I’m still trying to process the events of yesterday at the Boston Marathon. Too much like 9/11 for my psyche, which immediately scrambled to “oh, fuck” and “OMG, OMG, OMG.”

• Part of me wants to bury myself in a small hole and not know.
• Part of me wants to dive deep into news stories, blog posts, commentary and wallow in the facts & reactions.
• Part of me (the more-or-less stable piece) has pulled back into “normal world” mode and, though not avoiding, is not enmeshed in all-Boston-all-the-time.

Not sure which is the healthiest or sanest, but in the practical words of Laura Anne Gilman yesterday:

Reminder: if you’re feeling echoes of past Bad Stuff, reading the news out of Boston, it’s ok to look away. You’re not letting anyone down.

— Laura Anne Gilman (@LAGilman) April 15, 2013

She’s right. Just because I don’t look at the photos or videos from the site, I’m not a bad person.  Neither are you.

I’ll focus on work today and just being alive.

…is like today.

Woke up to strong winds and heavy rain pounding into the window above my head. I wanted nothing more than to roll over and try to get some more sleep, but alas, I have things to do. Mostly, though, I have people coming. Grocery delivery scheduled between 9 and 11, then between 11 and 1 – oh joy of joys, the medical equipment guy is coming with my CPAP machine!!

I know it’s going to be an adjustment to learn to sleep with a mask on my face, but trumping that x 1000 is the fact that I’m going to be able to get REAL sleep. Last week, when I went to the sleep doc, he informed me that my sleep study showed that I’d stopped breathing 70 times in an hour. Only for a second or so, but SEVENTY times!! Basically, that means I never actually get all four stages of sleep, so I’m never fully rested.

I can vouch for that this morning, as I feel like a truck ran me over. Exhausted, though I went to bed at 10 and fell asleep rather quickly.

CAN’T WAIT to have my machine!

It is rather frightening, too, to know that I’ve had this for who knows how long. My sister and BIL both have sleep apnea. I will bet anything my late father did, too. He’d often fall asleep at the movie theatre or just sitting in a chair, and wake up choking, gasping. Turns out, tendency toward this is genetic. Whee?

I’m just glad that these days, it’s more readily recognized and treatable.

Speaking of machinery, my new at-home blood pressure monitor arrived. Easy-peasy digital machine. Happy to report that today’s BP is 114/85. I’ll be taking it first thing in the morning so as to keep a consistent log.

Since it’s so gloomy today, I’m probably going to curl up with a good book or movie while I wait for people to arrive. I’d be recording, but I’ve sent some files off too ACX for a QA test, so I need to wait until they get back to me. (I think waiting might be the operative word for the day!)

What’s your favorite rainy day book or movie?

It began with Homicide: Life on the Street, with the murder po-lice, the Waterfront, the dark and twisty tales of life in a Baltimore cop shop. Who can forget following right along with newbie Tim Bayliss as he desperately sought Edina Watson’s killer in season one? How we agonized when the brilliant Frank Pembleton was brought down, not by bullets, but by a stroke? Seven seasons of awesome by Tom Fontana and based on David Simon‘s Homicide: Life on the Killing Streets.

After Homicide made its final bow, as desperate as Bayliss for equally brilliant entertainment, I uncovered Oz. I didn’t have HBO when Oz actually aired, but was lucky enough to score DVDs via Netflix. As with Homicide, I was instantly hooked and quickly mainlined the entire six season run in less than two months.

I even got to tell Tom Fontana how much the show meant to me in a brief encounter during MWA’s Edgar cocktail party one year. He probably thought I was insane.

After I finished this fix, I faced a whole lotta nothing. At this point, I still didn’t have premium cable and though there were a few shows I enjoyed, none had the hard-hitting edge I craved. I needed something other than bright shiny Hollywoodized characters with improbably pretty actors. I’m not against pretty. Pretty has its place, but having gotten a taste of something more visceral, more real, I wanted more. Fabulous writing merged with excellent casting/acting. It had to be there.

Then, there it was. From a familiar source: The Wire – a different view of Charm City and yet another show that I had to wait to see until it was done and available via iTunes/streaming. My inner addict breathed more easily. All too soon, however, I finished watching the five seasons.

I cast my wandering eye about, hoping for a new fix. A new show to fill that gap. Sure, I watched other dramas, but nothing that resonated with me as much. Some tried too hard. Some not at all. How could I settle for bland polished Hollywood pablum when I’d been exposed to the real thing?

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A blog post today over at Book View Cafe (which linked to an article) got me to thinking about a conversation I had some years ago with Dana Cameron.

It was the deadest of the dead dog Sunday evenings, after the close of Malice Domestic. I’d planned to stick around for one drink, then found myself chatting with Dana until nearly 11:00 that evening, in the tapas bar.

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I’m still here. My goal to do a blogpost daily got derailed by a digestive system upset thanks to new/old meds (all of which list various digestive issues as side-effects). I’ve spent the last several days just feeling rather miserable and doing a lot of sleeping.

A bit better today, but still rather out of whack, so I’m working at the job from home – thank goodness I can do that.

Hoping that this will clear up.

So, what’s new in your world? or the world–now that I think on it, I’ve been offline and have no clue what’s been happening.

For some bizarre reason, I keep rescuing kittens in my dreams.

A few nights ago, it was at the seashore, and I rescued them using a weird trapping type of machinery. Sort of a cross between a humane cage trap and one of those glass-enclosed claw machines at the arcade, only instead of a claw, this one just had a sliding wall that came down and trapped the kitties inside at the edge of the ocean. Go figure.

