Winter Games- me & @bonenado in real life

Or, irl, as it's acronymed. All of these things happened over the last nine days while black ice and 6-8 inches of crunchy frozen snow kept us more indoors than out.

She doesn't dig the snow, either

Like living in a glass forest

Paper Towel Death

Since our kids are moved out, Scott and I usually eat together in front of our massive TV (the bliss of empty nest), unless he's superglued to fantasy stats or some such on his PC screen. It's not uncommon for me to walk past the couch the next morning picking up the odd paper towel or glass out of the cup holder. The other morning I chanced across a paper towel tightly twisted into what looked like a piece of rope laying on my favorite couch pillow- Was this a message? Had I irritated him too much? Was he subconsciously (or even consciously, egads) thinking about doing to me what he did to that paper towel? Everything Freudian imaginable popped into my mind, and it all pointed to DEATH.

I was right. After Scott got home from work and we were once again eating together on the couch, I paused the show we were watching and said "Hey, by the way, there was this paper towel all twisted up on my pillow. Are you thinking about killing me? Because if you are, I think letting me know what's bothering you and me changing my behavior might be more beneficial, because otherwise you wind up eating fast food every night. And cereal. That thing looked like you were making a rope, and you laid it on my pillow, dude." Turns out he was. He'd been watching one of his uber violent assassin shows the night before and had seen something that triggered him to remember Jackie Chan uses anything around him, and wondered if a paper towel could be made into a strangling weapon, and even sort of demonstrated how he had tried it on himself to see if the paper towel would tear apart. It didn't. Then he forgot to throw that towel away when he got up and took his dishes to the kitchen.

Whew!!!  That explanation is entirely plausible. Between some of the shows I've watched with him (including everything from black and white samurai movies to vampire bloodbaths) and his fascination with zombie defense strategies (which I first learned about when he was going through an autoimmune blood vessel flare and a big load of steroids that made him super yappy), Scott is pretty dark in there. Maybe we need a cute brain cleanser now.


Coffee Races

Scott usually leaves me a couple cups of coffee in the pot when he goes to work, and I just microwave them when I get up, unless I'm up with him and drink it fresh. On weekends it's all fresh, which rocks, but Scott is one of those older gen guys whose little mind I can toy with. I call from the kitchen to him in the bedroom, glued to a monitor- "Hey, I'm going to make fresh coffee. You want this last cup before I pour it out?" I hear a muffled 'yeah' and know he's not moving because #glued. So I call back with a little louder voice, "Then bring your cup, I'm pouring this out in ten seconds. Ten... nine..." I hear a mad scramble out of his chair and a wild hunt for his coffee cup. "...five...four..." He's actually running into the kitchen with his cup. "...two...." His cup is under the pot that I'm holding over the sink just as I say "...one!" and start pouring. He knows I'm not bluffing. I haven't yet figured out why he still falls for that when fresh coffee in a few more minutes would have magically appeared anyway and he'd never have missed the old cold stuff, but it revs things up and makes the day more exciting. I like it.

Someone wanted a milkshake

The Pros and Cons of Having No Responsibility

This is more like a think tank game of wits that pops up every little bit. It usually starts with something Scott sees on a TV news flash or hears at work that crosses his mind, in this instance, a group of people camping or living up in some snow laden mountains and other people worrying about whether they were ok in all this horrible cold, and Scott blurted out it must be nice to have no responsibilities and just go live in the mountains, and I can never tell if he's actually jealous or what, but I once again see an opportunity for sport and jump into the deep end with "Well, you have the responsibility to stay alive, which is probably a whole lotta hard work when you're living like that", and then we launch into a discussion about all the work it takes staying alive when a person has no responsibilities to society. We usually don't get anywhere with it, partly because Bunny calls and babbles, but when we're not interrupted, we run on like that sentence up there.

