Sunday

[magid]

I woke up this morning with bits of rashiness in splotches on random parts of my body, all of which had a tendency towards itchiness. Not that surface itch that is nice to scratch, and then you can move on, but that deep itchiness that keeps you scratching unless you muster enough will to stop, since you know that you shouldn't be scratching, and it will be that much worse when you stop, now that it's been woken up. I hate itchy medical stuff, far more than pain, which is somehow much easier for me to deal with. I have a relatively high pain threshhold, and it's somehow something I can fight against, which itchiness is subversive. Oh, and my eyelids were swollen to a comical extent (egg head, anyone?), which made it a bit uncomfortable to look up. Luckily, gravity helps on this one, too, so it wasn't quite so comical by the time anyone else saw me (and I'm glad no one was taking pictures! :-).

The doctor on call said I should go to the hospital (ER, which has a hefty copay in my plan these days. *sigh*), and the doctor there diagnosed contact dermatitis. No idea what triggered it, but I get to take not only Benadryl tablets and put on whatever creams, but a decreasing 12-day course of Prednisone, too. I hate having to take medications in general, and the idea of steroids is particularly scary, somehow. So far, though, things are less itchy, so there is some hope. Still, it would be nice to know what triggered all this; there's no way to avoid whatever-it-is if I have no idea what it could be.

In the last year I've had two different itchy things (scabies and poison ivy), and now this. I start to wonder if I just have bad luck with skin stuff recently, or I have more sensitive skin, or Someone is sending me a message, or what.

On the up side, I had a visit from Queue, who read me a mitzi (well, three), which was very nice. I hadn't heard them in years.

And I went to the Miller St. Open Studios. There were many things that were similar to last year (ok, many things that were there last year), but there were some new, interesting things. One new guy is a photographer, who takes lovely b&w-on-white-background portraits of people. They were really good, but I suspect I'd be unlikely to buy one unless I knew the subject. In another studio, there were three pieces on that wall that I rather liked. The middle one was an X-ray of a spine, the corners perhaps cut a bit, but otherwise intact, with a skirt of netting attached to it. On either side there were torso casts of a rather pregnant woman (7 months or so, I'd guess), with things decorating the breasts and belly (shells, a butterfly, rows of shiny things), and I think there was also fabric below making a skirt for each of them.

The birds went home. Though I'm not particularly fond of their squawking, they can make some other interesting sounds, and right now my apartment sounds rather quiet. Good to have a moment to catch up with the bird-retrievers, too.

Apparently someone with a name similar to mine is leading a trip of students to somewhere in South America this summer; I just got a call looking for him/her. After much assertion that I do not teach at Harvard, nor do I know Spanish, the wrong number caller apologized and hung up. I'm left wondering what it would be like to have the summer off, to lead a trip of students abroad. (And I wonder if this was just a funny hint to a different me in some alternate universe. Unlikely, since it was Spanish, but, hey, maybe it's a far alternative to here.)

bread pudding flavor of the day: banana-walnut, with vanilla and cinnamon