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About Tehuti
I am an amateur writer of novels, serials, and novellas. Most of my work is in the genres of fantasy, mythology, drama, occult, GLBT, and erotica.
As I'm not seeking publication, I offer my work online for free reading. I'm not seeking stylistic critique so much as feedback from people who just like reading what I write. I love hearing what people think of my characters, plots, themes, etc., so if you have any comments or advice on those, feel free to share. I'm not hugely popular and often go many months without hearing from readers so I enjoy all the comments I get!
My interests are Ojibwa mythology, Mackinac Island, Egyptian mythology, Jungian symbolism and dream interpretation, ritual crime, fantasy writing, and various other things you can find in my personal bio, available just to the right. Please click to learn more about me and what I'm looking for in terms of readers and potential friends.
Feel free to hit me up if you're interested in any of these things, and enjoy my writing!
Tar! :) |
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Untitled Tentative Blog-Type Thing Entry #681512, added on 12-29-09 @ 10:19 pm EST
Entry Access Restriction: None.
I am now the owner of a laptop, and of a strange mechanical toy dog which looks eerily realistic as it just lies there sleeping and...breathes. I feel rather lame in saying that this laptop is the first time I have ever actually used one or even seen one up close while it's actually turned on; I've gazed at them from afar, but the closest I've ever been to them is when looking at the (turned off) display models in the store. It takes getting used to. I'm glad I never succumbed to the temptation to buy one of those little tiny cutesy ones; whenever I placed my fingers over their keyboards, they were just so small I could never hope to type anything properly (and as anyone reading this knows, typing is like 90% of what I do on a computer), so I refrained from buying one of those. Lo and behold a fullsize one shows up unexpectedly at Christmas. It's running Windows 7, which isn't terribly different from Windows Vista but does have a few differences, mainly in small but useful details that Microsoft for whatever asinine reason decided to do away with. It hadn't a mouse so I navigated by running my finger along a touchpad and pushing a button; this grew bothersome so we invested in a wireless mouse, which is incredibly fast and touchy and hard to control, yet after I use it I keep finding the regular mouse on the PC to be slow and clunky and hard to control, so I keep bobbing between the two. It has a battery, which means it can run without electricity for a couple of hours; we in fact suffered a +5-hour blackout 12/27, but I was so leery that it might be a days-long outage that I refrained from using the laptop lest I need to use it even more later on during the blackout, which in fact ended later that night. It has a CD/DVD player/burner in it as well--my mother paid extra for that feature alone, though I'm indifferent to it. I plan to use the thing as nothing more than a glorified word processor, but that's what I've always been wanting anyway, a way to work with my files someplace besides the PC in the dining room. The new version of Wordpad is horrific; seeing as I do most of my work in HTML, I believe I'll be using Notepad a lot more often. I've already transferred all my writing files so they now exist on the PC, the laptop, and my flash drive, which works to move things between the two.
So we shall see how that all works out. I have the temptation to put stickers all over the thing (it's shiny and black and plain) but have refrained.
I had the most humiliating afternoon while out eating at Big Boy on Saturday before shopping. Sometime during the meal of a club sandwich and French fries, part of one of my bad teeth disappeared, and it was left with a sharp edge which scraped the inside of my cheek and made me uncomfortable. I got to thinking about this and for some reason it began to nauseate me. Before I knew it, my head was starting to swim. I tried putting it down, putting it back, resting it in every position I could short of putting it between my knees, but to no avail. I know the feeling of losing consciousness when it happens, I'm so used to it. The last time I recall this happening was at the Northwood restaurant (see the 10/5/08 entry), when I didn't fully lose consciousness but came close. This time, I passed out. It was very weird and seemed to last forever and it took me a while to figure out what was going on.
I recall all the dizziness and nausea and fuzziness that preceded it.
Then I remember a bunch of nothing.
Then I recall I seemed to be dreaming, but I can't recall what it was. I think there were lots of people and/or lots of activity, but I'm unsure.
