest I’d ever made it (in 2009), and that was after a couple months of working out every night and I could only hold it as long as I kept up the working out… which of course I couldn’t.  I was back up to 205ish just a couple months later when our 2nd bundle of energy was born.

After that I tried a couple things – for a couple months I ran 2-3 times a week, at night 1-2 miles.  After that I even tried a gym for 3 months or so.  45 mins a night 2-3 nights a week.  Weight never dropped below 202.

These days I hang out between 192 & 195 – still 10 more than I weighed in college (but that may be a pipe dream), but longer than I’ve kept myself in this range in a long, long time.

I’m annoyed that I still can’t stop my shirts from getting shorter.

I slipped and fell down the basement stairs.  Well, maybe one slip, one fall then another slip. I don’t know, I kind of blacked out in the middle.  Luckily I don’t seem to have been hurt nearly as much as I should have been (only my pride) – I have at least one other dumbass fall down the stairs to compare it to.  Like I said…the thing that really pissed me off is how much of a mess the cup of orange juice I was holding made.  That and it was the last of the orange juice and I really wanted it.  And I was holding the last of the crackers.  Now crushed.  SIGH.

/end venting

Click to embiggen!

Maybe in their world there was some kind of bloody invasion?   The least they could do is change the sign.  And since when do elves life in Smurf houses?  There’s been some crazy shit going on there….

Which feels a little bit old man crazy.  I mean, that’s not even that long, right?  Still, it’s longer than I’ve worked anywhere else by a huge margin and yet another reminder of time creeping by.

Thankfully, it’s not longer than I spent in college, yet! ;)

I’m pretty happy with work, overall.  I work in the IT industry, and support 100+ users in various ways.  I’ve been very lucky in that I don’t work for, or with *ANY* assholes.  Seriously.  The stories some people have told me about their coworkers make me just … boggle.  Cringe.  How do those people not get fired?   I don’t work with anyone like that.

Sure, some people are a little bit ‘difficult’, but that just makes the job more interesting.  I have to tailor the way I speak about technical things to people at a dozen different levels of computer skill, so it’s just one more detail that goes into how I work with them.

Am I where I thought I would be 6 years ago?  Roughly, yes.  Progression has slowed down a bunch with the economic crash… but hey, I’m still employed and haven’t taken a pay cut, so I really have no place to complain.

Would I like to be here in another 6 years?  Probably not.  We’d like to live somewhere again where it is actually sunny more than a week or two out of the year, and much less wet.  Of course, the economy and the job crunch isn’t doing me any favors there.  Not to mention the value of our house tanking…. But hey, life isn’t future proof, soldier on and make the best and all that :).

Q: What kind of shoes do you like?
A: I don’t.  Shoes hurt my big, wide, unsymmetrical feet.  I’d much rather be barefoot, or in sandles at the worst.  But, since I have to choose: Comfy shoes.  Shitty answer for a shitty question.

Q: What’s your favorite episode of Everyone Loves Raymond?
A:*bitchslap*

Q: What was the first comic you ever bought?
A: Uncanny X-Men 234.

Q: Favorite book?
A: Hard to say, maybe the Illuminatus Trilogy, if only because I’ve read it more times than anything else.  I counted the writer as my favorite author at one point.

Q: Favorite band?
A: Even harder, because I love so many.   Of all time?  Starflyer 59 was my favorite for a long, long time, but their recent stuff has been unimpressive, to say the least.  Clash, Springsteen, & Costello are probably in there somewhere though.

Q: Why do you love Portland?
A: I don’t.  I’m kind of ambivalent about it, but I make the best of what I have.  Anywhere my family is with me, I am happy.

Q: Strongest compulsion?
A: Dishwashing.  Maybe.  My wife could probably better answer this one.  Where do you get these questions?

:Q: How long have you been blogging?
A: 6.5ish years since my first post.  Wow.  That’s way longer than I thought.

Q: Why did you start blogging?
A: Because I needed to vent, probably.  Wanted to vent, maybe.  And I vaguely recall someone telling me that this [WARNING: I cursed waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more in blogs back then than I do now.  You have been warned.  Fuck, I was an angry dude then.  <.<] amused them and asking me to make it available online.

Q: What is your blog “about” man?  Where’s the hook?
A: Me.  I mean, whatever me wants to blog about.  So no, it will probably never be any kind of net-sensation, simply because I’m just not that focused.  Sometimes I talk about comics in a serious manner, sometimes I rant about them.  Sometimes I talk about politics - sometimes I even do so seriously.  Sometimes I talk about family.  Or intestinal pain.  I tend to blog a lot about music and  books… sometimes I propose editing suggestions for kids books.  Once in a while I’ll talk semi-seriously about my attempts to become a published (or paid, either is good really) writer.  Rarely, I will share a poem I’ve written.  Annnnnnd sometimes I review an entire season of DS9.  Anything is fair game, especially the corners of geekery.

