GWT and fun with analytics

Google webmaster tools makes me wanna stuff chocolate into my eyes. I mean, I've had it set up for a couple of years because I beta tested something they were doing, it's not a horrible mess or anything, but I think I finally got the Brazil thing figured out on my dotcom. I think someone somehow shared access by setting up a ping thing, conduit hijacking seems to be the new rage.

How to Protect Your Google Analytics From Getting Hacked

In the meantime, I'm seeing my Lexxperience blog show up in rankings for stupid things like "Damien Puckler biography", and how in the world do "Torri Higginson" and "Verizon ecard" searches lead to Lexx??? Seriously- "Max Von Sydow children". I think "Armand Assante" just shows up everywhere in general. Not sure how "Belinda Carlisle" pulls Lexxperience up faster than "Xev Bellringer real name". Somehow got associated with "vintage G.I. Joe figures". But back to Lexx! The top ten searches included 6 variations on Zev/Xev, Patricia Zentilli actually came in 2nd, Lexx Bunny, Lexx the dark zone, and Jeffrey Hirschfield. I think my favorite search phrase was "my idea of fun is killing everyone".

Here on Pinky, the top search phrase is "treenahasthaal". Not. a. clue. (Ok, that's actually a twitter account that doesn't even follow me, but somehow leads to a ton of my images in search if you scroll down a little.) Second one is, not surprisingly, "Nixa Sucker Day 2015", but third is "banana bwains". I actually rank a 4th search position for "Candyland board game" and 31st for "zombie immunity". No idea how "Timmy Cappello" pulls me up. This is one crazy blog. (Keep in mind these are all Google search, other search engines might rank my content very differently.)

My dotcom is all but dormant and has 14 pages of search phrases pulling it up (20 per page, you do the math). Pinky only had 3 pages and I'm here all the time. I guess no one's looking for Pinky-me out there because you're all in here with me already. I should be serving cocktails and passing around nibbles.

Anyway, the phrase "Lisa Marie Bowman" hooked my dotcom 13 times, high fives and knuckle bumps #SyfyDesigns. Yeah, I linked those so you can go check her out. My fave search phrase pulling up my dotcom is 4 inquiries for "the spider who never gave up", ranking 24th-49th, so I'm well associated with vague spider issues. My second fave search phrase is "when robots go bad".

This was me staying out of @bonenado's hair for awhile. I'm super talky again for some reason, he's needing some quiet time with his ball teams and TV shows. Still haven't found that video camera. I've been falling all over the house behind him laughing myself silly about all the things we've looked for because he puts them in a 'special place' so no one will find them, and he's the one they stay hidden from. (He had to have been a chipmunk or something in a past life.) Since we found his phone in the fridge the other day, we've actually looked in the big chest freezer and several other places you'd never dream it could be. I can't wait till it turns up, this mystery is pulling me into his obsessive wandering around looking through things ten times.

I heard Bunny had no cavities, yay!

Batman is on tonsillectomy countdown. He's chill.

If they ever invent t-shirts with built in screens and sound, I want this video all over me playing on a loop.

#blogwhore

Stop, don't click that cup! Ok, you can click it, but I can't guarantee it's not some kind of weird eye trap keeping you mesmerized while it turns tricks with your device. I'm serious, that's exactly where the cup clicks to.

Well, I found out what the deal is. I was right, zipping right back into the hyperthyroid nethersphere at a point-two-one. I've been down to point-oh-one before, biggest thing I have to watch out for is arrhythmias. See my little dot going below the line there.

I really did go there earlier today. I stooped. I promised myself I'd never again play that game, and I spilled. I'm proud of myself for not caving all the way and making a pan of brownies, though. And sobbing her name into brownie batter. I'm just... sigh Tomorrow is another day.

on this day- Memory Catacombs, and surviving another Burst of Life

Please forgive the difficult to read parts. There are several markup styles tangled up in here and I finally got tired of code fixing.

On this day over the years. Most of these are from private blogs. I usually don't share the lengthy personal stuff, but this first bit I will because no one EVER knew what was really going on with me during and after the whole Lexxplosion, and why I eventually disappeared.

When I wrote this out I had been unable to walk, shower, or dress myself for several weeks after an L5S1 internal disc disruption (herniated disc) the month before, and was becoming desperate to find a way to avoid spinal surgery.

July 30, 2007

Oh, gosh, last night was a tough little cookie, so I just sat up and read more Harry Potter for hours, finally fell asleep around 5ish and woke back up around 9ish.

So today I'm getting all, what I'm starting to call in my head, 'liquored up', layering up the drugs in half hour increments (I write all the times down like a good little science student to make sure I don't OD), slowly descending back into a thick hazy cushion of semi numbness, and decided I just can't take it any more-- I'm cleaning those bathrooms, by God.   

