But here we are, going on 1 AM on Tuesday morning. (as opposed to "1 AM on Tuesday afternoon"). I went to bed a little after 10 PM. I had a decent enough day. Halfway through the day, it started snowing and of course, I went outside and took macro photos of snowflakes. I stood out there, hunched over the gas grill we never use, holding my camera up with my hands in my super-cozy fingerless gloves. I wasn't outside for very long, but the snow was the heavy, wet kind and after only a few minutes, my fingers were so cold and stiff I could barely move them. And they had reached that point of cold where touching my skin hurt, so I figured it was time to go inside. (I later found out that our high was 16° Fahrenheit, which would account for how I got so cold, so quickly). I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening trying not to get up and move around. After being seated for several minutes, any moving resulted in sharp pain in all my muscles.
When I went to bed, I said to the Disabled Guy (who doesn't give a damn about it) that: "At least today's weather explains why I haven't slept good for two nights" and he muttered an "uh-huh" as I walked up the stairs. I got settled into bed, my super-soft fleece blankets all situated and I was getting that all-over warm cozy feeling when things took an ugly turn. As my body settled into the bed, gravity increased its harsh grip and felt like it was trying to pull me through the bed to the floor. Every time I tried to relax my muscles (I start at my feet and work my way up- its a sleep inducing exercise I learned when I worked nights), they'd tense up harsher than they had been before I tried to relax. I changed my position, which caused me a grimace-and-whine-inducing bout of pain.
I ended up fairly comfortable on my back, propped up slightly by my pillows and with my arms at my sides. Every single joint in my body throbbed in agony with every heartbeat. My hands and arms felt swollen (they aren't visibly swollen though). My skin was starting to do that burning thing it does in a flareup (at least there was no itching!). My muscles felt like they were being pulled out of my body. My larger muscles, like the thigh muscles and the shoulder/upper-back muscles felt like they were being scraped off my skin with a flat, dull, burning blade.
After almost two hours, I got out of bed. And that brings us to now- closer to 1 AM than when I started this blog post and two more 5/325 Hydrocodone tablets (approximately seven hours after my normal nightly dose). My hands still feel swollen and stiff and my joints are still aching. But the burning pain is starting to subside. This strawberry Jolly Rancher hard candy tastes terrible. The music I'm listening to is awesome (MKIII by Steam Powered Giraffe) and I'm feeling kind of hungry. But I don't have anything in the house that I can eat without having to 1- get up to go get and 2- cook it.
And, I'm not the least bit tired. But at least I'm wearing this awesome hat, which is the one I'm wearing in my profile photo here. That's right, I wear my awesome accessories when I feel terrible because I like them and I will do every little thing I can do to make me feel better.
Now that I've passed the 1 AM mark because I was getting the links to the various things I linked to up there, the Hydrocodone has helped a little. This raspberry Jolly Rancher isn't much better than the strawberry one. The music is still awesome and so is my hat. (also- I just realized that my hands and fingers feel this way because of the Reynaud's that was triggered by the bitter cold Monday afternoon while taking photos).
I also remembered there's some frozen pizza in the kitchen. That's pretty much the least amount of work for something edible. Throw it into the oven and then sit down for 20 minutes.
Now if I could get to sleep, all of Tuesday's problems would be better.
And because I mentioned them, here are a few of the photos I took- snowflake macros. If you'd like to see more (or see these larger), just click a photo, it'll take you to my Flickr.
For size reference on how tiny the snowflakes were and look, my fur-trimmed fingerless gloves from The Sheepskin Shop at the Bristol Renaissance Faire. I had to switch to auto-focus to get this shot and the lens chose to focus on the fur trim on the gloves instead of my fingers.
