Flash's Journal
If you comment anonymously, please include your email address so I can respond.
Finger update
Sun, 12th Oct 2008 @ 12:31 pm
My finger is healing well now. For a while there was an area which kept breaking and oozing all the time; finally the stitch that was bothering it came to the surface and once I'd pulled it out it started healing over and it's improving visibly each day. My nail's growing back, although it's unknown how it will grow when it gets to the bit which is damaged. It's still quite sore and painful at times - sudden stabbing pain, much like I get in my knee but on a smaller scale - so I suspect that's just because of my nerves being overactive due to my EDS.
I went to the clinic this week and they decided they only need to see me again in 8 weeks, for the final visit.
Patch a hole in my blues and just play them
Sat, 11th Oct 2008 @ 2:30 pm
For years, my PC has been hooked up to a stereo which is off to my left. That's where the sound has come out, although only from one speaker, so a lot of older music was lost on me (e.g. Wish You Were Here where each guitar is on a different side) and also older radio shows such as ISIHAC where I couldn't get Willy Rushton at all.
Now I've got a set of PC speakers - the cheapest that got the top rating of *** in Argos - and I'm really enjoying having a vibrating footrest as well as two little speakers pointed at me. I have set up the balance how I need it (I can't hear very well in one ear) and turned the bass up a bit, and now I'm hearing notes and levels of sound that I never knew existed.
Pink Floyd in particular is very much better now. But so are Chemical Brothers.
Gonna take you over, a new sensation
Sun, 5th Oct 2008 @ 11:41 pm
I am fed up with my finger standing out.
It's a bit deformed now, and a section of about 7 x 7 mm is a deep red scab. Basically as I use my finger, the skin stretches, the scab breaks and comes away, and a new one forms. This happens at least once a day. So there's a scab there all the time which doesn't look natural.
In any case it stands out from the other fingers.
Today I realised that what I need to do is make the other fingers look the same. With some blood red varnish (which as an ex-goth, I have tucked away in a drawer) I can make my fingers match. A little clear varnish over the top, and now it looks like a pattern. My damaged finger stands out far less.
Well, I thought it was inspired.
Here is the evidence for your consideration.
See? Now people will think "that's an unusual pattern" rather than "ew, what's wrong with the deformed finger?"
Well you came and you gave without taking
Fri, 3rd Oct 2008 @ 5:05 pm
I'm not usually one to comment on political affairs, being as I generally know very little about them and care even less.
But Peter Mandleson's return to cabinet is the single most significant event to give me confidence in the government since Blair left.
Incidentally, I have always voted Lib Dem (with Green my second vote in most things and Ken my second vote for mayor) but I'm not sure whether that's because I think I ought to, or because I actually agree with their policies. Embarrassing really; I feel that intelligent people should be interested and engaged in politics. On a local level I'm completely engaged and involved in various issues - on a national level I just don't care. So much for having the internet and information at our fingertips, because I knew more about party politics as a keen ten year old, when you could buy the manifestos in WHSmith and read them cover to cover in lessonsdull moments.
Thu, 2nd Oct 2008 @ 12:51 am
Happy Birthday, ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
auntysarah!
Wishing you lots of cups and tea and bikkits - or damnit, a good whisky.
fonts
Wed, 1st Oct 2008 @ 1:39 pm
Is there a way to generate a list of all the fonts I have on my PC (XP) and what they look like?
F'rinstance, in Word when I select a font, the drop down has the font names in each actual font, which helps me to pick one.
In Photoshop, the font list is all in the same font.
But it's in Photoshop that I want to play around and use different fonts.
[E2A: This bit of freeware did the job (thanks gwynf!)]
Thank you
Fri, 26th Sep 2008 @ 1:38 pm
Yesterday's entry is now friends-only.
Thanks to everyone for their advice and comments.
I cannot put my finger on it now
Wed, 24th Sep 2008 @ 1:00 am
As promised, new pictures of my finger, presented in an old fashioned photobooth style.
I can see when they are all together that the images aren't in the same order, which might be handy for direct comparisons; tomorrow I'll move them around so they match as far as possible.
But anyway, here's the link: http://gorge.org/images/misc/2008/finge
Looking at the new skin on the back, I am impressed at how neat a job it was. I had expected lots of scarring but I think in time it will be minimal.
I still feel guilty that techiebloke is taking half days to drive me to the clinic. What an idiot am I, to put a pole through my finger!
Finger update
Tue, 23rd Sep 2008 @ 4:21 pm
I've got my finger back! No bandage! My injury is dry and not infected so that's all fine.
( Cut for description, not very gory )
I'll take photos later and add a link to this post, but I just wanted to update since people have been asking how it went.