At 3 this afternoon I'll have a conference call with my sister and hospice about Mom.  I feel really bad for her that she's got to bear the brunt of all this, having a full time job, toddlers, AND in treatment for severe depression.  She and I are durable powers of attorney for both our parents, so at least one of us has to sit through all this paperwork and sign everything.  My brother can't decide if he wants to be in on the meeting or not.  He was the only boy and very attached to Mom, and now he's struggling with the need to relocate his family to a better job in another state, which in his mind means 'abandoning' Mom and Dad.  (Dad has a trailer on his land.)  I feel bad for my brother, too, because I watched my mom go through this very same thing.  She cared for her mother through 3 years of cancer and treatments, then we moved to another state, and then her mom died and she wasn't there for it.  It was incredibly devastating to her emotionally to feel like she'd abandoned her mother like that, and it took her many years to come to terms with it.  Actually, I don't know that she ever forgave herself.  So I'm watching my younger sibs go through these feelings now, and I really don't know what to do for them except be there on the phone for support as much as possible, because I certainly can't drive out and be there in person.  And my other sister is the one who lost a child to CF and went through all those years of hospital visits with her, she can barely bring herself to walk into the nursing home at all.  She absolutely refused to sign in with us on being DPoA's.  Can't say I blame her one bit.  I know this sounds harsh, but I will be thankful and relieved when Mom's body is finally able to let go of her spirit so she can move on.  These last 3 years have been pretty hard, and I can't help but keep thinking she would have so much rather not had for any of her own kids to go through this.  She was always the 'fixer' for other people, always the one who did the visiting and cheering up for other families, and it would have killed her to be aware of herself like this.  I've had plenty of time to think about what it must be like for older people to watch themselves deteriorate and become so helpless, and what a nightmare it must be for some of them.  We're so lucky Mom isn't in pain and anguish, like so many of her room mates who have come and gone.

This evening Scott meets me after work at the chiropractor's place to go over the x-rays, care plan, and payment options.  And then after that it's back to Walgreens to pick up 3 refills.  I have no idea how in the world we'd be handling this if we hadn't switched our insurance.  We've already gone through bankruptcy over my illness over the years, have no credit to speak of because of that, even though he makes great money, and are living hand to mouth check by check between Twinkles being so ill last winter (total is up to $70,000 now on those bills, of which we owe at least $5000 and STILL keep getting surprises in the mail) and all the work we've had to do on car after car after car.  My tiny little copays alone from all my doctors and chiropractor and stuff will be averaging $300-$400 a month until I'm better, and that doesn't count the ER visits and all those tests, and even though my prescriptions will be ridiculously 'cheap' with this insurance, every bottle adds up.  I've got 7 bottles that have to be replaced monthly at the moment.  I'm hoping to cut those down by at least 2 if not 3 by next month.

Scott has been MARVELOUS through all this.  I've never seen him handle so much so well.  We've had our rocky years, and he's kind of ADD obsessive about the money even when we're in great shape and nothing bad is going on, but he has really mellowed.  I am so thankful for him.  He hasn't complained once about me getting sick again, and he's been very tender and attentive compared to years past.  I try my best not to be crabby with him from the pain and drugs, to keep laughing and enjoying all the little distractions that we can together.  When he's around I drop what I'm doing and pay attention to him, make him whatever food he wants, keep his clothes washed up, and tease him about being sexy.  There isn't much else I can do but say thank you to him constantly for taking care of me.  I hear horror stories about people leaving their ill spouses in the lurch, and I am so very, very lucky to have Scott looking out for me.

I need to stop this before I break out into some kind of drug-induced poetry.    Gonna be a long day.  While I'm at it, though, sploit-- you're the bomb, too.    I'm sorry you have to watch me be sick.  I'm glad you are so level-headed and funny and sweet.  Thank you.

A year later I was functioning on my own around the house, but very slowly as I recovered from a months-long CMV infection that nuked my immune system the winter before, but finally able to drive myself a few miles to handle little errands. In this next one we had no idea we still had another year to go with Mom.

July 30, 2008

Talked to Dad on the phone last night, and he finally broke down and told me he thinks Mom has a death wish, that she never wanted to be like this, and that she has the right to refuse medication.  He broke into tears the last two times I've talked to him.  I've decided he's right.  Us girls came to the same conclusion about her death wish a couple of years ago, because Mom had refused to treat her diabetes for years, refused medical intervention when the strokes started, and has been refusing her pills in the nursing home.  She used to talk about being the age her mother was when she died, and we know she had severe depression and felt she was in an oppressive marriage because Dad is always 'right'.  He's not mean, but he really does wear people down.  We think she thought it would be a piece of cake, have a stroke and wake up in heaven.  Well, it hasn't turned out that way.  And now she's being forced to live in misery.  So I agree with Dad.  Let's speak for Mom and say it's time to let go of this.

(skipping stuff)

Left my debit card at Walgreens and had to back track.

Found out my PO box had been shut down.  Gee, guess I got a little too laid back this summer.  So I had to jump through the hoops reopening it, was lucky to get my old number back because I had to reapply from scratch.  I didn't realize it had been 6 weeks since I checked my mail.  *BAD* me!

Had to run in for milk.

I am so tired...

I would love to lay down but my nervous system feels like it's in shock.  I feel like I need to pull my nerve bundles out and rub them directly with warm lotion or something.  Poor things.

A year later- there is nothing on July 30 for 2009, but this from a couple of days later. Scott had moved everything out of the livingroom to paint and I was using a tiny notebook in a lawn chair while he worked. Leaving out a ton of other personal stress. Mom was still hanging in there, but my own mom wasn't the problem... Anyway, always good to know something is doing really well.

