Nudity is Only Skin-Deep

Scintillating scotoma. Migraine status aura. This is the fancy name for the condition I had from my late teens through to my early 30s. For most people who get this, it only lasts for a few minutes. I am one of those unlucky few who get it as a chronic condition.



For some reason, it left when I moved from New Brunswick to Ontario. My variety of migraine isn't the usual one. I don't typically get pain with it, although I definitely become more sensitive to sound and light. Instead, I get brain fog and hallucinations. I don't see people or monsters that aren't there. Nothing like that. I see strobe lights and fireworks and blank spots and lots of flickering, twinkling floaters. It feels like the visual representation of my chronic tinnitus. If it wasn't chronic, I'd think it was pretty, but it can be debilitating. Between 1999-2004, I would have bouts which lasted months at a time, 24/7. The flickering took over the bulk of my vision leaving me unable to read, see where I was stepping, or follow a conversation. It was there when my eyes were open. It was there when my eyes were closed. It was almost impossible to think clearly or converse with folks because I was being distracted at every moment. If you had a strobe light going in your peripheral vision at all times, you'd be spacey, too.


About a week ago, my own private light show returned. I'm told this is a neurological condition, not a mental health one, but I honestly don't see the difference. They're both in my head, after all. One is just viewed as less "crazy" than the other. I guess it's not mental illness if you go to a neurologist for your hallucinations instead of a psychiatrist.

I reluctantly went to the doctor yesterday. I've never spoken to this doctor about my migraines before because they've been gone for over fifteen years. But here they are again. I suspect they have returned because of the extreme muscle tension in my jaw. I have bruxism, which means I have the jaw strength of a pitbull. If my teeth weren't such a crumbly mess, I could gnaw through iron bars.

These overdeveloped muscles are causing me a world of hurt. Ruined teeth, mouth pain, headaches, wry neck, tight trapezius muscles, dislocated upper ribs.... It's a cascade of body trollery. I am one of those folks who look fit and healthy, but it's a disguise worn by my array of invisible disabilities.



So I went to the doctor and explained what was going on. I told him I'd been on beta blockers before and the side effects I experienced were far worse than the migraines they were supposed to treat. He told me to go to an optometrist (it's not an eye thing), to increase my vitamin D intake (ok), and he wrote me a prescription for a medication called Cambia.

I went to the pharmacist and was given a box of meds. I said, "Wait. What do I need to know? Are there any contraindications?"

The pharmacist lied and told me no.

I got home, mixed my meds up, and drank them. It tasted kind of like someone chewed Double Mint gum and then spit in my mouth.

This morning, I woke up and the fireworks are still there, so I went to mix up another pouch. That's when I noticed that there actually is a fact sheet buried at the bottom of the box, and yes, there are all sorts of contraindications and risks. The more of this stuff I take, the greater the risk. Heck, I could end up with fatal bleeding at any time after taking this. I will not be taking any more. I'd rather deal with partial blindness than have heart failure, bleeding ulcers, increased asthma attacks, kidney failure, stroke, or life-threatening skin reactions. No, thank you. I'd rather live with my own private light show.

Why do doctors prescribe medicines which cause more harm than good? What happened to the hippocratic oath?

Oddly enough, it does not seem to affect my writing. As long as my fingers are on the keyboard, I can write even if I can't see properly. And the light show isn't quite as bad in dim light, so maybe I'll just become a night owl again.

I can will my mind to make things work in opposition to their nature.

Sometimes I lie in bed with my eyes closed, and it seems my bed is facing the opposite way, or that the room itself has flipped around. Or maybe it's me that's flipped around within my body, and my feet are where my head should be and my head is where my feet should be. I concentrate on this sensation, and I can spin myself around, whirling quickly or slowly until I open my eyes and I am once again lying down exactly as I went to bed, with my head on my pillow and the window on the correct side.

Several years ago, I had a regular modelling gig for an art class. The studio for this class was cold. Not chilly, or tits-a-bit-nipply-breast-get-a-sweater but cold. Something must have been wrong with the heating in the room. We could all see our breath. The artists wore their winter jackets, and some wore fingerless gloves. As for me, I wore not a stitch. I didn't even have a spot heater. So while the artists stood around, rubbing their hands together every now and then to warm them up, I held perfectly still and perspired.

