I found out to day that I have eczema on my hands. Lately the palms of my hands have been pretty rough-looking, like a bad dry skin problem. It started off like a small cut in the web between my right thumb and forefinger, and I didn't think much about it, just put lotion on it and expected it to heal. It didn't, so I put lotion on it more frequently... and expected it to heal.

Then a coupla weeks ago, I did some raking, not too much, really, and then several days later I noticed that my palms were flaking. Heh, lotion. Didn't seem to help, but I kept doing it anyway.

O, and itching. Lotsa itching, yeah.

And then, the last few days, intolerable itching. Well, I guess that it isn't intolerable, since I'm tolerating it (lack of an alternative here) but it certainly did get my attention.

I've got a friend at work who is diabetic and also has eczema, and I asked her about it. She's never had it on her palms, but in many other places, and she said yeah, sure looks like it. Get some cortisone to put on it.

So, that's what I'm trying first. I do hope that it works, 'cause I can see this absolutely driving me crazy.

The other thing is...cortisone sometimes just exacerbates the condition. Which leaves the systemic alternative, which is... dammit, my head isn't working. Anyway, it's not fun. And it doesn't always work either.

So anyway, today was more or less OK at work. I was the runner, and I hit everyone's veins the first time, almost. Even the ten-year old. But not the one that looked like she was fourteen but wasn't... when people jerk back at the prick of the needle, it just means that you have to make two holes. And no, you can't convince me that jerking away from a source of pain is natural (for an adult) because 99% of the people that I stick don't do that. They regard it as a neccessary but unpleasant part of getting where they want to go, which is getting a diagnosis and treatment.

We have people, probably three times a week, who whine about drinking the contrast, and some who just flat refuse. Well, yeah, it's not a f&(*#@g coke, dammit, it's for a diagnostic test to get you feeling better, dammit! Drink it and get over it! I tell people that the flavor doesn't improve with age, just drink it down and be done with it.

Well, OK, enough of that.

I've been really down lately.

Middle-age angst getting me, maybe, or possible just not enough sunshine in my life. All of the songs have been sung, all of the words written, all of the thoughts long ago thunk. I'm a tiny, tiny bit of biologic flotsam upon a great sea of the universe, less than a grain of sand in a galaxy of beaches, my futile lifespan occupying an infinitesimal speck in infinity.

And then I think of all of the good things... the fact that I am a good and honest man, a faithful lover, do a good impression of psuedointellectual and I mostly pay my bills on time.

O'wait, wait, wait! I'm just getting deeper into this hole, which I cannot describe, since great shovels full of dirt are falling onto my frightened upturned face and I don't really have the time or the intelligence to comprehend.

It's just a blur, this life, looking at it from the end, or from anywhere, really. The meaninglessness is overwhelming, the meaning, though elusive to the young, is plain. This is why most people don't have the courage to look at it.

No, it's not lack of courage, it's the same intellectual bent that allows certain of us to believe in the supernatural, an unwillingness to believe in the facts that are plain before us.

Times like this, like right now, I wish, I wish, I want....

To believe. In something greater, something wondrous, something generous, something that has the mother-love that I so desperately need. A God. A Father. Something wise and always, always right.

Ahhh... deep breath.

The moment has passed.

Emotionally, the whole idea of god my father in heaven, watching out for me, well, it has a great appeal.

Intellectually, which is where I live, the whole idea is beyond preposterous, completely and ridiculously silly.

I am forced into being me, and sometimes I don't like it.

When the wind comes from the north, and the great dark comes early and stays late, I need something more, more than this life can give. I grieve the fact that I cannot accept a fiction, a myth that gives solace, a fantasy that will allow me happiness after a fashion.

I just can't.

And for that reason alone, I rave against those that can... not just because I'm right, which I know in my heart and in my mind that I am, or that I know that they're wrong, which I know in my heart and in my mind that they are, but because I hate that they have something that I can never have.

"They" do not all have it. Many of them have a hate that would easily consume me, they do not have peace. They have a hate that could conceivably consume the world. The will to harm others who do not believe like you do is strong, stronger than it's been for generations. Blame modern technology for that... it's getting to be a small world, and your enemies know what you have and they don't, they can see it on the web, they can see it on TV. And they want it too, and they are quite willing to kill you for it, for you are merely infidels and heathens, and they, they are god's chosen people. Or allah's, or vishnu's.

Aside from that , it's bee a damned fine day. A little snow this morning, and a wet, windy dreary day which I spent insulated from any weather at all. A nice evening spent alone with Karen and a good chance of getting to bed before midnight.