Happy Canada Day!

[fajrdrako]

After feeling miserable for a good part of the day, I got better. Much better.

maaseru came home, and we (meaning maaboroshi and John) had pizza for supper, and we played a game of Scrabble - my suggestion. Part of the fun was making fun of the pseudo-words included in the Scrabble dictionary, words like 'jetlike', 'uniquest', and 'mm'. There are no linguistic depths to which players will not stoop to make points.

You know how, when you get a migraine, you lose your vision neurologically to a jagged-light visual effect? I got that during the Scrabble game, making it often difficult to see the tiles - but, surprisingly, it marked the end of my migraine, not the beginning. These things are so bizarre! It's so much easy to feel cheerful without pain. I won the game, being pretty much neck and neck with maaboroshi until the last turn, when I put SPRINTS on a triple- word square.

When the fireworks started on Parliament Hill, we went out on maaseru's balcony to watch. Beautiful! With many heart-shaped and spiral fireworks - I called them Pictish - I do love fireworks. At one point a bat flew by, looking confused by the lights and noise. But how can you really tell when a bat is confused?

It was uncharacteristically cold today. Usually Canada Day is hot; this was mostly jacket-wearing weather, and I watched the fireworks with a blanket wrapped around me.

Canada has existed for 140 years. It's been 150 years since Ottawa was founded. So far so good!

Comments

[monsieureden.livejournal.com]

Yeah I look forward to maybe seeing some fireworks on Wed, even though this year I'm not going to an actual show (as I did last year). It was chilly here too.

LMAO @ the look of a bat looking 'cornfused' as he flew by...

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Fireworks are such fun! Where do they have the actual show in your parts? Is it a city thing? Or State? Living in Ottawa - and not to far from Parliament Hill - I sort of get this bonus fee show that everyone else has to go downtown for, or get it on television, which in the case of fireworks, just isn't the same. How do Americans do it?

Yeah, the poor bat, we don't usually have so much going on in the sky at night around here. Sound and light show for him!

[monsieureden.livejournal.com]

It's city where I come from, we have the big Detroit fireworks which you either go downtown on the river for or watch on tv (or as I did one year, climb to the top of the Science and Engineering building at my old university - you can see Detroit from there looking south :)). Otherwise, every suburban city has their own show, different days leading up to the fourth.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

It sounds like fun! I think the only fireworks I've seen in the States were at Disney World, and they were very impressive.

[monsieureden.livejournal.com]

Yes the Disney ones are pretty impressive. :)

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

My auras (the jagged light thing) can come anywhere up to a week either before or after the actual headache. They do what they do...

I'm glad you enjoyed your fireworks. I'm looking forward to ours on Wednesday.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Yes, me too, my auras never really seem to match up with the pain the way one would expect. No neat and tidy neurological patterns here! I hope your head is doing okay these days.

And yes, enjoy your fireworks on Wednesday. Do you have to go somewhere public to see them? Or do people do private displays?

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

You're the only other person I know of whose auras don't line up just ahead of their headaches like proper little neurological phenomena.

I will be going to the local military base to watch their fireworks with a friend who has a base pass (the military does splendid fireworks [g]). People do private displays where they're legal (which is mostly in the unincorporated parts of the county), but my townhouse development has a restriction against them in our covenants, so I don't get to do my own.

The best way to deal with private fireworks displays that I've ever run across was when I lived in a small town in Montana. Everybody went to the local football field, the town brought the fire truck and the EMT truck just in case, and everybody set theirs off there, where everybody could watch everybody else's and the danger and mess were contained, then the town set off a public display. It was wonderful. Very sensible and a great deal of fun.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

You're the only other person I know of whose auras don't line up just ahead of their headaches like proper little neurological phenomena.

Yes. Just about everything I've ever heard of about migraines describes that as the pattern. And sometimes it works that way. But not very often. Sometimes I get the aura and no pain at all. Sometimes I get the aura and no pain, but I lose all energy or ability to do anything and just have to sleep. Sometimes I get the aura way before head pain, or way after it. More often these days I get a sort of mini-aura, like a neurological change that is vaguely uncomfortable for a moment, and I think, "Oh no, a migraine" but it just goes away in a few seconds and that's that.

Go figure.

A military base! That's very cool.

A football field would be good, too.

I love these things.

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

Well, it's nice to know I'm not a freak. Or at least not a unique one [g]. I haven't had the mini-auras (at least not to the best of my knowledge or recollection), but I've had the other phenomena you describe.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I suspect migraines are a little different in anyone who has them - or at least the atypical ones. I was surprised to read on Wikipedia that only 1/3 of people who get migraines get the aura at all.

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

I suspect they are, too. One thing I've always regretted is that I didn't find out my father got migraines until after he died (of a stroke) when I was 34. I would have loved to talk about them with him. I do know that he had auras, because my mother and I have talked about it.

