The sad thing is that I started a Word entry on my desktop about two weeks ago and even though it�s a doozie in length, I didn�t finish it... which is why I never published it. But here it is, anyway:

2002 Mar 31:

It�s official. I�m allergic to wheat. Eating an amount over my threshold causes a severe headache that lasts just over 24 hours. These headaches cause anguish, tears, and thrashing about. Nothing will stop them.

The problem is� I don�t really know what my threshold is. I know eating a half piece of bread is okay but that eating two hamburger buns is not. I�m fairly sure I�ll never eat anything over the equivalent of half a slice of bread ever again. I learned my lesson the hard way.

I don�t know how long I�ve had this allergy. It could be a recent thing. I know my health at the beginning of this year left a lot to be desired. I�m guessing that most of the problems were a result of the wheat allergy.

This isn�t entirely bad news, given that I�ve been following a low-carb diet for over 3 years. It kind of forces me to become more vigilant about what I put into my body. After all, wheat isn�t much of a health food. And if eliminating it entirely from my diet will mean fewer headaches, I�ll be very happy indeed.

There is so much to talk about I don�t even know where to start. Since my last entry, I�ve thrown myself head-first into studying for the exam. I had a scary drug-allergy induced panic attack while on the way to work one morning, which has left me with fragile body chemistry. I refuse to watch the news because I get overly emotional. I�ve been cooking up a storm (!). We had our taxes done and, although we�re getting a nice chunk of change back, we�re not sure who gets what (nightmare!).

There�s really not much to say about the studying. I read whatever I can get my hands on that might help and I diligently go to my study group every Sunday. Additionally, I have spent close to $1,000 in the past three weeks on the exam fee, the prep course I�ll be taking next weekend*, and a huge expensive book which I refer to as "the bible" of the profession. I�d better pass this exam in June or else.

* Note: I took the course last weekend. It was an agonizingly long 18-hour course broken into two weekend days. I was very grumpy that I didn�t get a weekend, per se, but I am proud to report it was a very helpful course. I think I learned to "secrets" to passing this damn Site Planning section. Wish me luck!

Regarding the panic attack. It was the craziest thing! I was starting to have some serious allergy symptoms, so I took a new allergy medication that did not contain an active ingredient I was allergic to (I�m allergic to the active ingredients in decongestants: Pseudoephedrine HCl, and in antihistimines: Chlorpheniramine Maleate). I thought I was so smart when I discovered and purchased this medicine several weeks ago. I was on BART when I took it. The medicine is really handy because it dissolves in your mouth � no water necessary! Five minutes after taking it, I started freaking out. The panic attack came on suddenly and severely. Increased heartbeat and palpitations, sweaty palms, numbness, tingling, and blurred vision that caused borderline hallucinations. I had to mentally will myself not to start screaming. I tried thinking calm thoughts and kept repeating to myself over and over, "Act normal. You can get off this train in three stops... two stops... okay, next stop!"

I had to make myself take the steps necessary to get to work. Once I got to work, I unfortunately found that I could not speak very easily. Every word took tremendous effort. I felt like I wasn�t in my own body. I called M and told him I might need him to pick me up from work because I was "on the edge" of going insane. Well, okay, I don�t think I said that. But I did tell him, calm and rationally, that I was having a probable allergic reaction to a new allergy medicine, which was causing my body to overreact and freak out. The symptoms magically started dissipating after that. Little by little, it started leaving my system and I started feeling more normal.

However, I think it messed with my biochemistry because I haven�t felt the same since. While crossing the bridge last week, the steel beams on the side of the bridge were creating a flicker effect with the sun and I truly felt like I was losing my mind. And one morning I got into a Muni car without lights. Going through the tunnel, where there are lights positioned every 15 feet or so, caused a flicker effects and, again, wreaked havoc on my mind. Both times I had to calm myself down with zen thoughts and rational thought.

So that�s where my March 31st entry ended.

I�m happy to say that I think my body chemistry has corrected itself. I feel like myself once again. The whole experience was weird and scary.

Just to quickly finish up that entry from two weeks ago:

1) Watching the news depressed me and/or angered me so I didn�t watch for several weeks. I saw the President give a speech and started crying. I saw the POW get rescued and I started crying. I saw the ridiculous protestors lying in the streets, blocking port business, and I got angry. I had to quickly switch off the tellie. I despise war, but I think fighting this war is the best thing our country has done in a long time. Saddam and Co. are evil monsters that must be squashed. It�s an ugly thing for me to say, but I will celebrate when I hear the news of Saddam�s death.