How was this possible? Through concentration. I imagined that the prick of cold against my skin wasn't cold, but the feel of sun on a hot day. I wasn't freezing. I was on the cusp of a sunburn. While I kept this focus up, I didn't feel the cold at all.

Of course, once the poses were over and I had to come back to the real world, the sensation of heat went away, and I bundled myself in blankets and drank hot chocolate to keep warm.

I knew I could do this temperature change thing ever since I was about fourteen years old. Not interested in any of the suggested biology projects given by the teacher, my lab partner and I came up with our own. I'd read somewhere that Tibetan monks could keep themselves toasty warm in the Himalayas in situations where other people would freeze to death. They did this through meditation. So our project was this: could I increase the temperature of my hand measurably just by willing it so?

I would choose whether I wanted to increase my temperature or maintain it, then write this down. My partner did not know if I was trying to increase or maintain my temperature. I held a thermometer in my hand, and my partner recorded the starting temperature. Some time later (ten minutes, I think), the temperature would be recorded again, and my partner would mark down if she thought I'd tried to increase it or keep it the same.

I no longer have any of the records, but I do remember that I was able to consistently increase the temperature in my hand by a few degrees by willing it so.

I considered this to be a useful transferrable skill, and tried to find other ways to apply it. The first way was by stopping my nose bleeds. In my teens, I often had sudden, violent nose bleeds which would gush for a rather long time, and without warning. I always used to squeeze my nose and tip my head back to stop the bleeding. But I wondered what would happen if I willed the nose bleeds to stop. It sure would be nice to have shirts without blood stains.

After a bit of practice (which the frequent nose bleeds accorded me with), I was able to stop the nose bleeds almost immediately after they started.

Once I got out of my teens, the nose bleeds went away, and I no longer had any obvious reason to use my mind over matter skills. I forgot all about the meditation.

But then I got migraines. These weren't normal migraines, with pain. They were made of flashing lights, confusion, hallucination, and partial blindness. For a few years, I relied on varying degrees of medication to get them under control. The side effects, however, grew worse than the problem itself, and after a bit of arguing with my doctor, I finally got myself weaned off the pills. I thought of my almost-forgotten trick of mind over matter....

It was difficult to concentrate on the blindness and confusion disappearing, when the strobe lights and confusion attempted to thwart concentration on anything at all. But I kept working on it, and eventually, the blind spots would shrink. Each morning, before I got up or opened my eyes, I'd concentrate on making the blindness and confusion shrink and shrink. I couldn't do it all at once. I had to choose a "corner," and start from there. When I was on break at work, I'd sit in a quiet area and concentrate more. And I'd do it again at night.

It didn't work perfectly. It didn't work consistently. But it did work better than the medications had, and it didn't have any side effects.

Now, I don't believe that this technique will work on everything. Not at all. It doesn't seem to help me very much with menstrual cramps, for example. However, I believe we have more control over our own physiology than we might suspect. It's not automatic, though, or at least not for me. It requires a huge amount of undisrupted concentration.

As for now, I use it while doing physical training. I find it makes a big difference to not listen to music and to not watch the tv, but to listen and feel for what my muscles are doing, and to concentrate my attention there. How about you? Do you do something similar?

EDIT: If you've never attempted this, here's the simplest experiment I can think of using the same principles. Imagine your nose is itchy. Keep imagining how itchy it is. Eventually, your nose will be itchy. I used to use this in figure modelling, too. No, not to make parts itchy, and not even to make parts stop being itchy. I've never been able to completely remove and itch through concentration alone. But I can move it. Let's say I'm holding a pose with one hand on my butt, and the other away from my body. I get itchy on my belly. It's driving me bonkers, but I don't want to break the pose, so I will the itch to keep sliding along my belly, wrap around my waist, and then creep down my butt to where my hand already is and can scratch without breaking the pose.

Today... Laundry. Making a bunch of creepy masks. Carving a pumpkin. Starting to pack for a weekend of camping.

Links?

Yes.

Speaking Piano: Creeeeeeepy.

Man Charged After Making Coffee Naked: I'm a terminal nudist. I'd be arrested daily.

Chinese 'cat-girl' baffles doctors: Where Savar come from.

