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2004: aside from the number, not much else has changed
Friday, Jan. 02, 2004 @ 9:03 pm

It's been a couple weeks since I've written anything, anywhere, for any purpose.

It felt strange not writing-- almost as strange as it feels writing right now. Both feelings, however, are a marked improvement on how I was feeling before my enforced hiatus, which was in pain. Lots and lots of pain, in my hands, my arms and my back. So much so that I just couldn't take it anymore, so I had to stop with the typing for a while. I didn't much, to anyone, because I didn't want to unduly worry Elvis, but the whole situation frightened me. In fact, I was starting to worry that I'd added arthritis to my litany of affliction, which isn't like me at all. Whatever the opposite of hypochondriac is, I am it. I've actually been know to say "It's only a flesh wound", as the blood gushed from whatever it was that I'd managed to injure, and meant it. On more than one occasion, too.

Still. The hands hurt, even when I wasn't typing, and even when I hadn't been typing. Add to that the arms and the back, and I was not a happy camper, not even one tiny bit.

RSIs can be such a bitch sometimes.

Practice safe computing, folks. Be ergonomic. Make sure your worspace is set up correctly and that your chair is at the right height. Wrist and forearm pads are good, but it takes more than that, you know? Which, of course, I do know. I have a history of Repetitive Stress Injuries. There's the carpal tunnel syndrome, for a start. The cyst that needed to be surgically removed. The ulnar nerve disorder that leaves my pinkies permanently tingling, and my other fingers and the rest of my hands as well as the day progresses. So, yeah, I do know about RSIs and the importance of ergonomics. I just sort of ignore it because I am incredibly stupid sometimes.

But! I have a new chair, one that I have jacked up to the correct height with no phone books necessary. And for Christmas I asked for, and recieved from Elvis, a new keyboard and mouse combo. They're wireless, so I can switch positions frequently. I have the mouse programmed to keep wrist movements to a bare minimum. The keyboard is extremely funky, with all sorts of shiny extra buttons that allow me to do quite a bit of web-surfing right from the keyboard itself. Other buttons I have programmed to bring up my word processors, Netscape, favorite web pages and other frequently used items. This particular model has been around for a while, so it's hardly the latest gadget available, but I love it. It took me a while to set up so that everything is the way I want it, but so far it's been well worth it.

It does feel a bit strange, though. I've been using a laptop keyboard for, what?, more than seven years now, and using a 'real' keyboard feels just plain odd. Of course, I have used standard keyboards in internet caf�s, every time we move, but not very often, and not without a lot of swearing because all the extra keys and symbols where you don't expect them plays havoc with a touch typist.

Speaking of which, there is a second reason that this keyboard feels odd: it's Portuguese. Understandably, it's difficult to find an English or American keyboard here, but as it happens, I did ask for the Portuguese model. I can write in any language now, with a minumum of fuss. It has tildes, and accent marks that lean both ways, and the little hat that looks like a carat but which I'm pretty sure is called something else. This baby's even got umlauts! So that's all right then, and as soon as I get used to it, life will be grand. If worse comes to worse, or I'm feeling tired and not in the mood to mess with it, a simple two finger jobbie restores English keyboard mapping, although, of course, the signs on the keys won't necessarily match their output in that case. Not a big deal. The hardest bit is the left hand shift key, which is way too small and far over, as it has been cut in half to fit in an extra key. This has the effect, for example, of causing me to type '

All in all, I'm quite pleased. I just hope I can manage to stay prolific and pain-free. Well, actually, I want to attain prolific whilst remaining pain-free. Picky, picky.

I am, however, quietly optimistic.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

So far, 2004 has not been a stellar year for me. Among other things, we started off the New Year in the sort of way that I have, regrettably, learned to expect: with electrical problems.

I got home New Year's day at around 8am. Elvis was home well before me, and I myself would have left much, much earlier, except Becks and Smeagol were playing pool and they wouldn't let me leave and walk home without them, despite the fact that it was already light outside. They'd promised Elvis that they'd make sure I got home safe, you see. Which I did, which was good, but at the price of extreme exhaustion.

Then again, at New Year's, you expect that sort of thing.

So I managed to sleep until 12:30 or so, and I watched a bit of TV, and eventually I decided to take a shower. I had a head full of lather and a body covered in orange scented exfoliating foam when the lights flickered a few times, and then went out. I carried on, secure in the knowledge that Elvis was playing online backgammon in the living room, we had probably tripped a circuit breaker, and lights would be restored by the time I had finished rinsing off and conditioning and so forth.

