hell's no place for sleeping

Got another one about to break my all-time scare record, albeit in a slower and steadier pace, which is the kind of traffic I really like to see. I admit I've coddled a little trepidation about some of the honesty I'll be throwing at you guys soon, so it's comforting to see the weird stuff become the most popular.

This movie is for a dear lady who seems to dance with the dark patches- What happens when Death is audited? The book might be a little easier for Americans who are easily bored with British intellectual humor that enjoys developing itself without explosions, something I had to learn to adapt to myself *cough* but this literary joy is totally worth it in either form.


And these for for the toughest chick I know besides me for whom 'frivolity' could entail extreme distraction in the same venue as extreme sports. Not sure how else to throw out a little thank you for letting me dump the gritty stuff all over her nice clean messaging.


I am currently grinding my life through a 90 degree turn and setting up all kinds of scheduling. This is my personal nonstop theme song while I'm dealing with stuff- have probably run it a hundred times in the last 24 hours, kinda like jacking youtube codeine into my aspie brain or something.

If I recluse I'll probably be writing like a bat outa hell and ignoring notifications, but my severe lack of phone twitter is already numbing us all up anyway, so no probs there.

all our days in 404 words

Baby getting up early- Happy to see everyone.

Toddler getting up early- Can't wait to get to work.

6 year old getting up early- Disney or bust.

8 year old getting up early- Oh yeah, there's this costume.

10 year old getting up early- Oh yeah, there's this science project.

13 year old getting up early- It's IN MAH TUMMEH.

16 year old getting up early- Lotsa hair product going on.

19 year old getting up early- Blur leaving a clumsy trail out the door to work or finals.

22 year old getting up early- Coffee, coiffed, young professional.

23 year old getting up early- Coffee, sweats, want ads.

25 year old getting up early- Cold feet not stopping the biggest mistake of their lives.

30 year old getting up early- The doom of mortality hits right in the coffee while staring out a window in their bathrobe as the cacophony (or silence) behind them engulfs their souls.

35 year old getting up early- Determination to beat this aging thing but being run over by kids (or friends) puking all night.

40 year old getting up early- Resignation to having a better attitude about losing the war, just remake the world! (What's left of it.)

45 year old getting up early- Determination to beat this aging thing but being run over by pregnant offspring puking all over the house.

50 year old getting up early- All that yoga and pilates during the 30's starts to pay off as stretching before coffee is the only way you can actually move now. You start to wonder how the f#*/ 60 year olds are still out there jogging.

55 year old getting up early- Grandkids called, they're coming over for breakfast, you've never moved so fast in your life.

60 year old getting up early- Love these pills, smell that fresh air, I'm still alive! I'm so excited I have to go bug someone.

70 year old getting up early- Laughing on the inside at all the younger people struggling through kids puking and never getting enough sleep while their brains shrink and they stop needing so much sleep themselves. Feeling empowered.

80 year old getting up early- Everything sucks but they live for being first in line at a breakfast buffet. It's like a party every day full of colorful clothes and people all around laughing at bad jokes because no one can hear anything.

90 year old getting up early- Still walking around planting pine trees and tomatoes, what's wrong with young people these days?

me & @bonenado irl

Rearranging my life again *workworkwork*.

Walking around the house in my Nike Air Trackstar 3s  at 6 a.m. I'm pretending my robe is a Neo style action coat.

Having fun the last few days with a sciatica flare up. This one makes my foot feel like I just shot it with a steel arrow every time I sit or move a certain way. Since I bit Scott's head off last night without warning (I think he survived, but I might need to send him on a trip to Hawaii after I sell a book because I don't know how else to give a husband a raise), I had a deep think last night and realized I'm holding too much in again.

Trying to cover so I won't be a drag on people around me sometimes backfires into sudden uncontrollable nasty bitch mode. I thought I had finally made it past that particular character option, but apparently I'm still very capable of destroying the universe.

TODAY. I know the game- get all over this if I don't want surgery. I've been playing this game since I was catapulted out of a violently flipping vehicle back around 1980ish. I know the secrets of the fire swamp and have lived here quite happily for a long time. Scott is getting really good at this stuff. As soon as Red Velvet Oreos show up in the Walmarts around here, he's getting homemade Valentine ice cream.

sometimes Monday is awesome

One nice thing about deeper cleaning after Christmas is running into an amazon gift card I forgot I received, yay! I wonder what I'll buy.

angles are important

I first mention 'angles' in a survey I made right around two years ago. Just a little over halfway down that survey is the question

If you saw someone broken down on the side of the road, would you stop to help?

I'm not going to retell that story, but that is where 'angles' comes from.

One of my angles is a guy named Larry. Some people might have the impression by now that Larry is someone in my family, or maybe a dear friend who goes way back. Larry tweets to me nearly every single day, and I usually know what he is up to on any given day, week, or month.

Angles choose us. Larry showed up on a group tweet convo one week and never left. He chose me and several people in a couple of gangs I'm in to hang out with. At first I wondered who in the world he was, over time I wondered why in the world he chose us, and now I sometimes wonder how in the world we ever got along without this guy.

In a world where we can increasingly grow more alone inside as we get more socially connected, Larry checks in, and I've come to appreciate that he keeps an eye on us, even if most of his tweeting is pure silly. During long, hard weeks where some of us fall out of connection, Larry has been the one group howdying and keeping us checking back in with him. We're still not sure who this guy really is, but he's a joyful splat in our notifications who gives a crap how we're doing. All of us.

I stopped going to church years ago, mostly because my pain levels have been so bad that even heavily medicated I would have to leave early. Then, over time, I became so immuno compromised and then allergic to everything, I couldn't be around groups of people without becoming sick for weeks and even months at a time or sneezing so violently that I'd go into instant throbbing migraines. Church became such a struggle, such a trial, such a challenge, such a place of misery for me, that I finally gave up and started staying home.