Basically it looks like it will be ok... what it will look like in the end I don't know, but probably pretty close to how it should be. Hooray!
And because of the surgery, I can't give blood. Again. Never mind - it's only a deferral this time.
And we could feel the motion of a thousand dreams
Tue, 23rd Sep 2008 @ 8:58 am
Off to the doc. Hope she says my finger's ok. I would cross them but... that would probably hurt.
2 Comments | Comment on thisAnd the wonder of it all is that you just don't realise how much I love you...
Mon, 22nd Sep 2008 @ 5:48 pm
I have a completely wonderful husband.
Sometimes I want to burst.
That is all.
What's in your head, Zombie?
Mon, 22nd Sep 2008 @ 12:28 pm
I appear to be vertical. Brain a bit fuzzy. Hmm.
Time to get on with some work. I'd decided if I wasn't any good today I'd have to get someone in for a few hours to help me catch up, but fingers crossed that won't be necessary. I want to get as much done today as possible because I see the finger surgeon again tomorrow, and it takes me a day or two to get my typing up to speed with a new bandage.
I just want my finger back!
Help!
Sun, 21st Sep 2008 @ 9:20 pm
I have to get a present for my niece, who will be 5 next month.
(I also have to get one for my husband, who will be 35 next month, and that's even trickier!)
So, my niece likes princesses, pink, disney, and also quite likes ballerinas but is growing out of fairies.
Dressing up and videos are covered already, and she's the kind of kid who has got everything.
So... meep. I will get something online, so it's not going to match gifts she's getting from the high street. I am thinking about maybe a princess secrets box but I don't know how well she can write or whether that interests her. Pink Heaven looks like a great site but doesn't indicate the age ranges for each gift so I have no idea what's suitable. Maybe pink wellies that you decorate? But then I don't know her foot size.
Anyone with experience of children, please help!
I've got a little list
Sun, 21st Sep 2008 @ 7:26 pm
I've been using Last FM for a while now, thanks to a recommendation from aardvark179, and doing so has encouraged me to add proper tags to my ripped CD tracks.
My profile tells me that my favourite artists are:
- Nine Inch Nails
- Pink Floyd
- Leonard Cohen
- Paradise Lost
- Placebo
- Michael Hutchence
- Joy Division
- James Taylor
- Rachid Taha
- Howard Jones
- Supertramp
- Peter Gabriel
- Enigma
- Rammstein
- Deep Forest
My "recently loved" tracks are more interesting because they pull out songs that I've really enjoyed; I use the "love" facility to remind myself of them when making a new mix playlist:
New Dawn Fades (Moby), Letter from God to Man (Dan le Sac vs Scroobius Pip), Music: Response (Chemical Brothers), I Second That Emotion (Japan), Wonderful Tonight (Eric Clapton), Foqt Foqt (Rachid Taha), Back to Black (Amy Winehouse), Altus Silva (Joseph Arthur) and Get Down Make Love (Nine Inch Nails).
Does anyone know if there's a way to list all "loved" tracks?
[E2A - thanks to
chiselwright I now have my list]Which tracks are you loving at the moment, and why? 4 Comments | Comment on this
I must have a star on my door
Sun, 21st Sep 2008 @ 6:31 pm
Thanks for the emails from those of you wondering how I am.
I'm a bit of a zombie to be honest. Lots of work on in the start of the week, then on Thursday and Friday I took ill and spent a lot of time in bed (albeit with my laptop when I was awake) - with an upset stomach, fatigue and I kept flicking from hot to cold. Not fun. I didn't eat much but I did drink lemonade and juice. My neighbour rang to see how I was, and brought me round a couple of bananas. That was appreciated.
I thought I'd catch up on work over the weekend, but all I've really caught up is sleep. Yesterday I slept until about half five (in the afternoon), and then again from around midnight. I did eat a proper meal though (the first since Wednesday). Today I got up to feed the dog and went back to bed... until Mike woke me at quarter to four.
I've been awake for nearly two hours now and I feel like a complete zombie. Still I need to catch up on work. I hate that part of being self-employed, the feeling that I need to be doing stuff. Hope I feel more awake tomorrow.
During all this illness and sleep I've not been keeping up with my regular meds (pregabalin) - I feel like they don't do a lot because I still ache and hurt a lot of the time, but I really noticed their absence over the weekend, my knee hurt terribly last night. I'm catching up with the pills and slowly losing the pains.
I feel like a crumpled garment. I just need someone to pick me up by the head and shake the aches out of me.
I wonder if all this sleep is because my body's putting energy into healing my finger. The damaged bit's much blacker now but still warm and attached, so I guess it's ok.
