Nate Beaty's Brainfag

Here Comes Tom Cruise Comix

posted in Home Jabber on December 04, 2005

Soon Bok and I recently borrowed Scott's car to drive up to Washington to see family, and I am SO GLAD that I don't fucking drive. Good lord what a direct avenue to stress. Later, my mom drove us around in her "saddle shoe on wheels" '55 Pontiac, and I couldn't stop filming the everflowing streams of headlights and taillights on I-5. It's much easier to imagine a carless future from the bubble of Portland, where most of my friends ride bikes and take the bus.

I've noticed a serious decline in activity on Brainfag lately. And an accompanying disinterest to BLOG my life. The skies have gone gray, the rain and slush are dropping on the pdx bubble, and it's shaping up to be another dim & claustrophobic northwest winter. I simultaneously abhor and embrace the oncoming tiny days, festering in mold and clouds and early dark rain-pattering-on-the-roof evenings. I can feel the little mushrooms popping up on my face, my body graybrown with lichen and moss from years of living on the coast. Wait, those are zits. From sitting in front of this machine. Ah, yes.

The astute may have noticed I snuck in my Flash archives the other week. It's been in the making for a long time, and I finally just oomphed em done with some not-so-free time. (The astute being the venerable Alec Longstreth.)

I had this ridiculous idea of taking November OFF from work. Hahaha!

But seriously folks, I am still working on the last issue of Brainfag, and I think when it's finished I'm going to move on and start Tom Cruise Comix. Because, Tom Cruise is such an inspiration to me: a fellow cancer, smooth with the young ladies, so cocky you just wanna spit, he can toss liquor bottles like nobody's business (a la Cocktail -- whatta gem), and he's impervious to alien attack (a la War of the Worlds -- aka Tom Cruise & Co. are INVINCIBLE). The man is just waiting to be translated into a comic that will burst into the indie scene and crush all the competition to rubble.

I decided to brave the acupuncurist again (and will once again this Monday), and this time I was set on fire EVEN MORE. A compressed ball of dried mugwort called a moxa stick was attached to six needles in my back and set on fire, which resulted in a slowly intensifying heat. I found this while looking up moxabustion:

...in China a strong moxabustion treatment often involves intentionally burning and blistering a particular point or area for the treatment of stubborn diseases. Interestingly, again in China, when a blister occurs it is controlled but allowed to stay open and festering for awhile to further stimulant [sic] an even deeper, more prolonged immune response.

Yikes! Luckily no festering blisters were left about to get my yang a singin.

While I was getting treatment, this time specifically for my liver, I remembered Alec's comment about how many people say you don't feel the needles. This is very misleading, as you certainly do feel them. I would say it's a very odd sensation, and not totally uncomfortable. It's indistinct and more unusual than painful. But a few of the needles in my back (which I found out later were inserted 2-3 inches into my body) were quite painful when twisted.

Overall, I can't really tell how the treatment is affecting me. It's not terribly obvious, but my symptoms are diminished to non-existent at the moment. (Or I'm at least so numb to them I don't recognize changes in intensity.)