Surprisingly, I lost very little contact, because I had very little real contact in the first place. One church I went absent from sent me a form letter encouraging me to contact someone on a list of numbers. Another church I went absent from eventually sent me an invitation to a group party selling something. Since I'm super aspie and don't do phones, no one knew what to do with me. One day a group of ladies showed up at my door with only a few minutes' notice, and I entertained their concern in my pajamas looking for all the world like I rolled a car down a mountainside, and I was so perplexed how to act in that situation- do I make coffee? I could barely walk or sit. I listened to them chat politely until they finally gave up and left me to collapse in relief.

Twitter is very different. Angles are all over twitter. Angles keep their eyes on us, check in with us, see how our days are going, throw funny pictures at us, and basically flit in and out of our lives like they've got invisible capes on. You know they're ordinary people like we are, full of scary surgeries and surrounded by kids and/or pets and eating yummy food, but the really special ones don't require anything back. They just love tweeting at you anyway.

This morning Larry laughed to me in very few words via several tweets that he is at his daughter's house and was stuck with apple cider instead of coffee and had to save the milk for the grandkids, but not to worry because they have coffee at church, and look at the time, whoosh he was off. I can't help thinking how different my own grandfather might have been if he'd had twitter and lots of other people to check in with. I know Scott is a much funner grampa than any I ever had, and more so because twitter and facebook exist. It's more fun to be silly about life when you know other people will smile about it.

Larry is teaching me a LOT about life still being fun as an older person who has seen it all- life, love, loss, more life, more love... Larry has become a special person with me. I have no idea who he is, and no idea why he picks me to talk to, but I appreciate that he does. Larry is my angle lighting up days that other people sometimes don't realize are a lot darker than I let on. I'm still not very good at being an uplifting person, but I have a real person out there modeling it for my own aspirations. My usual response is to fold up and hide in a cave. Larry could be doing that, but he's not. Even when stuff gets scary, his timeline is full of silly tweets to people all over the place.

I wanna be like Larry when I grow up. (I'm actually not that far behind...) I want apple cider first thing in the morning when there is no coffee to be funny.

where were you last night?

Some dreams are as real as life to me.

I was in another country, making my way through a territory of very rich and very poor, looking for clues. I knew it was extremely dangerous and I had lost all contact with back up, but I was furthest in, so I kept going.

A dirt road used by a mining and construction company wound up a thickly forested mountainside, and I knew I stood out like a sore thumb to everyone walking on that road. Nearly everyone I met was walking. There were no vehicles other than a monster construction rig here and there, but most of those were shut down. Near the end of the road was a lush community hall, large and bustling with workers of all kinds, and as walkers arrived, they went looking for their areas to work. I couldn't help noticing there were a lot more children than I expected, also way better behaved than one would expect. Over a little time and sneaking around in and out of kitchens, large hallways, meeting areas, and staff areas, I pieced together that nearly all the workers in every capacity were more like slaves than anything, there for their lives, not because they got paychecks and went home at the end of the day, including the children.

I had to be especially careful of the children. The adults quietly sidling around were in a kind of acceptance where they could allow denial to cover their thoughts and just focus on their chores. The children were different- alert and ready to react, even though they obviously held themselves in check well enough. At one point, a little girl about six or seven years old dressed up in fancy clothes and expensive jewelry and makeup darted away from her little gang, grabbed my hand, and said with her head tilted and her eyes looking at me sideways, "It's further down than you think." She looked deadly serious for such a little girl, and I knew better than to assume I could talk to her. I only said, "What is, the depths of hell?", and she let go of my hand with an evil laugh, rejoined her little gang, and they continued on their way, one of the older girls quietly admonishing the one who talked to me. After that I felt marked, anyone younger than 15 glanced at me no matter where I was. Boys especially would make little taunts if they dared, because they didn't want to draw more attention to themselves, either. I got a little worried for a little while that one older gang of boys would jump me and knock me down. They kept following me around and whispering and laughing among themselves, but ducked back if I went near any place they could be noticed and get into trouble, so I got the impression they were bored and a little high strung with nerves while they waited for their work to begin.

All this time I was eluding being spotted by some very particular grown ups, ducking down behind rows of seating, dodging through a big coat closet, weaving through a busy kitchen, catching conversations from angles where I wasn't seen. I still have no clue what I was doing there and what knowledge I was gaining, but I felt some quickly growing concern that it was bigger and more immediate than anyone thought, and I had to find a way back out of there to get the information back to my own people. I didn't see how, though. I would definitely be noticed going the wrong way down the mountain, and I knew the woods were full of snipers.

Fortunately, some kind of warning siren went off, and the lush community building (very large, built right into the side of the mountain, everything in there screamed of money to burn) emptied out, and as I made my way back through the wide entry (reminded me of a convention center at that point) I didn't worry so much about standing out because everyone was headed the same direction, mostly children, still in their little groups, very orderly and quiet and frightened. We all headed back down the dirt road.

I was piecing together by this point that the girls were have supposed to have been part of the entertainment for a very large underground business meeting, and while some of the youngest boys were probably meant for the same, the older boys had other jobs, like gofers on up to heavy lifters and carriers. A few of the older boys had bikes, and one of the biker boys going by me stopped to pick up a couple of small silver tablets that had been dropped in the dust along the road, just smaller than a hand. They were obviously worth a lot, like a krugerrand bar, only a little bigger and heavier.