Then everything was black and I heard noises, voices, faraway and muffled, like I was coming up from underwater or something, like the beginning of Saving Private Ryan or something. They grew louder and clearer as if my ears were slowly being cleared. I at last heard some discussion going on, and a man's voice saying to my mother, "I'm an EMT. In training. I'm from Dearborn." Somebody was holding my wrist and I thought, "Ah, cripes," because I had merely passed out, it was nothing big, but here was an EMT already, what the heck was going on? Nobody had ever called an EMT on me before.
More voices and talking. I can't recall if it was before or after I tried opening my eyes, but I heard someone--the EMT-in-training, or my mother?--say that my lips were turning blue, and the EMT-in-training said, "Her pulse rate is really slow, and that's not good." The question kept getting tossed around, what had happened? I felt incredibly sludgy and weak, too much so to respond, but was fully lucid and aware of what they were discussing and why. My lips were blue? Weird. No wonder they were worried, but it was just a faint. No reason to call anybody, I always come out of these things.
"Can you tell me your name?" I heard the EMT-in-training ask me.
"Rachel H.," I managed to murmur.
"Do you know where you are?"
"Big Boy."
"Do you know who's the president of the United States?"
Jeez, this was lame. I'd just passed out, I hadn't lost my memory or anything. Still, this question made my brain stumble. Bush, I thought; then, No, Clinton. Then, No, the black guy, I always think his last name is his first name so that's why it's taking me so long to answer. "Obama," I mumbled at last. I wanted to tell him I knew why he was asking me these questions and they weren't necessary, but I just could not summon up the strength. I kept trying to clutch at my shirt with my right hand, but could barely do so, and it kept slipping back to the seat. It didn't seem worth the extreme effort needed to do so.
"Rachel, can you open your eyes and look at me?"
I don't WANT to look at you, I thought--even in a faint, my inability to make eye contact prevailed, yet I dragged my eyes open and turned them in his general direction just the same. I saw no faces, just bodies. The EMT-in-training was kneeling beside me, scribbling on a napkin while holding my wrist. Beside him, I saw a shirt and pants--that's all I saw, shirts and pants, but I recognized the restaurant manager. Ugh, cripes. My mother was standing at her side of the booth, answering a question here and there--they kept wanting to know what had precipitated the event, and there was no real answer, merely that I'd just been eating, had started feeling dizzy, and then had passed out.
I saw another shirt-and-pants--a blue uniform--approaching. A city policeman. UGH, cripes. He, too, stopped at the booth and started to question me, though he seemed to be there more to keep me calm than do anything else, for the only specific comments I remember him offering were, "You know, Rachel, you look familiar," at which I thought, You probably saw me in the DARE program when I was in elementary school. Well, that was the only place where I figured a policeman would remember seeing me. "I think I saw you on America's Most Wanted," he quipped, and I felt like offering a groan of a laugh, but was too weak to do so. Mentally, at least, I rolled my eyes. What a weird joke to make. I must look a lot younger than I really am.
I started to come out of it, so my vision grew clearer and I wanted to sit up a bit more; I kept blinking and making grasping motions with my free hand, trying to ground myself. Someone--the manager?--said an ambulance had been called. Ah, cripes. I didn't need an ambulance! I don't even have insurance! Over and over, I wanted to tell them all it was okay and I didn't need all this attention, but I just didn't have it in me to speak up. I noticed that our food dishes had been moved aside and one of Ma's saucers set atop my unfinished plate of fries. I wanted to reach out and grab a few of them. The fries had been good and I hadn't even gotten to finish them. It was such a waste. Throughout the entire rest of the episode, I kept longing to finish those fries, but it would have looked remarkably stupid for a half-conscious person to be grabbing at fries while being checked over by an EMT.