Have you read the book Migraine by Oliver Sacks? Someone on LJ recommended it to me a while back, and while it's a bit dated (written about 20 years or so ago), and I think he's got some screwy ideas about triggers and so forth, the case study descriptions are fascinating. As are the drawings by migraineurs of their auras. I do love the term migraineur. It makes us sound so -- sophisticated [g].

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

My father didn't get migraines, but my mother did. Not very often. Always heralded by 'the flashing lights', as she called them. I didn't start getting migraines till several years after she died, and I'm also sorry I didn't ask more about it.

Thanks for recommending Migraine. I haven't read it. I like the word 'migraineur' too.

I looked the book up in the local library and ordered it, along with several others on the subject, including Migraines for Dummies. There might be good advice among them, who knows?

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

I wasn't very impressed with Migraines for Dummies , but then I'm never very impressed with migraine books that assume all migraines are caused by food triggers. It's depressing when a book purports to have a "cure," then when you get the book all it is an explanation of how to do an elimination diet [sigh].

But maybe this is a newer, better edition. You never know...

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Yes, I don't have high hopes. Particularly since I believe my migraines are related not just to food triggers but to candidiasis and weather conditions. How do you control that? There is probably no substance on earth that I can 'safely' eat¹ and I think it's better to just try not to stress out about it. As it is, my migraines, horrible as they can be, aren't happening often. Thank goodness.

And yes, we'll hope it's an updated and improved version on Migraines for Dummies! I find that the "Dummies" series ranges from excellent to abysmal depending on the subject or the author, there's no general standard of quality at all.

~ ~ ~
¹ Except maybe broccoli. Who can live on broccoli alone?

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

I've never been able to control most of my triggers except for trying to stay away from smoke and other fine particulates in the air (I've got going to our local state fair down to an art -- I arrive first thing in the morning as soon as they open, go see everything I want to see, eat lunch, and leave just as they're firing up all the barbecues [wry g]). My two other main triggers are wild barometric swings (which is why I get my worst migraines in May and November), and hormones, usually whatever combination hits me just after that time of the month.

I have noticed that the more simultaneous triggers, the worse the headache. Do yours work that way, too?

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Barometric swings certainly affect me. I'm not sure about the rest - smoke doesn't seem to be an immediate trigger, but I bet pollution is.

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

Well, it's always good to be aware of one's triggers, even if you can't do anything about them.

Although avoidance is always a good thing when it comes to migraine triggers, too. If possible.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

That's why I'm hoping the books might offer good advice. It's possible!

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

Not likely, IME, but possible...

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

They're holding one of them at the library for me now - I just need to find time to go there.

[slartibartfast.livejournal.com]

150 years? Is that it? Buahaha *pets the baby country*

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

No, the country is only 140 years old. Makes us older than Italy! The city is 150 years old - just a baby in the grand scheme of things - I always envy European cities with Roman aqueducts and roads and such. Or pre-Roman stuff. We do have some rather old fossils. (And I don't mean the guys in the Senate.)

[slartibartfast.livejournal.com]

I love Canada, just to be clear. XD Am going there in a few weeks.

However, one of the things I love about England is its looong history. I live on the site of an old Roman road, near Maiden Castle which was taken over by the Romans but was around long before then. So this is definitely one of the older areas in the country. XD I live near a church that's been around since the 13th or 14th century too.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

That's one of the things I like about England, too. The sense of everything reaching back through time. Being in buildings that are hundreds of years old and still in use. Even though I love Canada, I'd trade in a minute.

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

What was it someone said recently on the Bujold list? In Europe 100 miles is a long way, in North America 100 years is a long time ago? OWTTE.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

And it's so very true. It's an entirely different perspective, which everyone in each country simply takes for granted.

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

There's a very large perspective difference even within North America. I grew up in the West (in California and Colorado), and then moved to Ohio for a few years before I came back out here to the Northwest, and people back East have what seemed to me to be a very skewed view of distance.

Then again, I'd never lived in a place that had been settled in the 1820s before, either [g].

And don't even get me started on the whole "Out West" "Back East" conundrum. In Ohio, anything west of the Mississippi was Out West. Here, anything east of the Rockies is Back East. Verra strange.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

And don't even get me started on the whole "Out West" "Back East" conundrum.

LOL! I never even thought of that one! My confusion is always about what is south and what isn't. My friend from southern Pennsylvania has tried to educate me about what a Yankee really is, and where the north/south divides come, but I never remember because it never makes sense to me!

It's easier in Canada. "The West" or "The West Coast" is BC, "Down East" or "The Maritimes" is everything east of Quebec, "Central Canada" is Ontario and "The Prairies" is anything between Ontario and BC. Quebec is a world of its own. "The North" is anything past that ill-defined line of urbanized cities and towns that shadows the US border, with a blip in Alberta, where Edmonton is rather far north.