Because WORK

Cripple Fight

Sometimes we reach an impasse while we're both stuck in the house together, and the only solution, as throughout human history, is to simply just kill each other. It would be preferable to do that with our battery operated computerized Battleship or a multiplayer video game, but the first is too slow and way too much sitting for all the adrenaline Scott continually processes with his ADHD, and the second gives me optic nerve migraines and him motion sickness nausea and we both wind up crawling off the couch sorry that we ever tried duking it out with our thumbs. So sometimes I take a shortcut and just slug him really hard, and then we don't talk for 3 days. I know I'm really lucky that he doesn't slug me back, and that it hurts his feelings when I do that (long history of sad reasons throughout his life that I understand I trigger), but sometimes I get 'stuck' and 'act out' and then regret it the rest of the day. In short. aspie gets frustrated processing communication and emotion at the same time and briefly gets violent, which I sometimes fail to control. I dread a future of being labeled the combatant patient in a nursing home one day when my mind deteriorates and I go Bendii Syndrome all over the staff.

I can take him ANY TIME

Anyway, this last weekend, as we hit another stalemate, I mused on the fact that recent events have left me nearly incapable of getting a good slug out, so instead, I turned from the stove to Scott watching out the kitchen window for suspicious activities going on with the neighbors and said "I never was very girly, and yet here you still are" or something like that, put my good arm around his shoulders and said "Lucky I can't hit you right now, eh?" and we laughed. If we could go back to younger years and do this all over again without all my stupid challenges in the way, it would be fun to take taekwondo and stuff together. He's always wanted to go ghost hunting, and if we were equipped for defense and strategy while we were at it, we could scheme and do stuff all over the place. But here we arrive at a place where the phrase 'cripple fight' means 'as you wish'. I'm not sure I'd give that moment up to change anything. One must embrace cabin fever to truly evolve. We both got gold stars on our foreheads that day.

One of the big kids

Walmart Bunny Rodeo and the Missing $20

Bunny's mama was assessed in the third grade by the area's top pediatric neurologist, who diagnosed her with full blown ADHD, saying he'd never seen a child score a ten on both tests before. Bunny is a cute little clone with all the signs of busy energizer bunny (I used to tell her mama that all her bunnies were bouncing out of the box), and already at only 19 months she is such a handful for 3 people that we have become a weekly shopping team. The 'problem' is that this kid already knows who she is and what she wants, and since we are still pre-language with her, reasoning doesn't work (negotiating worked beautifully with her mama once I learned the tricks, which I'm really good at because I'm aspie), and I'm juggling 3 genetically hardwired go-go-go people with poor communication skills. In Walmart.

Constantly moving equals joy

The key is to split up and run into each other 'randomly' (Bunny has no clue we're touching base on the phone at first)- Grampa uses an owl 'backpack' leash that makes Bunny feel grown up and they go walking (super fast walking, she doesn't meander) while mama and I race our carts around with our lists. We have about 15-20 minutes before Bunny and Grampa get too frustrated to work together, and then we start switching off. Sometimes mama shows up with a cookie from the bakery which Bunny can have only by sitting in the cart (helps to take her hungry when we go shopping), and if I run into them first, I have so far successfully gotten her to sit in a cart twice (which is huge) while we hunt for a special box of animal crackers, which she is allowed to open. I doubt this strategy will keep working beyond another 2-3 weeks, but at least we get our shopping done without too much entertainment that inexperienced bystanders might not appreciate.

It has helped me greatly through the years to remember that these ADHD loved ones of mine are direct descendants of the Daniel Boone clan, and that possibly it took people like this to survive being pioneers starting towns and networking local governments and whatnot, as opposed to sitting around croaking off. I also can't help but wonder, every time I hear of a family dying in a house fire during the winter, if they might have gotten out safely if they'd had a Bunny in their midst with enough insomnia to keep someone awake around the clock. Heavy sleepers croak off in fires and raids, light sleepers scream and get out windows. Maybe ADHD running through 10% of the world population is an ideal genetic variant assuring society survives in particular ways. Whenever I get worn out, I remind myself these are the people that get things done. We're very jealous of zurrito sitting in a cart, although his mama assures us keeping him in one has been a fight the whole way.