Some of the younger girls became a little frantic when they realized they were simply going back, which was understandable. They clearly only had the bigger girls to calm them, likely taken away from their parents, or even sold, but I didn't have time to worry about that. I had to find a way off that dirt road because heavy trucks were coming up, and if I were caught I'd probably be interrogated to death. I was thrilled to notice part of the road went over a lazy river, and I remembered the little girl saying "It's further down than you think." At that moment I felt a little hand again, and without even looking around I stepped up to the edge of the bridge and gauged the distance. It was a very long drop, but there was a deeper spot in the river we could plunge into if we pushed off hard enough. Without hesitation, me and two little girls, all holding hands, leapt off the bridge as hard as we could.

The water was warmer than I thought it would be. I've been in an icy cold river on a camping trip that took my breath away, but this river wasn't that cold. I knew all we had to do was relax and push up from the bottom when we felt it at our feet. Just relax and hold my breath. Don't worry about anything, push and float up. I could feel us floating up. It was taking a little longer than I thought, maybe I should start kicking a little. I was still holding hands with one little girl, and I couldn't tell if she was still holding hands with the other. I tried to look up and see how close the surface was, maybe about two more feet. Suddenly I lost my control and breathed in a little breath. I knew that meant I'd drown and started thrashing for the surface before I could start coughing, but in that very same moment I was also very surprised I wasn't feeling water in my lungs and didn't feel a compulsive coughing coming on.

I woke up and took a big breath. I was lying in my bed. I wasn't drowning and there wasn't anything else going on.

I do this once in awhile, maybe several times a year. I dream I'm someone else, and it's all very real. When I wake up I'm very surprised to find myself 'back', because I had no thoughts of myself or my life here during the dream. It took me a long time to figure out I'm not me as I know me in dreams like these. It's like I'm inside someone else watching everything that happens. I generally don't question anything or try to change anything because I'm not aware in the dream that it's not me. Usually what ends these dreams is my self awareness filtering through. I was holding my breath in my sleep because I believed I was in the water. I breathed in my sleep and believed I would drown. I've actually drowned several times in dreams like these, so I feel like I know what it feels like to drown. I know I didn't drown in this dream because what I felt was me breathing in my bed, not in the water. Whoever that person was in the river, I hope she got away. I usually never learn anything more once I have awakened. It's like I've put a book down or turned a movie off, and I can't pick it back up or turn it back on.

Being an observer in dreams doesn't mean I know what's going on. Mostly, I just remember stuff that happens, details along the way, but I have no memory or even a clue why I was infiltrating an underground meeting in another country, or what happened to cancel it and evacuate the building. I don't know anything else about who I was, like what my name was or what I actually looked like, but I'm pretty sure I was a woman this time. I got a strong sense of being under cover, but I didn't think about why during the dream. I only thought about each next move that had to be made. You can tell when my awareness starts filtering into this dream when I have my own memories about being in a much colder river. If I truly do experience another person when I have these kinds of dreams, I have often wondered if my own memories or fears filtering back in confuse them.

I've been having dreams like this all of my life. I remember telling my mother when I was still very small that I exploded. I wasn't able to tell her at the time that I didn't understand how I could explode and still be here. I tried to tell her I was a man. I think she was very disturbed when I tried to tell her my dreams, and I just learned to stop trying. I can still see that dream in my mind as clearly as I did then. I wore a suit and carried a case, I tried to get away, something went all wrong, I exploded. I was very surprised when I woke up and I was a little girl again.

Consider this post a teaser for my book. I'm sorry it's taking so long to get it out there.

By the way, there's a big Chuck watch on the 27th. My own tagged tweet is so buried I'm just grabbing the latest one at the moment. Click the snip to follow the Chuck Movie account. Sorry, I have no other info about where this is showing or what the plan is except this facebook group, which is closed, so it's up to you to dig. Good luck to Chuck fans, I'm not holding my breath, but I agree that was a cool show.

paper hearts

This is a real thing. Click the snip to check it out.

Ok, what else is going on? This week has been one of my busiest since the holidays were over.

Saw my doctor yesterday, just a follow up. I already knew my holter came back 'negative' because I got a letter, but it was fun to watch the doctor's eyebrows go up and down reviewing a few *cough* highlights *cough*.  You know, like my heart taking a vacation and completely stopping for several beats, or suddenly pulling double and triple beats in one ventricle, but since none of what's going on is associated with anything known to be life threatening, it's been shrugged off for years over many event monitors.

I'm very aware when the beats stop, used to scare the sox off me, but once I found out my dad's has been doing the same thing for years and he's still here in his 80's, I settled down a bit. We both (my dad and I) think it's related to very high fever illnesses as children, most likely rheumatic fever. Not getting antibiotics in the olden days probably contributes (my opinion) to the plethora of pacemakers older people have nowadays. Take note, new age parents going back to the old ways. Damage over time equals big cost later if people want to live to ripe old ages.

This is partly why twitter is so important to me. I spend my days alone way out of town, and it helps knowing I can pop into lighthearted convo or banter at any moment to distract myself when something makes me nervous. This is also partly why I decided 2 1/2 years ago to keep blogging. We often don't have time for our own families, and it's work to keep up with everyone online, but from experience, I know that once someone's gone, loved ones search the internet for every scrap they can find of that person's life.

Scott and my sister are both into genealogy. They dig through historical books in special libraries for any mention of this person or that and visit cemeteries to find out what happened to people. I've been watching Scott piece together the life of one of his forebears (not sure if he's immediate or a side shoot on the ol' family tree), and he can just about tell a story now of how this guy, who was prolific in his community both politically and religiously, fell into terrible sadness over several years of witnessing his entire family die of this and that, until he wound up owning a saloon. You do what you've gotta do to keep going. This guy's life is really interesting and would make a great movie, but his actual story is practically lost to time because no one ever really wrote anything personal about him, or by him.