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

I love it. Ontario, which is decidedly not in the center of Canada (at least not geographically) is "Central Canada."

I wouldn't have had (or still have) so much against the whole "Out West" "Back East" thing if the Easterners wouldn't keep automatically assuming that the only state west of the Mississippi is California. Our national television news shows are especially twitty about this, and it annoys me greatly.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Ontario, which is decidedly not in the center of Canada (at least not geographically) is "Central Canada."

So it goes. Someone must have misaligned the measuring tape.

if the Easterners wouldn't keep automatically assuming that the only state west of the Mississippi is California.

Do they? There's a heck of a lot of land out there. I've been to some of it. Would like to see more.

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

They do. The merest bit of bad weather east of the Rockies merits the tv equivalent of front-page headlines, but last winter when we had storms bad enough to knock the power out for a week and to close Mt. Rainier National Park for several *months* (18" of rain in 36 hours is really hard on roads and trails -- one entire campground no longer exists because the ground it sat on literally isn't *there* anymore) it barely made a blip on their precious radar.

I think the last time Seattle made the lead story on the national news (or CNN and its cohorts) was the WTO riots. In 1999.

I don't particularly care if they all wash away if they don't care that we have.

[filkferengi]

Otoh, their ignorance is your bliss. Otherwise, you'd suddenly have lots of new, close friends--or neighbors, anyway.

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

Good point. OTOH, *you've* seen how good our weather can be, and you're inexplicably still in Atlanta [g].

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

All I know about Atlanta is from movies and TV - I particularly associate it with "Vanished".

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

I've been to Atlanta twice, once for an American Library Association conference many years ago, and again on my cross-country trip eight years ago. I like it, it's a nice town, but, like Beta Colony, the climate is lousy [g] (although not in the same way).

There's some nifty people who live there, though...

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I think there are nifty people everywhere. And I do hope to visit Atlanta some day - though I don't know what the chances are.

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

Well, yes, but I know a few of these personally [g].

I probably wouldn't go back to Atlanta if it weren't for the people I know there. But the chances are pretty good of me going since I do.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Seattle is one of my favourite US cities - maybe my very favourite, since New Orleans, it seems, isn't what it used to be. I have only visited there once, but I loved it.

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

You'll have to come back again sometime [g]. I love Seattle as well. It's far enough away that when I go I generally make a day trip of it, but there's always so much to do up there that that's not a problem.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I do hope to visit there again some day! Maybe in tandem with a trip to Vancouver. Who knows.

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

Well, if you do, let me know. I'd love to meet you in person.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

It would be fun, wouldn't it? I have no money to travel these days but you never know what might happen.

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

I know that feeling, alas...

[monsieureden.livejournal.com]

All this talk about migraines makes me think of Lymond (and Eden).

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

You know, if I could think of any characteristic that I could share with Lymond, there's a long list of stuff I'd rather have - courage, beauty, charisma, musical or mathematical talent, linguistic skills, the ability to quote verbatim the whole of world literature, acrobatics, swimming, sexual charm, or ability to act. Migraines? Really, really low on the list.

But at least it's an ailment with literary resonance!
'

[monsieureden.livejournal.com]

You don't have sexual charm?

Yeah, I can't think of what it is about heroes having headaches, but I found myself writing it into Eden's life as well. Though I can claim to have a medical reason for doing it, still...

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

You don't have sexual charm?

I'd like to think I did. After all, I've spent my lifetime trying to cultivate it! But if I did.... wouldn't I be surrounded by lustful acolytes people to have sex with?

Or maybe it's just that life isn't that easy!

I like fictional heroes with headaches. I really do. Did you ever read Tanithy Lee's novel Cyrion? The hero is a Lymond-doppelganger who has, yes, migraines. It's great.

[monsieureden.livejournal.com]

I have not read that, and it appears no local libraries to me have it. ;(

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I guess it's sort of obscure. Probably out of print. Remember it next time you're in a second-hand bookstore! You might be able to find it on ILL.

I really got a kick out of it. Tanith Lee is a good enough writer that her take on a character like Lymond really works.

[monsieureden.livejournal.com]

And the only reason Eden and Lymond are surrounded by all these lustful people is because they have authors forcing it along. You and I are none so lucky. :( :(

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's it! I want to trade in my life for one with a better author!

[monsieureden.livejournal.com]

I agree! *angry glare* I could totally use a good editing, LMAO.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I want a beautiful old-fashioned binding like this (http://files.turbosquid.com/Preview/Content_on_4_8_2005_20_48_06/books.jpgc3e0e2e1-9d3e-453a-9394-58dd1b40e48fLarge.jpg) and my interior to be written in a style that is dynamic, original, funny, sexy, wise and timelessly classical.