At any rate, by the time we hit the register lines we're pretty frazzled, like we've done toddler olympics or something, and our brains are all falling out. I asked Scott last weekend if I should put money on the gas card, and he said sure, $20. Neither one of us caught a miscommunication between a checker running away to puke (pregnant? sure hope it wasn't germs, ish) and Bunny reprogramming phones again while we were unloading two full carts, and I failed to grasp that I was supposed to put money on the gas card AND get cash back. We figured this out hours later when we needed the cash... Ah, yes, the Bat signal has a few bulbs going out again, gotcha. As long as we're not skidding on ice and have food in the fridge again, it's all good.

Losing internet for only one day was awesome

Squirrels and Crows vs Deer and Birdies (not counting bluejays)

Scott and I take sides. He spends a little cash putting out winter treats for the deer and birds (NOT 'wildlife') and I secretly don't let him know the wrong mouths are scarfing it all week while he's at work. I'm a softie, not a racist, and I say it's all good, let the hungry come and feast. Besides, if I think it's a little unfair, all I have to do is open the deck door and the greedy hogs whoosh away, relief washes over the forest as shouts go up "Hooray!", and the tiny little cuties (who are actually super aggressive themselves and just as mean, if you watch long enough) swoop in for leftovers. I figure the deer are big enough to walk on anybody they choose if they want a little corn, so I don't worry about it, but then, it's not my money we're spending, is it?

Over the years Scott has tried a lot of things, and over the years we have learned just how super smart the freezing famished can be overcoming obstacles. We've tried splitting up feeding stations and learned that 'common knowledge' on how to feed wildlife doesn't stick at all. Doves will eat wherever they want to eat, crows and squirrels will work together like corporate team members to solve a problem, pretty birds will kill whoever gets in their way if they feel desperate enough. The biggest wrench in any plan Scott makes is the deer. They don't cooperate. They'll eat bark while corn or hay sits 3 feet away if they suspect something's wrong. Their heads rotate up periscope for what seems like hours while crows at their feet scoop up all the good stuff. When they finally let their guard down enough to sniff around, they don't get upset if it's gone. Where other animals compete for available food, deer shrug it off and go about their business. Scott has gone through some very frustrating weekends trying to figure all this out.

TODAY, I got 8 deer on video meandering through. They do this all the time, but deer are smart enough to change their routes and times and never repeat their path. They all looked healthy and even played around with each other. That's the beauty of deer- they can live on next to nothing, like horses. Horses are made to survive on scrub, deer are made to survive forest winters. Knowing this doesn't change anything. I'm sure my video will only step up Scott's game. In the meantime, as Tosh would say for the rest of the critters, "And for that, we thank you."

that's a twofer!

It's the little things that keep me gripping the ledge like a crazed ninja who slipped on a banana peel.

I might be back to normal, aka up at 2 a.m. doing housework because PAIN. As long as I'm not throwing things or doing something drastic like staining the house, I'm sure I'll be ok. Laundry is sufficient for now. Ok, I'm lying. I made myself stop and work on the laptop because I couldn't stop cleaning.

In case anyone thinks I'm bluffing about WORK, I allowed myself to obsess over an inventory yesterday, and I'm guesstimating that I'm about a quarter of the way done on final revision at 24,000+ words so far. One of my goals is to make this project available on my own work blog with a password, besides actually publishing, so I'm double formatting everything, blah blah. My biggest hang up has been approach- anyone out there who runs into me in print knows I easily blather on forever and never shut up, so everything I do on an actual project feels like summarizing to me. Which is fine, summarizing is fun, it's like a word game. And on stupid days where I don't feel like I'm getting anything I really want to work on done, I obsess over proofreading and tweaking, note jotting and wandering around hunting down spiral number 23 and whatnot, and if I'm not doing that I'm probably looking up proper/acceptable word and phrase usage. You'd be surprised what a person can get away with, and I'm thinking once I myself am satisfied with this project, I may as well skip having the publisher proof it because I'm so OCD that any mistake that slips through will laughably cause me severe anguish to my dying day, and that might be fun to chuckle about as I grow older. Remember the time I, yeah yeah, we've all heard about your stupid typo, shut up and give me the remote.