This early morning’s dream was perhaps less weird, but still with the kitties. I (and some friends) were at my house (which, evidently, was a refurbished old church). We had to be sure to not let the cats out, but then someone had moved some construction panels and one of the kitties fell down into an unfinished basement. There was only some framing for stairs, so we (me and faceless friend) coaxed the kitty to climb up the two-by-fours and then we boarded up the hole in the wall again. There was something else about working at the house, and the cats roaming around but that’s all fuzzy.

My twisty mind, let me show you it.

In other news, the cardiac doc visit went well. She scheduled me for an echocardiogram, but doesn’t think I have any heart issues. My numbers are good; family history is good, so this is mostly to rule out the possibility of sarcoid in the heart.

Today, I visit the sleep doc for followup. I suppose I’ll get the prescription for the CPAP machine, since that’s what was indicated in the sleep study results. Severe sleep apnea, oh, my!

And, on that note, I need to finish eating breakfast so I can skedaddle to the doc’s office.

Y’all be good!

I like traveling to new places. Discovering other cities, other cultures, historical sites: totally my thing.

Usually, the Lima/Condit travel troupe (aka, me, sis & BIL) plan a getaway week somewhere fun. It’s our combined birthday/Xmas gift to ourselves/each other.

This year, we’re eschewing the long trip in order to save up for Tripapalooza, aka, Whisky & Wales in 2016. Why so far out you ask? Because after December 2015, I qualify for my company’s AWESOME 15-year longevity award: a dream week trip, with extra time off and up to $10,000 in bonus $$. PLUS, 2016 is when the sister girl turns 50.

We’re planning a two-week extravaganza, visiting whisky distilleries in Scotland, Hay-on-Wye, and who knows what else. We’ve got 4 years of planning ahead of us!

Truth be told, part of the fun of these trips is the planning. The librarian sis is AWESOME at the details. I’m more about the big picture. Between us, we make a heck of a team.

We plan to let a cottage somewhere sort of central (probably a National Trust property) or through vrbo.com. Probably let a car/van. BIL really wants the freedom of driving around. I want to take trains.

No matter what we eventually decide for our itinerary, I know it’s going to be fabulous!

Tell me about a great trip you’ve been on/are planning! Where’s somewhere you’ve always wanted to go?

Evidently, there are 2 new shows on the air and I missed both of them. ::facepalm::

Alcatraz debuted last night to various reactions from my friends, mostly of the “I’ll watch this again” variety.

Lost Girl, a show that’s been airing in Canada made its way south with its own debut on the stupidly named SyFy network. The protagonist is a succubus. Huh. Didn’t see that coming as a premise for a show.

What say you, hive mind? Is it worth catching up on them? Should I watch?

Keep in mind I LOVE fun shows AND grim, dark shows. From Big Bang Theory to Oz to pretty much anything in between. As long as it’s good storytelling and well defined characters.

Oh, yeah, guess it is.

Woke up freezing this a.m. – I’d kicked off most of the covers during the night. Brrrrrr, chilly! It’s in the 20s this a.m. (Fahrenheit), winter has definitely settled in for a spell. I’m fine with that as I can wear my warm hoodies from Junonia. It’s one of my favorite online stores, since they have active wear for plus size women. Not that I’m all that active these days, but it’s comfy and well-made, even if a bit on the pricey side.

I did a lot of sleeping over the weekend, making up for lost time, no doubt. Doc gave me a muscle relaxant to take at night, in hopes of kicking the pain cycle. My back muscles have been tending to spasm horribly. I’ve got a mild painkiller for daytime (which doesn’t make me sleepy or woozy), so whee? I truly hate being on so many meds.

Sliding back into angry mode about this whole disease business. It’s making me crazy. Now I’ve got to see a cardiologist to test for/rule out (hopefully!) pulmonary hypertension. It’s basically high blood pressure in the lungs, not the heart. Although my lung function tests indicated that my lung capacity is up (by a lot), I still am getting shortness of breath when I walk/do stuff.

This is TOUGH to deal with.

I guess I wanted a magic pill. The prednisone is obviously working (e.g., the increased lung test), but my symptoms aren’t abating. All this equals an unhappy me. I’ve gone from happy, healthy Maria to having to see multiple doctors Maria. Bah.

Trying to take this one slow step at a time, to be zen about it. I know I’m doing everything I can on my part, sometimes though, one’s body just doesn’t respond the way one wants. That’s probably the hardest pill to swallow.

I’ll get over it. I know I will, it’s just that for right now, this moment, I’m a bit disheartened.

Here are some interesting things said by other people since today, I am she of little brain. I seem to have brought home a cold from the hospital. Bah, humbug.

• Lynn Viehl talks about Collecting Characters.
• The Three Goddesses expound on heroines.
• The Bloggess posts a photo of two of her favorite things.

I’m going to cocoon today, watch shows I’ve DVRd (Grimm, Fringe), read, call my mom to wish her a “happy birthday”, and otherwise just rest.

I shall leave you with photos from the scene (aka sleep study):

Sleep Study 1.12.12

I’m writing this on Wednesday night, since tomorrow (Thursday) night, I’ll be at Virginia Hospital Center Sleep Clinic for a sleep study, then on Friday morning, I will hie myself downstairs to my pulmonologist’s office for a follow up pulmonary function test (PFT).

I’ll probably take my iPad with me, but won’t be blogging from the hospital. Look for me on Facebook & Twitter, though.

So, what’s up in your world? What are you thinking, talking, ranting about?