you know you're all a bunch of gerbils, right?

My head doth protest. I quip that it's going soft, to crawl back to the primordial ooze it organized from and weep, and it tells me it needs more coffee first.

lol, click for cute blog

I used to be so tough, springing forth and getting right to work at 3 and 4 a.m. Lately I'm staggering forth, whining, and this in spite of a virtual A+ with the psychiatrist yesterday. Is this what normal feels like? My God, how do you people stand it?

Ok, I mock. It's been a very long month in a very long year. I feel like I've already slammed through 6 months, not 4. Every day I'm still amazed at how quickly I'm cramming things into my head now, miles of tutorials, hours of vids and streams and recordings, even actually reading a book in between all of it, and this on top of keeping up with my house and my errands. This month has truly sucked, and yet I still conquer in so many little ways.

I used to curl up on the couch at a certain time every day. I used to pace out my days in increments just to get a few things done. I used to hang on by my fingernails on a phone tethered to social media, and a few people thought I was already a machine back then.

I'm about to go full machine. I know, I keep saying I'm about to do something, have been saying it for years, and this is really no different, but my days have so drastically changed and I have become so capable that turning my attention to something produces results in one third the time now, or even less. Everything in my head is reorganizing, everything settling into a new rhythm, and I can feel serious flow logistics being tested. It wasn't that long ago that it took all the focus I could muster to produce content, and I did it out of sheer stubbornness.

The keyword yesterday was all the various incarnations of functionality. I have worked very hard to become a functional person, versus a dependent person. I am still dependent in many ways, and always will be. I need help with meeting my financial requirements, for example (for now- I still dream of shooting for some stars). My physical function, however, is nothing short of miraculous (and which I still work very hard for), my emotional function is probably the healthiest it's been in years, my cognitive function continues to improve (which was initially unplanned, and I'll probably always be glitchy, but I'm getting better at managing it), and my social function is at least remaining steady. By the way, both my psychologist and psychiatrist (back to back appointments this week) see my trend away from social media as a healthy one. (The diversion into minecraft is still up in the air.) I set up social media as a platform, it turned into a crutch, I know exactly when it started doing that and why, and I've reset back to my own path. Key phrase- my own path. As in not someone else's.

Speaking of my own path, this is happening. My followers know that I've recently very seriously downsized my twitter by over 1500 accounts, and that I'm not aggressively or even passively looking for more numbers. I understand that many people get asked to 'follow', but deeper waters across the years would reveal that I'm being asked to pledge my influence. I support a variety of fandoms, have even publicly supported a few funding drives, but I cannot support a site that directs actions I disagree with and then quietly solicits funds. I feel so strongly about this that I wrote about it and linked it across several medias, on SyfyDesigns on Facebook on grandfortuna, but I will be gracious enough to give my readers a chance to check it out and follow for themselves if they'd like. Just click this convo snip to reach twitter, and from there you can link to their dotcom in the bio.

I've made note in the past that a few Merlin fans have created the most brilliant and beautiful fansites I've ever seen, and they've inspired me deeply. I could be doing that same thing with Lexx, making a big beautiful site and quietly holding a donation jar just out of sight. I don't solicit fans. I especially don't use all the fan content I can find to promote my own fansite. In the past, when the Lexx fandom was more publicly active, yes, I rescued a site from utterly disappearing with its own blog (but you guys never saw me beg the original owner of the content to take ownership of the blog after all the work I did), showcased fan involvement (most of you never saw the flak I took for highlighting ostracized fans banished for not correctly playing the head games), and worked diligently to create diplomatic relationships with webmasters in other countries during raids and bombing blitzes that had most fans diving for cover. What webmasters of other fandoms may not know about me and my past is that I've already been threatened with lawsuits, already been asked by state police on a convention floor if I'd like to press charges, already heard every conceivable rant and wistful depression about bringing a show back.

Politely asking me to openly follow a fandom initiative hellbent on remolding the world to their wishes runs much deeper than politely just following back. What most of my Pinky readers (barring a few deep lurkers) wouldn't understand is the politically rippling message that would send across the other fandoms I support, and around the world. I am closely followed by several key webmasters in cities around the globe, and there are people who keep me on mobile notification day and night that you know nothing about.