Two more people arrived--paramedics. Cripes. I wanted to apologize profusely for all this bother. One of the paramedics conversed with the EMT-in-training, who gave him the napkin with the information written on it and told him about his observations and who was thanked before heading on his way. I don't know what his name was. One paramedic knelt down beside me and started chattering while the other one stood back a bit, maybe talking with the policeman or manager; I don't know what became of the latter two. The paramedic, too, was cheerful and chatty and kept joking as if to keep me calm; he said the policeman was Officer F. and that he was a "good guy." Put anybody in a police uniform and I'll assume they're a good guy. I was again asked what had happened and I managed to explain that I'd felt nauseated and had fainted; I informed him the last time had been perhaps a couple of years ago (the Northwood incident, which seemed longer ago than it really was), and that it happened now and then, usually caused by overheating or by me thinking about something that nauseated me. Nothing serious. When I told him (and earlier, the EMT) about what medications I was on--Elmiron and generic Atarax--none of them had ever heard of those. No, I had no medical conditions I was aware of, this was just something that happened now and then. As I explained when I became a little more lucid, "I start to get lightheaded and then it's like my blood pressure just plunges." I remember one day at home, every time I merely stood up from kneeling, I'd get so dizzy I'd have to sit back down, so it's nothing new.
By now I was just about awake, but still very weak and in a cold sweat; I kept making the grasping motions with my hands and blinking and abruptly shaking my head. The paramedic checked my pulse, took my blood pressure, put electrodes or something on my arm and leg to check something, and even took blood from my finger--I had to turn away, cringing lest I get nauseated enough to pass out again--it hurt so little, it didn't even leave any mark, not even a prick or a tiny bruise, I can't even remember which finger it was. My pulse rate was almost back to normal, my blood pressure too, and my blood sugar was normal. "I was wondering about that," my mother said. "Is this like a vasovagal thing?" My mother heard that term in the past and likes to bring it up, even though it's just fancy talk for fainting. I mean, I could have told them, I'd just fainted, that was all. They weren't going to find anything immensely wrong with me.
The paramedic kept asking/urging me to let them wheel me out to the ambulance to be checked out further; I kept putting him off, even though first a wave of exhaustion--I suddenly felt so sleepy and heavy, I just wanted to shut my eyes and nod off--then a second, smaller dizzy spell passed over me; I just didn't see the point in wasting their time and resources when it was just a faint. I wanted to tell them how I'd passed out during a graphic description of an injury in a college science class and had been wheeled out to a woman's van in a computer chair to be transported to the hospital, but didn't have it in me to go into that. That had been in the dead of winter, too, me being wheeled through the parking lot in a computer chair by a bunch of strangers, I hardly needed to go through that again, much less get in an ambulance (even though it would have been a novel experience), much less go to the hospital. I have Medicaid, for crying out loud. I hardly need to rack up a bill over a mere faint.
I at last managed to say I had no insurance; the paramedic said it cost nothing for them to merely take me out to the ambulance to be checked out, I didn't have to go to the hospital or even be checked out if I didn't want to, but he really felt I should be. There was quite a lot of time spent with them making sure my vital signs were stable and me putting off their offers to escort me to the ambulance. I was at last presented with a form to sign, informing anyone who read it that I'd refused to be treated or whatever; I got hung up signing my last name since cursive is hard for me (I recently tried writing a sentence of it on a paper of mine then, when I noticed this a week or so later, didn't even recognize my own writing, it was so foreign) and it's always been hard for me to sign my last name, so I told him that, lest he think I was having trouble writing due to whatever my condition was. Ma went to settle the bill while they continued trying to convince me to at least go to the ambulance; she returned as I was at last standing up, still insisting I was able to walk, I really did NOT want to be wheeled out of there like an invalid. So embarrassing. "I'm sorry I took up your time," I apologized to the paramedic (he'd told me their names, though I promptly forgot them, was his name Pat or something?), but he quickly assured me that's what they were there for, to make sure I was okay. Ma stated that Big Boy had refused to charge us for the meal; I was astonished and dismayed at that, it's not like it was the FOOD that made me pass out, Big Boy has great food. Only later on did I learn she didn't get to finish her meal, either, and I felt lousy, and still wished I'd gotten to finish my fries. I was perplexed to find that my purse, which had been sitting on the seat beside me, was gone. It showed up on Ma's side. My DID book was still on the table so I picked that up and put it in the purse, which Ma offered to carry, but I insisted on carrying it, and merely kept my right hand out to balance against anything in case I needed to on the way out. At some point during all this I stated that this was too much drama for one restaurant--not long before this, our waitress had tripped on a knife near the kitchen and had fallen with a thud and a loud yell, so of course adding my incident to that was humiliating. I hoped nobody thought I was faking. It's not like I'd wanted them to go to all this trouble. Poor waitress, with me stealing her thunder.
