[2004.09.20 1841h]

   [music] dj gt \\ voices of spring 2004 sunshine
   [vgame] disgaea: hour of darkness [sony playstation 2]

i'm having trouble keeping my left eye open.

two days ago, while i was biking, i felt a sudden jab in my forehead.
postulating that perhaps i had rammed rather quickly into the stinger end
of a bee, i used my right hand to pull out whatever insect remnants there
might have been left on my forehead.  as since i was biking rather quickly
at the time, i didn't pay much attention to what exactly i had pulled out.
however, a quick glance confirmed that i had indeed run into an insect at
a rather high speed.  i vaguely recall seeing a tinge of yellow among the
contents of my hand, but my glance was too cursory to make me feel certain
of it, and i didn't really get a chance to have a better look because i
wanted to keep my eyes focused on the road and i didn't have a burning
desire to hold insect parts in my hand until the next traffic light.

by the next day, most of my forehead had swelled up, so at this point, i
was pretty sure that it was a bee stinger that i ran into, as since
regular bug bites don't have as large an area of swelling, and although i
don't know how fast bug reflexes are, at the speed i was biking, it would
have been rather difficult for a bug to give me a good bite before getting
a lot more intimate with my forehead.  although, normally, it takes about
a minute or two for all the venom in the stinger to be released, in my
case, most of the venom may have been forcibly ejected due to the speed at
which i was biking, so the area of effect seems larger than what it might
have been in a more mundane bee sting situation in which the stinger was
pulled out soon afterward.

as since the swelling is not significantly impeding any of my plans, my
swollen forehead is currently just an interesting artifact that i am
significantly more amused by than irritated by.  i have also been cracking
rather bad jokes to myself, such as "stop getting such a big head" and
"you have such a big head", but there are only a rather limited number of
ways that one can deliver basically the same punch line, so cracking these
jokes isn't nearly as fun now as it was yesterday.  it is, however, still
quite fun to futilely attempt to furrow my brow.

although the swelling has been subsiding today, it is still spreading very
slowly, and the swelling has now reached my left eyelid, which is why i'm
having trouble keeping my left eye open.