Christine

today at work was a very strange day and a very sad day. we lost one of our co-workers: a young girl called Christine. she only started a few months ago but was friendly and made an impression. yesterday she went to school as normal, but later suffered a brain haemorrhage, and passed away. she was only seventeen.

within minutes of going in to work i found out about her death but decided to continue; sometimes it is better to have hundreds of customers ask you mind numbing questions so you don't break down there and then. some could not continue while others did not want to go home, and preferred being around their workmates for support. with a few tears in my eyes i served a narky lady who was pissed off about stock inaccuracy, and the hassle of driving 10 miles back again. usually sympathetic, i couldn't care less; from my newly shifted perpective i wanted to scream in her face "it's just a goddamn table light!" but responded with a deadpan answer.

Christine was a lovely girl, with red straight hair, a pale complexion and a sharp sarcastic wit which hid her youthful years. we worked beside her, we danced with her, we ate in the canteen with her and got to know her. some people come and go in work situations and don't leave an impression, but she will be sorely missed. i grilled her on what she wanted out of life, being at the age of leaving school and applying to university, but not really knowing what she wanted to do.

what is so sad is that she was barely an adult and never got to experience more of life, but Christine will never grow any older in our memories, and will remain forever young there at least.

How long can a bulb last?

15,608 steps.

yesterday i took 15,608 steps according to my little pedometer/stepometer thingy. half of those hurt, my left half actually. the left hip has some major muscle spasm or nerve twinge stuff going on. it feels like walking on a spike, or as if the right hip ball joint is splitting in two. possibly this is a fibromyalgia flareup as i have been working more than usual lately. although still not 100% sure i have fibro, i do have an appointment with rheumatology people at the end of march to see if they can shed anymore light on my bodkin. the card for that came in at the end of last year.

one wonders what this pain is for. often i feel like bumping myself off and putting my lights out for good, but i have a theory (bare with me). after completing my 3 day water fast, i noticed that my right knee, which usually hurts, felt a little stronger. it's been operated on twice and stills grinds away with each step. with the pain dissolving in the right knee area it came back sharply in the left hip as mentioned above. also because the body is off kilter, the hamstrings are sore on the right leg. something similar happened when i first got an insole put in my left shoe. the muscles or tendons of the right heel were really sore for a couple of months while my body adjusted to the new postition.

yesterday in work i met a chap who had a stroke at the age of 29 and 5 years later is slowly fighting his way back to health and using a walking stick. we got talking and he gave me a juice recipe that he said would help with fibro as his mother has it. this chap was struggling a little and i caught some curious eyes glancing at him, some with pity and some just out of curiosity. i don't agree that you should feel better about your own lot in life because "there is always someone worse off than yourself". the suffering of others shouldn't make you feel better about yourself imho. you should feel better about yourself by enjoying life and stuff and torches and norwegian forest cats and not through guilt.

anyway back to my theory. a thought popped into my head that my right leg was trying to grow so that it's the same size as the right one (i did say bear with me =P). why not? is that a bit out there? if a body can suddenly display arthritic like symptoms and unexplained sore skin in it's late twenties, why shouldn't a leg grow back?

Bulbgirl asked if i had told anyone 'this theory'. replying that i hadn't, she then said that it's probably best that i keep this one to myself.

oops, i've gone and done it now :)

Energy Saving Paintings

here are some paintings of light bulbs by artist by Christopher Stott of studio-stott.com. one of the bulbs is an incandescent and the other one is of a compact fluorescent bulb.

i think they are really great, even better than this light bulb painting. they have a simple, stripped down elegance to them (and possibly a simple message: go green?). painted with acrylic on gallery wrapped canvases, that means the canvases are on stretchers that are 1.5 inches deep, so you don't need to frame them up.

they look excellent side by side as a pair. you can bid for them on ebay here, and check out more of Christopher's work while you are there. :)

Dark Humour

today i made a faux-pas in the lighting department. have you ever had a thought and it's pretty funny (inside your head) and you say it out loud, and the moment you say it out loud, you just know that it did not sound as funny outside your head as it did inside your head? yes, it was one of those moments.

while informing a gentleman about an LED lighting strip that would be useful for under kitchen cupboard lighting, he was taken aback at the price. it was reasonably priced, but another set of halogen lights that were half the price made the LED strip seem more expensive by comparison.

i then told him the benefits of not having to change any bulbs, as the light emitting diodes lasted a lot longer, many times longer in fact than the halogen bulbs, although they do not give out just as much light. i informed him that the manufacturers estimate was 15 years lifespan using the LED unit 10 hours per day. still the customer pressed me on the changing of the diodes asking "what am i supposed to do with it then?" that's when i said it. my mouth opened and the words:

don't worry about it, you'll be dead by then anyway!

came out. this was meant in a jovial, end of the world, who knows what is around the corner, unexpected comet hitting earth, eco disaster, kind of way which i would probably have said to anyone. the only problem was that said customer was pushing sixty, and his eyes widened as if that was the last thing he expected me to say.

his wife found it pretty funny though. oh well, if you can't stand the heat, you should stay out of the lighting department. :D