2) Ah, yes, cooking! I must gloat a little here: I actually cooked four times in one week a couple weeks back! I was amazed at myself. I baked some flax seed/sour cream muffins, "deep dish pizza" (a scrumptious recipe I found on the Atkins recipe board; the crust is made with egg, oregano, and cream cheese) twice in the same week, and mini cheesecakes. And then our oven and refrigerator broke. (!) The repair guy came last night and fixed both... but not without spending $500 for 4 hours of his time.

3) We had our taxes done by M�s accountant. I�ve been telling M for years that he should try out Turbo Tax, but he doesn�t want to deal with the hassle because he has tons of write-offs and special circumstances (he owns a home, rents out the downstairs unit, owns part of a business, etc.). We originally wanted to file separately but his accountant said that we�d get more money back if we filed joint. And he also said he could separate out our refund for us so we know who got what. Well, that was a huge misunderstanding. When we got our taxes back, it just showed a huge chunk being returned to us. M asked him, "Weren�t you going to separate it out? How do we know who gets what?" and the accountant looked all befuddled, saying it was virtually impossible without a ton of extra work on his part. Whatever! So now we don�t know how we�re going to divide the booty. I got on Turbo Tax and did a quick calculation of how much I would get back filing separately� and it was a surprisingly huge chunk. Normally I owe. I don�t know what the hell we�ll do. We talked about maybe buying a new retro refrigerator we�ve been eyeing for $2,800 ($2,8000! Yikes!) with the tax refund. These refrigerators are made in Canada and, since we�re going on a mini-vacation to Vancouver at the end of this month, maybe we�ll see if we can get a deal by buying it there in Canadian dollars.

I got my hair cut a few weeks ago and was really disgruntled with it. Normally, I�m fairly nonchalant about my cuts because my hair grows like a weed, i.e. a bad cut corrects itself in a week or two. But in this instance the hair stylist completely misunderstood me, even though the cut itself was good. I was going to try my hand at growing it out to shoulder length. The layers were almost completely grown out, too. I told the stylist I wanted the sides evened up with the back to make it look more "bob"-ish... maybe even cut a little shorter/higher in the back. I also told him I wanted light layering so my hair wouldn�t be so heavy.

He totally misunderstood. He cut the back boy-short with very heavy layering and left the sides long. So now it looks like I have this weird punk cut. I was so upset! Now that it�s grown a little, I think I�ll get it cut today to even up the sides with the back... which is what I wanted in the first place. Sheesh!

I�m having paperwork problems with my new car, believe it or not. The used dealership staff are a bunch of morons. Keep in mind that I purchased the car back in January but still have not received my new license plates. A while back, I did some on-line research at DMV to try to find out why they hadn�t come yet. Well, DMV doesn�t have any information on new license plates on their web site. So I thought, "Whatever. I�ll keep waiting."

Last week, I got a call from the dealership saying that they were contacted by DMV because they can�t give me license plates until there is a damn smog check done on my car! Hello?! The smog check should have been done by the dealership before I bought the car! I was mad. The dealership told me to just bring it in to them and I put my foot down. Every time I take it in to the clowns at the dealership I have to take time off work and, frankly, that won't work with my current schedule (with all my project deadlines and all). So dealership guy says I can take it anywhere and they�ll either call in the payment info or they will reimburse me.

I took it to the shop across the street from where I work, the shop I usually use. At the end of the day, the shop called me to say that they couldn�t do a smog check because a license plate number was required for input into the machine before the smog check could be conducted. I was livid. I called the dealership guy and he acted all condescending toward my auto shop, saying they didn�t know what they were doing, blah blah blah. Needless to say, I think this is the dealership�s problem now. They are totally welcome to come pick up my car from me at work one day and correct this grisly situation. I�m washing my hand of it.

So that�s what�s new in Loriville.

Today is my Friday off work (yahooo!). I will spend it working out, washing and polishing my car, vacuuming up the dust bunnies, getting a hair cut and maybe getting a pedicure, and doing an exam problem for my Sunday study group. I should make breakfast first, since it is already 11 am. Where does the time go?!

Oh, and I put some wedding pics up on my web site several weeks ago. If you�d like to take a gander, go here. I still need to get the honeymoon pics up someday....