Nudity is Only Skin-Deep

f00dave wants me to write a collection of my synaesthetic thoughts. It will be a tricky project for me, as my sensory associations are too obvious to me (like writing, I have a nose. My skin is on top of my muscles). But now that I know this doesn't happen for other people, I ought to invest a bit more thought into it.

Here are a few quick examples:

When my leg muscles are sore, sometimes they feel like they need to puke. Literally.

When I close my eyes, I don't see black. I see coloured static which coalesces into all sorts of shapes and movements. It's like my own personal cartoon show.

When I pay attention to the actual words people are saying, I see black text scrolling simultaneously with the words. Maybe that's why I've always been good at spelling. I see words when I hear them.

When I eat fresh pineapple, it makes me move my head back and my chest forward in a bizarre attempt to escape the flavour, even though I like it. I also see yellow fluid sluicing down into an invisible goblet.

Sometimes when I laugh, it's shaped like a big black wedge (like the end of one of those big pink erasers).

Now, I know these things aren't real. For instance, I don't see a literal black wedge with my laughter, but it springs unbidden in my mind, in a different fashion than if I were to intentionally imagine things to associate with sounds. And it's not like if I heard a horse whinny that I'd suddenly picture a horse. No, that makes too much logical sense. Instead, I might see a flash of yellow, simultaneous with the sound.

I suspect it's all related to my perpetual migraine status aura, but couldn't tell you for sure....

In an attempt to fight off the pernicious migraines, I've been wearing hoods to work. They've been doing a pretty good job of keeping the flickering down, and slow my migraines down significantly.

But today I was just called aside and told I cannot wear hoods, not even for the rest of today, without having a doctor's note.

It's only been about fifteen minutes without the hood, but I can feel the flickering, the headache, and the wobbliness returning.

I am NOT a happy camper.

Despite the craziness of work yesterday, I did not have my headache.

But this morning, shortly after waking, it returned. I feel spinny, my head hurts, and I'm acting all muddled and confused. I find myself leaning forward onto my hands, closing my eyes and slipping into neutral more and more. I have initiated project Advil Extra Strength and am living in hopes that today will be a slow, relaxing work day. I haven't had one of those in weeks.

The downstairs neighbour's cat is in heat. It screams its lust-filled agony whenever it hears a noise. I love cats, but I don't miss having queens in heat. I suspect that if there is a hell, one of the chambers is filled with horny cats.

I tried focusing on birds while walking to work. It's a gorgeous day out there, and the birds are all doing their mating songs and dances. Pigeons were spin-dancing in the eaves, cooing and warbling at one another. I kept hearing birds sing like rusty swingsets in the trees, and a crow laughed Ha-ha-ha at me. The sun is so bright and the morning so clear that it made my head hurt more, but there's only so much walking I can do with my eyes closed. There may not be much traffic on Sunday mornings, but springtime is the bringer of fossilized dog shits, and I don't want to step in one of those.

Yesterday, I had the most annoying customer I've ever had in all my time working here. He started off as just one of those over-talkative types--the sort who goes into far more detail than I need to know in order to book a room. But as the call progressed, I realized he was just jerking my chain. He had no intention of booking, or of really doing anything but taking up as much of my time as he possibly could. At one point, he requested a brochure for a hotel. When I asked for his name and address, he started doing this:

"My name is James Smith. That's spelled J, as in the letter after I and before K, A, as in before B, M, as in the letter after L and before N...."

For the first time ever, I was curt and rude with a customer. I cut him off in the middle of his spelling. "Sir, I know my alphabet. Please just give me the rest of your address so I can help other customers."

He tried doing the same thing with the street address: "I live at 6527 Mulberry Court. That's 6, as in the number after 5 and before 7...."

Jesus Christ.

When the next call came in, it was for the same hotel, and for a moment, I was afraid it was the same asshole, determined to continue my hell.

So what motivates someone like this guy? He wasn't a kid, so I don't think he was pranking me. He seemed desperate to stay on the line. Was he crazy? Lonely? I really don't get it.

When I sit alone in a dark place with my eyes closed, I can see the pattern of my blindness. Shifting shapes fringe the top corners of my vision, rounding out my field of sight to something circular at the top. It's like tunnel vision, only not quite. Migraine auras are bizarre things. The spots almost seem like something I could reach up and scrape from my vision.

I suspect that if I could only get a half hour to myself, without interruption, that I could will the darned things away. But my breaks at work aren't structured that way. There aren't any quiet places I can escape to. The best I can manage is locking myself in a bathroom stall, but that's certainly not ideal. Neither is the building lunch room, since there's all sorts of people walking by, buying snacks, and chatting loudly.

I guess I just have to suck it up.

I already ate my last Advil. I hope it will last me until the end of my shift. Only three and half hours to go. Whee....

Sleep is overrated.

Dreaming is not. I saw a white cottage made of a deep freezer, many cartoon tyrannosaurus rexes gallivanting around amidst a forest of Hawaiian tshirt flowers. One dinosaur had a red yoyo. Another drove around in a pristine Edsel, honking at the squirrels blocking the road.

My eyes carve trenches of glowing blue light in my cheeks. I think it's an artefact of my ever-present megrims. Indeed, the light trench has been with me daily at work for the past few weeks. It's only distracting when I look straight down.