We are all like that. We are all living these great stories. You may have no idea *now* how interesting someone two generations down from you or even 300 years from now might find your life, and it'll be because they identify with you personally in some way. I run into so many people who think their lives are "boring", but with a little conversation and a few questions, I usually find out they have quirks that make them unique, they have weird problems that I don't find boring at all, they find unusual ways to solve problems that I find inspiring, and with a little interaction, we are usually laughing together about something cool. I like people. People are living stories.

If anything big ever happens, like a nuke over U.S. airspace that creates an EMP effect and knocks our grid out and we can't talk to each other on internet or maybe even on phones for awhile, I hope you guys pick up pens and spirals and keep writing your thoughts down. Keep writing, no matter what. Don't give up and think it doesn't matter. Everything about who we are is built on people that came before us who kept writing things down. It doesn't matter how you spell or whether your penmanship is good, just write. Being able to transfer our thoughts to other people even hundreds of years later is such a neat blessing.

Okay, done being gooey. Valentine's Day is coming. I must torture you.

I promise I won't bug y'all with this again. Click the snip to nominate. Super thanx.

Buttersnake Pinky the Heckraiser

Hooray, I can drink coffee this morning!

I never had other symptoms beyond intense upper stomach cramping all night before last, thank goodness, so maybe all the probiotics and prebiotics I've been consuming have been actually doing what nutritionists say they do when people come in contact with tummy bugs.

   

My dad wants me to spread the word about Daystar television, so there you go. He is especially super into this book right now. You guys are so lucky he's not stalking all my friends on twitter and facebook, but his penchant for handing out free stuff to people he worries about usually makes it weirdly ok.

I grew up with everything you ever heard and even more that you haven't about prophecy, numerology, and the gamut of anything weird and scary like UFO's, giants, angels running the governments, and, oddly enough, everything that's wrong with the medical and psychological sciences because they're out to brainwash you. I guess that's one way of looking at it, but I just shoot right back at him that EVERYONE is out to get my money, including Daystar, and then he shoots back how else would they spread the truth, and I cut in with I hope you aren't planting tomatoes yet since the weather is so nice (a joke between us, one year he planted 5 times before winter was done, but I've since discovered that a lot of people around here do that because Missouri is a real trickster), and he lets me know he's digging holes every single day getting ready for another hundred pine trees because the wildlife ate all the seedlings last year, which I point out is awfully nice of him considering how nutritious pine seedlings are, and I sit back and enjoy listening to him talk about critters he sees and who he talked to (argued with, explained something to, imposed upon) at Walmart or McDonald's.

My psychologist would be thrilled I've made it to this point. Especially with a stomach bug.

OH. Wow, this is so cool I hafta share right now. I'm reading (sorry, Dad) The ESP Enigma: The Scientific Case for Psychic Phenomena by Diane Hennacy Powell, M.D., a *scientist* AND fellow aspie, and I'm super thrilled because my brain has been so weird growing up and she keeps hitting nails I've been thinking about for decades with my brain /robot obsession.

She goes indepth about how brains work, which areas do what, and it's really up to date with all the latest. One thing I've said for years is I can't handle talking on a phone. I have been blaming it on a lag in auditory processing in my aspie brain (which is true, I have a 'real time' issue in social interaction), but she was explaining right and left brain cultures based on how we use symbology in language and wrote "Some evidence for this theory comes from a study that showed that literate Greeks use the right ear and activate the left brain when listening to words. In contrast, illiterate Greeks use their left ear and activate their right brain more when listening to words." I've also run into other studies that show people are more creative (right brain) before they learn reading and spelling (left brain), which shifts dominance, which would indicate that people who aren't very good with grammar and spelling rules tend to be more artistic or creative. I personally suck at art in ways you guys can't even imagine, but I'm like a walking thesaurus, complete with language history over hundreds of years, so I'm super left brain.

Which apparently is at the root of my conundrum when I talk on the phone, so when I ran into that quote, I was elated that there is more evidence for why I'm so weird. I need to use my left ear for some reason, I prefer it even though it is confirmed a little deaf to higher tones and makes consonants disappear like crazy in my lagging auditory processing. When I switch to my right ear, (which actually tests out as hearing better) I can barely follow conversations at all. You'd think it would be the other way around if I'm right brain deficit and super left brain (aspie)- my right ear would be better for left brain language function. But my social function is what I need when I talk on the phone, and that social function is exactly what gets in the way for me with language, like my right and left brain can't seem to integrate the spoken word in real time convos very well because so much interaction for me is 'junk' that I don't do very well (I'd rather plug straight into the info I need, like R2D2).

Even when I use speaker phone so both ears hear everything I can suddenly become very lost and need to reiterate everything very slowly from the start, as if my brain dropped a pile of notes and has to sort them out one by one as it picks them back up, which I know is maddening for the person on the other end of the line, especially if we are trying to get some paperwork done. If I have to stop for them to explain stuff to me that they were trained to say but has nothing to do with the convo continuum, they may as well just explode the phones, because we aren't going anywhere for awhile. People hate me by the time we're done discussing forms of any kind because they can't conceive that they are the ones throwing me off track so badly (especially when I need what I feel is vague to be more defined). I actually have to interrupt them and tell them to stop talking because I have a cognitive deficit and I need them to go slow, and that just pisses people off right and left for some reason. If it gets bad enough I'll ask for managers, but I never complain about the people talking to me, I just start all over again until they hate me, too. By the time we're done, it's usually pretty obvious that 1- I know their companies and merchandise and fine print better than they do since they only know their phone bank material, and 2- I can use way fewer words with way more meaning that cuts right to the gist of everything we're talking about because I'm apparently not the one who is a robot, they are, and they can't wait till their shift is over so they can drink themselves senseless.

