The Rebellious Brain

Friday was a crazy day, weather-wise. It cycled through rain, snow, hail, and sun, over and over again all day long. There was still a bit of snow on the ground Saturday morning, but no more in the forecast for the rest of the week. I stayed in all day Friday, rented Spy (the Melissa McCarthy comedy) on Amazon, and watched that over several hours (I kept pausing it to do other things). Dave and I had burgers and fries for dinner.

Saturday morning, I had to go to the lab and get my blood drawn. The woman who poked me was very skilled (plodding, but skilled) and it didn't hurt at all. I remarked on it and she said, "I try hard to make it not hurt because I believe in karma," which made me laugh. It's rare that I laugh while someone has a needle stuck in me, so that was good.

While I was in the lab, Dave was in talking to a doctor about his back. (He has a pinched nerve that is giving him grief.) The nurse practitioner had promised to call in a prescription for him on Friday and never did--the jerk--so he ended up going to urgent care to get a scrip.

After that, we killed some time in Target buying various things we need and don't need, went by the pharmacy, and then came home.

When we got home, I was having a crazy attack of hives triggered, I think, by the antibacterial hand soap at the doctor's office. I took an Allegra, a type of 24-hour "non-drowsy" antihistamine. (I put "non-drowsy" in quotation marks because an hour after I took it, I lay down and took a nine hour long nap. So that's how my brain responds to "non-drowsy.")  It took care of the hives and, unlike Benadryl, didn't make me feel like I was trying to think through nine layers of batting. So that was good.

Somewhere in there I got up, had dinner (a bean and cheese burrito) and went back to bed.

Earlier in the day, I had busted out some new art supplies, too, a big pack of Prismacolor colored pencils. Years ago, I bought a set of twelve, put them in a drawer and never used them. But a few months ago I broke them out and loved them. I bought another, larger set of forty-eight just before Christmas, and today I drew, inked, and colored in a calavera using the Prismacolors. That was fun.

There's a new adult coloring book craze going on. You can see tons of videos online reviewing adult coloring books and media used in them, everything from colored pencils that run $5 each to watercolors to pastels. Everyone is suddenly raving about how relaxing and meditative it is to color in coloring books. I thought it sounded interesting (I love kids' coloring books and Crayola crayons), so I bought about four adult coloring books and broke out my colored pencils to try them out.

After giving a few pages a try, I did not like them at all. The books for adults are weirdly hyper-detailed and it makes me feel anxious to try to color in them. So I put the books I bought aside for now. But I do love to draw and color what I've drawn, no matter how detailed. I can spend hours doing that. Go figure.

I think The Brain is just that rebellious.