I think my joke was supposed to be something along the lines of how people never ask me things because I rarely have conversations about non-work things with people other than my wife and netizens, and netizen conversation tends to already be directed in a particular direction something so the questions weren’t actually that weird or…. yeah.  Something.

What I mean by that is this: “IBS” is, apparently, what (Western) doctors call any number of potentially different things that have similar symptoms having to do with gut pain (varying in intensity from minimal to crippling), bowel issues (from occasionally diarrhea to incontinence, I guess) and any number of other things.  Aside from being associated with your digestive track, the main thing they have in common is that (Western) medicine generally doesn’t know what the fuck to do with you (or me at least).

Sure, they can try all kinds of stuff : I’ve had exploratory surgery, various drugs (Tagamet or something is the only one I recall, I won’t try drugs anymore), various diet changes and cameras through the nose and ass.  That’s just the stuff I can remember.  I’ve had this for close to 20 years now, so there are probably some tests I’ve forgotten.  And I have a mild case of IBS – at least compared to some of the horror stories I’ve read about folks online. I feel for them.

Keep in mind that the description I’ve used of the term “IBS” above probably doesn’t match whatever is on wiki or medical websites… instead it represents what it’s come to mean in my life.  I had one medical type at the UCLA student medical center thing describe it to me as potentially a nerve issue – something that Western medicine just isn’t (or wasn’t at the time) particularly good at dealing with.  Maybe the all the nerves in my gut (and potentially elsewhere) are just hypersensitive, or constantly firing or something.  Mayyyyyybe.  I think this was the first time I heard the term – before that I just had “stomach pain” and doctors didn’t really refer to it as anything in particular.

I keep pointing out the whole (Western) thing because Eastern Medicine (Acupuncture and that whole school of stuff) has a different take on it, that at least makes some kind of sense that holds together when you poke it with a stick.  This is compared to: “You are in pain.  I don’t know why, so let’s have you drink this stuff until you shit water so we can shove a camera up your ass again and see if we can see anything yet.”  I’m not a fan of this kind of answer.  Don’t get me wrong, I’ll try just about anything once…. but once on that ride is enough for me for the moment.

This is not to say Eastern Medicine has been any more successful at treating me, but I at least like to hear that they have some kind of treatment plan, as opposed to just throwing their hands up or wanting to re-run more of the same tests.

So.  What is MY deal?

I’m in pain constantly, since some point in high school (1992 maybe… I’d need to ask my Mom, because I don’t remember things).  Yes, that means what you think it means.  I have been in pain for almost 20 years. I cannot remember what it feels like not to be in pain*.

The area behind my navel feels like… well, it’s hard to explain. I’ve found that I am really, really bad at trying to describe this pain to people, even though I’ve had to do so hundreds of times over the years.  You’d think I would find an answer and settle on it.  No such luck.  Anyway, the track, I am back on it.  The pain feels a little bit like I imagine it might feel to have your insides trying to eat themselves.  There’s a simultaneous constriction and sense of bloating, burning and an achy numbness that feels very much like a sore bruise.  Sometimes it’s sharp and burny – not so much at this stage in my line, but there were times in my youth when I would get sudden flare ups and it would be very, very painful.  Thankfully (?) my horrible memory has done me the favor of removing the memory of that particular sensation… but I do remember telling people about it.

I also have gas.  Almost everything (outside of …water) gives me gas.  Makes me real pleasant to be around because, if I’ve eaten certain things recently, I’m either making myself very uncomfortable trying not to fart around you, or going to another room so I can fart in peace, or just farting and ruining your aromatherapy.  NO this doesn’t mean I’m literally farting all the time, but I am “feeling gassy/bloated” most of the time.  Certain foods make this much worse, and this effect is almost instant.  I ate a raisin this morning and farted my first first fart of the day like seconds after I swallowed it.  It’s a little bit creepy.  Part of what I’m working on for the naturepath is pinning down exactly what foods cause this.  Beans (duh?! right?) seem to be a major culprit, even in what I would consider a relatively tame form, like hummus.  Honestly I’m kind of glad hummus bothers my stomach, because I don’t like it anyway and now I have a good excuse not to eat it :).

There are other little things – like my stomach being hypersensitive to contact & having to urinate frequently, but those are minor annoyances in comparison.