I need to get some focus before I spring back out into the jungle and start cleaning out drawers or something. I'm in this crazy mood to start pitching stuff, which I know would freak Scott out pretty badly, so it's time for distraction and a plan- make a list, decide on today's menu, schedule out execution, and then pace myself. No desperate frenzies today. I think I made my pain level remarkably worse yesterday trying too hard, MY BAD.

THE LAW, and a basic understanding of my rights

I. Can't. Sit. >=l

I have to keep springing forth. I'm super thrilled that I'm actually walking with minimal pain (do twinges count?) and that I'm still bendy and capable (I've been sooooo much worse in the past), but now that sciatic lesion is an established thing and we're openly discussing the serious options after years of therapy and strength training suddenly epic failing me last month, I'm having to rethink my entire year going forward. Nothing screws up a schedule of any kind like sudden partial paralysis and bullet pains shooting holes in the walls.

First item on the table- lose weight before possible emergency surgery (hoping it doesn't come to that) so everything between cutting me open and follow up therapy will be easier. Since I've done nursing clinicals, I know this is a big deal, even though I'm not that heavy compared to the typical aging diabetic women my age. My weight has been so steady the last few months no matter what I do (which is actually a good thing when you jump on and off cancer watches, and a really good thing when you're diabetic because it's super typical to keep gaining), it's like my body is THE LAW and I'm just along for the ride.

Second item on the table- rearrange my work area. Ug. Most of you guys probably had no idea that much of my first year on twitter as Pinky was done standing up and moving around. It was before I had twitter on a phone, and my laptop was set up on a kitchen counter, and I continually moved around doing things in between tweeting. When I got twitter on a phone I was able to lay on the couch and tweet, THAT was awesome. Well, that's kind of gone again, and another year has flown by, and I'm looking at all the ways I've stalled to a standstill again on some of my projects, and I refuse (keep refusing) to let myself become bitter about any of it. I'm gonna crawl till I die, come hell or high water, my projects are all getting done a molecule at a time. So TODAY is all about moving everything off a counter in my kitchen again and staying away from this chair at the table. (I'm actually standing in front of it right now.) The key will be to keep moving, because standing for any length of time is actually tougher than sitting (spinal injuries are no joke), so I will type a few sentences, go wash a dish, type a few more sentences, go pick up something in the livingroom, etc. most of the day. When it gets this bad, a whole lot of housework gets done. When I get desperate, I even do windows. This is a funny post by Meghan, by the way, click this.

Third item on the table- Scott has already addressed my restrictions. I'm not allowed outside in any kind of inclement weather since I've hurt myself three different times since 2008 during lumbar fail, resulting in months of barely being able to walk around my own home, staples in my knee, and a concussion check in the ER. Heavy lifting without supervision is out again. I voluntarily don't shower while I'm home alone since I found out first hand that wildly ricocheting at high speed around a wet bathroom is one of the most painful things a person can go through. (That sentence cracks me up, I'm standing here laughing.) Basically, I do what I've been trained to do by professionals with doctorates in physical therapy- use my head, move correctly, do my stretches, and keep up core strength. The most important things I can do are retain my mobility and keep my core from becoming weak again. I had so little mobility from head to toe for a few years that it looked like I'd never be able to do normal things again, and that led to such a huge loss of strength that I could barely even do housework. I was such a strong person until 2004, I could actually pick Scott up off the floor. I'd really like to get that back.

From a private post written on April 3, 2009. It was about nerve problems in my neck that I'd lived with ever since I was thrown out of a flipping car, and the Lhermitte's sign I developed had finally become almost unlivable, among other distressful pain. I never had the surgery or even the shots, electing instead to first try chiropractics and physical therapy, with awesome results, although I had to be very patient and persistent to see results, and I'm still working on recovery. It takes a whole lot of stubborn to get through some levels of pain, but pain isn't always bad. Sometimes healing is as painful as an initial injury, and pain is good because it means the nerve is still working. A complete loss of pain after spinal cord injuries is ~bad~. Accepting pain as a good thing goes a long way toward dealing with it.

April 3, 2009

Here's where I am with the latest visit to a pain specialist in a big pain/surgery center.