[monsieureden.livejournal.com]

I am totally wish you. And my author can write Eden into me (er, into my story) ANY TIME BABY. Oh and Niccolo and Lymond too...hmm, mine shall be a time traveling story.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Nothing wrong with a time travelling story. I'd go for it.

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

"I want to trade in my life for one with a better author!"

May I abscond with that line??? Pretty please with sugar on top?

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

Fajrdrako, I haven't read Dunnett (I've tried, but apparently one has to be in the appropriate frame of mind, and I haven't hit it yet), but does she describe Lymond's migraines accurately, IYO?

The only literary migraines I've ever run across that were described properly were in a romance novella, of all places. One of the -- few -- things that bugs me about Bujold is her casual use of the term. Migraine/=just any bad headache, and I desperately dislike her use of the word pseudomigraine for the aftereffects of stun [wry g].

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I haven't read Dunnett (I've tried, but apparently one has to be in the appropriate frame of mind, and I haven't hit it yet)

It's all a matter of taste. I think if you 'need to be in the appropriate frame of mind', you won't ever get there and there's no reason to try. The style either works for you or it doesn't. If it isn't easy, don't bother. There's no point.

For me, her books are perfect. But other people's experience is often different, and I know of some fans who had to start and stop reading several times, or who came to love the books after the third or fourth one, or who like the Nicholas books but not the Lymond books, and every variant reading pattern you can think of... So don't listen to me.

does she describe Lymond's migraines accurately, IYO?

I don't think she ever describes them from his point of view at all. He hides them from other people - especially their debilitating effects - and since the books almost always show Lymond from the point of view of other characters, we don't get much in the way of descriptions of how it feels for him. As the series continues we learn he has 'headaches which lead to blindness', and he does mention that stress or shock can bring them on, and other factors (like sex) can sometimes end a session - which I have found to be true.

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

It's all a matter of taste. I think if you 'need to be in the appropriate frame of mind', you won't ever get there and there's no reason to try. The style either works for you or it doesn't. If it isn't easy, don't bother. There's no point.

I know. But I *want* to like her so badly [g].

I don't think she ever describes them from his point of view at all.

Ah. Too bad, actually. And, yes, I do agree with you about the other factors.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

But I *want* to like her so badly [g].

I ask with trepidation: what's the problem? Difficult style? You don't like the characters? I have one friend who didn't like the Lymond books because they couldn't handle all the quotes - they thought they should recognize and understand every one right off. Since I never had any such expectations - it's a lifetime's job to 'get' them all - this was, for me, a bonus. I know other readers who simply didn't like Lymond himself, which for me is incomprehensible, I adore him as I do Aral or Miles Vorkosigan or the Doctor or - well, at least as much as all the other great heroes of literature, and possibly more.

Some people have better luck starting with "The Disorderly Knights" or one of the later books, but then you'll get the story out of order, and miss a few delightful surprises.

I did wonder if Dorothy Dunnett or her husband suffered from migraines, and that was why they became a plot point, but I don't know.

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

I ask with trepidation: what's the problem? Difficult style? You don't like the characters?

It's very dense writing. My brain's gotten out of the habit of puzzling out dense writing since I got out of college sixteen years ago. There are times when I still enjoy that style, but I have to have very little in the way of easier distractions around to give it the concentration it deserves. I haven't been in that situation in a long time, except when I'm traveling, and I haven't been on a long trip alone in a while, either.

And, see, you're not the first one IME to compare him to Miles. Someone on the Bujold list (or maybe it was LordV, I don't remember now) said she wanted to read the fanfic where little Miles and little Ramses Emerson (from the Amelia Peabody books -- my second favorite fictional hero) were being being babysat by that nice Mr. Crawford, but that she wasn't sure the universe would survive. I've been wanting to read the books ever since.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

It's very dense writing.

True. I never found it particularly difficult - I read the Game of Kings first at fifteen, and after three pages of thinking "what is this?" I fell in love with Lymond, and the sense of humour, and the swashbuckling romanticism, and hardly noticed the density. Which is why I sometimes think it's as if these books were written for me alone.

And I realize that just because I can ride along on the crest of the verbiage without letting it distract me - zeroing in on the heart-wrenching adventure - not everyone can do that, especially if they don't have time to relax and enjoy.

I love the idea of Miles and Ramses together with Lymond! Scary but brilliant! Elizabeth Peters was a Lymond fan, and the resemblance is not accidental.

I see why you want to read the Lymond novels, now. And yes, if you can cope till you get into it, if you can appreciate Lymond at full throttle, you're in for a treat.

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

The Game of Kings is the one on my shelf. I'm just going to have to try again one of these days.

Somehow I'm not surprised that Barbara Mertz (Elizabeth Peters' real name) is (she's still alive and writing, thank goodness) a Lymond fan. She swashes a fine buckle herself.

I do love my heroes to be larger than life...