A spin of the wheel

転法輪寺 新築記念

The above is part of a dedicatory inscription on a kogō (incense case) in monshu's collection. He's been obsessed with the little buggers lately, which is bad news for me since (a) the inscriptions are in bloody Japanese and (b) they generally aren't too legible, especially on the ceramic specimens. In this case, I had a bit of a Rosetta Stone deal, what with a portion of the text (the name of a temple, as it turns out) being repeated on the box in seal script. Honestly, I don't know if that was a help or a hindrance in the longer run, since it included a character variant so obscure (灋) that I couldn't find it anywhere. I can't remember this happening before, where I came across a character in my seal script dictionary that I couldn't look up in any other lexicon online or in my personal library.

Fortunately, we have the Giles dictionary here at work, so that's one mystery solved: The object commemorates building done on the Expounding-the-Dharma Temple (Tempōrin-ji). I still haven't narrowed it down to which Expounding-the-Dharma Temple since there are apparently a fair number of them.

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Pilled up

When Lupita warned me about the nastiness of drugs used to combat tendonitis and gout, I admit I didn't take him too seriously. His taste in remedies tends strongly toward the naturpathic, which is simply not my thing. My big bear doctor had done such a good job reassuring me these weren't the nasty kind of steroids that I foolishly didn't even cast a glance at the long list of possible side effects. Until today, that is, when I Googled the name of the medicine in order to check the spelling and found "Methylprednisolone has some serious side effects if taken long-term, including weight gain, glaucoma, osteoporosis and psychosis[.]" And then a penny dropped.

Could this by why I've been feeling so agitated lately?

It got so bad yesterday evening that as I was sitting in front of the computer--ostensibly to do some online shopping--I couldn't stop obsessing about upsets I thought I'd put behind me months ago. I found myself hatching plots for confronting people who'd done me wrong, all the while thinking This is exactly what a crazy person sounds like, yet unable to steer my thoughts into more productive areas. At the time, I blamed it on some unholy confluence of my usual Sunday emotional irritability and some unexpected trigger--the advent of the holidays, perhaps?

But then this morning at work, the same thing. And this despite a surprisingly refreshing night's sleep. All in all, the sensation is uncomfortably like having had too much caffeine. (Plus I think caffeine may exacerbate it, so I guess that's one more thing off the menu for the nonce.) On the plus side, the stomach upset is less severe than the doctor warned it might be. (Given my reflux trouble, I always expect the worst.) But on the shuttle tonight I felt carsick for the first time in aeons. When all's said and done, I'm very happy that I take my last dose tomorrow morning. If the foot flares up again (it's been quiet since the first day of treatment), I'll definitely try treating it with Aleve and holding the refill on my prescription in reserve as a very last resort.