As close as I can remember the conversation:

"Hi, Megan!"

"Hi, Kitt!"

... the usual pleasantries ...

"For communal dinner, I brought over those tiny little sausages."

"Oh, I don't recall them."

"Well, don't throw them out!"

"Heh, I won't. "

"Well, Mark is coming over tomorrow for some show. I was wondering if you could coordinate the sausage transfer with him."

...

"You want me to coordinate the sausage transfer?"

"Yes."

"That's a great post title. You know, I might have to change my blog name to 'Coordinating the sausage transfer.'"

Normal body temperature is 98.6° The problem with "normal" however, is that normal is a guideline, and very, very few people are truly normal. I never truly wanted to be normal except for a couple of seriously misguided, adolescent years, when "normal" meant having friends. Being extraordinary means you have a life worth living.

There are, however, expections to the desire not to be normal. Body temperature may or may not be one, I haven't quite decided.

My normal body temperature is 97.6°, where "normal" in this case is defined as the temperature I get most often if I check my temperature when I'm not sick, not exercising, not just waking up and not eating. Having done this measurement a half dozen times, all with the same result, I feel comfortable in saying my normal body temperature is 97.6°

So, when I had my second migraine of the month today, I thought about raising my body temperature to see if that would help speed the thing away.

I arrived home from class around 3:30, and noticed the light in the living room was a little odd. I didn't think much past that thought about it, which cracks me up in retrospect. How many times have I gone blind with these things, each one starting the same way? How many times have I thought, "Huh? The light looks odd?" or "Everything is in really sharp focus?" or "WTF? The door is f***ing open!" Oh, wait, that last one was just one time.

At 3:45 I was half blind, sending a note to Kris that I wouldn't make practice that evening, and stumbing to the bed, dragging Bella with me. If I was going to sleep, I damn well sure was going to have a warm dog in the bed with me.

I woke up two hours later, and tried to do something, anything productive, only to have spots reform at 6:45. My first thought was, go to sleep, avoid what's coming. My second thought was, stop, this is a learned response. The shivering, the chills, the shudders, all of these I've learned over the years suffering through migraines. How about trying a proactive approach?

One of the beliefs around migraines is that the headache is caused a constriction of blood vessels which causes blood to leave the extremities, only to rush back into the head when the blood vessels later dialate. If I can heat my hands and feet and head, the theory goes, the blood won't rush back, and the pounding headache won't trigger.

Of course, lots of pain killers can do the same trick.

I took a bath as hot as I could stand the water, then turned it up higher. I started with a shower and a closed drain, sitting down and switching the water once I was standing in 4" of water. After staying in the water, only half of which I could see at this point, for about fifteen minutes, I stood up, toweled off, and left. The visual symptoms didn't disappear quickly, but I had successfully stayed awake through an entire aura.

I'll take the small victory.

When I checked my body temperature again, I was feeling feverish. Clearly I had succeeded in raising my body temperature, but by how much? Did I manage 100°? How about 99°? Even 99° would be good, I thought.

My temperature?

98.6°

I was finally normal.

Of course, a lower body temperature has been linked to a longer life span, so maybe I should stop worrying and accept my body is helping me in my quest to live to 120.

I really wish, however, we could figure out the true cause of the aura. Those are what I hate. I can't trust my eyes. Seeing is not believing for me. If it were, then I have front row seats into regular rifts of the space time continuum.

And people, they're pretty for only so long.

I learn more and more in the Master Gardening program each week, and not all of it about gardening. Today I learned that a large number of people in the Master Gardening program are tech-phobics. Either that, or they are worry warts to the level I could only dream of achieving.

Honestly, part of the problem is that I messed up and didn't verify we had equipment available that I knew we would need. As a result, we were sorta in a panic when the instructor arrived late with his equipment. However, rather than allowing us, the A/V team, to set up and test the equipment, several other people went into panic mode and needed to bring over duplicate equipment, even though we had four replacement parts for the original equipment.

Instead of insisting they stop worrying, it'll work out, it always works out, stop worrying, darn it, I said nothing, and let them worry, let them bring over extra equipment that we'll have to carry back over, let them flutter around like mother hens, and look, everything worked out and class started on time.

Go fig.

The train from San Carlos was quite full this morning. Instead of my usual seat, facing backwards so that in case of collision I'll be okay since there are no seatbelts on the train, I found open seats only on the second level, on the side with lots of sun. So that's where I sat.

The train ride is over half an hour long, so I pulled out my laptop, put on my headphones, and started up a DVD I had been watching. The only problem I have with watching a DVD on the train is that I tend to forget to pay attention to the stops and have to rush to gather all of my crap when I realize we're slowing down to stop at my train stop. That panicked woman with hair flying and crap tucked under each arm, hunched over so as not to drop the bag she's clutching to her chest as she sprints off the train? Yeah, that's me.

Today, as the train was approaching a stop about half way through my ride, a tall older man was standing under my seat in the aisle on the first level. I noticed him only because he was staring up at me.

When I noticed him, I start staring back down at him. He shuffled over a little bit to look at my computer screen. I shifted to stop him from seeing it, ignoring that at least another dozen people on the second level could see my screen just fine - it was the guy staring at me that I cared about. He then pointed his chin at my computer, and I shifted around even more. What the heck was this guy doing, trying to look at my computer. Was he stalking me?

With the second shift, my hip pressed up against my bag, and I felt the distinct vibration my phone makes when I've missed a call and someone has left a message. I whipped out my phone and realized, the stalker guy pointing his chin at me, yeah, that guy was trying to tell me, me with my headphones on, that my phone was ringing.

Not that I heard it over the DVD. I was too busy glaring back at the guy.

Continuing in last night's conversation with Tyler, Kris and I talked a lot about ultimate and Mischief, me and my injuries. I commented how frustrated I was practice, and how I hadn't played well. I must have been particularly whiny, because he turned to me and commented, "Look, you've been injured for the last two years. You essentially haven't played ultimate for two years."

Yeah, put that way, I should give myself some slack.

In my effort to start over, I went for a run today. Even off days can be days of improvement. I went the Bernardo route, which is a fairly easy route, in 23 minutes. Last year, I ran it consistenty under 18, I think, so this is definitely a long road ahead of me.