Aside from being offered an extensive list of meds I already know I can't take and physical therapy I know insurance will throw a fit over and won't address or solve my personal medical issues because they have to stick to defined insurance protocols, I have the option of having anesthesia squirted directly into my spine while I'm semi-sedated in radiology, with heavy concerns that 1- I'll have a hyper reaction to it like I do everything else and wind up in lupus flareup or something (this guy said a person like me could react even to needles, I'd never thought of that), or 2- it simply won't last a reasonable enough amount of time to be worth it.  If they add steroid, complications could rise exponentially, and then the next step after that is neuroablation.

"Neuroablation is used as a last resort when other attempts to eliminate pain have failed. It uses heat to destroy nerves that send pain signals to and from the brain. It is used for back pain and referred pain in other parts of the body. It can be permanent, but sometimes the nerves will grow back."

Um, they'd pretty much have to destroy the entire nerve bundle right at the base of my skull...  And that still wouldn't stop the cranial and trigeminal nerves around my skull from throwing migraines at me.

This guy thinks my pain isn't so much from the disk bulge, which is very slight on the MRI (although he can actually feel it with his finger, which I'm thinking means if they'd turned me differently, it might look bigger on the film, because the bulge is closer to the side than the back), but from the fibro, and there pretty much isn't anything he can do about that.  Personally, I still think this is a slowly progressing nervous system disorder related to long-term viral infection along my nerve pathways and lupus-fibro complicating how my body handles it, but since no one can actually *see* any damage until lesions show up (and by then it's too late, you're crippled and there's no hope), no one can really say for sure.  I can't tell you how many times if I've been checked for everything from multiple sclerosis to cancers.

Anyway, in spite of all that, he put a floating order in the system that I have a full year to take advantage of when I decide I'm desperate enough to try it.  I told him there have been a few days this winter I was ready to tazer myself, he thought that was a good one.

Whatever is going on inside of me, I've outlasted it for 20 years, and I'm thinking I can be stubborn enough to go for 20 more.  If Jack Bauer can survive a Chinese prison, I can survive this.

You guys didn't see me get all my dishes done and laundry going and my bed made and a grocery list started while I was walking around this post. I made this. Now it's time to GET TO WORK!!!!!

call me crazy, but I miss my insomnia

My life used to be more like this.

Every weekday morning I wake up and get a cup of coffee. I don't speak to anyone unless I catch Scott leaving for work in the wee hours long before dawn. I watch the sun rise by myself five days a week. I make my list and pull my head together and start working. I spend hours working without a word out loud to anyone, because no one else is here. I get my lunch and estimate how much time I have left before I crash for the day, estimating when I need to get started on pulling together a nice supper for Scott, and then we watch an hour or two of TV together. From about 5:30 p.m. on I'm not alone any more. I can talk to a real person. And for the last couple of months I've been falling asleep way sooner than I used to, which has been cutting our time together down to a couple of hours.

This last week I've also been sleeping nearly around the clock, something I don't think I've ever done in my life. I've been mystified for decades how people can sleep ten hours at a time or sleep past the sun rising, and here I am, going 11-12 hours and waking up after dawn has started lighting up the world. My psychiatrist warned me about sleeping too much. If I'm still doing this by the time I see him in April, he'll probably try to push me onto meds again. Extra coffee isn't making a dent in me sleeping like a log for the first time in over forty years. They say you can't really catch up on lost sleep, but whatever created my severe insomnia must be all gone now. Finally. I may have to change the theme song at my funeral, I've had this one picked out for years and now it's no good.


Meanwhile. a blanket of snow isn't stopping the juniper and cedar pollen clouding around my house, and I'm as oozy as if I had pink eye. Snow doesn't stop crocuses, and it doesn't stop a forest heavily peppered with evergreens, which researchers claim have a similar allergenicity to ragweed. I wonder what I'd be allergic to by a beach. Probably everything.

Ok, I forgot about this idiot in my stash, thank god something made me crack up. I live for moments like these. You people out there are so awesome, you know that, right?