August 1, 2009

Private: in a kitchen, stiffly

Today has been quite the flurry.  Made it up to the echo, was impressed with all the new technology they just upgraded.  Clearest ultrasounds I've EVER seen.  I really couldn't see any problems myself, valves all looked good, flow and chambers.  I have no idea how to read those, but this isn't my first time.

~later~

Scott's back, getting ready to paint more.  Took the sunblades off the patio door, taping up more stuff.  I'm on the end of the livingroom that's done.  Rewatching Comic-Con since everyone talked through it last week, people walking in and out of the house.

So, thank goodness, things finally started getting a little more boring the next year.

July 30, 2010

Private: ah, sweet August, fly by very fast

     No more beef broccoli with a mix.  I'll go find an authentic recipe in a real Chinese cookbook next time.

Twink went to work the day after urgent care.  Any other person on the planet would have just croaked off at home...

I remember days and weeks like that.  Worked myself sick and still kept grinding along like the Energizer bunny.

Been awhile since I got a chick pic.

'L' is for lemon pie.    (edit: 2010 was the last year I ate lemon pie)

This next year wound up being our last anniversary dinner in a restaurant as the food allergies started exploding.

July 30, 2011

Private: going forward

And Scott wants to go to Landry's in Branson for our anniversary dinner next Friday, big fish and seafood restaurant with real linen tablecloths, although still campy-ish because it's in Branson.  I told him maybe we can stop by a little ice cream place after that.

(skip a really interesting bit that wraps up a marriage next door to in-laws)

I'm turning 50.  I'm done.  Neither gram nor Twink would tolerate a life like mine for a month, much less 18 years.  I'm beginning to feel such a joy coming on, it's finally over.  Twink is married, I'm old enough now to be who I want around Scott's mom, *I* am FREE. (:edit: Joke's on me, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.)

And after the big birthday party, I start a new life.   (I told Scott after his parents croak, I'm going to write whatever I want to and make some money on it.)

I fully expect every cosmic rock to be thrown at me during this transition.  Since when have I not been targeted and attacked by the morons all around me at the most inconvenient times of my own happiness?  May keep track of the rocks for my amusement.  Could get real interesting.

What the heck, let's do this one more time.  And if you haven't watched Charlie Sheen's Winning Recipes yet, it's worth your time.  This is the kind of attitude that'll get me through my 50's.

A second post that year, preparing to go completely underground.

Private: ramping off the public freeway

Finally got bluejacky reduced to survey only in public, and it's going to stay that way and probably go dormant again, unless I have a bad week and need to work on a survey.  I've had enough of --- bugging the crap outa me to the point of ---.  Got to thinking back, been 6 years with --- bugging me now.  Someone else still tracks through every single day and has been doing that since I made that xanga, but none of my trackers will give me any info other than the time of day and the state name.  Since my AOL shows me as a proxy from Florida on one of my trackers, I know that state name means nothing, just that someone has paid for a service that keeps their privacy, like I have.  I could name 5 people it could be without having to guess or make a stretch of it, and if it really is one of those people, I've attracted a worse lurker than --- if they feel compelled to check it every day since 2008.  At least --- pops up and lets me know when it's her, or (polite delete) leaves trails that tag her.  So either way, I'm done.  I guess this is part of the turning 50 thing, I'm just done with the public entirely.  I'm going to watch my trackers till my birthday, and after that, the rest may go straight into protected posting forever, too, just to be ornery and bug the crap out of my two most persistent stalkers.  I'm really coming to loathe public internet.

I will continue to twitter sparsely and very rarely to annoy whoever is doggedly determined to keep after me, but I have no way of tracking them and therefore won't be bothered by it.

Note- back in the days I had 1- a person show up on my doorstep, 2- received a very public threat of harm, 3- had someone else cease and desisted, and 4- other people constantly contacting me privately posing as friends during my lowest points and using our convos to stab me in the back to other people. When I wrote that in 2011, I didn't have a friend in the entire world I felt I could trust. In 2012, I started deleting huge chunks of my internet history after a person I contacted about transferring some of the content let me know life was too depressing at the momtent to handle thinking about it, and I said bloody hell and just started pressing C4 buttons. No one knew ANY of what I'd been handling the entire time.

I realize now that was my fault. I still can't apologize enough, but I'm realizing it's important to some people that I share why things happened.

By this next update in 2012, I was back, rebuilding, and my private blogging was slowly coming to an end.

July 30, 2012

Private: roasted chickens

When a weather site says we'll be 102 today, I'm expecting 108. Gonna try to get out to chickens by 7 and stay in the house after that. It's already 84 degrees at 5:30 a.m. Last night stayed over a hundred till nearly 9.

I finally slept pretty decent, got nearly 7 hours. Almost feel wobbly trying to get around this morning. Partly from congestion, I imagine.

Getting chicken fingers out to feed kids tonight. Have a small stash of chocolate milk and part of a cheesecake. I'm sure I'll need to get more going than that because Scott will need supper and then lunch tomorrow. Thinking about making a quiche instead of boiling eggs this week, and a batch of green beans and potatoes for supper, because I doubt the kids will want any brussel sprouts, ha. Can always throw some spaghetti in a pot, too.