Only the lights didn't come back on.

The thing about our bathroom is, it doesn't have any windows. With the lights off and the door closed-- which it was -- it is pitch black in there. There are no safety handles in the tub, either, and the toilet is right next to it, leaving a very small space in which to step over the side of the tub an land safely. There isn't a lot of water pressure, so I was getting cold, too, plus there was no way to tell which bottle was the conditioner, so I skipped it. In short, I wanted out of that pronto, but I was scared to do so. So I stood there, shivering, until Elvis came to rescue me by opening the door. Which still didn't let in much light, but it was enough to navigate by.

Turns out, of course, that we hadn't thrown a breaker at all. It was something else, probably a fuse, and we had no clue what to do about it. Luckily, it could have been far worse, though. We didn't lose all our lights, and some of the sockets still worked. Still, it was annoying. Luckily, I don't need a mirror to deal with my contact lenses. The make up and hair definitely suffered, though. Even though we did have some working sockets, we really don't have many lamps, and those that we do are pretty dim. Also, I had thought that the kitchen lights were out, and it turned out that they weren't. They are fluorescent and take a while to warm up, and I just hadn't given them enough time. Never assume: it's a valuable lesson.

Elvis found an extension cord, ran it across the living room, and continued to play on his computer. I couldn't watch TV, and I simply wasn't up to trying to write, although that had been my original plan. We're down a lightbulb in the office, anyway, and the lack of overhead lights made things pretty dim. I tried to read, but the one lamp available in the living room was giving off too much of a glare and the bedside lamps were out of commission. So I took a much needed nap for an hour or so, then took my frizzy hair off to the pub where I met a bunch of friends for dinner. Elvis stayed home, playing in an online backgammon tournament. He had to work today anyway, so it was probably a good idea.

The Italian restaurant we planned to go to was not open-- the second time this week that it's been closed when we wanted to eat there. Unfortunately, a lot of places were closed, and after much discussion the only thing all seven of us could agree on was the Glacial Indian, which gives a new meaning to the concept of slow. Their food is wonderful, really, but the service is apalling. Not only that, it seems to get worse everytime we go in. To cap it off, it's the same place Elvis, Brenda, Bossy and I had gone the night before, on New Year's Eve.

Not the best place for a crowd of starving people, but we gave it a shot anyway. They only had two other tables, we thought, so how bad could it be?

Right. Two hours and forty-five minutes later, we finally got to the point of ordering coffee. Forty-five minutes after that, everybody had finally recieved their coffee and we were presented with the check. And we were the only table in there by that point!

The bill was �138.75, and we left them a tip of �1.25. "I dunno," says Joey, "are you sure we haven't left them too much?" We weren't, actually, but nobody wanted to go to the effort of splitting �1.25 seven ways.

The food was, indeed, good, but I didn't eat much of it. I don't know if it's because I had had it the night before, or if I've got the stomach bug that Molly insists is going around (said, I am sure, to cheer me up), or it is possible that I was just hungover. Whatever the cause, I took one bite and my body rebellled. It's not so much that I felt actually sick to my stomach, but more a case of knowing, with absolute certainty, that if I ate it I was certain to be heaving in short order. A shame, really, especially since they managed to get the Jalfrezi hot enough for a change. I did manage to get a third of my chickpea puri down, though, and several bites of the aforementioned jalfrezi before I had to call a halt to the proceedings. If I would have had some antacid on me, I think, things would have been grand, but I'd stupidly left my Tums in my other purse.

In fact, I've just rectified that little situation right now, so hopefully it won't happen again. It was a pity, though, since we probably won't go to that restaurant again. Three and a half hours is way too long for a meal in a near empty restaurant, especially since it takes 25 minutes just to get your wine.

Oddly, once we left the restaurant, I started to perk up. Go figure.

I stayed out later than I planned to, although not finishing dinner until half past midnight pretty much guarantees that you'll be out for the duration.

I slept in today, struggled to do my hair and make up with a shaving mirror in the kitchen, then set off in search of our building's doorman-slash-handyman, who was nowhere to be found. Eventually, I left him a note on his desk, then retreated to my apartment to wait.

Unfortunately, I'm used to that sort of thing, too.

He finally showed up at about a quarter to seven, and now we have lights in the bathroom, and all the wall fixtures work again and so do the electrical outlets. Hurrah!

And on that note, I'm off to prepare for another night on the town because, hey, my liver hasn't suffered enough over the last few weeks. It's Friday night, and some things never change.

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