In which she has clearly sprained a muscle in the inner ear

As I mentioned last week, moving too many books gave me balance issues. I figured it'd go away; it didn't; I figured this was because I spent all weekend working on presentations and the next three days being at a typically exhausting conference. I was going to take Thursday morning off until I remembered I'd promised to show some visitors around the library on Thursday morning.

So I arrived at work on Thursday and immediately startled my colleagues by leaking-at-the-eyes while talking about how great conference is. (When tired, I leak. It's frustrating because it makes people think there's been a death in the family or something.) I managed to tough it out until lunch-time, when our visitors had gone and more staff arrived; at which point I popped into my manager's office and startled her by announcing I was going home. In retrospect I think she hadn't been there for the leaking incidents, but I made up for this by leaking while talking to her, so she didn't argue.

Then I slept from 2-5.30, and then I watched Criminal Minds, and then I went to bed at 9:30 and slept until 6. So I can't really say I'm tired anymore. I didn't even feel wobbly, until I walked to the supermarket to get something to eat for breakfast, at which point, joy! the vertigo has returned full force.

This appears to be what Wikipedia describes thus: "Vertigo can also occur after long flights or boat journeys where the mind gets used to turbulence, resulting in a person's feeling as if he or she is moving up and down. This usually subsides after a few days," except that this is now almost exactly a week. Also it's side-to-side, because I wasn't on a boat, I was moving books.

On the plus side, I've got an old trick that helps a bit: find a vertical line somewhere and move my head up and down in line with it while reciting, "Dear Brain, this is up. This is down. See the difference?" My brain then emits a thoughtful, "Huh," and remembers the difference for, oh, several minutes thereafter.

Wikipedia also mentions that antihistamines is one of various treatments, though it doesn't mention which cause of vertigo they actually help with. But I have antihistamines! I got them for my hayfever. I should start taking them again. They mightn't help with the vertigo, but they'll definitely help with the hayfever.

In which she is cured by a miracle of science

So I went into work today despite feeling like the Earth's centre of mass was constantly shifting under my feet. Fortunately, yesterday's excessive sleeping was successful in preventing my eyes from leaking today. Also, I got an email from a certain library vendor saying I'd won a prize draw at conference, which explained the mysterious arrival of a glossy book of photos in the post yesterday. I must confess I'm still a bit jealous of the person who won the 1-terabyte hard drive.

However, I must not be distracted from my miracle of science!

Today is the last day of the university teaching year before study week and exams begin, and you can guess what that means. Yes, it's the annual Tea Party! (Note that little tea is consumed at the Tea Party. In fact, if any of the liquids consumed at the Tea Party are tea then they almost certainly come from Long Island.) Every year, Central Library closes at 5pm on Tea Party Day because, being the nearest library to the Tea Party, it's the most likely to be disrupted and vomited in by Tea Partygoers.

The Tea Party officially begins on the Friday afternoon, but in practice people begin consuming appropriate liquids on Thursday evening, and continue consuming them through the morning. Thus it was that at about 10:30 this morning, several women wandered past Engineering Library with bottles in their hands and pink and white tights and tutus on their cheerfully swaying bodies.

It is this swayingness to which I wish to draw my readers' discerning attention. For, sometime in the late morning / early noon region of the day, my own propensity to sway began fading away. It is my hypothesis, therefore, that the presence of so many, so very inebriated, young people in one location caused a singularity to form in the sway-time continuum, attracting all symptoms reminiscent of inebriation towards the centre of mass of the Tea Partygoers.(1) Never let it be said that young people today bring no benefit to their community!

As the bus drove me home this evening, a little swayingness returned to me (see, my hypothesis could have predicted that swayingness would increase according to the square of the distance from the Tea Party, so it must be true!) but all in all, I feel approximately 82.3% better than I did this morning. My colleagues have made me promise not to make any sudden movements this weekend; but I feel this is excellent advice in general, which is bound to stand me in good stead for all sorts of situations, such as if I should come face to face with a rhinoceros, an avalanche, or a certain felis catus(2) staring intently at my hand as her tail switches back and forth.

(1) Do I have the coolest medical hypotheses since germ theory or what?
(2) I've decided to name her Scruffles for the rest of the day. Until she annoys me, and then it's back to "Ts!"