Cold and altered states

It's another frigid morning and outside it looks like there is a rime of frost and ice on everything, but the sun is just coming up and the sky is cold steel that will take a while to warm. I'm cold, but it's warm here in bed. Too bad I can't type with my hands underneath the covers where my body heat can keep my fingernails pink instead of the bluish-purple they are now.

For the first time on Facebook I had a decent opponent in Scrabble. We played three games in a little over 90 minutes, which is a new first. Most of the people say they want a fast game and then come online long enough to make one play on each of the 253 games they're currently playing. Yeah, that's my idea of fast. I won two of the games this morning, but I couldn't get decent tiles. I either got all consonants or all vowels and neither are conducive to winning when your opponent gets three bingos. I lost by 20 points, which is pretty good considering the crap I had to work with and his good luck. Scrabble is as much about luck as it is about skill and strategy, but then aren't most things?

I'm nearly finished with one of the books Authorlink sent me to review and it is surprisingly good, despite a very slow and ponderous start, and I learned something. I have heard of salvia divinorum (Diviner's Sage) and its psychoactive component, salvinorin, the only naturally occurring substance that creates a visionary state. I've not been one for drugs: tried cocaine once and indulged in a little herbal high a few times over the years. Cocaine made my nose run and I decided it was cheaper to move back to Ohio, and I did. I was late getting into the whole herbal smoking thing because I don't smoke (never did) and not a fan of being high. I prefer to be able to control my mental and physical functions and not be disconnected, which is why when I have had surgery I eschewed Percocet, Percodan and other opiates for Tylenol #3. It's also why I won't drink until I'm drunk, but rather start drinking water when my ears feel warm; I don't like that disconnected, head floating off my shoulders and having to walk like I'm made of fragile porcelain and might shatter into a million pieces if I walk too briskly -- or at all. Still, the salvia could be interesting, especially with regard to its effects on creativity and being able to tune out the white noise that short circuits, or at least diminishes, creative brain functions, like leaching off most of the energy with minutiae. Who knows? I might even visit a past life or two if the fiction isn't merely fiction, as my recent research verifies. Then again . . . maybe not. I don't want to end up in Altered States.

That is all. Disperse.