What effect does this have on my standard of living?  I honestly don’t know.  I like to think that I do all the things that I want to do… but maybe I don’t (it does making having the kids jumping on my stomach a bit more unpleasant that I imagine it should be).  I’ll generally try any food once, so I don’t think it’s holding me back there.  I certainly makes things less enjoyable, but don’t take this to mean that I don’t live a happy life.

What effect does it have on my personality?  Now that, I think, is the more interesting question… to which I also do not have a good answer.  Would I be less cynical/cranky about life if I wasn’t always in pain?  Maybe.  But, I like to think that I’ve also learned things about patience and perseverance that I wouldn’t have otherwise, so I’m going to call it a wash.

Every couple of years I go to a new medical type and see if there is anything new in the water.  New tech, new ideas, new something.  In Grad school I tried acupuncture for the first time.  I’ve been to a few gastroenterologists, and plenty of general practitioner types.  Nothing has helped much yet.

Which brings us up to today (or two weeks ago, roughly).  No, don’t get your hopes up – it’s not that kind of story! :P

Two weeks or so ago I found myself at a naturepath in a very roundabout sort of way (hurt my back, referred to a physical therapy type via a friend/neighbor, that person said I should see a naturepath for my IBS and spend money there before the back thing because it could interfere, gave me a few recommendations, tried one and BAM! now we’re at the naturepath).

The naturepath put me on diet you may have seen me twitter about a few times – not to lose weight, but to “cleanse” my system.  I was drinking this chalky (powder mixed with water) stuff and cutting back on everything.  No meat for like 9 days, no dairy for 7 or 8, etc.  In the middle I had 3 days of just eating apples, pears, spinach and broccoli.  And GOD I HATE PEARS.  Seriously, wtf is up with pear texture? UGH.  Anyway.  I did lose a couple pounds as a side effect – and hopefully I can keep that off, we’ll see.  The diet was also to find out if I (luckily) had any food allergies that had been missed by previous diet variations.  Unfortunately, I don’t.  Unless it is to apples, pears, spinach or broccoli… I suppose that is still a possibility.  <.<

I’m back to mostly normal food now… but I’m trying to eat less of it.  One thing the diet made me acutely aware of is that I don’t really have any idea when I am full or not.  I think this is because the pain I have interferes with “normal” hunger pains?  I think that maybe I was eating until I was bloated (instead of just merely full)  because I couldn’t detect much of a change in my hunger level via pain/not pain so I just went until something felt different… and bloating is the next step that I could actually feel.  Or something.  I’m not really sure yet, this is still a mental exercise in progress.

It’s also a lot harder for me to eat meat right now, so I’m limiting it to one meal with meat a day for the time being.  Maybe that will be good for my weight or digestion or maybe it just doesn’t matter.

I took a few tests that the naturepath should hopefully have the results back from before our next meeting… one of which was a very intensive analysis of my gut “flora and fauna”, so it will be interesting to see if anything unexpected is living in there.

[update: Blood tests came back fine, the "big" test results are not back yet.  Bummer. ]

Why am I posting all this?  I couldn’t exactly tell you… as it does feel a bit awkward … but I’ve felt like I should write something about it for a while now.  Maybe it will help someone else.  I know I’ve read many things on the net over the years that have encouraged me and made me feel “less alone” with my issues, maybe this will do that for someone.

*With the exception that I do remember, upon one occasion of smoking something particularly strong in college, that I specifically noticed that I could not feel my stomach area anymore.  It was a wonderful thing.  I tried pot a handful of times, and only got that sensation one time… so it must be a specific blend or something.

Unfortunately, most of them are going to be a bit time consuming to put together… which just kinda drives me off.  I do have one I’ve been working on for the last few weeks that will probably go up tonight.

I haven’t been doing much of *any* writing lately… blogging or prose in general.  Not much reading anything.  I’m thinking it’s just an end of year brain-dump type deal.  I am slowly working through What God Hath Wrought at about 2 chapters a week – trying to keep pace with the Effete Liberal Book Club.

We’re going to see a movie today (Tron) – that will make two in one year!

Also yeah, year almost over.  Crazy.

And I keep getting this song stuck in my head:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7q4qj_M07w

I got Elemental for Christmas, but it doesn’t run particularly well on my laptop – lots of bogging down by early-mid game, so I dunno what’s up there yet.  I’ve been waiting for it to hit the 1.1 patch milestone for months before picking it up, and it finally came out the 15th.  This was the first new game I have purchased boxless and digital, which used to be anathema to me… but was relatively painless and generates less junk.  However, the Impulse service I had to buy it through installed itself to autostart by default (with NO option to disable until afterwards), which is Fucking Obnoxious and a huge software no-no.  I thought Stardock to be a decent company, so I don’t know why they did this.  More later…