'Aura' migraines a stroke risk: This is precisely the kind of migraine I live with. Ugh.

German arm wrestler shows off his single Popeye-esque limb: I'm sure he's heard the vulgar joke I'm thinking.

Succu Dry Sex in a Can: The Hallowe'en fleshlight (thanks, Ted).

I think the headache is gone. If I were superstitious, and if I weren't afraid the sound would bring back the headache, I'd knock on wood.

Ouch. Migraine. Still.

My tabs are burgeoning, and I have much to do today.

So here you go, and off I go!

Ben Charles Padilla Jr.: How does a Boeing 727 just disappear? It is a mystery, but Ben went missing, too.

Russia's Putin saves TV crew from Siberian tiger: Every nation should be so lucky as to be led by a stud-muffin superhero. Go Putin! You wrassle tigers!

Where to Get Free and Legal Music: Legal download sites. Suck on that, RIAA.

Jinnetic Engineering: Cute short story about the intersection of science and magic (thanks, zombienought).

Perfect Weapon: "It's a real challenge using the flail, because if you get it wrong, you take yourself out but if you get it right, it can be absolutely devastating."

Local Man Drowns at Columbia Lake: A sad, unremarkable story, but the photo hypnotizes me. It's like a grad photo, only different. Eerie.

Innate immune system targets asthma-linked fungus for destruction: I can has breathing now?

One-Legged Hooker Slain: The world is such a bizarre place (thanks, warren_ellis).

Can You Dig It Suckers?: "A list of the names of the gangs of London, August 2007 (Updated September 2nd 2008)."

Dolphin speedboat makes a splash: This might make me get over my latent phobia of submarines, just because it looks so damned spiffy.

Roman Empire 'raised HIV threat': Blame Caesar for AIDS?

Elephant cured of drug addiction: "An Asian elephant that became addicted to heroin after being fed bananas spiked with the drug is to return home after undergoing a detox programme." Like I said, the world is bizarre.

In other bizarre news, my megrim has once again reared its sparkly, evil head. I've been living in strobe land since Saturday, and have felt weak and disassociated from reality for that long, too. Here's hoping the megrim fairy leaves me the fuck alone, STAT!

My exhaustion of this week has coalesced into a flu or the plague. I feel woozy, disassociated, megrim-ish, and stoned. Ugh. Just in time for the Ministry show tomorrow, of course.

In celebration, I'd like to share with you some information I received from the Morbid Fact du Jour mailing list. Enjoy!

This may sound weird but there is morbidity in Buddhism. Buddhism is known for the practice of meditation, most popular is Zen meditation. But most people do not know that there is a meditation called “corpse meditation” or Asubha. This type of meditation is rarely practiced now because there are few charnel grounds, where corpses of varying degrees of decomposition can be meditated upon, nowadays because of
the difficulty of finding appropriate corpse (unless you meditate in a morgue). Corpse meditation is used to make the meditator realize that our physical bodies are made up of impurities, and that everything is
impermanent. This is also used to make the meditator not cling to the human body.

There have been many instances, mentioned in the Buddhist Canon (the Tipitaka/Tripitaka), when the Buddha recommended this kind of meditation to his disciples, especially to those who are overcome with lust and are obsessed with the body. And there have been many instances where people became enlightened or became Arhats by
meditating upon a corpse.

There is an instance when the Buddha had the decomposing body of a courtesan auctioned to the woman’s former clients. It served as a lesson to his disciples that the human body is impermanent and disgusting and not worth clinging to.

In any case, it was the body of a dead person, carried by mourning relatives to the cremation grounds, which was one of the “Four Signs” that made the Buddha renounce his princely life and seek enlightenment.

Anyway, corpse meditation is divided into ten categories (depending on the state of the corpse). I will mention the original Pali (language used by the Buddha and Theravada monks) word and the corresponding
English translation. The descriptions are taken from chapter VI of “Vissudhimagga” (The Path of Purification) by Bhadantâcariya Buddhaghosa, a 5th century monk.