Why can't other people condense spoken language down to direct info sharing? On the other hand, other people would rather take shortcuts blogging about it, so I guess we're even. Well, except they might go on and on more hatefully about how their day sucked from my phone call.

Fortunately, it doesn't bother me that people hate me. My right brain emotional reactions sometimes take several days to catch up, and I rarely take them seriously, which is probably a good thing because I can metaphorically scorch a monitor like people burn paper, you stumble back clutching your face going "My eyes! My eyes!" while I mwahaha about your brain being scarred for life from my word construction. So yeah, it's a good thing I don't usually have right brain interaction on the phone. By the way, I don't think winning a monitor searing contest is a good thing, those of you out there who actually read the forum interaction that day. I am drawn to mock like I'm on the Satellite O' Love, but I've been practicing my self control skillz and I don't do that any more. That number may not look impressive as a snip, but it was a day the world stopped, a day no one talks about, a day erased from history.

Anyway, that quote was exciting to read yesterday. No wonder I keep trying so hard to use my left ear, almost like I'm trying to push the phone through my ear into my brain. My right brain is the talker, my left brain has the dictionary (to put it simply), and I've apparently developed a system of going in circles between the two in order to talk out loud to people.

A doctor mocked my mom years ago thinking I might be a little autistic, and back then being verbal meant I wasn't because there was no such thing as a little. Yes, I could say "hello" and "no" and "I want", but apparently the doctor couldn't see the disgust in my eyes when I looked back at him, little realizing how much I already understood at that tiny age, I still remember the whole event and how he treated my mom, even though I was only three.

So. Here we are. What a yappy person I am this morning. Feeling better, got coffee in me, going to a follow up appointment today after ALL my tests came back great (even the holter), which is something new for me, so that means I'm doing it right. I'm aspie and I'M DOING IT RIGHT. No one else 'saved' me. No one else 'fixed' me. I'm solving my own problems after years of people all around me telling me how to do everything.

All our aspie brains are getting together now on the internet. I hope you guys are ready for us to make the world a better place, because every aspie I run into seems to have the goal in mind. Truth, peace, beauty, love. Whoever wants to cure us needs to step back and ask what kind of revolution they're stopping if they do. Some of us are finding our ways out past our barriers, we're figuring stuff out, and now you know why every Walgreens in America looks the same. Ease, familiarity, and dependability go a long way with sales. Demand excellence, because we want to give it to you.

I'm laughing. You can't see me being silly in my brain.

Egads, look at the time, better run out the door. Someone needs to make me a really cute Snake Plissken vid with dance music or something, just for kicks. I mean, if you're bored and need something to do. My birthday is in October. Surprise me.

slinging through the dark side

Slept in till 5:30 having a very complicated dream about trying to find and reclaim my mother's super cool nearly brand new plug in combo slow cooker/ buffet warmer/ something that I had borrowed and taken to really big church social (we're talking thousands), and I searched through the big church kitchen, the picnic area, and even the caterers and nursery and classrooms, and finally decided someone must've taken it home with them.

My mom has never owned anything like that.

My mom passed away five years ago.

The people I kept passing by in my dream as I was looking everywhere were all people from facebook and twitter and other internet places, most of whom I'd never met until after she died.

So why was that thing so important? What am I really looking for? What am I hoping to find that no one else can help me with? Why am I sad that a cooking utensil that she never owned is lost?

And what in the world triggered this? Why now? There is no significance to this date that I know of.

I don't want her story to be lost. I think this is me feeling guilty that I haven't been writing as much as I hoped this month. By the way, apologies for that near-rumble on facebook. I tried to keep myself reigned in. The couple of people who know what I'm talking about- imagine me being like that every day only 10X worse. #Aspienado.



Dentist today. Better get myself psyched up for it.

point the brain *that way*

Good morning, nice to see you all again on another Monday. I was going to skip this today but I'm apparently free associating so badly that I'm already doing the gerbil thing, and when I look back at the end of this day I'll be ticking boxes like "ran on wheel 1,846 times", "chewed through another bar", and "fluffed up another rag into a ball of fuzz". Basically, nonaccomplishment. Thank goodness I'm in a really good habit of hitting a blog early in the morning to focus all that extraneous activity chatter into a direction.

I was brilliant yesterday. I made the godmother of all lists, zipzipzip jotjotjot spellspellspell while Scott was watching the Packers pre-lose. I used a BIG spiral this time, dividing the page into lengths of thirds and titling month in each column. Everything I want done by the end of this month is in the first column, a sprinkling of things to keep in mind for next month is in the next column, and the third column is still blank but very important.

This is the time of year that I'm usually spinning out in complete brain fail, and I don't come back 'on' until about April, which means I monumentally screw up stacks of bills and taxes (I have stories, it's that bad), not to mention miss a couple of holidays and birthdays without even realizing the earth is still turning. I'm sure several enthused readers will think things like "Yep, she's gluten free now, about time" or "I told her about the magnesium thing two years ago" or "Cool, I'm getting a birthday present this year". Whatever. The brain is WORKING, yay!

Aaaaand, my brain is feeling a little calmer now. No more odd job code fixing or hunting high and low for a picture I thought I had or counting my yogurts (poor twitter). Time to spring forth and pounce all over my Monday. Hope you guys win your own wrestling matches out there. Oh, and for all the Yodas that keep swarming me out of the blue on twitter-

no one knows what a Pinky spatula will look like

Woke up to the awesomeness of having been incorporated into a hashtag game.

Why, thank you, Spatula City!