So a txt file just microflashed & embedded itself into my hard drive. I copied the code and saved it, then trashed it and did a reboot, but it's still in my download history any time I want to get to it. As far as I can tell, it's a 'window raid' that goes to hottubmovie on tumblr, which is probably an illegal form of advertising but someone thinks they're being cute. I doubt most people would even have a clue it even downloaded onto their hard drives, my Kaspersky certainly didn't blink an eye. Here's what it looks like.

Ok, where was I? I dreamed last night I was in a huge awesome house with a gigantic pool and needed to go buy a new phone, so I grabbed my stuff and made it to a mall just before closing. All I wanted was a working phone, was about to buy the cheapest thing they had, but they saw that I had a handful of cards and a wad of cash, so they kept trying to push their coolest phone on me. I'm not a materialistic person, just give me the cute little brightly colored kid phone and I don't care that it can't make my breakfast and send FedEx to Mars. How hard is it to let me buy what I want? I didn't wake up feeling refreshed, even after 11 hours of sleep. I woke up frustrated and feeling like I just left the mall.

Ok, the flash download just happened again, and NOW I can tell it's from the ad for Hot Tub Time Machine 2 that precedes this video. Smooth move, guys. You can see the download file in the lower left of this snip. It happens so fast you barely see a thing going on. I wonder if you see it happen at all if you're not on Chrome. Or maybe it's a google maneuver and Chrome users are being tagged or something. Maybe we'll get popups triggering later that take us to more movie advertising. Or maybe they're just sloppy. Or maybe they're really illegally invading my hard drive. Whatever. No, I'm not going to link to the video. It speaks trewth but it shut my brain back down *omg*. If you guys want to further experiment with download intrusion, it's up to you to go find this video right now. You have your mission. Haha, get it? You have your *mission* (statement). Too early for that? You're right, all this snow is frying my brain. #letitgo

I need a handler. I need a team. I need actual real 3D friends. If there weren't snow and Scott didn't have my car I would pack my work and go to the library and sit at one of their big lemon polished tables (and take extra benadryl because that makes me wheezy), surrounded by people quietly doing work, enjoying the coffee shop smell coming from across the big room, laughing inside at the occasional kid screaming. Wondering what it's like to actually talk to someone without it winding up sucking. #aspienado

DUCK!

From a private post written on November 5, 2008.
If there is chaos and destruction coming, I believe most of the problem will be various media inciting 8 billion people to panic.

Here we go, have finally unlocked brain fail. Usually starts before the holidays, so since I made it through January without even a hint of it, thought I was home free. I'm as scattered now as a squirrel running out into heavy traffic dodging buckshot and three dogs.

Behold, my bwainz. The guy at the end looks stupider than the squirrel, cracks me up. I don't feel this cute though.
I think it's a matter of readjusting all my brain chemicals again. Heavy duty benzo loads last week really screwed the ol' protracted withdrawal aspect of being a chronic low dose user for twenty years, which in Better Call Saul speak is like a cleaned up meth user shooting up out of the blue a couple of times for pain/anxiety management, as if that could work. Took me two years to clear off my own stuff, so imagine the rebound I'm going through. And before the inexperienced say anything, I have a cousin who made it off meth (only 3% successfully do that, and I bet there are a lot of you out there starting up for relief from stuff like spinal injuries, like he did) and he confirmed that benzos are basically the same thing. Going cold turkey off benzo meds is so dangerous that it requires medical supervision and oftentimes a 'rescue'. I went through a rescue after a cold turkey in 2009.

Med addiction is really common, and many people have no idea it's a real problem complicating other problems in their lives that get covered up with even more meds. My doctors initially shrugged me off and even laughed when I first brought up the possibility of med addiction because my doses had always been so low, but it turned out to be no joke getting off these meds. Fixing brain chemicals is a good thing when people need it, but keeping chronic patients on low dose chemicals for years as part of a pain management program without reviewing the possibility that they're covering up daily low dose withdrawal symptoms with other meds can become a nightmare. I wrote in 2009 that even though I had the medical history giving me a right to legalized med addiction that had me more screwed up than a Hollywood star scamming for vicodin and not showing up for work (I never missed a day of work in years until I just couldn't work, period), I wanted OFF.

