Nobody Knows Anything

Welcome to Diane Patterson's eclectic blog about what strikes her fancy

The faces of meth

Posted on Written by

A jail deputy in Oregon started collecting before and after mug shots of meth uses, calling them “The Faces of Meth.” It’s pretty scary stuff, how terribly and completely changed these people’s faces and bodies are. (Now, there’s one pair in there where I think the person looks better in the second shot, but that’s just me. Most of them are seriously horrifying. Work-safe, except if you work in a meth lab.)

I had a friend who did a lot of crystal meth. Said it was great, because it allowed him to concentrate for days at a stretch. (Concentrating mostly on doing more crystal meth, or clubbing, or whatever else he was doing, but he ostensibly used it to get lots of work done too.) I haven’t seen him in years. I heard a while back he didn’t look so good. He once said he wanted to get a Ritalin prescription, because that would have the same effect on him…and it wouldn’t be illegal.

Not much doing

Posted on Written by

There’s not much going on around here at the moment. We all seem to have various degrees of illness. Darin has felt woozy, feverish, and chilly, and although this didn’t stop him from going to work yesterday, it did cause co-workers to call him “kind of dopey” because he was, it seems, somewhat of an idiot in meetings. (Yes, unlike most of us, when Darin acts stupid other people notice. He felt better today and had a better day at work.) Simon has had non-stop sinus congestion and Sophia…well, Sophia’s always healthy; she mostly suffers bad hair days. Me, I’ve had this cough that won’t go away.

Won’t. Go. Away.

Tonight in bed I lay there, perfectly still, thinking, “This is it, this is the time, I’m finally going to COUGH HACK COUGH COUGH.” I described it to Darin as having a dry tickle in my throat that can only be eased by coughing. “You know that’s going to get worse if you keep doing that,” he said. So rather than keep both of us awake waiting for the magical moment when the itch in my throat would stop bothering me, I have come downstairs to drink herbal tea with honey and hope against hope that this soothes my system enough to let me get to sleep.

As it’s 1am and I’m still sitting here, I’m beginning to think not.

§

Tonight for dinner I made: roast chicken with rosemary-lemon-garlic rub (very tasty), along with roast quarters of sweet potato and broccoli, plus a wild rice-and-mushroom stuffing from Whole Foods (will not buy that a second time—as Darin put it, “You’ll never hear me use this word again, but this was overseasoned”). A very satisfying meal and fairly easy to put together. And I never thought I’d hear myself say that.

I want to make something for Sugar High Fridays 5. Puff pastry is a wonderful thing, is it not? More accurately, store-bought puff pastry is, ’cause there ain’t no way in hell I’m making that from scratch. I think I even know what I’m going to make; I just have to work up the energy to do it already.

When I’m feeling sick, the idea of doing fancy pastries (even with store-bought dough) is less than thrilling. More accurately, I want someone to make me a fancy pastry, not the other way around. Sigh.

The law of unintended consequences

Posted on Written by

Well, I think you’ve got to file this one under “Oops”:

A 25-year-old waitress who turned down a job providing “sexual services” at a brothel in Berlin faces possible cuts to her unemployment benefit under laws introduced this year.

Prostitution was legalised in Germany just over two years ago and brothel owners – who must pay tax and employee health insurance – were granted access to official databases of jobseekers.

The waitress, an unemployed information technology professional, had said that she was willing to work in a bar at night and had worked in a cafe.

There must be some way out of this conundrum, but boy am I glad I’m not the bureaucrat who’s got to figure it out.

Update: Oops to me! Sadly, No! sets me straight with a Sadly, No! on this one, with additional pointers to Damnum Absque Injuria and Snopes.