Sunday: over and done.

Well, it's 10:58 PM Sunday evening and the day is almost done. I left out early this afternoon in the Jeep and drove down the highway to Marcus place on Mills road. We met out at the pond, just three guys hanging out with the dog and George Strait's "Heartland" playing on the radio. The afternoon progressed as expected, culminating in our complete childish amusement as pistol shots rang out into the afternoon air. It was a warm afternoon, perfect for spending outdoors, with the temperature dipping down to around 57 in the middle of the evening before turning cold for the night.

After our couple hours out at the pond we took a ride through the woods to visit a probable camp spot I might take advantage of here some day soon. It's a quiet little place back off the highway, behind a cotton field and down on the creek where no one will bother me much most any time of day. I briefly considered the idea of losing myself back there for the evening; setting up a camp chair and a bedroll down on a floor of leaves and starting a little camp fire. I actually wanted to use it as a place to write, or at least that was my thought as I stood there today, but it seemed unnatural to sit back in the woods with nature and then to violate the natural surroundings by breaking out my laptop, but we'll see as time goes on.

Later in the day I called Tim to give me a hand and went over to Bill's house. (By the way, Sassenach, he and Scarlette say hello.) Bill just bought a new 42" plasma TV and wanted me to install it for him. Not only did he not want it on the wall with the cable jack, he wanted it on the opposite wall, over the fireplace on the mantle, and wanted to wire up his surround sound without making the wiring visible. Well, needless to say, four hours later Tim and I had it mostly done. We ran the cable under the floor of the house and up on the other side of the room, mounted the plasma screen on the wall with the help of our handy-dandy laser level, which I at least used today, thereby vindicating myself of the guilt from purchasing it, and ran all the surround sound and audio/video cabling down through the mantlepiece and installed a new surround system.

Bill kindly repaid us for our time by taking us and our significant others (Thanks again Bill) to dinner at Logan's where I quite thoroughly devoured half the yeast rolls, most of the cheese fries, my salad, and most of the right side of a cow, while chasing all that down with three cokes. All in all it was a nice day.

I got to see good-ol-Brad tonight, who apparently reads this blog every couple of days just to keep in sync with what's going on, which I really appreciate by the way. It makes it worth it to know I have readers... lol. Otherwise, this would really be just me sitting here talking to myself day in and day out, which is kinda neurotic if you ask me. Now, based on Brad's consumption levels, he might not even remember seeing me there tonight. Maybe he'll read this sometime this week and say..."Dude. Did you know I saw Tommy last weekend? Yeah, I didn't know either.. but he told me on his blog." See, I perform a public service by detailing my life on here. I'll help Brad reconstruct his drunken evening. By the way, who were the hot girls with you again? *kidding*

Medical Discovery

Well, on the less positive note, I did discover something useful today. I've finally diagnosed what I think has been plaguing me for a year or two now. Most of you know I suffer from hives from time to time. Clinically it's called "Urticaria." Apparently 60% of males between ages 20 and 30 suffer from hives throughout some point in their lives. Well, after suffering from random issues with hives now for almost three years, I can tell you it's quite the pain in the.. well.. skin. (thought I was gonna say somethign else huh?)

The good news? I know what it is and that I'm not crazy. What I have is one of the more rare kinds, called chronic idiopathic urticaria. Broken down, this means that I've had them for six weeks and they have no apparent cause or cure. Actually I've had them for almost three years and for the first year I tried every remedy known to man; changing diets, shampoo, body wash, foods, vitamins, everything you can think of. What I found out was surprising, and pretty disturbing for someone who hasn't already gone through it before. Apparently, it's quite common for idiopathic hives to react to antihistamines or other drugs for a short time, before become immune to them. I went through this for two years before I gave up and just decided I was going to have to deal with them, which is what most people say is actually the trigger for making them cease... huh, imagine that. All the various tricks I tried made my body react to them accordingly, but the hives then became actuated to the new state of "normalcy" and were completely unphased by benadryl, or any other histamine blocker. Long story short; there's nothing you can do about them. That's why they're called idiopathic hives. Doctor's don't know what causes them.

More good news? They always go away, eventually. Their mean life span, the average, is about 9 years, but I hope I'm on the leeward side of that national average.. ugh. Six more years of them would drive me crazy. Specifically, what I suffer from the most is called cheiropomphylix which is simply hives on the hands and wrists. More acutely, I have an even more rare form of idiopathic hives called Delayed Pressure Urticaria (DPU), which is the part that really sucks.

Basically, when I work with my hands all day long doing something like pulling cable, or using a hammer, anything physically pressuring my hands, I am unable to close my fingers for the next two days because of the swelling (hives) that occur under my skin, down in the muscle. My fingers, palms, and the meat of my hands aches, not the joints, which is something that most drugs can't affect.

As bad as it sounds, it's much better to KNOW that I'm NOT nuts and NOT dying of some strange disease, lol. The good news is that the life span of DPU in a person is often much shorter than the rest of the hives. So not only do I have the rare form of hives, but I have a rare form of a rare form, and have both forms at once. But I know now eventually they'll go away and I'll be able to get back to normal, which is very good news to me.

I actually don't let them slow me down much now, but I do often suffer for it in the days following serious physical work with my hands or legs. It's funny. People wear knee pads to protect their knees. I can't wear knee pads because the presure on my skin from the straps causes the backs of my legs to get DPU hives down in the muscle, so I'm better off to have the bad knees because I can cure that with Advil and nothing cures the DPU pain for about three solid days. Tonight, when I got home from working at Bill's house, the pressure of my boot laces on my ankles made my ankles swell with what I guess I'll start referring to as the DPU ache... I need to think of a funny acronym for DPU that'll make me laugh when I think about it at night lying in bed unable to sleep. Hmm... "Dumb Pain Uncurable?" Ok.. my acronym's need work, I admit it. I'll think on it. Enough on the hives and DPU subject for now.

What else?

Well, it's 11:42 PM (42!!) and I'm sitting here drinking a fresh pot of coffee. Do I need to be drinking a fresh pot of coffee at almost midnight? Probably not. However, I have this internal regulator that helps me determine what's missing from my day to make it complete and satisfying. This is something I think most adults have, whether they know it or not. Tonight when I got home, my internal regulator told me I was missing something from my day, and more specifically that something was that little bit of joy I get from sipping on a hot cup of coffee while I sit here and write to you all, which has started to become quite the habit for me as of late.

So, here I am, cup in hand, banging away on the keys. Maybe I'll go research a new PPP post to make today. I've already made three that got approved, so I'm actually getting paid to blog! How cool is that, right? It's not a lot, maybe a few hundred bucks a month, but it's a few hundred bucks I dont have now, so why not?

Ok.. I'll see what's out there in the PPP world tonight and get back to you all again soon.

Till next time.