I did it all wrong at first, it got scary, went through rescue, did my research, made a PLAN, and over two years I got off the remaining tail end of handfuls of meds. I should have taken pictures, my daily regimen was impressive. I drove 'drunk' to and from work for years, sometimes got pulled over, once was driven home by highway patrol at 10 a.m. Try explaining ~that~ to your boss. I got so good at being covert and timing my meds that coworkers came to me all the time asking how and when to mix this and that. I got to know the deeper culture of legal addiction and 'carried' all the time, making me everyone's friend behind closed doors and the wizard of medical jargon.

The links below were my journey to independence from big pharma and government/insurance controlled dosaging. They are lengthy and technical, so I don't expect anyone to actually read them, but that is how desperate I got trying to find my way out of that terrible maze (and look at me NOW, I'm HEALTHY). You guys need to question why govt is part of legalizing drugs and alcohol and how it's part of the whole big picture of proletariat control. Ask yourself why it's ok now for 'nice' people to be avid fans of a TV show about a meth dealer and support that show by buying toys for your kids (but you'd probably freak if there were a meth house on your street). I won't go so far as to say the government or anyone else wants you all accepting ideas of self medicating and surviving alien invasions and threat of worldwide death via virus, but I think it's pretty weird that show after show after show is profiting from slowly turning many of us into organized live response knots of shellshock before bedtime every night. How many of you can go to sleep and wake up rested without some kind of adult beverage or scripted sleep aid?

Taking vitamins won't save you guys. I'm not FDA approved regulating health care Librax withdrawal, are we having fun yet? (this was my most popular post EVER on any blog I ever created until I made it private) surviving health care (I'm not afraid to say this) IF you actually read through all that, please to note that even on full disability now, my monthly out of pocket insurance costs come up to about $300 a month. There is no such thing as 'free' health care. If I weren't married I'd be extremely destitute. Since I know someone my age in exactly that position, I know what I'm saying.

From 6-9-11. Have been dinking on facebook this month, mostly just filling in the profile stuff.  My religious preference is the cult of cthulhu.  That one has really struck me funny ever since it was on South Park and the Goth kids were so disappointed in his return because nothing really changed for them.  I keep trying to think of oddball people who have inspired me, today I put in Snake Plissken.  Already getting really bored with facebook again.

Ok, down to business. Things I have learned in the last week, thanks to benzo loading so I could be still in MRI tubes without exploding back out like a space alien-possessed astronaut in a syfy original movie. 1- Got the serious talk this time about pain clinic and surgery. It's there whenever I need them. Personally, I'm holding out for an opium patch first, but I have a feeling I won't be as lucky as a couple other people I've met on opium patches. One chick actually rides a motorcycle around town wearing an opium patch. Dang, I want an opium patch. I have really missed vicodin ever since the big acetaminophen reaction thing blowing up on me. Anyway, I'm going to try something else first before I let it all go invasive, because there's no going back once the shots and surgeries start up. I know too many spinal surgery fail stories to think that's my answer. 2- Unofficial cancer watch still goes on. I may as well accept this is how the rest of getting older goes. I've been cleared for defcon (again, how many times now in the last two years, geez), but told to keep an appointment in March with another doctor, so vagueness continues to rule my starz. 3- I will probably be a protracted addict the rest of my life. Going through withdrawal symptoms all over again sucketh mightily and right now the only thing stopping me from throwing a chair through a window is the thought of Scott having to replace it and then me feeling bad about it later because it's a really nice window. Oh, and maybe also that it's only twelve degrees outside and I'd freeze, but that was only an afterthought. The thought of Scott coming home every night keeps me sane. Scott is my rock, and aside from nearly pitching him through the window a few times (I'm so lucky he doesn't spontaneously reciprocate, given his ADHD nature), he's been extremely tolerant of me going Sarah Connor on his butt every little bit.

If you think you or someone you care about might have a medication addiction problem, click this.

Always remember. Anyone, any time, any place. It's real. last time survey

Sorry about all this. Sometimes I just gotta dump the crap out and yell DUCK!!!!


