A Real Pain In The Neck

There are a great deal of migraines out there in the Knit-Blog world. Let's face it. We're a bunch of people who spend a lot of time staring at tiny little sticks, teeny little loops and sometimes need to follow a wayward strand back to the point where it all went wrong. We also tend to get a little tense over these things, the latter being the most obvious stressor. We are probably a bit more likely to be the victims of horrible headaches.

Other than those moments when I am inadvertently exposed to oddly flashing lights, I am fortunate to not suffer from the migraines. And the flashing light phenomenon is really more of an event that involves nausea and seeing sparklies for a few hours. I can live with that. I'm just not a fan of headaches.

Which is why the raging pain in my head right now is more than a little disconcerting. It is a headache of epic proportions. If you are a doctor or just a fan of noggin pain, you might like to use me for some sort of study. I have what is possibly the most horrific headache known to mankind. It started around mid-afternoon somewhere around the base of my skull. It then proceeded to travel all the way up the back of my head to land between my eyeballs like a Pain Mohawk. I've beaten it back with the ibuprofen to some degree. But it is not subdued. It is like a Zombie Headache...it cannot die.

Since I don't normally suffer from headaches, this is a fairly interesting phenomenon. I say, "fairly" because I am not so enamoured with the whole thing that I want to dwell upon it for the remainder of my days. I would like for it to go away. But, in those moments where the pain recedes to a point where coherent thought is possible, I have managed to come up with a few possible explanations:

*The dumbest woodchuck in the group lost a bet and is now affixed to the back of my head, chewing merrily away.

*The recent budget cuts to Maine schools (and they are pretty extreme) have forced my district to purchase their cleaning supplies through a shaky connection in a third world country where toxic fumes are considered to be a part of the disinfecting experience.

*That story we all heard as kids about how an earwig can get in your ear then chew through your brain until you go utterly mad is actually scientific fact. They say that it's the sound of it noshing on your brains that gets you in the end...

*I hit my head really hard earlier in the day and got amnesia. Then I hit it again and got more amnesia. Then I hit it again... You can see how this cycle of bashing and forgetting could result in a pretty impressive headache.

I enjoy a good explanation. I like it when things come with a story. As much as I'd like to think that my headache is something that will bring me fame and fortune, I suspect that the cause is a bit simpler. I have come to believe that it all began when I spent three days in a workshop prior to the start of school rather than in my classroom preparing for the children. In my absence, there were a number of little helper elves who thought it might be a fun idea to "tweak" a few things. These things included schedules and the classrooms in which I had placed my students for this school year. These are the sorts of things that Ms. Sheep puts a great deal of time and energy into prior to the start of school. They are also things that sort of can't be changed back to where she put them before all the "helping" when she learns about them the day before school starts. The elves mean well. I think. But, they are killing me...

Upon arriving home, I thought I'd treat my headache to a little field trip to the mailbox. You know...show it around my regular haunts? I'm nothing if not a good host. We were both pretty happy to see that a package awaited. (why headaches like packages, I know not) I'd managed to forget that I ordered a copy of "Victorian Lace Today" with a little gift certificate that found its way to me not too long ago. I have no intention whatsoever of knitting anything in this book. Let's get that out of the way right now. These patterns seem a bit beyond me at this point, frankly. But it is a lovely book and has such wonderful tidbits of lacy information that I couldn't resist.

The headache, surprisingly, seemed to think that I might actually be able to tackle one or two of the patterns. It was actually rather encouraging.

Which is how I know that it has to go. I'm not thinking straight.

SA