Don't seem to have my usual dread when I'm expecting company. Actually kinda meh about it, maybe a little excited but too worn out from summer allergies and heat to get even slighty bouncy. I've noticed my nerves have gone way down since I got off birth control, and the stuff that used to trigger me into freakiness now only slightly ruffles my feathers.

Benadryl hitting, might be nice to go back to sleep for an hour.

And then my whole life flipped upside down. Xanga was about to blow up, and this post hot on the heels of a preemie baby showing up right on top of me still in surgery recovery. I braced myself for a spaceship-sized life crash in full HD and somehow scraped up nearly $1000 and didn't slide back down into letting go of it all.

July 29, 2013

Private: last post till the migration is over

I guess this is my last post till after the Xanga move, which should be in a couple of days. Don't know how long our blogs will be down during the migration or whether there is any kind of guarantee our stuff will survive even now, but I'm not going to worry about it. I've done all I can do.

Twink's first checkup is today. Thankfully I got a couple of little power naps last evening and then slept about 4 hours last night, so I'm going to be ok today. Twink has barely slept all night, on the other hand, very vigilant, can't let herself let go. Every tiniest little noise the baby makes wakes her up. I remember being like that the first week, too. I think she's starting to realize she'll need to rotate hours with us. For a couple of days there it was 3 adults in severe sleep deprivation over one baby, don't know what she was thinking, all of us being 24/7 vigilant. Scott just dragged out to work, I think he's as messed up as anyone being out of routine, camping upstairs, hasn't gotten to play on his computer. I at least got to get on long enough to copy and paste my archive lists to save original post dates and view counts on GrandFortuna and Bluejacky, but that's about it. Told Scott this morning Ella will be helping me write my book.

This next is public, so you can click to go. No sense copy-pasting now.

July 30, 2014

another ordinary wednesday, sort of

July 30, 2015

That's today! And I can't seem to break out of the webkit code off this purple, so I guess I'll just keep doing it like this.

If anything at all happens (like things seem to continually happen in my life), I just wanted this out there in case the book doesn't make it. We had another really hairy near miss the other day, and I reflected on how some of my fave authors left unfinished work. I'm not quitting or taking time off, I'm just stopping to share.

This blogging stuff is NOT going into the book. I'm not pasting over miles of thinking for anyone to dredge through. Every jot and tittle like this is ridiculously unnecessary. This post is for a very particular subset of people for a very particular reason that they understand because we have a history, so the public at large isn't going to get more explanation than this.

Much of my public blogging has been cryptic. The right people know what I'm doing. The rest of you will know soon enough if I'm not plowed on a highway before I can finish. I'm not being facetious. We get some pretty nasty wrecks around here, and like I said, just missed being in another one.

I know one of yesterday's posts might have seemed like a call to a duel- it was not. It was my way of expressing how much I not only enjoyed a sparring partner who could delightfully challenge me to be better, but fondly cherish the memories because I grew so much as a person during that, even if I didn't realize it at the time. I'm very much looking forward to a more respectful collaboration at a distance. I do hold my 'Moriarty' in high esteem, and I do understand now the reason it all happened is because I'm drawn to that level of 'interesting'.

I also cherish the crazy 'menage a trois gone awry', if I may use a title from an old chicken video that I've previously talked about. I'm truly sorry I lost a friend over it. It still hurts. I suspect it will always hurt. I chose a fandom over a friend, and then I threw my fandom stuff into the trash, and I'm a despicable mess. Still, I'm your mess. I belong to the fandom. I know that now.

And some of you have seen why I use Sherlock to understand. I had no other way to break through the pain I never shared. This is my bridge.

don't stop believing, just dance

I know it seems trivial, but I set a couple of goals for the summer and I've already reached them, so huzzah, and now I need to GET BACK TO WORK. Except that I seem to be working nearly nonstop lately, and I'm not sure what's up with that. It's like I've broken through another barrier or something. I mean, this year has been a biggie in so many ways, but I'm still seeing improvements that make me think maybe it's possible to dream even bigger, maybe fly even higher.

For the first time ever on a personal blog I pulled in 3000 views in one month. (I've got pingbacks and my own cookie turned off, and my other trackers, who take turns catching bots and ghosts, wink at me that 3000 actual views with real eyeballs is about right.) Back when my total views were around 15,000 I was hoping I could shoot for and possibly hit 18,000 by my one year anniversary here. I've still got 3 1/2 weeks to go and flew right past that one, and all I can think is how weirdly numb I feel about it.

The last time I played a numbers game like this was the original eCritters, wiping out shops, churning eem into mega collections, colorizing whole tribes of pets like they lived in Hollywood mansions. That was me surviving a loss that felt like a crater. It was all I could do to dink around on a children's game because it was after the brain crash, eleven years ago this fall. And bad stuff just kept happening until it finally all very slowly turned around five years ago, and ever since has felt like crawling like a bug up a mountain. Until this year.

I still have glitchy days, hours, moments. I still facepalm over ridiculous ineptness that has me slapping myself silly behind the screen. I still can't believe I blurted something or left a typo that bad hanging for several hours before I even saw it and I proofread it 5 times on two different devices. I still die quietly once in awhile after I push the 'publish' button and then go crawl off like a worm. I once saw a license plate on a pickup jacked way up on monster tires that said "U WORM", that still cracks me up.