Time to lighten up again. 

Valentine Scurvy

Valentine's Day is a little different around here.


My mind is usually somewhere in this range.

Valentine's Day used to be my only outlet for the weird incongruent secret obsession I had with the color pink, and I was fine with it being all about Scott scarfing Valentine junk while his eyes were glued to the TV so my brain could bubble along in a parallel universe.

He told me once that I'm ruined, and I agreed that I don't have a romantic bone in my body. At all. That was before we found out I'm aspie. Sometimes I feel a little sad that I'm figuring all this stuff out way too late, but I'm grateful I am getting the chance to in real life, you know? So many people never do, despite it being shoved in our faces via retail and broadcasting. Thanks to a few new shows popping up, I'm understanding a little more why this is a big deal to people. Scott is my Paige.
Now back to my weird incongruent obsessing. If it doesn't involve chocolate, sweet pink fluff, or construction paper and glue, don't bug me with Valentine schmooze. I take my celebrating very seriously.

Chuis Bo Sharknado

Sometimes having a really good writing day means I'm severely neglecting my real life, and I need to input self maintenance commands through my eyeballs before they will route to the other side of my brain.

Go put some clothes on.

Ok, I'm dressed. I even made the bed while I was in there. Now what?

Open the box the new Shark Pro is in and check it out.

Oh, yeah, cool. I asked @bonenado to get that for me for Valentine's Day. I washed rugs last week and haven't put them back down yet. Are we doing floors today?

Dang betcha.

Yippee!!! I love clean floors! Back in the old days I did floors three times a week.

Get up. Open the box.

Oh, yeah. Hang on.

Maybe I should've asked for a phillips screwdriver for Valentine's Day. Except I know it would disappear again.... Nevermind, found a MacGyver car kit tool only a couple feet from my kitchen. I've gotta think of better places to hide these things. I think Scott married me because I'm always ready to screw around. Get it? Screw around.

Shut up. How far have you gotten?

Assembled! *salute*

I like assembling things. What now?

The floors need to be swept again before you steam clean them.

Can I eat lunch first?

Oh, all right. But come back when you're done eating, don't just watch TV and then take a nap. What's for lunch, anyway?

I'm thinking tuna. I like mixing it with Annie's Cowgirl Ranch

*ew*

>=l Don't interrupt. I do that because I can't find mayo without lemon or 'natural flavors' (which is most likely lemon), and it's suprisingly good, especially if I eat it on tortilla chips. You know, because wheat-free.

Yes, yes, hurry up, we have floors to do.

*running off*

Ok, I'm back.

What did you watch?

12 Monkeys, the movie. I think the James Cole character is more realistic in the movie than in the series. I like the movie for not trying to change the past, assuming the past is locked into place, but I like the series for experimenting with trying not to change the plasticity of timelines but still trying to change the outcome.

Don't turn this into a review.

Sorry. What's next?

Get the floor ready. Get it picked up and swept so you can try out the new Shark Pro.

Yay! *running off*

Ok, floor's all cleared out and swept, I'm going back to the movie.

Wait, what?

You know I can't sit there that long. I paused at the kidnapping scene. And I'm tired again, I'm going to put my feet up for a few minutes. Been a long couple of weeks. I'll be back, I promise.

I'll believe it when I see it. Don't forget your tea steeping in the microwave.

Oh, yeah.

You know, if I ever made a movie I'd be sure there would be no glaring inconsistencies, like establishing time traveling naked being a thing but clothes still disappearing with the body later.

Are you back for good this time? We doing this?

Yeah, I think I'm ready now.

Good. Look through the manual and make sure you know what you're doing.

-----

What?

I just want to mention that for all the awesomely well thought out packaging and ease of use device inventing, I was underwhelmed by how nonintuitive and challenging filling that little tank was, particularly for a person like me. Just putting it out there.

Are you done complaining? Plug it in and go to town.

That. Was. Awesome.

Good. I noticed you enjoyed it. Go rest again now.

Thank you, I shall. Cool hanging out.

Likewise. #bumpit