1. Uddhumâtaka – the bloated: it is bloated because bloated by gradual dilation and swelling after the close of life, as a bellows is with wind.
2. Vinîlaka – the livid: this is a term for a corpse that is reddish-colored in places where flesh is prominent, whitish-colored in places where pus has collected, but mostly blue-black, as if draped with blue-
black cloth in the blue-black places.
3. Vipubbaka – the festering: what is trickling with pus in broken places is festering.
4. Vicchiddaka – the cut up: what has been opened up by cutting it in two is called cut up…. The cut up is found on a battle field or in a robbers’ forest or on a charnel ground where kings have robbers cut up
or in the jungle in a place where men are torn up by lions and tigers.
5. Vikkhâyitaka – the gnawed what has been chewed here and there in various ways by dogs, jackals, etc. is what is gnawed.
6. Vikkhittaka – the scattered: This is a term for a corpse that is strewn here and there in this way: ‘Here a hand, there a foot, there the head’.
7. Hatavikkhittaka – the hacked and scattered: this is a term for a corpse scattered in the way just described after it has been hacked with a knife in a crow’s-foot pattern on every limb.
8. Hitaka – the bleeding: it sprinkles, scatters blood, and it trickles here and there…. The bleeding is found at the time when blood is trickling from the opening of the wounds received on battle fields, etc., or from the openings of burst boils and abscesses when the hand and feet have been cut off.
9. Pulapaka – the worm-infested: this is a term for a corpse full of maggots… when at the end of two or three days a mass of maggots oozes out from the corpse’s nine orifices, and the mass lies there like a
heap of paddy or boiled rice as big as the body, whether the body is that of a dog, a jackal, a human being, an ox, a buffalo, an elephant, a horse, a python, or what you will.
10. Atthika – a skeleton: this is a term for both a single bone and a framework of bones.

Detailed instructions are described in that same book. The author has also warned not to go to the corpse, especially the bloated corpse, immediately, because the meditator might be attracted to the body, and
thus perform necrophilia instead of meditation. The meditator is also prohibited to touch and handle the corpse and body parts as it can remove the disgust for the human body.

There is a nice verse at the end:

This filthy body stinks outright
Like ordure, like a privy’s site;
This body men that have insight
Condemn, is object of a fool’s delight.

A tumor where nine holes abide
Wrapped in a coat of clammy hide
And trickling filth in every side,
Polluting the air with stenches far and wide.

If it perchance should come about
That what is inside it came out,
Surely a man would need a knout
With which to put the crows and dogs to rout.

I have heard of a Western monk who tried to do the corpse meditation. He didn’t last long.

It is said that this is one of the most difficult meditation practice. Aside from the danger from wild dogs, wolves other animals and men, there is a risk of having hallucinations during the meditation. The meditator would also have to deal with the stench from the corpses, and the swarm of flies and insects. For these reasons, too, that corpse meditation is rarely practiced.

I would like to suggest this kind of meditation for morbid lovers, but I’m telling you of the risks involved. If you want to try this, seek a teacher first. The teacher will know if you are ready for that kind of
meditation.

And now I'm off to trudge around the woods for a few hours.

I've got to get back into the swing of writing. I've also got to get myself a new ink cartridge for the printer, because I figure I've got a dozen or so pages' worth left, and hundreds of pages to print.

For the past while, I've been making like a vampire and going to bed whenever the sun comes up. I'll go to bed earlier tonight, because I have kung fu in the morning. But as it currently stands, I've only been out of bed for two hours, now, so my early evening dance class feels like a morning one.

Two years ago, this bizarre sleep schedule would have left me with longterm migraines. Now, migraines are few and far between. I believe I've only had two or three in the past two years, and they've been very minor. Awesome.

Now, before I take off to teach veilwork to my newbie class, here are a couple of links.

Shake That Bear: NSFW. This is the sort of porn video that really makes me feel very, very well-adjusted in a I-want-to-shoot-them sort of way (thanks again, warrenellis).

What's This Right Here?: This left me with giggle bursts for about ten minutes after watching it (thanks, f00dave).

Work

I need to find a part-time day job as my dance education expenses cost more than I'm making doing the actual dance.

I teach on Mondays at noon and again at 6, so Mondays are generally pooched. I take a dance class on Wednesdays at 5, and am often out of town on weekends for dance workshops/performances. Weekday mornings would be great, and preferably in the downtown Kitchener area. Either that or something I can do from home with my own set hours. Up to 10 hours per week would be ideal. Any ideas?

