A few weeks back I got well and truly fed up with the side effects* of my current meds and decided it was time to make a change.

The Wellbutrin is easy, there's no withdrawal issues, so I just quit that one. The Effexor on the other hand is notorious for bad withdrawals. One of my docs had given me an introductory pack from the manufacturer in the event I decided to quit. So I went from 150mg down to 75mg for a week and then 37.5mg for another week before quitting altogether this last Sunday. I had mild symptoms during the ramp down, but about Monday afternoon I started getting the classic Effexor withdrawals. I've seen it variously described. It's sort of related to equilibrium with orientation changes occasioning a buzzing ringing sensation in your head. I've been likening it to having someone whanging away on the steel cable rigging of your nerves with a hammer every time you turn your head or even move your eyes. My reading says it usually lasts just a few days, so hopefully it won't linger past this week.

As for the side effects, the restless legs were markedly better as soon as I started ramping down. Not completely gone, but I've been able to sleep through the night without walking laps in the library multiple times as long as I walk and stretch for a while just before retiring. The memory thing seems better too. Again, not perfect, but better.

I've been trying to pay close attention to my mood in case the loss of the effects of the drugs causes problems. So far I haven't been experiencing feelings of depression. However I've been really cranky. All the little annoyances of life seem much more acute and distracting. This effect seems to be at least partly related to blood sugar as it's worst first thing in my work day and just as I get home from work. Today I tried channeling the annoyance factor into Twitter which served to amuse me and partially distract me from the annoyance.


* I've talked about the restless legs that had me up from bed two or three times every night for the past year or so. I was also noticing short-term memory issues. I couldn't retain a four-digit number for 10 seconds. People at work would ask me to do something and I would forget about it before we even finished our conversation. Not good.

After callunav did this after juliansinger started it.

There are whole blogs just dedicated to this question. I follow one "Everyday Carry" that is sort of minimalist survivalist (including lots of knife geekage and sometimes concealed handguns). There are several groups on flickr: "What's in your pocket?", "The Items We Carry", "Everyday Carry", "The Daily Dump", and at least one tag "whatsinyourbag". There's a fair amount of overlap, and I'm sure there are other groups and tags with similar stuff. Anyway, the point is that this is pr0n for some people. Hey, stop looking at me like that!

I did a "what's in your bag" for my bike a while back that I should refresh with the current list. Also did one for my bag when I was carrying one.

At the moment here's what I carry:

2 hankderchiefs, one in each back pocket.
iPhone 3GS in front right pocket.
Left front pocket:
- wad of cash
- many plastic and paper cards held together with a few hair bands (credit, license, loyalty, health, etc.)
- Leatherman micra with trashed scissors and dull knife
- the world's smallest AAA flashlight (DQG II)
- silver space pen
- key ring with house key, usb drive, case of Moo miniCards, and store card for a store I never go to which I should get rid of.

That's it! I'd like to carry a decent camera, but I don't want it enough to add a bag for it.

An organization I'm a member of (http://www.timeday.org/) is working with a college research group to create and calibrate a survey to measure relative happiness of people in the US. The current version of the survey is pretty long since they're starting with questions from several pre-existing surveys. It takes about 45 minutes to complete, but you might find it interesting. If you've got the time, it would help to move the effort along. It's anonymous, of course.

Survey is here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/Measuring_GNH

Well, apparently 60,000 people cast ballots to narrow down the 237 finalists to 100.

I decided to cast only one vote per author and ended up with five of my choices on the final list: Gaiman's Sandman at 29, Le Guin's Left Hand of Darkness at 45, Stephenson's Diamond Age at 75, McKinley's Sunshine at 92, and Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep at 93. My other five didn't make the cut: Brust's Vlad Taltos books, Crowley's Little, Big, Delany's Dhalgren, Kress's Beggars in Spain, and Kushner's Swordspoint and sequels.

It's interesting seeing who appeared multiple times. Bradbury, Gaiman and Stephenson each had four placements. Old masters Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, and Niven (2 with Pournelle) each had three. King, Le Guin, Orwell, Pournelle (with Niven), Pratchett, Sanderson, Tolkein, Verne, Vonnegut, and Wells each placed two. Of course since NPR grouped series, this statistic favors authors with stand alone books more than series. I'm too lazy to look up how many books are in all the series that placed. Also their groupings were somewhat arbitrary as some series books appeared individually (e.g., McCaffrey's Dragonflight) and when do you stop counting the series that won't die like the posthumous Dune books?

Five books from the 19th century, the earliest Wollstonecraft Shelley's 1818 Frankenstein. Three from the 1930s, two from the 1940s, eleven from the 1950s, 14 from the 1960s, 17 from the 1970s, 14 from the 1980s, 18 from the 1990s, 15 from the 2000s and the most recent Sanderson's The Way of Kings from 2010.

