Herbs and barbs

After his fight, Vince looks like the Terminator. The evil one in Terminator 2, when the human skin comes off and you just see the red light in its face that looks all evil and skeletal (a couple of those kicks and punches burst some blood vessels in his right eye. Vince's. Not the evil Terminator's.). Oh, and the name of the circuit was Battle in the Ballroom. It was a good show--of course it's nice that my friend won, but things seemed organized, etc, which is always nice.

Yesterday I had an appointment with my friend Traver, who just recently became a certified acupuncturist. He said there are lots of good alternative treatments for alopecia, and after doing a thorough workup and some needle treatment, he gave me some good stuff that I'm about to describe now. Some of the treatments sound outside the norm. But that's why they are "alternative," I guess. And make no mistake: while they may sound wacky, and while I am not above highlighting their wackiness for my own "literary" purposes (read: to get a cheap laugh), I am worlds more comfortable and confident in this treatment and in Traver than I was in the topical steroid that I am still convinced is plotting to kill me while I sleep.

And Traver has a fantastic bedside manner and level of actually-gives-a-shit, not to mention impeccable credentials (and a soothing music selection for when you're just lying there with the needles embedded in your skin. Two thumbs up). As soon as he gives me the URL, I'm gonna post his website info here. I really believe in what he's doing, and I'm excited about the treatment.

What I like the most about alternative medicine is the focus on treating the person rather than merely fixing the condition. I'm pretty sure the alopecia is a sign that something's out of whack, and I want to remedy the out-of-whackness rather than just getting the hair to grow back. I apologized to my body for whatever I might have forced it to do that would result in this kind of stressful response, much like I did last year when I got so sick.

And I really only want to describe one of the treatments in a funny way: the herb mix that he gave me to boil into a tea. It looks like a combo of bouillon cubes, one mini corn cob, a couple pieces of shell pasta, and mulch. It smells like celery. Okay, that's not even that funny. Or even at all funny. So much buildup for so little payoff. I am embarrassed for all of us.

There are also some herbs to be taken topically (but I can probably taunt them to my heart's content unlike the steroid, which makes me not want to), and a little hammer/meat tenderizer-looking thing called a Seven-Star needle. I drink 3 cups of the tea a day for about a week, and then I switch to powdered herbs. I put the topical herbs on twice a day. And I smack the affected area with the Seven-Star twice a day for 15 min to stimulate blood flow.

I'll keep you posted.

In other news, we haven't heard from our old friend Letmbleed in a while. Letmbleed, who hates women but whose screen name is from a Tori Amos song. Letmbleed, who swore he'd never get married but is happily hitched to a fantastic chick. Letmbleed who thinks women shouldn't train BJJ but has described my grappling as "good" (it's documented somewhere). As some of you may know/remember, I know Letmbleed from the forum at http://www.nhbgear.com/forum.

Recently, Letmbleed started a thread "offering" to tell people what he really thinks of them. Since he hates most people, and since most people want to know anyway, the resulting exchange has been hilarious. I haven't been on the forum recently, but that thread was enough to make ME come out of hiding. Here's what he had to say about yours truly:

"You have a tendency to think too much. This tendency wouldn't be a problem if you were a man, but you're not. You see, men are naturally more intelligent than women (it says so in the Bible.) We were designed to think. Women, on the other hand, aren't equipped to use their brains (it says so in the Bible.) That's why they base their actions on emotions. EMOTIONS!

"And that's where the problems start. A normal woman would find out some good news, and react appropriately: 'Yay! I won the lottery! I'm going to go shopping for pink things!' You, on the other hand would start with your thinking: 'Yay! I won the lottery! I'm going to go shopping for pink things! Wait, what if they don't have pink things in my size? What if all the stores are out of pink things? OMG, I read yesterday that in a small village in China, three people have died from a disease that turned their skin pink before eating away at it. What if the color pink isn't really just a color? What if it isn't a symptom of a disease, but actually a disease in and of itself? What if every pink item I own is actually killing me? OMG, I'm dying! I'm dying, and I've never really been in love! I mean, I've been in love, but how do I know that it's been REAL love? Isn't REAL love forever? I've never felt a love that's lasted forever. I mean, I'm still in love with that one guy, but we're not married, and if it were true love, he'd feel it too, and we'd be married!. I'll never get married! I'll die alone of pink, and no one will care! I don't think I even like pink!!!!'

"Cue waterworks. You see, that's why you can never be happy and leave it at that. You start analyzing stuff until you find something that makes you cry. God made a mistake with you. He tried to give you a man's intelligence. Erroneous error, imho."

My response: "I felt he found my letters and read each one out loud."

This must be what it's like when doves cry. Except for the part about me still being in love with "that guy." I suspect that "that guy" = "Letmbleed." You see, back before he met his lovely wife, he tried to get me to agree to sleep with him. Fortunately, many miles, my own indifference, and his ultimate encounter with the woman who would agree to put up with him for the rest of his life intervened. And if that's the case, then "still in love" translates to "tolerates, but barely."

I got a text from him recently saying, "I keep going over my description of you and thinking about how brilliant it is."

I cried, like the chick I am. (Not really, but he'd be happy to think I did.)