But I'm writing amazing stuff, way better in the last few short months than how I started out (I know #facepalm more rewrite). I don't know how. It reminds me of when I had to drive over to Kansas to take my GRE exams because I missed the local date, got lost and shot onto a turnpike in Oklahoma, eventually bumbled my way into a seat in the nick of time and didn't have a clue for several hours what I was even doing. I assumed I failed. I barely even remember it because the stress and fatigue were so bad, and it was really cold, and I barely had enough money to eat because I wasted my gas on that stupid turnpike. I was starving when I finally rolled back into my own yard.

I got called into a plush office on campus later, and sat alone in a big leather chair on one side of a big room with a really nice desk while two 'old guys' (professors) fussed quietly over a piece of paper on the other side of the room. They walked back and looked dumbfounded at me over their glasses and asked "How did you even do this? NO one does this." I had virtually failed one part of the three part test, at least badly enough to never get into graduate college, but I had wildly surpassed the expected above average averages on the other two parts. They'd never seen that happen before. How could I be so dumb on a whole section and so brilliant on the other two? I told them I don't know, I had no idea what I was even doing.

That was the truth. I fly blind. All my life I've been ricocheting around, bumbling my way through relationships and jobs and life in general, never quite oriented, and yet succeeding. My psychologist wasn't the first to ask me how I'd managed to hold jobs and get a degree, much less keep a marriage intact for two decades and raise children who didn't wreck cars or become alcoholics or get pregnant in high school.

They let me into graduate school on the proviso that I not let a single grade slip, and I managed to pull those As in right and left, even though I'd failed, dropped, and nulled a few classes as an undergraduate to the point of having to request a hearing over whether I would be put on probation. I won the hearing. Because I wanted to.

I've always won. Even when I lose, I win. I always find a way to win. Every single thing in my life is about winning. I use losing as a strategy. I even lose on purpose to postpone winning. No one wants to play Uno with me because I can keep a game going for three hours. People stopped playing chess with me years ago because I'm not content to checkmate, I have to dance around the board squeezing every drop of blood out of the game until there's nothing left to do but win. I once kept a Monopoly game going for a week by extending credit and upbuilding hotels into mansions. (Imagine spreading out several boards or making 3D Monopoly. I dream...) And now I play a different game.

I have barely begun this monstrous set of goals I put together three years ago. I originally meant to have more done by now, but by more, I mean far less, because I am doing ten times more now than I originally envisioned. If I'd already accomplished what I had set out to do in the first place, I would have finished already and it would be a lot smaller than all my unfinished stuff I'm working on now.

Some days I feel dizzy. This is a lot of stuff. Most days I just feel high. I've got my brain back, I'm in high gear, and I'm mentally so buzzed that I hope this never ends. I want to be this busy the rest of my life.

If I could sit for hours without pain like other people do, if I had a team of friends working on the same goal, if I had the money to get the proper tech to support the work I'm doing- just imagine. But imagine me accomplishing all the stuff I want to do without that. Imagine winning the game the long way around, excruciatingly slowly, every move, every strategy, every keystroke going out into building a mansion, brick by brick.

Squeezing out every last drop of blood. I am so high feeling good about where I'm going.

titillated

Love/hate relationships are like an addiction that one cherishes quietly in the dark.


A person learns the true depths of their being in relationships like this. A really good love/hate relationship might come along once in a lifetime to one in ten thousand people.


I'm excited in a way I shouldn't be. I see an opportunity in future to rise above it all, sharply enhancing the tantalizing pull back into the dark. It will be everything I can do to stay focused on why I'm back.


"He gets off on it." Yeah, that... It's intoxicating.


If we can play the game right this time, it's going to be a really good year.


Feels like love.


But how would I know after the casualties I've left in my own wake.


It's all about the dance.

I'm excited. This clicks out to gigantic if you want a wallpaper, came from a cool review post.

the only thing you ever need to say to a writer

Extra zyrtec kicking in, eyeballs go for launch. Lappy is telling me I need Chrome extension to see all the cool stuffs in the page that pic links to. Good luck.

Ran across this little gem the other day while we were dredging the house for Scott's video camera. Do they even sell/award membership mugs any more? Didn't see promo stuff on their site.

Banijay Studios showing up in my stats yesterday after my big Star Trek Beyond retraction/apology/post was pretty sweet. This was my second tweet out after that happened. Views and likes are popping already, guess we'll see how far I can take this one.

There was a hashtag thing blowing up twitter yesterday called #tenthingsnottosaytoawriter and I noticed it set me on a defensive edge real quick, so I stopped. I usually see the funny side of stuff, so me getting defensive when no one is actually bugging me personally with questions like that (at least not any more) makes me wonder what's lurking in my mind shadows that I need to deal with. So while the world was jumping onto a new train, I was standing back psyche-analyzing myself and marveling at how quickly that one spiraled me into a really negative place for about ten minutes. I've been writing nonstop since I was a kid, and there's only one person on this whole earth who ever got to me, that one moment, that one sentence/question about what I'm doing with my writing knifed my heart and scorched my soul because it was someone I loved. I've never really cared otherwise what people think of anything I do.

