Technical Difficulties

1. The new Shadow Unit episode, "Hope Is Stronger Than Love," is up. I wrote it.

If you've been wondering about whether you might like Shadow Unit, this episode is pretty self-contained, so it might be a good one to try. (The first taste is freeee-eeeee ... Of course, so are the second, third, and fourth tastes, in this case.)

2. Cons I will be attending in 2012:

• Odyssey Con
  
• WisCon
  
• Fourth Street
  
• WorldCon

Dunno how much I'll be doing at any of 'em--per day job: I don't rate paid vacaction yet, and have found that I may or may not have much brain left on the weekends--but I'll be there.

3. My editor says not to worry about those extra 20,000 words, so I'm suddenly quite close to being able to turn the damn book in. Not quite there yet, but close.

4. I wrote an essay for Chicks Dig Comics, along with a bunch of amazing women.

5. Acupuncture brings Teh Awesome. That is all.

1. "The Devil in Gaylord's Creek" (Fantasy Magzine 50) made Rich Horton's Recommended Reading list in this month's Locus: "an involving story about a dead girl who has a job killing devils. [. . .] Good and original work."

2. When this part of the Upper Midwest decides to be beautiful, it can knock your socks off.

3. New acupuncturist continues to be made of win and awesome. I've spent most of the last three sessions watching the needles chase the block in my right leg around. It hasn't given in yet, but I think it's getting tired.

4. This coming weekend, matociquala and I are Guests of Honor at LepreCon 37, and they've got their programming schedule up.

5. Speaking of cons, my (eerily symmetrical) WisCon schedule looks like:

• Sat., 1:00-2:15 Celebrating Diana Wynne Jones [moderator]
  
• Sat., 4:00-5:15 Space Fairies from Beyond: reading with Pamela Dean, Cat Valente, David D. Levine, and Seanan McGuire
  
• Sun., 1:00-2:15 Whedonistas
  
• Sun., 4:00-5:15 We're All Mad Here
  

And, of course, the Sign Out on Monday.

I have an acupuncture appointment today (finally! an acupuncturist in the Madison area who returns phone calls!). So while I'm off voluntarily having needles stuck into my flesh,* here's the second half of "Boojum" (by matociquala and me) at Drabblecast: Drabblecast 203: Boojum, Part II.

And if you need it, the link to Part I: Drabblecast 202.

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*Man, I need to earn enough money to get that dragon tattoo.

So the RLS was naggy and annoying like a naggy and annoying thing last night. Woke me up twice, which may in fact be a new high.

No idea why. Which is what we love so much about this fucking thing.

Happily, acupuncture today. New practitioner, younger than the 1st Practitioner, and much more interactive in her approach: she asked more questions and gave me more incidental information, plus suggesting Viparita Karani before bed, which is a fantastic idea.

She did a treatment she said is called the Four Horsemen, which involved needles in the quadriceps rather than just the calves. One of the points on my left quad was agonizingly sensitive, suggesting that, yes, this is probably a good idea. She also used essential oils on my feet, cedarwood and peppermint, so that if nothing else, my feet smell good. And I now have magnets band-aided to each wrist at what she tells me are the nausea points. Given that the Ropinirole, aside from not doing its damn job vis-à-vis the RLS, also makes me nauseated, I'm even willing to give the magnets a go, although frankly my skepticism on that topic is pretty darn vast.

The 2nd Practitioner also doesn't believe in leaving one alone with the needles for an hour, which on the one hand is good, because I didn't have time to get really chilly, but on the other, not so good, because the iron knot in my right quad did not have time to dissolve (although, since she wasn't doing the same treatment as the 1st Practitioner, perhaps it wouldn't have anyway).

Oddly, my left forearm insisted that she had used a point she had not in fact used. It hurt throughout the session exactly the way it hurt when the 1st Practitioner did have a needle there. I'm not as off-kilter in the aftermath as I was on Thursday, although she warned me that the Four Horsemen can have emotional effects for the next week.

We'll have to see how the long term effects play out. Certainly, I liked her, and I liked the fact that she explained why she was doing what she was doing as she went.

The downside is that the 2nd Practitioner charges $85 an hour, rather than merely $60. Which makes this an increasingly costly speculation.

So today at 10 (after an excruciatingly bad night), I had my first acupuncture appointment. It was interesting.

The acupuncturist diagnosed a chronic yin-deficiency and suggested some ways to help combat that; she also suggested a herbal supplement that she herself uses (she has restless wrist).* Then I took off my shoes and socks (and brace and compression stocking) and got up on the table for her to put needles in my hands and forearms, my calves, ankles, and feet, my ears, and the crown of my head, so I was a kind of postmodern porcupine or a really minimalist Martyrdom of St. Sebastian. Mostly, although I could feel the needles going in, it wasn't painful--except for a particular spot on both calves that caused stabbing agony when she adjusted the needles. (This seems to be part of the point, however, since those two were the only points at which she stopped and said, "Can you feel this?") After insertion, I couldn't feel most of the needles, except for one in my left forearm and one in my right hand which maintained a low-level dull discomfort. So this is not something I would do for fun, but it wasn't unendurable, either.

Then she turned the overhead light out and left me and the needles to work things out.

People apparently sleep; I did a four-count breathing pattern (in for four, hold for four, out for four, hold for four, which self-modified into just in for four, out for four, after a while) and tried basically not to get in my own way. The worst problem I had was finding a position that would let my arms relax without either (a.) flopping off the table or (b.) bumping the needles. After a while (I have no idea how long), I had to call the acupuncturist for a blanket, as my forearms got chilly. I had a hell of a time getting my voice to work, which is something I've noticed happen coming out of savasana after intense yoga sessions. She draped the blanket very carefully over my porcupined forearms, and then I lay there and counted breaths and tried not to think about my bladder. (Yes, very like trying not to think about a blue-eyed polar bear.)

At the beginning of the session, both legs were relaxed, and my left leg stayed that way, warm and boneless and not causing trouble. But my right leg started twitching. It got to where it was like I could feel the RLS like a fist-sized iron knot in my leg (outer side, front, just above the knee), preventing the leg from relaxing and causing this horrible counter-productive twitching. I was on the verge of giving up in despair and calling the acupuncturist to say this wasn't working when something really interesting happened.

The iron knot dissolved.

My right leg was abruptly a leg again, warm and relaxed like the left leg.

I was still just lying there being astonished when the acupuncturist came in to remove the needles. (Ergo, it took most of the hour for that to happen.) I got up carefully, paid the clinic (because, of course, my health insurance does not cover acupuncture), and walked home. Fed the cats, took the acupuncturist's herbal supplement and the calcium/magnesium/zinc supplement the pharmacist recommended with a Pepper Jack cheese sandwich, and am going to spend the afternoon drinking lots of water and probably typing in my progress on "Clouded Mary" from yesterday. If I'm even that ambitious.

I have no idea if the iron knot will stay dissolved even long enough to get to bedtime tonight. But, even if it doesn't, I felt the RLS retreat.

And that is truly amazing.


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*Evergreen Herbs Flex SC, if you're curious. Incidentally, Catzilla seems to be fascinated by the bottle.