Because I had a tendency to go to the library and simply pluck books nearly at random off the shelves, I have little idea about the majority of books I’ve ever read. On Goodreads (and if you’re a reader and haven’t tried Goodreads, try it), you can list every book you’ve ever read, but I simply can’t remember entire years in my reading.

We aren’t exactly talking about great literature, for the most part.

So, every once in a while I wonder what I’m forgetting. Are there magnificent books hidden deep in the crevices of my cantankerous brain? I bet there are. But I bet there are more trashy novels than you could shake a stick at, given a desire to shake a stick (and who doesn’t have a stick-shaking need every once in a while?) in the general direction of books.

Do I have a point? No. I can’t believe you read this far thinking I did.

The National Marrow Donor Registry is looking for potential donors. You might be able to save a life, and until June 22 it’s free.

I don’t qualify because of my heart medication I mentioned in the last post, but you might. I’d consider it a personal favor if you would sign up. Saving lives is fun.

I have been suffering from tachycardia for a little over a month, and was put on a couple of drugs to see if they helped. (They do, but in exchange I am incredibly sleepy, so the cure is worse than the disease.)

One of the drugs has lots of warnings about how it can’t be stopped abruptly.

On Saturday night, I got home late and simply forgot to take my meds.

By Sunday morning, I regretted the hell out of that forgetfulness.

Imagine that you have swallowed a hive full of bees. They are in your head and your stomach and under your skin and they’re walking and stinging and generally hanging around being bees.

That’s what it felt like.

My lesson? Learned. Take it from me, if the drug says not to stop it cold turkey, don’t stop it cold, turkey.

Most of my closest friends and acquaintances online are people I met through poetry. The number of truly spectacular writers who are even better people staggers me, and I feel lucky to know them.

But as I fall away from poetry, and it is a falling away at best if not a turning away, does this thing we had in common become a thing that makes me fail to fit in? Do I become like a former Catholic going to mass, trying to take communion despite the whole congregation knowing I no longer believe?

It always seems to work that way, that when I need to belong I no longer have the ability. I’m losing things faster than I can gain new ones. I’m diminished.

It’s just past noon on Saturday and my TV has been on since Wednesday night. There are people who leave TVs on and there are people who don’t. I’m in the latter category, except this week.

It’s less than 10 feet away (though it’s around the corner so I can’t see it from here) and what I’ve heard of the programming has waffled between boring and awful, but I haven’t turned it off.

I would claim to be making a statement, or even claim that it’s a comfort to me. But neither is true. It’s rather annoying and yet it’s still on.

Perhaps I’m just trying to figure out just how long I can stand it.

Perhaps I’m just really lazy and generally able to tune it out.

Perhaps it’s just giving me something to talk about that’s more interesting than how I feel and what my baseball team is failing to do.

Or perhaps I have been turning it off but Albert keeps turning it back on and my conscious mind refuses to accept this and has decided to ignore it.

I’m betting on that last one. Albert is devious.

I was tired of the previous theme, so I decided to revamp the Little Pill. The new Julie is softer and strangely girly compared with the old me, so now I have a blog that reflects that a little more. I’ll miss the German, though.