So apparently I'm still taking it personally, and it turned me into a dickweed the rest of the day, and that means I'm being petty and I hate it when I'm like that, so today is all about getting back on track and staying focused on writing whatever the hell I want to write. A writer writes, always.

Mother Earth is trying to kill us

One of those mornings where I can't just drop everything, no, everything has to go rolling or bouncing underneath the stove or behind the toilet or something, and I have to get down on my hands and knees and reach way far. #carpaltunnel

click for pollen.com

Today's predominant pollens are grasses, plaintain, and chenopods. I live across a wild field of fescue and orchard grass (hay), and the rest surrounds me in the forest. Won't be long till ragweed is going crazy. (That ragweed link says watermelon is related to ragweed, learning something new.) My eyes started itching yesterday and haven't stopped since, so I'm pretty sure ragweed is already under way here. August/September is usually when I wind up in clinics or ERs getting steroid shots, and last year got so bad I was on prednisone for 17 days finally erupting over everything with a molecule of wheat in it. THIS YEAR- crank the antihistamines, stay in the house, eat like a pauper, keep my immune system as calm as possible. No defcon alerts, no overreacting, no surprises. Let's see if I can get through a summer without having an anaphylactic reaction.

Once my histamine load is up (sum of daily incoming allergens), it takes very little to trigger a meltdown. I found out that reactions can blow up even 48-72 hours after eating a trigger food, and that this is so common here in the Ozarks (super high histamine area) that doctors automatically assume allergic response even if there are no other clear symptoms indicated. They start cranking phenergan and steroids almost as soon as you tell them a flush in your cheeks isn't from a sunburn. An ambulance tech told me he once threw everything in the box at a young woman whose face blew up from a piece of hard candy and barely got her to ER still breathing. They take allergies very seriously during ragweed season around here. If you click this pic you'll get more info, and you'll see why I don't drink chamomile tea.

Side note-Allergic reactions to cannabis (marijuana). Yes, you can be allergic to cannabis, and smoking marijuana can trigger anaphylaxis if you are. I once had a doozy reaction (many years ago) and thought I was going to die because I couldn't breathe and my heart was pounding super hard, but I was so wasted I couldn't talk or move to get help, and I blacked out. Allergic reactions are no joke, although the meme thing is kinda funny. Click for more on stoner awareness parody history.

In light of all this, allergy season is a two month lifestyle change. Chillaxin goes further for me than running a ratrace and winding up spending hours in clinic/ER spiking huge bills for something I can kind of control if I pay attention. Thanks to my sister for introducing me to this guy. I haven't found out yet if we're related, my sister is a big genealogy enthusiast.

full frontal shirt

I popped awake from a dream just after midnight with someone using that title in a sentence. So I'm sitting here bleary eyed wondering if that's really a thing, and behold. (Click pix for sources)

I also just found out that full frontal is a phrase used in t-shirt printing meaning the entire front is printed/printable, not just a restricted area, like this. Good to know.

I'm going back to bed now. Yes, without telling you the rest of the dream. Yes, there was sex, but I wasn't necessarily involved. No, the full frontal shirt line someone was saying had nothing to do with the sex part because it was long over. There was driving around a west coast city stuff, hanging out at a party stuff, talking to people stuff, lots of stuff I never do in real life. It may have been one of my 'spy' dreams, as I fondly call them. Maybe I remote viewed someone's afternoon/evening in San Francisco or something. Yeah, someone who was discussing t-shirt designs, I dunno, geez guys, gimme a break. I'm going back to bed.

Here, have something to help you go back to sleep.


p.s. I blame Larry for my potato chip craving at 1 a.m.

p.p.s. My first tweet link apparently sent a bunch of you off to into the wilds of internet shopping with no explanation. Sorry about that. Always test your links, kids.

mean mode

Orange u glad when someone else pops up and says an alien is growing in their stomach, too? All those crazy cancer, tumor, ulcer, appendicitis, and hepatitis fears suddenly fade and it's ok to laugh because someone else is miserable now, too.

I just stopped eating for awhile and had Scott put a restraining bolt on me so I wouldn't kill him in his sleep.

Just kidding, I went out to the couch so he could sleep. I made up for it the next day by following him all over the house talking nonstop since I'd been awake all night reading wikis and TV show hashtag tweets. He's ready to go back to work now.

I think I'm about ready for all that flooding rain back...

I'm still in mean mode. You'd be mean, too, if all you ate before a 24 hour fast was brussels sprouts. Coffee was about all I had most of Sunday. I am tentatively trying a piece of leftover bacon. I need enough calories to get into endo today and discuss whether I might be trending hyper thyroid again. We can't seem to get that line to flatten out for anything.

Latest work section you guys can't see yet is called Self Awareness is a Tricky Bastard. My favorite line out of 1785 words so far is "You had no idea that green beans and toilet paper were that big of a deal, did you?" Ok, that looks awkward. Not what you're thinking. Here, have a different sentence. "As Mom and I slogged together through my dismal social fails of kindergarten and first grade, she slowly gave up trying to torture self awareness into me."

