desh | (no subject)

I haven't actually updated about myself much lately, have I? Let's see...

The weather today was perfect. Best weather day in months, maybe longer. It's still no fun to leave work in the dark, but today was a day for strolling home slowly.

I've been getting antsy spending all of my time in Philly without a break. I haven't really left the city since staying with AB in New Haven over a month ago. Such is the curse of early Friday sundowns and not really being able to take any time off of work. I've been vaguely trying to get down to the DC area for the second half of some weekend, but every time I ask friends there they're busy.

Mt. Airy is technically Philly, but it has a totally different feel, so it almost feels like a different city. So it was nice to spend last shabbos there. I planned it out with

lord_emo so that I could surprise

intangiblehugs, who didn't know I was coming. I also got to see

deled and ZST. Then after Shabbos, I swung over to

benjifus's to catch a quick glance of

shekkichebaz,

meganruth4,

jessebeller, Ceidlen, and Naftali. Lots of hugs and then off to the traditional Thanksgiving chilling with Philly folk. I'll always say that T-day is the best holiday, because it's just the right length for most people to come home (unless you're

jre or

ruthonfire) and too short to turn it into a real vacation.

Going back a bit, I went to a Decemberists concert with

platypuses and

sen_ichi_rei about a month ago that I don't think I've mentioned here yet. The concert was quite good. Not one of the top shows I've seen in my life, but a solid performance. The thing is, their music is so good. I'm totally addicted to Crane Wife, their newest CD. It's only the second CD in my entire life that I was excited about enough to get the day it came out and that actually lived up to my expectations. It's been almost two months and I still listen to it or hum it nonstop.

Next concert: Eileen Ivers. One of the best 3 acts to see live, of all the artists I've ever seen (TMBG and Pearl Jam being the other two). Playing at Penn in two weeks. Anyone want to go? Please?

Work's going well. Big announcement (well, for us) coming soon, but in the meantime, if you live in PA, DC, MD, MS, FL, or OH, don't buy TurboTax or anything like that, please?

The current plan is to move out of this house by next summer, assuming no major changes in my life by then. But I don't think I could live alone. So I'm putting out tentative feelers now. Anyone know anyone who wants to live in a 2 bedroom apartment somewhere in Center City Philly west of Broad? Ideally it would be a non-smoking vegetarian or kosher person who doesn't party too much, but I guess those are negotiable. Except for the smoking thing.

Medical update: I really really hate flex laryngoscopies. A lot. I think they're more uncomfortable than any dental work I've ever had. I had one this morning, and my nose, eyes, and ears took all day to recover from it. Apparently I have pre-polyp mucus on my vocal cords, and should start taking acid drugs. Assuming the doc is right, that's the reason I've had a sensation of needing to swallow something in my throat for about a month straight now. I also have a deviated septum, just for fun. And separately from that, I've gotten authorization for an MRI, so hopefully my back pain and I (who recently celebrated our seventh anniversary!) will start to understand each other a bit better soon. We've been having communication issues, you see.

I'm a bit addicted to Threadless. Damn you, Kate. I've also been spending a bit too much time hanging out with the cell phone early adopter junkies on their websites. I'm going to stop just as soon as the phone I want comes out...if it comes out. There's been a bit of bad news on the forums in the past two days. Even though forum people are often idiots, and even though they're hypersensitive to any bit of news that comes out whether good or bad, they know this industry a lot better than I do. And they're all down on the chances of this phone coming out now. So I'm sad. But patient. Sometimes. So we shall see.

That's about it for me, I guess. How're you?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Hey, taking Acid should improve anyone's outlook. Oh, it's not that kind of acid. Pooh. I have a thought about your back pain based on some recent experience. I'd been having ghastly intestinal problems due to my molars rotting from the inside out. I've been getting my teeth systematically root canaled so I can keep 'em. As I've gotten my teeth fixed, the intestinal crap has cleared up along with my mysterious skin infections. The other thing that's mysteriously disappeared was my long running back pain. I'd thought this was due to breaking my back doing dangerous things on skiis as a teenager. But, the doc I'd been seeing about my intestinal distress told me that inflammatory chemicals released by an inflamed(and hence leaky) gut seep into tissue all through the thoracic cavity. Symptoms include back pain that does not respond to anything. So, if those polyps were harbor colonies of bacteria it could've been causing problems farther down the line and perhaps aggrvating some minor back problem.

You know, it's interesting that you use the term "aggravate". My back pain is so odd these days that I sometimes wonder if it isn't two distinct pains fighting for supremacy. It would be awesome if the acid inhibitor drugs clear up the stranger of the two. I guess there's only one way to find out...