Pllleeeeease... let me slleeeeeeeep...
Brown sugar, just like a young girl should...
Sat, 13th Sep 2008 @ 12:21 pm
Today I announced that I was going to make a chocolate and caramel tray bake, something I've never done before. "Oh" said Mike, "Sticky Fingers!"
Bother. I was worried that he had made it at primary school - and here was I thinking that the recipe might be difficult! But it turned out his mum had made it, and that was what they called it.
While making the biscuit base, I wasn't sure whether it should go like breadcrumbs or in a ball like pastry, so I rang my mother. "Oh" she said, "Millionaire's Shortbread!"
Annoyingly, she followed up by saying "very easy, I've done it lots of times" and even more annoyingly she said she was planning to make it herself this weekend. I spend my life trying to be different and look what happens!
So I guess it's "Millionaire's Sticky Fingers".
(Hence the lyrics in the title. I don't know why I bother...)
Finger pictures
Fri, 12th Sep 2008 @ 10:07 pm
Mike says I can't just post the pictures of my finger, I need to put them on a separate page so that people will only view them if they really want to. Hurrumph.
So here's the link: http://gorge.org/images/misc/2008/finge
Taken today (5 days after surgery) while I was replacing micropore, having inadvertently got the bandage wet again. I was snapping with my left hand and silently praising the lens image stabilisation. It was really tempting to draw a face on, but I thought I'd better not touch the area.
You can see how close I came to severing it, just a little bit of skin at the back that's still attached. I'm a bit concerned by the blackened bits, I hope that's just bruising rather than dying tissue.
Anyway if you wish to view, now you can.
I sent a text message to my mother as to whether she wanted me to send photos. She replied "Naturallement (Yes)."
More worryingly she has followed up with "Your father wonders whether there is anything of his which he could photo for you in return".
I have no snare in my headphones
Thu, 11th Sep 2008 @ 6:02 pm
My cleaner came back from holidays today, and I had plenty for her to do. I've been rather rubbish at cleaning up after myself since the finger incident, and I'm not very able to clean at the best of times, except little things one at a time.
We sat down together and cleaned the dining room. That means we went through two sets of shelves with me saying "keep!" "um, keep but I have no idea where..." and "bin". I was ruthless. We had heaving shelves when we started, including crates of car stuff, wedding memorabilia and manuals for appliances, as well as everyday stuff like dogfood.
We now have spare shelves and spare plastic crates. Blimey. This also means I can stop using the dining room table as a short-term storage facility.
I would now actually be happy to sit and dine in our dining room.
As she left, my cleaner said that we can use the crates for the contents of some of the kitchen cupboards... another time. Sounds ominous.
I'm exhausted from the little I did. My cleaner must be an angel, but a tough one.
She wouldn't accept all the money for the time she was here (it was longer than usual) so when she forced me to take the last tenner back, I gave her a bottle of wine. She accepted that as a fair deal (and it probably was).
I suppose I should put my sling on and elevate my finger for a while now. Be glad when it's healed. I have a feeling it will be a good few weeks.
Well wishers
Thu, 11th Sep 2008 @ 10:43 am
I received get well cards from both sets of parents today.
The in-laws sent one with smarties on it, saying that smarties usually cheer people up and they hope this will do.
My mother sent one with a frog on it, saying that she looked for cards saying "sorry you cut your finger / got hit by a bus" but the selection was frankly disappointing, so have a frog instead. She also enclosed a tenner with instructions to buy something to cheer myself up.
Very typical, of both of them. But both very welcome.
licking and polishing the beep-beeps into shape
Tue, 9th Sep 2008 @ 6:31 pm
The local garage came down to have a look at my car. I'd expected them to say "we can scrape off the paint, t-cut the scrape, and are you really bothered about a scratch on the bumper?" Instead they explained that the little gouge is too deep for t-cut, they would have to respray the whole panel as it's metallic paint (and anyway you can't just buy a tiny amount of that kind of paint), they pointed out that there's a dent under the red paint, and the panel behind the bumper has been damaged. So it will be quite expensive to restore.
I will have to tell the police tomorrow, and my insurers too.
I wouldn't mind if it was my fault but it absolutely wasn't.
[Does anyone bother to get the lyrical references in (most of) my titles? I wonder why I bother sometimes, except Mike likes a title for the blog slurping page he reads.]
This page last updated: 01 June 2008
If you have a comment, please leave it in the
guestbook?
To contact Flash directly, complete
this form.Like this site? Buy me a beer!
© Flash Wilson 1999-2008. I charge a fee for use of my photos.