It'll take all my will power to care enough to get a shower before I head out this morning. I nearly put another Sherlock vid here. Sarah said no. She says you wimps need to go chew Monday up and spit it out. GO!! >=l

zombie apocalypse, just keep running and don't look back

Trying really hard not to let people drag me down today. Have spent the last week in godawful pain again, last 9 hours have been especially rough (NO. SLEEP.), wanna get on social media for a little light distraction and I'm getting FUCK SUNDAY AND MONDAY stuff in notifications and stupid sex joke comment bombs by someone who doesn't give a crap how that might bother anyone on a family-friendly public feed. Sorta feel like busting bottles over a few heads, and knowing me, I'd think it was funny if I could make 'em bleed.

One quick paragraph to show you my dark side, just real quick. Keep in mind I'm full blown aspergers right now, I've been dealing with ginormous pain again, I've been through alcohol, narcotic, benzo, nicotine, caffeine, and even chocolate withdrawals that all sucked to hell and back and now I'm allergic to nearly everything that treats pain, and I'm still here being a nice person not dragging you guys down whining about how unfair life is. Ok, you ready? Here it comes- Some of you idiots are the biggest babies I've ever seen in my life- you've never lost a child, you've never seen or held a crumpled body bleeding out in a car wreck, you've never had to kill anything to eat, you've never slept in a car because you were homeless, you never had to save your child from a rapey parent, you never had to hold down two jobs and go to college as a single parent, you never spent your last dollar on a few cheap cans of corn and then didn't eat for a week, you never met someone face to face who would actually kill you, much less ~all of the above~, do I even need to go on, and you're ~*~whining~*~. You have no idea the loathing I feel for self pity because I never got pity, thank god. Most people never knew any of the stuff I've gone through until the last three years, hopefully being supportive for people trying to find ways out of the muck. I'm not saying you can't talk about your stuff or ask for help, I'm just saying I can't hang around and enable the frickin whining. I'm not linking this anywhere, so if you happen to see it, remember I'm trying to stay sworn to remaining public instead of going underground again. Y'all go figure your whiny butts out and either be miserable the rest of your life or thankful you've got another day to fix the emotional crap you keep sitting in. (Yes, I raised my kids this way, too.) (Scott keeps telling people I'm meaner than he is, no one ever believes him.)

Meanwhile, my head while I go look for some more interesting distraction.

summer reruns

109 heat index.

This heat sux.

This clicks to a really good article about dogs overheating.

Oh my, that's catnip. Click for instructions.

Here you go. Click to find out the secret.

May as well get lost in it.

Lappy is cranky about overheating now. You know what this means. Me and lappy irl.

because I am the boss of you today

The autumn spiders are extra early this year. First of the orb webs on the deck, spans about 3 1/2 feet and waist high, only way I could get it to show up on my phone was angled from above. This pic clicks out to a little bigger.

This has been the pain spikiest week. >=l Have been in fibro/neuro defcon flare, pain levels hitting 8/9/10s all week (10 being blackout/puke/weepuncontrollably), my usual July summerheat / humidityandairpressurechanges / hayfeverseason response. I think I've been thorough enough about my medical history elsewhere to avoid reiterating why I can't conventionally aggressively treat a pain crisis. But that's ok, because I can see lappy better now. #newglasses

I've been surprised to see me handling a lot more activity through it this summer than I used to be able to. I think having a Bunny around has challenged me to increase endurance, and working through nasty high pain hasn't been nearly the psychological challenge it use to be. I still miss narcotics once in awhile, but definitely don't need the crutch any more. Anyway, had a fun day out with Bunny and mama yesterday after a particularly nasty rough day before, and I haven't croaked off yet, although I'm getting close now and will probably spend the rest of today being lazy.

I will be fine. Pain spikes sometimes mean I get lots more work done because I learned a long time ago to super focus through it. Being aspie means I go all super villain and pour my destructive negativity into WORK, so if you see me writing more and talking less, like I've been doing this week, it's all good.

Basic reminder to newer friends that high pain levels put me in kill mode, and that's why I'm not out there tweeting. I'll feel like mutilating anyone who blithely suggests tossing back an advil, and responses like awww and a pat on the head will have me visualizing spiking sticks through eyeballs, ~*so don't do it*~. (Lurkers who survived the year I razed comments to eternal damnation are nodding vigorously. Noobs who have known me only 2-3 years, this isn't a drill.)

Those of you who've lurked for a long time know I loathe the overuse of the word poignant and therefore don't use it myself, except on extremely rare occasion. I've lived long enough now through enough stuff that I can say this fanvid is exquisitely poignant.


Now go do something wonderful for yourself or someone else, and if anyone has a problem, just tell them Pinky said so.

the emotional value of virtual worth- report card time

I had a great day yesterday. I accidentally found out bumping into one of the top 10,000 sites in the world (as reviewed by another one) that, thanks to my blog host remaining so strong in spite of major server moves (according to alexa, according to webstatsdomain), that my fansite is worth nearly $25,000, if one can really estimate dollar worth by the rankings.

I posted a disclaimer.

I came back public just a little over 3 years ago not at all intending to resurrect my Lexx stuff. The only reason I started doing that was because my traffic spiked by hundreds of percents when I mentioned it one day. I decided that if I really do bring it back, I will do it as professionally as possible, with focus and a mission statement, and never delete it again.

One of the challenges of growing and maintaining a fansite is remaining true to the reason one builds it. My goal is across the board fandom support. I have a history, I own who I am, and I have hopefully grown up. Being able to do what one loves is a precious delight, and I love thinking about Lexx.