( the obligatory memeification )

Instructions: Italicize the authors you've heard of before reading this list of authors, bold the ones you've read at least one work by, underline the ones of whose work you own at least one example of. Come up with improvements to flavour your versions.


( a whole lot of good writers )

I got asked about positive events in my life recently, so here are a few:

• Took a vacation road trip to the SW US with my sweetie that was 95% fun. I'll probably talk about the other 5% some time so we'll just wait on that. Pictures are starting to trickle out over at this flickr set. I'll post again when it's all there.
  
• Saw Book-It!'s fine stage adaptation of Sense and Sensibility last weekend.
  
• Shows coming up for which we already have tickets:
  
  
  
  • Cibo Matto 6/21
    
  • Lucinda Williams 6/29
    
  • The Ditty Bops 7/10
    
  • Paul Thorn 8/7 (here's another song because one just isn't enough. Okay, one more.)
    
  • Bumbershoot festival 9/3-5
    
  
  
• Read some good books (Ben Aaronovitch's Midnight Riot and Moon Over Soho, urban fantasy set in London with the main character a wizard in training for the London police department. Great fun.)
  

That's not so bad for the moment...

As agrumer said: "I’m an American, so I’m gonna do the Census Meme for years ending in 0 instead of 1":

1970: Turn 4. Living in Sunnyvale, CA (Silicon Valley, though it wouldn't be called that until the following year). There was an orchard a couple of blocks away. Attending preschool, I think. Impressed by a classmate who would grab the tropical fish out of the tank and hold them in her hand before returning them to the water. Might have gotten my first bike this year, maybe the next.

1980: Living in Sonora, CA (Sierra Nevada foothills) on a couple of acres of trees and grass. Make the transition from elementary school to high school. In marching band (trumpet). First dates. First real girlfriends. D&D with friends. Riding the school bus. Walking as much as a couple of miles to friends' houses. Otherwise, carted about in car by parents and sometimes school friends (had a surprising number of Senior friends as a Freshman).

1990: Newlywed. Back in Sunnyvale in a one-bedroom apartment just off 101. Making lots of money, but not as much as we're spending on books and music (transitioning from records to CDs). Regulars at every book store in the south bay. Usenet junkie. Driving a huge burnt-oil-cloud-spewing Chevy station wagon, but mostly cycling the couple of miles to work.

2000: In Issaquah, WA (just outside Seattle) Buy Flying House (or was that 2001? If so, we were still living in Swamp Castle and most of the rest of this is off by a year too). Deeply involved in Friends of the Issaquah Library. Reviewing and tracking all the books I read in a page on my website. Might have been this year that we got the tomecat.com domain. Hit by a guy in a pickup running a red light while riding my bike across the street in a crosswalk. Off the bike for six very long weeks. I think we still had our Taurus then.

2010: Still living in Flying House. Still married. Starting new job after 17 years in previous one, learning lots. Depressed, largely inactive outside of work. Digital life mainly in the cloud rather than on my own site. First year with smart phones. Riding Xtracycle. Car-free.

Haven't done one of these in a while...

A - Age: 44

B - Bed size: Queen. Actually, with my current level of RLS, we're in separate queens so somebody can be sleeping at any given time

C - Chore you hate: Bathroom cleaning. Hair has outlived its evolutionary usefulness

D - Don’t eat: Cilantro

E - Essential start-your-day item: A good reason to get up

F - Favorite board game: UpWords

G - Gold or Silver: Silver

H - Height: 6' 2"

I - Instruments you play: Hand drums

J - Job title: Software Support Engineer

K - Kid(s): Just the cat

L - Love or lust: Yes, please

M - Mom’s name: Kathy

N - Nicknames: jeffy. From my email address, so not capitalized, though I've gotten better at not twitching when people do

O - Overnight hospital stay other than birth: Not so far

P - Pants or pantyhose: Pantyhose are gross

Q - Favorite Movie Quote: Most frequently used is "He's not quite dead." It useful in a surprising number of situations. The one on my icon is used more frequently but it's from TV

R - Right or left handed: Right

S - Siblings: Slightly younger sister

T - Time you wake up: 11am. Doesn't really matter much when I went to bed

U - Underwear: Briefs in pretty colors

V - Vegetable favorite: Sweet potatoes, lately

W - Ways you run late: See T

X - X-rays you’ve had: Dental, spine, right foot and ankle, chest

Y - Yummy food you make: Pancakes

Z - Zoo favourite: Lemurs

Following the exceptionally fine outcome of the stroke that elisem had recently, my flist is alive with links to this very fine post from Making Light on the signs of stroke.

Go read that and learn its lessons well. Seriously.

And don't think you're too young. My sister-in-law had a stroke at the ripe old age of 24.

Know the signs and act without thinking.