That came from a movie called UHF. Here is the theme song, which you can use to hone your celeb spotting skillz while you flashback through the 80s. Trivia: When I was growing up we called it the 'pancake turner'. I never used the word 'spatula' until I was an adult. It felt weird, like I was speaking another language. More trivia: This whole thing is actually kinda funny because I'm extremely picky when buying new spatulas, and have been known to scour the internet looking for something to replace the perfect spatula that has been handed down in my family since the 1950s. Sadly, they don't make it anymore. You'd think, being such a spatula buff, that I'd own something crazy, but I don't. I'm waiting till I get my big break, and then I'll design my own. Yes, I'm serious.

overcoming the hazards of #brainshock

This week is like SpongeBob and Gary switching bodies. My mind is zip zip zip and my body is meow.

Got my annual report to the government turned in. zip

I lost it last year, turned it in late, someone in between lost it, they contacted me and asked where is it, I discovered I had disastrously forgotten to photocopy the original and had to dig up even more aging info to complete the report again, turned it into a local office (the waiting room sucked), where they couldn't tell me the status of whether the original ever arrived because Scott (my legal representative) was at work, BUT (and here is where glitchy brain really kicks in) we received assurance later that our efforts were in vain because they already had the info, or something like that. Brain glitching was still in pretty high gear for months last year, because tax season was nearly over before that got resolved, and it had nothing to do with taxes.

Got next month's bills lined up already. zip

My winter bills have been a nightmare for years because I'm usually in #brainshock after the holidays. My math skills have been bordering on extreme sports kind of disasters ever since the original brain crash in '04, but over the last three years I've been able to at least catch that I'm making mistakes, even with a calculator. That's right, I can still barely even use a simple calculator. I was playing yahtzee on a secret mission the other day and blanked so badly on 8+5 that I couldn't even count it out on my fingers. I still hang onto being told back in the 90s that I had the highest score ever on the math test going into nursing school, and I really did ace college algebra exams in pen, which I remember because a teacher asked me to stop that because it was intimidating the other students, one of whom had failed the class five times. Like yeah, meet me in history 101 because I had to take that over, too, it's not my thing and the guy behind me was convinced he gave the guy in front of me some kind of seizure and was so relieved I never keeled over right in front of him, too, although I did fall asleep a few times and he kindly poked me to wake me up just in the nick of time. At any rate, for me to be figuring out next month's bills (paying off Christmas) and actually have the math done correctly is monumental. I should go get an 8+5 tattoo or something.

I even got my zazzle store off the ground. zip

I only created that account fifteen months ago... haha. Yeah, I finally have one item for sale. No big expectations, just a few ideas I've been kicking around for several years. I'm still blanking out regularly, so it's a wonder anything gets done at all, actually. I still make a list every day. After already renewing a library book, I added it to my daily to-do list this week, right? READ BOOK. Oh, yeah... Then I turn around and walk a few steps and blank out again, wind up doing a load of laundry because laundry is so handy for feeling like I accomplished something when I don't remember what else I was going to do.

2015 blew in a little dramatically around here, so I'm sure I'll stay pretty busy. If my brain can keep up... who knows what will happen this year. #exciting Here comes my brain dance.

psyche analyzing my rugs

I am observing two big problems lately.

1-The more stringently I work on organizing my house, the more chaotic the disorder becomes during life's interruptions.

2- I attempted to make a manuscript deadline again and endangered lives. Another person nearly died, and two more have been at risk for over a week.

I remember a very long time ago on one of my first jobs at a Pizza Hut, the assistant manager said something to me about my work and I was so pissed pounding ice into the salad bar that ice crystals showered all around me like I was doing a slalom. Not another soul bothered me that day, and they all backed away any time I walked by.

I am at that level of pissiness. It is in my nature to take the cosmos personally, and once again I find myself shaking my fist at the metaphorical heavens. I used to debate these things with a psychologist, giving him glimpses of my unsavory inner workings- wonder if he misses me.

I am borderline OCD. It kind of runs in the family, usually presenting in the form of what other people might politely call hobbies. I tend to spring into manic action when I feel like life is smothering me, tearing curtains down every three to six months, but I'm noticing over the last year it's turning into every two months. Stuffing rugs into the washer is probably my way of not going anorectic with emotional wrath and vengeance. I have very clean rugs.

All my med tests last week came back in great shape, hooray! Which means I made it through the holidays without going into flare up or some other medical crisis for the first time in years. And since I've made it into tax season with my brain still intact, I'm already assessing and restructuring how I might want to handle holidays next year. I've already told Scott the tree is going up on Halloween. We are too busy and too tired to cram all the work into one month, or even a six week sprint. I haven't had things the way I want them in a very, very long time. If I must drag it back out again and jump through all those hoops again, I want a user friendly easy holiday. It's only fair.

If I actually get MY WAY any time over the next five years, the picture in my mind includes a personal assistant setting up travel plans and watching other people do all the work. ALL the work. Because I'm paying them to do ALL THE WORK.

In the meantime, the big flock of birdies hopping around the cold, wet tundra where Scott scattered seed this morning flew up in shocked surprise when I stepped out at the first crack of dawn with a pile of rugs to shake a bit first, and the crows were indignant enough to continue screaming at me long after I went back into the house. At least I had the power to ruffle all the feathers this time. It's usually me in a cold, wet, dark tree feeling offended at the cosmos for another interruption. Ok, a warm, dry, TV set lit couch. And I do realize I have it better than a whole lot of people out there.

But I'm really tired of feeling like a rug. If I must be a rug, I demand the chance to fly and go see the magic in faraway lands.

Now I'm just filling up space because I made it to the other side of that pissy feeling where the rest of the day is like Oh... *work*. And I start the trudge all over again. Because I really really really want this.

there is no spoon

My last post was my 100th post on this blog.