My skill set is varied: customer service, online/library research, animal handling, website design, ad/promo copy writing, basic goldsmithing, theatre/dance/music reviewing, voice talent, retail, modelling, heavy lifting, botanic illustration, food/beverage preparation, etc. I'm a Jane of all trades, really.

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Dance

Dance-wise, I'm still in the process of expanding my horizons. I've been learning a lot through my Danse du Jour series, but want to learn more. What am I missing? Do you have any recommendations? I've been trying to find good examples of other dance forms (eg. contact dance, square dance, jazz, contemporary, etc.) and could use some help. Do you know of excellent, inspiring, or just plain thought-provoking video clips I could share? Tell me! As long as it has some element which makes it stand out (even for negative reasons), I want to see it.

Today I finally begin regular ATS instruction. I'm really looking forward to this. And right after I finish my ATS class, I trundle over to my pole dancing class. In a weird sort of way, I can see how the two could potentially fuse together. Imagine, if you will, group improvised pole dancing. Hmm....

I'm looking forward to Rachel Brice's new instruction video: Bellydance Arms and Posture.

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Music

There's a possibility I may be going stateside this weekend with miami_pony to see Jonathan Coulton in Rochester, NY. Do you know if I need to have a passport to go to the USA from Canada? I lack that particular piece of identification. I have my provincial ID, OHIP card, and birth certificate. Is that enough?

Edit: According to this site, I do not need a passport to enter the US by land or by sea. A birth certificate and photo ID will do. If I were flying in, however, a passport is necessary. Odd.

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Megrim

I didn't get to wing chun last night as I was suddenly stricken with intense exhaustion. I think it's related to the migraine aura which has been taunting me with elusive sparkles for the past week or so. The exhaustion hit me around 3pm, and only worsened when I went to yoga with snowy_kathryn. My brain grew heavy in my head, and my eyes became as Atlas holding aloft the heavens. My eyelids were forced lower and lower under this perceived weight, and my hearing narrowed to a thin, low whistle. During the warrior series, I felt myself browning out several times, and only through careful breathing and easing up on the depth of my stance was I able to avoid crashing down onto the floor in a swoon. The eagle asana was pretty darned abortive. I simply could not stand on one foot. I've never welcomed savasana as much as I did last night. I staggered home afterwards, collapsed on the couch, and blearily watched Borat.

I feel normal today.

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Links

Iran ban on 'Western' hairstyles: The fashion police exist for real.

Male Scientist Writes of Life as Female Scientist: I can't help but draw a parallel to Tiresias.

Topsy, Electrocuted by Edison: The Rasputin of the pachyderm kingdom finally met her demise thanks to the showboating of agenda-ridden inventors.

Getting Off . . .: Just another story about just another apotemnophile.

Man cuts off penis in restaurant: You just can't take some people anywhere.

LSD as Therapy? Write about It, Get Barred from US: "Nobel Peace prize winners, some of the great scientists and writers in the world have experimented with LSD in their time. We know people are being pulled out of lines and racially profiled as part of the war against terrorism. But this is a different kind of travesty, banning someone because they used a substance in another country thirty years ago."

How to Smoke All You Want: Cigarettes are good for you (thanks, gha5t).

You Haven't Seen Crazy Until You've Seen America's Black Hitler: "Dig 'em up and kill 'em again."

Turtle Sex: Turtle slash wok (thanks seraph_x).

I can't quite see properly to read, and this time, I'm not sure if it's a migraine artifact or just a floater. Either way, there's a little dark spot floating in just the wrong spot. How annoying. I must remember to take my multivitamins daily. I've noticed a definite drop-off in migraine hallucinations since I've started dosing myself with vitamin B12 on a regular basis. When I forget to take the vitamins for a couple of days, the spots and confusion come floating back.

Ballet didn't kick my ass as hard last night as it did last week. My calves aren't rock-solid ache-monsters. Can they already be acclimatising themselves to the exercise? Hmmm.... Before I did ballet, I went to the gym and did an abs and back class. Mostly, it was pretty easy, but there was this one Pilates-derived ab exercise that left me a trembling boomerang-shaped ShanMonster. Gotta remember that one.

And now I'm off to the gym to pump iron. Ta ta!