DAY 74

Milwaukee, Wisconsin
June 28, 2009
Sun 11:27 PM

o canada, we stand on guard for thee... those are the last lyrics to the canadian national anthem. how do i know this? well, i know random stuff. and i just watched one of my favorite episodes of the West Wing, the one where the first lady gets drunk with cj, amy, and donna and then get's the president's band to play o canada in honor of donna (who it turns out is a canadian citizen). i like their anthem, it's all about how cool their nation is. i mean, don't get me wrong, i love america and i can't think of another country i'd rather be a citizen of... i, and all my fellow americans, hit the history jackpot by being born here... and to those citizens who had to earn it, i applaud them for, unlike those lucky native-borns, they will never take their citizenship for granted. i try not to, but it's inevitable because it's not like i have anything to compare it with. anyway, i love america, i think our flag is one of the cooler-looking ones, but our anthem is so... blah. maybe blah is the wrong word, it's just so unsingable. and it's all about a battle. i don't know, it's certainly not the worst, but i like canada's. and mexico's, their anthem has such a good beat you could dance to it. i read that it's illegal in some states to dance to our national anthem... i don't even know how you'd do that. during the olympics i read an article about some of the stranger national anthems... i think i saved it on my old laptop.

anyway, national anthems aside i just realized that i missed a post yesterday. since coming back to milwaukee i've definitely become a slacker... i think that's two or three i've missed now. it's just so damn hot, i don't want to turn on anything that can substitute as a heater. i don't have much to write about today... oh, i found two outfits for the weddings i have coming up... nothing too flashy, but they'll do the trick.

and i picked out the stereo dock and speakers for my car... i'm very excited about that. i picked out some kickin' alpine speakers and the top of the line sony dock... i'm all set. some of the guys at work were buggin' me that i didn't spring for a subwoofer... i don't need a subwoofer. but, it got me thinking... but i don't need a subwoofer. besides, if i threw in a subwoofer it would double my bill, and i dont want that. maybe something for the future.

anyway, pretty excited to drive home thursday... that's when all this new stuff get's installed too. i'm getting it installed the day i leave milwaukee... for obvious reasons. but, the dock plate can be removed, so nobody's jackin' this out of my car.

last night was the first night in, oh, three that i actually got a few hours of sleep. i finally fell asleep at about 3 am, which is pretty good, considering the three nights before that i slept not at all. which sucks, cause i like sleep. and insomnia sucks, you lay around in bed, moving from stomach, to side, to back, to side, to stomach, thinking that maybe the postition has something to do with the lack of ability to fall asleep. but it doesn't, doesn't at all. i almost always sleep on my stomach anyway, sometimes side, never back. i just cannot fall asleep on my back, can't do it. it's not that it's uncomfortable... well, it is a little. i just have always slept on my stomach, it just makes sense. if forced to ly on my back it makes me feel wide awake.

i am now beginning to sweat profusely in the heat of my living room. and as a result i am breaking out in hives all over my legs and feet. i've mentioned this before i think... stupid autoimmune disorder... stupid body fighting body, and making my skin the victim. urticaria... that's the more fansy medical term for it. you know my term for it... sucks. it totally sucks. in fact, it defies phyics because it sucks and blows at the same time. sucks.

and i can safely say that i have chronic urticaria... which refers to urticaria that persists for six or more weeks. let's see, i'm going on almost three years so i think i qualify. and i'm pretty sure i have cholinergic urticaria... that's hives brought on by heat. yep, that one hits the nail on the head. although, i also have outbreaks in the winter due to cold... and that one is... cold urticaria. hmmm, the heat one gets the term cholinergic... but the cold one just gets the term "cold." man, they get short end of the stick on that one. i just realized that saying makes absolutely no sense... short end of a stick? a stick is a stick, how big one end is versus the other is only relative to where it's gripped. right? am i wrong on this?

anyway, hot cold... it doesn't matter, because all forms of urticaria are incredibly hard to treat... almost impossible i think. its one of those things where you can only treat the result, not the cause. i still don't definitivly know the cause... pretty sure i spelled that wrong too. great, so i break out in hives and i can't spell... wonderful. i actually went to the doctor, first time in years i should add... being the healthy person i am, and i asked about my hives and he said something along the lines of yeah, it's just something you'll have to deal with. nothing we can do... no treatment, nothing. thanks a heap doc... good to know my insurance is paying for something. great, of course i get the disorder that you can't do anything about... except just live with. and i get so mad when my parents and friends and anyone else around me tells me not to scratch... that's all i can do! i have nothing to treat this with but my fingernails. and there are some times when it itches so bad, usually on the bottoms of my feet, that i want to take some steel wool and just scrape until they bleed. in my mind that always bring relief... but in reality it would probably just mean bloody socks, and who wants that?

i've had that happen too, one time my toe hurt so bad, i just assumed it was an annoying blister, come to take my shoes off and the top is all red, it wasn't just a blister it was an open wound! i probably should've addressed the issue sooner, but, didn't want to bother with it. that's how i roll, pain doesn't stop me, it's annoying, but can be dealt with mentally. only if i'm bleeding profusely, well, bleeding profusely and notice, or in absolutely blinding pain... then i do something about it. everything else can be ignored and, i've found, eventually goes away. i don't wanna be that person who goes to the doctor every other week for something... every other year, or every five years, that works for me. i can be called a lot of things, but hypocondriac is not one of them. again, i'm pretty sure i spelled that wrong as well.

according to wikipedia chronic urticaria usually clears up in about a year for half of all sufferers... wonderful, i'm in the other half. but, it does clear up in one to twenty years for 80% of sufferers... wonderful, now to just wait until i'm forty and i'm good to go. geez, that's not the least bit annoying. 20 years, that's potentially how long i have to look forward to this. but i'll be willing to bet that i fall in that 20% category... it doesn't say, but how long do they live with it? 40 years? A lifetime? great, just great.

on that note, i'm hot, tired, itchy (only on the legs people), and have lots of stuff to do tomorrow. well, not really, but i want to sound more active than i really am.

salbrent