I dreamed last night that we (my immediate and extended family on my side) were tourists on another planet, and one of the cool things to see was a gigantic 25 story building in the middle of a very strange and beautiful 'jungle' of wispy alien stuff. Every level in the building was a whole mini town, with lots of shops and things to do, places to eat, medical stuff, etc. We had to go up to the top on a very slow elevator that took a couple of hours, something about pressurizing. The top floor was awesome, but since we weren't used to such a different pressure, we couldn't stay long. When we reached our time limit, our chests would get tight and it would feel like we couldn't breathe or our hearts would explode.

Well, burrito ran off... We fanned out, I texted out that I found her and that I'd meet everyone at a lower level, so they went on ahead. Except my sister. As I was headed back across the 'town', I saw her go into one of the medical places. I knew she'd be ok there, so I kept going. My chest started getting really tight, and I tried to call out and couldn't, which didn't matter because the town curfew was on and the place looked empty. I just kept walking, not sure if burrito could take much more, either.

Made it to the elevator. They said since I'd gone over time that I would have to ride down way slower and stop an hour at each level till I got to level 3, so I spent the rest of my dream in a great big elevator going really really slow with nothing to do.

I wish I could press my head against my laptop and transfer all the neat stuff I saw in my dream. In some ways it was like any kind of tourism, but in other ways it was so alien and cool everywhere I turned, all different from anything we've seen on this earth. If I tried to describe everything I've seen in my dreams through my life that I've never seen on a TV or in a movie, I'd never be able to stop writing. I have no idea how so much new stuff shows up in my head, and I usually remember most of it.

I'm sure walking all over two hospitals the other day had a lot to do with this dream, as does having a holter monitor on again this weekend, but other than that, whatever the time limits were about had more to do with the alien planet than anything going on here when I'm awake. I think me calling out across the curfewed town is my twitter app crash on my phone. It's been weird not being able to tweet whenever I want.

Five more hours until I can rip these electrode tabs off. It's a 48 hour monitor, which I'm way too familiar with (7-day is another side kick I haven't seen in awhile, thank goodness), and, you guessed it, I'm one of those lucky people who get a big fat hive under each tab, and even after the tabs come off, my skin pouts for several more days, huffing redly around like it's never been so offended in its life, violently itching through everything I do. Every teensy little nerve that doesn't like something, like a sticky tab touching it, gets a megaphone and extra batteries and caricatures itself into this huge screaming lightning bolt that overrides everything else, and I can't dull it or turn it off, thanks to a 'pain syndrome' on top of Aspergers. And it's very competitive. You wouldn't think something that tiny could be so bossy, like it had a sharp pin poking it or something. Each little nerve under those tabs is doing its best to force me to peel those off. Every touch from something else seems to magnify it 200x, until I'm such a crab I could tear other people's eyeballs out just for looking at me. I had enough xanax and benadryl last night to put Scott to sleep for two days, but noooo, not me. I can't stop looking at the clock.

I keep a bottle of solarcaine in the house year round for stuff like this. Part of my brain has a giant screen up vividly imagining slathering that on, trying to get those 5 tiny little nerves to believe it and calm down. I think about the daily lives of tiny cells a lot. Every cell is like a tiny little office building with lots of stuff going on inside, buncha paperwork and filing, in and out stacks, production, sales, equipment. Five of those tiny little office buildings have been trying to convince me for two days that it's life or death imperative that I remove these tabs AT ONCE, and they're trying to get the rest of my body to join in the fuss with nerve zaps flying around my torso, and my nerve central (the ol' brain) keeps pissily yelling back for them to settle down, for crying out loud, it's not like this is shingles or something, good grief.

A doctor once told me many years ago that I'll probably outlive everyone just because I can feel everything that offends my body, and I stop doing it. So at this moment, I'm pissily outliving someone I've never met while the extra nerve activity is pissily powering the Matrix. You're welcome.

Pinky Knight and the Dish Templar Disaster

So you're muddling your way maddeningly through a massive DVR timer scheduling shift to make room for football all weekend, and along the way you notice that the episode numbering for The Curse of Oak Island in the Dish guide doesn't follow the same logical viewing path as the original air dates at all. #facepalm Again?

Pinky is a Dishpert. I've been fixing my viewing schedules for years. Pinky realizes that the wide and varied viewing audience out there doesn't always have the time to figure these things out, what with kids around, chronic illness brain fog, winter storm Klingon knocking power out for a week, etc. So Pinky pulled up History's website episode list and made copious notes. The lower half of the page here shows the correct viewing order, with a comparison of episode numbering between Dish and History. If I were managing data entry for them, I'd be all aspienado on their butts for viewers who can't stop and spend 20 minutes figuring this out, especially with kids around, or chronics experiencing brain fog, or even just frustrated fellow scientists who feel like they're dealing with freshman level data entry for masters level programming.

If the Knights Templar had been this sloppy hiding their treasures, we'd have found them by now. Just saying.

bio nazi

Things I will never begin my bio with ANYWHERE, so if you ever see this stuff associated with my name, it's not me doing it.

Award winning- Really? Do you know how many award winning people are out there? MILLIONS. I have run into so many award-winning people online it's incredible. I wonder if some of them are counting their fourth grade something something trophies. I was president of a 4-H club for two years, but you don't see me saying President in my bio.

Published author- Right, because so many fanfic and blog writers out there are 'published' just hitting enter. Don't forget to link.

Professional- I'm very glad to say I'm not a professional killer, even though I've killed way more beings on this planet than most people I know. You do something long enough, you earn the 'pro' badge whether you get paid for it or not.

Energetic- I'm about to go into Spock mode about what that even means. Are you focused?

Global- Dictator is the proper word after this one.

Anything third person or chopping off personal pronouns and going straight to verbs- because that's so last decade.