Because I have affected so many people, I made a decision coming back public to be real. This means learning to balance public and private. I am a real person with a real face and a real life full of stuff. I don't want to use Lexx to get attention for my personal stuff- I don't want to mix the streams. However, it's important sometimes to reach real people. Entertainment has its value, but without all the fans in all the fandoms having real lives, entertainment becomes hollow, shallow. For entertainment to have value, it must touch real people. The more deeply we identify with stories through our emotions, the more meaningful fandoms become.

I started rebuilding while my world was still pretty dark. I am finally in the recovery stages of years-long illness. Three years ago I was just beginning to be able to read and watch television again. I've publicly documented my progress at spaz starting on 3/17/11. One of the reasons I started blogging real stuff is because, after losing a family member in 2004, I realized that was the coolest part of her, seeing into her head online. Historians love finding old journals and diaries, and blogs and facebooks are the nouveau memory catacombs (Lexx fans will appreciate the reference). I'll be honest- the real reason I'm blogging is because so often we're too busy in life to stay in touch with people we love, and it'll all be here if I go poof. I'm such a terrible recluse, I decided I don't want to take it all to the grave with me. At any rate, as I keep working little by little day after day, my health also keeps improving.

My Lexx work, as always, happens on some of my hardest days when I need the most distraction. Sometimes I write, sometimes I code. As it turns out, apparently, some of my work that involved wrangling with ID inserts across the webs verified me as an owner, and sticking with Xanga instead of bailing kept me ranked well, so without having a clue what I was even doing, I seem to have accidentally created a marketable web product. There was a time when I was given a very nice opportunity to move my Lexx into other hosting, and as I came back public I also seriously considered other umbrella options (Nerdist is very popular), but I reasoned that remaining rogue and standing alone (a very Lexxy thing to do) would be my most visible bet, even if I did have to laboriously learn the ever-changing all-new web presence ropes and climb my way back up a mountain, grain by grain. The web world has changed so much since 2006.

I have never monetized my blogs. I avoid dollar signs around my Lexx blogs like the plague. I don't own Lexx, and I think everything I do should be free for fans out of my own pocket. BUT, as it turns out, it was pretty cool to learn that even without monetizing, my original core fansite is worth $24,700. No, I'll never take bids. I just want to make it clear to anyone who ever questions my authenticity or ever makes another attempt to coopt or sabotage that blog (that I've paid dearly for to keep ad-free), I probably have legal claim now. I'm not trying to be abrasive or defensive or arrogant, I'm just saying that I worked very hard for this, I'm trying to do it right and keep everything legal so I can support my fave show, and I really hope the fans understand heart and soul went into it during some black times when I had a very hard time finding anything else to live for, both through physical illness and severe depression. The most valuable lessons came from those who demanded the most from me, and I'll emphatically state in several people's defense right now that if I hadn't learned while I was being kicked down on the floor, I would never have learned go big or go home. Do I love Lexx enough to stand back up? Hell yes I do. This is about Lexx and my love for Lexx now. This is about me growing up.

That snip up there- I feel like I got an A on my report card.

I'm not crazy about getting gooey with my feels, but I really do love fandoms. You guys know I love you, right? You save me. I can't apologize enough to all the people who've suffered my asperger's along the way. Thank you to everyone who has been a part of who I've become.

f(x)- The function of Benedict Cumberbatch with coffee in his hand

Um...

I've gotten sorely out of the habit of checking stats over there. If I'd been holding a coffee cup I'd have dropped it right out of my hand when I saw 327 on all at one time one day last month. A mystery! What in the world got that many hits in one day all at once?

I scoured the forums, nothing. Blogs? What could possibly... oh, yeah. I went on a little blog spree. I was in a funk and occupied myself with one of my coffee jaunts that weekend.

Coffee with Khan Noonien Singh

And I tweeted one link which didn't account for that traffic at all. It wasn't even retweeted.

I thought I must've overnight MondayBlogged it, so I did a search, nada. I also searched pinky sundayblogshare, still nada.

And there aren't 300 hits on that post, either, and nothing else posted in over there in that time frame, so what in the world? If I zoom out to Pinky blog list, yeah, there's another coffee post from a month earlier with 400+ hits, Benedict Cumberbatch Drinking Coffee. You're Welcome., so was there a sudden influx on both posts at once for some reason?

A few days ago I brought up how interesting things get when you find out all the crazy places that can link your stuff. Well, guess what. I'm getting picked up in other feeds. I clearly never faved this post, meaning I didn't even see it.

I checked topsy and found out Holly got 27 retweets on it herself, even more than the Ben-fan account, so **wow** GO HOLLY. Keep in mind this is still about a month before the all-time hit count. For the life of me, I can't find anything comparable that leads back to syfydesigns for the more relatable date of 6-15-15. Yet.... I realize I've gone down a rabbit hole today and I need to do some real life stuff before it's suddenly supper time and there is nothing ready to eat when @bonenado comes home.

But have we learned anything from this? Benedict Cumberbatch and coffee are an awesome mathematical function for fans.

Stopping Sherlock fanvids is kind of like going cold turkey on smoking, isn't it? I know it's hard. I had a good day and I feel like celebrating. Here you go.