I saw the ambulance waiting in the parking lot. The paramedic kept his hand on my back the entire way out to the car. I felt so lame. What an immense waste of their time and resources. I got in the car and he even tucked the edge of my coat in so it wouldn't get caught in the door, and told me again that I was free to call them back at any time if I changed my mind about being brought in, whether it be ten minutes from now or tomorrow. We thanked them and left.
Ma mentioned that the call to 911--made by the restaurant manager--had probably been broadcast over the scanner that my dad is always listening to. Ugh, CRIPES. Turns out he had missed hearing that particular call, so I can only imagine how it went. "Such-and-such-so-and-so-babble-that-starts-every-call, you are needed at such-and-such-street-address, Big Boy restaurant, for a 33-year-old female; unconscious, lips turning blue, very slow pulse, no known medical history, such-and-such-so-and-so-babble-that-ends-every-call." I wonder if Dad would have known that was me had he heard the call. I can't even think of all the times we've heard stuff like that and have quipped, "That doesn't sound good!" It was weird to possibly be the subject of such a call for a change.
Ma explained, to my insistent questioning (I always wonder what I looked like and how others reacted every time I pass out), that the EMT-in-training had just shown up--"I don't know if he was just passing by, or if he came over to us, he just popped up right there"--as if out of the blue, offering to help. The manager had called 911 and that was why the police officer had shown up. It felt like I was out for ages but it hadn't been long at all. It would really have been free to go out to the ambulance without being transported, but there was no way I could have known that. My own reaction had almost caused my mother herself to pass out--"When your legs just spread out, I knew that wasn't good!" (I remembered spreading my legs out to try to relieve the swimmingness in my head, not that it had helped much, either.) Even more later on she exclaimed, "I thought your head was going to knock against the guy in the booth behind you!" and laughed--I remembered that I'd been trying not to put my head back too far lest that very thing happen. I just couldn't get over my lips turning blue. They really did that? Ewgh. That's the first time I've ever heard of that happening, usually I just turn white.
Ugh, it will be so embarrassing going back to that restaurant.
Resuming typing up this entry on the laptop aforementioned. Good God, the calculator on this looks weird. (I can never remember my age--my date of birth, yes, but not exactly how old I am--so had to subtract, and could not find the "clear" button for a moment or so.)
I also discovered that what I had assumed to be a sickly chickadee is in fact not sick at all, but crippled. He's the only chickadee I can tell apart from the others in that whenever he lands, he keeps splaying his wings out and losing his balance; it's hard for him to maintain his balance enough to hammer at a seed while clinging to a branch, so he often simply eats on the ground or from the plate. I assumed he had salmonella, but the other day when he landed, I saw that he kept one foot elevated while balancing on the other. The only reason he flutters and splays his wings is because he's perching on only one foot. I then noticed that the lame foot was dangling from his leg by a mere thread, and I think I even saw him trying to peck it off, though I don't know if he was successful. Poor thing. Yet he still keeps coming to eat and has been doing so for weeks. I wish I had that sort of perseverance.
I can't think of a way to end this, and am not sure whenever I might have anything else to say since my mood plunges so much and so often...and this issue is starting to act up again, right on cue...so I suppose that's it.
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This page last updated 11/11/09. Still under construction so may change at any time.
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