migraine

Quiet

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IMG_7929We all have our things in life, and one of my things is migraines. They descend upon me stealthily, menacingly, and it can take hours of slowed, muddled thinking for me to realize what is going on. For a while, everything just seems…harder.

So it was rather late in the day yesterday when it occurred to me that maybe the reason I had closed the blinds without thinking and tried to get all sounds to stop was because my nemesis had once again come to call.

What can I say? I lose at least 10 IQ points when I have one. 15 when it’s really cooking.

For me, it’s like there’s a rattling in my head, a buzz that is both silent and loud. Light feels uncomfortable, sounds sharper than normal. A soft, quiet dark is the best thing.

It isn’t gone yet, but I’m trying to chase it out with Tylenol and lots of sugar — I’ve found sugar is the best thing for them, so check it out, fellow migrainers. I swear it works wonders.

If you’ve gotten any typo-laden comments from me, please know that it’s the migraine who’s illiterate, not me. Most of the time, anyway.

It will pass, as it always does, leaving me tired and wondering at the trigger. But until then, I will be taking in the quiet.

In or near Chicago? Check out our sketch comedy revue, “Me Inside Me Presents: Neurotrash.” Saturdays at 10 pm, May 7, 14, 21 & 28. Click here for tickets.

Check out  my full-length novels,  Her Cousin Much Removed,  The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management and Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only), and the sequel, Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) which is now available!

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Yes, NaNoWriMo is a verb

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Thanks everyone for your well wishes! For anyone who hasn’t read the last few posts, I’ve been attempting to NaNoWriMo with a migraine. I got through Monday, and yesterday was a tad bit trickier, but I got in words — not all of my words, but words — and am still slightly ahead of schedule. Take that, head.

This morning I went for the real stuff when it comes to coffee, and right now I think my head is doing OK. So let’s hope it holds.

NaNoWriMo is its own kind of beast. The days come and go, whether we ask them to or not, and the word goal totals pile up, whether we ask them to or not. And we will have challenges, every one of us who was foolhardy enough to go to the site and jump in on November 1.

And I’m going to say something that probably isn’t the best thing to say way over here at the very beginning of this month-long marathon. But it’s OK. Honestly, it’s OK.

The goal with this challenge is to write. That’s it. No one is looking over your shoulder (unless you’re doing NaNo as some kind of performance art, and then probably there  is a whole crowd of people looking over your shoulder). There is no need for perfection, either in the product or the process.

We just need to write. Some days will be harder than others, but that’s OK.

Check out  my full-length novels,  Her Cousin Much Removed,  The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management and Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only), and the sequel, Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) which is now available!

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My Body’s NaNoWriMo Rebellion

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So two days worth of NaNoWriMo finished, and it’s on to day three. I’ve managed to keep up my word count, though yesterday was a bit of a challenge.

You see, I was fighting with a migraine all day. For most of the day it was a low-grade situation, background, fuzzing my thinking. When I wrote my post yesterday, I spent a whole swath of time trying to remember how spell the word “character.” I was utterly baffled.

And yet I didn’t realize I had one at the time.

That’s what happens with them, sometimes. I have little hints and clues, my brain is sluggish, I don’t want the blinds open, but at that point it hasn’t hit me yet, not entirely. If I’m smart, and I realize it — which is challenging with sluggish brain — then I take the measures that always seem to help stave it off. But yesterday, I wasn’t entirely smart.

So I got my words in, eventually, finally, was settling down to eat, and I realized there was a big spot in front of one of my eyes. You know the kind. It’s like I just had a flash go off, or I was staring at a light and it left an impression in my vision. The light intensified and sparkled, and as I looked at them, the middles of things disappeared.

Uh oh.

At that stage there’s nothing to be done but a dark room and time.

So here we are today. It’s not totally gone, but gone enough for me to write this post and remember how to spell “character.” But NaNo marches on, headache or no headache.

Check out  my full-length novels,  Her Cousin Much Removed,  The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management and Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only), and the sequel, Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) which is now available!

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Maddening Migraine

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I am prone to migraines, and after a good stretch without a serious one, I’ve got a doozy today. Sensitivity to light, dizziness, tingling in my fingers and toes, and that’s aside from the headache itself. Good times.

But I really wanted to get a blog post up. I got back to my blog last week, and then my writing class and homework took my attention, and a strong start kind of fizzled. So headache or no headache, I’m posting today.

It may not be my most compelling work, so please bear with me.

The thing is with my migraines, it’s as though someone turns on a damper in my head, and all of my free-flowing thoughts, all of my access to interesting language and interesting structure, all of the little bits that come together and make something out of words are slowed. It’s like thinking through tar.

Some things help. Sleep, primarily. Tylenol, and, believe it or not, sugar. If you also get migraines, I cannot recommend anything more than I can getting some kind of very sugary candy (or honey, or even, in a pinch, actual sugar). Which explains why, as I am typing this, I am eating chewy Jolly Ranchers. They’re my current headache go-to, but I change it up.

Overall, though, I hate the way a headache can roll in, take over my head, and make writing seem so impossible, so unlikely. I hate the way it takes my productivity hostage, putting even the most mundane tasks at the end of a very long, very treacherous hallway.

Looks like I got there, at least with this blog post. Take that, migraine.

Check out  my full-length novels,  Her Cousin Much Removed,  The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management and Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only), and the sequel, Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) which is now available!

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It’s Like a Tap Dance of Pounding

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I get headaches, sometimes migraines, though I’m not sure that’s what it is today. Meanwhile, the work on my building continues, making me unsure of whether the pounding is coming from inside or outside of my head. At one point, they seemed to go in rhythm, the hammering through the walls and the hammering through my skull.

Fun times.

It’s not even particularly loud noise today. It’s only persistent, but that’s the thing with persistent sound, it’s tough to drown it out.

Of course the tricky bit is that the words I need also lurk inside my skull, it’s it’s a lot like the pounding is keeping them in there, locking them in where they multiply and grow. Maybe the problem is that there are too many words inside, stuck, trapped, and they’re trying to get out. Maybe this kind of writer’s block is the source of most headaches.

I’ve fired up a fan, and hopefully the cooling my circuits will be just the thing I need to end the pounding inside. Outside, unfortunately, will last until the job is done.

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Download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s free!