Feb. 22 Friday
Sunday, February 24, 2019
The Epic Potter Party
We all turn eleven.
The year I turned eleven, JK might --- and I can only say might --- have gotten around to her very first and now-famous sketch of a greasy-haired, hawk-nosed, cruel and grumpy story character, whom the world would one day know as both the jerkass wizard chemistry teacher from hell, and a total sexbomb.
Feb. 17,
I wasn't the only one to make and seal written correspondence in old English style. Family friend Connor, a very artistic sort, sealed his birthday card with a little blob of red candle wax, into which he pressed a tiny H with a steel-stamp. Connor's father also came as a passable Severus.
In a heroic effort to maintain a semblance of calm around a dozen junior-graders --- or at least not commit infanticide --- while on basically zero sleep, the feared Professor Snape turned to knitting. A Slytherin scarf, at that!
Hey, I'm the one who decorated the cake. And the consumate Slytherin in the room. So of course I deserve the piece with that precious green and pearl snake on it.
Friday, February 15, 2019
13th Anniversary Day
Some years, things don't work out as we hoped they would.
I don't think Valentines Day has ever been my favourite holiday, despite my having appreciated some of its trappings in past years. Rarely in the expected sense, though, because let's face it: Men in my life are almost as rare as candy is in Snape's life --- and, likewise, it's often by choice. I'm not one of those wuvvy-duvvy romantic people who falls in love just for the sake of falling in love; I'm as adverse to drama as some folks are drawn to it, and romantic partners I often find are more trouble than they're worth.
Thank goodness, then, that this day has other significance for me!
It starts with humor and self-love. So many people are just, well, ridiculous, including me. We cover up what are really very basic desires and motives with all this conplicated crap, to the point where life becomes a commentary in irony --- and thanks to our satiricists and cartoonists for capturing it so well, and to characters like Snape for elucidating the bullshit! If we can laugh at ourselves and life, and find ways to love the beauty and irony that does confront us, we're probably more likely to be happy, not to mention, stay sane.
And beauty there is . . . plentifully so.
No, Valentines Day needn't be about smarmy gazes, pink anything, or even love for another person:
For me, this Valentines Day marks something else: The 13th anniversary of my moving to Portland. Did life go as I'd planned? Not exactly, but that's mostly because my life got a bit rerouted, the plan got blown out the window and lost, and I had to start somewhere. Then, survival usurped the rest. I still won't say I'm passionately in love with this city. Do I like it? Sure, and there are many worse places. Has it been, as they say, good for a fling? Yes, I admit, it has.
Where I go next remains to be seen!
As for human romance. . . .
We know where I stand on that right now. I'm open to whoever comes, provided he meets my qualifications. Until then? I'll just say, if you're a lover of Severus Snape, you needn't ever be truly alone, including on Valentines Day! Funny how, in a city of over 800,000, being autosexual still has so many perks.
Tuesday, February 12, 2019
Class in Session: Scar-Busters
"Chicks dig scars."
"Her acne's loads better!" ("Her nose is off-center.")
I'd say it started with a super-intense evening of working out at the local community center last week, my first visit to their pool, hot tub and weight room. But really, it started before that . . . with all the sugar and fat I'd been eating.
My first warnings were the nasty little patch of broken-out skin on my jaw, which I took to be pimples at first, and a couple of swollen lymph nodes. I covered the nasty pimple patch with a simple bandage (tape and toilet paper; ghetto potist, here) to hold in an ointment. The lymph business suggested to me I'd compromised my immune system, so my first internal cure was a no-brainer: I reached for the garlic, and also turneric as an antiinflammatory.
The "Four Golden Ingredients" potion above contains: raw garlic, turmeric, ginger and honey. Under the bandage I tried Prid, a powerful drawing salve that can take a pimple from "well-up" stage to a head overnight (available at Walgreens):
But the pimples didn't come to a head, rather they stayed swollen and also opened into painful sores. Was I in for a nasty surprise: I had shingles! Thankfully, a mild case --- a severe case can hospitalize someone. But all the signs were there, from the oozing sores to multiple swollen lymph nodes only on one side of the body. Shingles stems from the chickenpox virus, which never leaves you once you've had it (it goes dormant in the base of your spine, how sodding weird is that?). If you tax your immune system to an insane degree, it can re-erupt . . . which I apparently did!
My next major step, keeping the sores covered, was to make a remedy to minimize the potential for scarring. I had chickenpox and thus know it can leave deep, ugly craters if one isn't careful, and craters are definitely not a sexy type of scar, thank you. So I made a scar oil formula (above):
1 dram Base: olive
9 drops Carrot seed
6 drops Helichrysum
3 drops Lavender
3 drops Rosemary
Carrot seed and Helichrysum are the main drivers here, with Lavender a strong second.
Over this oil, I also smeared a store-bought ointment (too unwieldy and short-notice to make it myself, I have no lab and wanted to heal now), containing Comfrey, Calendula, Plaintain and beeswax.
Update, two weeks later:
A darker patch of slightly thicker skin is still there, which I can resume treating with the oil, but I successfully avoided gaping craters, despite the repeated forming of those nasty deep scabs! Removing those, followed by fresh application of both oil and ointment, did the job.
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