Whimsical- This one word alone makes my brain kamakaze right out of my skull. If anyone wants to see my smoldery dragon breath, all they have to do is put the word 'whimsical' in my bio.

Passionate- This is a euphemistic word for 'competitive' and 'get out of my way' and 'I will eat you'. We all step aside and let passionate people plow their roads.

CEO of startup- I'm my own boss, too.

Optimistic- I debated 'optimistic pessimism' with my psychologist off and on for several years. I would never hire an optimist. I want people I work with to have contingency plans for everything that can go wrong any second.

Words I would use if it were true-

Certified- Because, you know, genius.

Currently- Good word. I, however, might jaunt into 'previously' just for sport.

Invincible- Because no one else ever uses it.

I really like these two bios. Both of these people out of several hundred got me to click and the second one especially impressed me after the click.

I'm kinda finding all this a funny distraction right now, especially since my own page is kind of a joke and I can't keep up with the activity going on there.

Pinky Patrol

Ok, let's see where we are...

New year, new duties. I'm now on spambot patrol at the LittleLexx.net forum. That means I'll hafta check my 'official' email account more often. Hadn't realized 4 months went by since I'd checked the forum, and I'm really bad to not check that email account even once a week. I guess all that big prednisone in September messed me over, and then holidays, but now I've gotta FOCUS.

New year, new braining level. I've requested my LinkedIn archives because my brain is finally on enough to piece together early 2013 memories. That started with scouring old emails (yes, same email account) going way back for a single photoshop I did of Stanley Tweedle that I thought I emailed to myself from a much older computer collection (at the time I didn't have a pinterest account, which would have been much faster getting into from my laptop), and as I was speed scrolling I screeched to a halt in the middle of massive correspondence between 2 other website owners I was writing articles for because I caught sight of the LinkedIn notice that Gary Graham requested a connection, which was fortuitous because I had started wondering a couple of weeks ago for some reason exactly when that happened (I really have no memory of that)- aaaaaand promptly deleted it by mistake. High speed brain flexing is still a new toy, apparently the finger part of my brain didn't get the memo in the same split nano second as the other parts and *poof*. I wasn't upset, if anything I was still floating in amazement that my past is still pretty organized and *there* after all the brain fail I've been through. Still reconnecting synapses, but already I'm thrilled to no end that I'm understanding things like written instructions now, and remembering my way around the ridiculous LinkedIn maze. That's not the most user-friendly place in the world, so connecting those dots and finding out I can get archive history was pretty awesome this morning. Press the big pink button to see my profile there. By the way, I suck at recommending, sorry.

New year, new fears. I have a dr appt tomorrow, made it through all the holidays without one trip in this year, yay! That's pretty huge for a person like me. I'm suspecting I might be going hyperthyroid again though (crossing my fingers it's nothing more than that), kinda dreading asking for tests but I know better than to wait till I drop. Sudden onset of scary stuff is no joke, and bad stuff happens all the time to people who tolerate slow accumulation of symptoms without noticing. Last thing I need on possible jacked up SED, ANA, and atypical organ enzymes (yes, I'm probably blowing it out of proportion, but that's better than ignoring) is thyroid fail, and I feel like a couple of meds I'm on are masking a deeper problem than simple SVT showing back up. If aliens ever take me as a pet, they're going to wonder why I croaked off so fast, so I hope they never do.

New year, new friends. I'm trying to keep track of everyone, I really am. Please don't feel bad if I don't notice you for 2 months or something, especially while I'm in phone fail. I'm barely keeping up with my own family, and they can tell you I've never done this well with so many friends all over the place, so I feel like I'm in on a kind of new planet and still learning the city map and getting on the wrong subways and stuff. In the meantime...

early morning Snake

I find myself deep in Plissken meme territory at 5:15 a.m. while the skies debate whether torrential or icy is better this time of year. I made this one.

This actually started last night when a freelance t-shirt artist photobombed one of the Lexx groups yesterday with an awesome Zev shirt he was wearing, so I lurked around this morning and discovered his artist page and that he has also done a Snake Plissken tee.

So far no ice, might get a little snow mix tonight, might be icy tomorrow, but all indication at this point is that I'll probably still wake up to hot coffee. By then I hope I know what day I'm in. This is my third Saturday in a row because Scott's been off work since he pulled in on New Year's Eve. Nothing like starting a year off with 3 Saturdays in a row.

That's it, brain's gone. I can't seem to move very well, either, so see ya.

I'll see your weekend and raise you a Disney

All you other grandparents out there on facebook making it look easy- stop that. If I find out next week that I've made it through another Christmas in flare up, I might turn it into a facebook brag-fest and up the ante for everyone else making my kiddo jealous. Super Pinky will also say pertinent things about people's significant other choices that keeps twisting our holiday seasons up into pretzels. Y'all know I write down everything.

I want to change all that. If I ever make my own money, *poof* I'm whisking my babies off to Florida for Christmas (cross your fingers, people). If that really does happen and even just one soul asks me what took so long, I will bonk heads all over facebook. What is taking so long is so many other people all around me continually thinking everything has to be done their way in their time, and that includes dying, nearly dying, life saving surgeries (there are several of you), funerals, and, oh yeah, all the other non life threatening stuff that stresses me out and I'm not even supposed to be involved, but I am because I'm kind. Or at least I used to be. I'm obviously less kind lately and several loved ones have retreated some emotional distance.

MONEY. We might go into severe deficit this coming year. We might get lucky and crash right into a pot of gold. In the meantime, would you other grandparents on facebook please start posting more realistically? It would save having to listen to admonishment on my part. "But so and so's mom watches HER grandchildren all the time, for weekends and a whole week and holidays and Sundays and..." Really? What did we just do here?

I love all the babies, big and small. Now, y'all chant with me- WORK WORK WORK WORK...