One day in Aikido (I took Aikido for 3 years, ya know) my sensei was teaching us about breathing, and the importance of breath control. "That's one of the reasons smoking feels good," he said, "because you breathe in...and breathe out." Hmm. Interesting point, but how many people are addicted to playing the harmonica? Hmm. Actually, smoking is more socially acceptable than playing the harmonica. People playing the harmonica near me only gives me a headache sometimes, though. Second hand smoke almost always does. It's psychosomnatic, I think, because it happens more often when people I think are irritating smoke near me. Knowing it's all in my head doesn't help any, though. Pain is all in your head, come to think of it. If you interpreted pain signals coming from your nerves differently, you could be anything from a masochist to a genetic dead end. I, personally, right now, am interpreting some pain and it is making me irritable.

Mostly I'm irritated at my headaches. I've been having a lot of headaches. I go through a little bottle of advil every month or so, and I only take one when it's REALLY bad, like now. I used to have migraines when I was in 7th grade. They were worse than this, but not much. I didn't receive any painkillers for them, since I was living with my family (which I don't feel like discussing right now), so I generally forget that there is such thing until the pain gets distracting. When I got my wisdom teeth chiseled out of my head, the dentist gave me a little bottle of Tylenol-3, which contains some codeine. I saved them for when I did things like accidentally dump scalding water on my palm. One day Ed and I had a house party, and my Tylenol-3 was all mysteriously replaced with bayer aspirin that evening. There weren't that many people there, and we would have LIKED to think that they were not crass enough to do something like steal from a medicine cabinet in a friend's house. After that, whenever I was in a lot of pain, I would think back on that party and try to figure out who would have done it. I don't want any of them to have done it.

Anyway, where are all these headaches coming from? Caffeine withdrawal? No, I'm halfway through a 2 liter bottle of Pepsi. Injury? Nope, I'm fine. Brain Tumor? Yeah, probably. Oh well. One of my smarter friends from high school had an operation for a brain tumor last year. I don't know if he is still alive. (Do you know what the first thing I thought was, after I considered the possibility of a brain tumor and death? "Good thing I already quit my job." The next thing was "The band is gonna be pissed if I die now.")

I think I'll take a four hour or so nap now to realign my sleep patterns.