I found myself looking at the Solpadeine in the medicine cabinet today and thinking "Aah, daddy's little helper, later tonight you will make me feel so nice." I've been taking Solpadeine for headaches since I got a little ill a few days ago - nothing serious, just tonsillitis that spread to my gum and made my impacted wisdom tooth ache. I discovered Solpadeine while looking for something that would help my migraines better than paracetamol, and it's a magical little soluble tablet indeed. There's a very distinct buzz from the codeine, and it's definitely possible to become physically addicted to it — the little booklet inside the packet warns about it. I'm nowhere near that level of use, but I create psychological addictions very easily so I have to be careful how I use any kind of drug. I think staring lovingly at the packet and wishing I had a headache so I could justify downing a couple qualifies as the beginnings of a psychological addiction.
I wouldn't usually crave painkillers, but I've been dealing with different types of stress lately. I thought that when I quit working 9-6 in offices my stress would simply disappear, but it doesn't work like that. Although my mind was finding office life to be torture, my body was quite used to it. Now my mind is enjoying working from home and spending so much time with Jo & Joshua, but my body is ramping up the stress chemicals to deal with unfamiliar stressors like a crying baby, the inability to plan my time more than half an hour in advance, deadlines that I have to manage myself, and a cramped, unhealthy sitting position (I need to buy myself a comfortable chair to work in). The result has been an increase in my already marked tendency towards headaches.
In other news, I was deified. I most definitely was not selected for my powers of patient content editing — I will be writing code for the boss once I get my Perl-fu up to scratch. I've been working in IT contexts for over 10 years now, which I find scary when I think about it, and hopefully I'm going to be able to contribute something good back to the single most addictive and rewarding website that I've ever been associated with.
Having said that, and without treading on anyone's toes while I feel my way around new duties, I will also just be generally available for help and advice and requests of any kind. One thing I don't want to happen, now that I've been given some new powers, is that I stop writing, or even worse, stop reading. I guess I will create an Editor Log at some point just to introduce myself, because, even after seven years on this website (admittedly, only four of them can be described as "active"), I often feel like I don't really know anyone, and no one really knows me. I've never been to any nodermeets. Hopefully that will change at some point in the near future. If I had to sum up how I am socially, I'd say: "Loves people, loves to interact, terrible at breaking the ice." So feel free to /msg me for any reason :-)
I just had spinach soup and goat's cheese and Earl Grey tea instead of daddy's little helper, and I feel proud of myself. Maybe I should give the Solpadeine to Jo and tell her to hide it.