So I sort of politely decline. I'll also add that after all the personal work I've put into my own emotional and social mental health, I'd invite a few other webmasters to do the same. This level of obsession is very unhealthy in my eyes, and to actually get so many people around the world worked up and following commands amounts to cult level leadership. I really don't want to see a bunch of Merlin fans drinking any kool-aid.

In case some of you think I'm being ridiculous, I'll just say back that I know a few private things that you don't about a few fans. It's neat that they collect all the things into internet scrapbooks and have the money or access or support to share real time travel stuff on sets and at airports and it's fun that we get inside snippets from unnamed unfaced people who are really inside and leak stuff out (I've been privy to a few really cool things), but when links go up for donations or a list of directives start rolling out, that's where I draw the line. Not accusing anyone of doing anything illegal, just saying I don't play the head games, and I don't expect fandoms to pay for what they see or get from me, and I especially don't require membership registration for anything I do. Everything I put on the medias is wide open to the public. I don't force lurkers to reveal themselves with forms and account IDs.

I won't go into why I don't monetize again. If you really want to know, here is my 'stat' tagged post list. I've turned down funding support and hosting several times through the years. I have bigger plans.

click for a delightful waste of time

Screeching around a corner into a wildly different topic, have you guys ever wondered where we get this automatic idea from that pandimensional beings either root for us or plot against us? Angels protect us (from what?), devils whisper in our ears (for what purpose?), fates taunt us while destinies call to us, and we oscillate betwixt guilt and glory in our tiny little minds. What in the world started all this?

I'm a Lewis fan, so of course I think The Screwtape Letters are the bomb, and Dr. Weston becoming a shell for that horrible evil thing in Perelandra was about the truly creepiest thing I ever read, but when it all boils down, I have found that the negativity of the dark side, as it were, can be brain-trained out of one's automatic response system. Why does the brain play these tricks? What is it about society that trains the brain to play these tricks? Is this a necessary survival mechanism for maintaining culture in general, and whose bright idea was it to incorporate it into mainstream cognitive programming of our species so many millennia ago? Because if you want to debate that with me sometime, I'd love to point out the all new brain training going in in current media, with Lucifer and the antiChrist and dark angels and whatevs being held up as entertainment icons. Is the general public now being calloused to the old ways through repetitive story bending, or is this a mass brain training at an all new level of doublethink? I see way too many 'Christians' and other spiritually minded people out there slurping up every sloppy splat of blood and angst they can get on the networks, and I'm wondering how empty some of you are to be this thrilled with 'new' ways of thinking. I'm watching the old open minded Star Trek fandoms being dumbed down to devil fans and wondering just who's in charge here.

I don't believe in accidents of fate, but I believe in synchronicity. One could argue this is basically the same thing, but not really. Just as the universe is webbed with dark matter and our brains are webbed with neural pathways, so the human race is webbed like a network around our globe. The pattern is the same, no matter how big or how small. We are all part of each other, and we are all part of the whole thing. It would be one thing if we moved in tandem with our own species, but we don't, we continually disrupt each other with negativity. Some postulate this negativity was introduced by dark forces that beguile and deceive us, some are convinced it's just part of our nature. The dark forces have been explained as everything from fallen angels and demons to aliens who once visited our planet and may still walk among us, and the nature explanations throw babies out with baths unable to take sides on justice and moral principles without begging all kinds of questions.

I won't go over everything I've ever read, which is quite a lot, going back thousands of years, studies from every conceivable angle (including science), and even the new medical philosophies. I'm just asking where it comes from. No one knows. It's still just a guess. Our brains haunt us, and we are trapped in them, an existential horror that no one can grasp enough to say why it's even happening. I personally think it should be impossible to be this aware in a universe where the only thing that happens is cause and effect. The observer thing only confuses us. I think we're still not looking deep enough. Our minds are still too tiny.

So, back to in the moment. What is right and what is wrong in any given moment and what we do with our time here is completely up to us. We can blame it on whatever we want, but in the end I think all our motivations boil down to whether we are selfish or selfless. I've said this before, a long time ago somewhere, that I think all our miseries really do boil down to this- selfish people ruin things, selfless people fix things. Human brains are natural problem solving machines. With good directives, humans do amazing things. With bad programming, humans do despicable things.

So I'm asking who is doing the brain training? Who is programming all this philosophical frappe into our entertainment? Who is breaking down the barriers and remodeling what is good and bad for our amusement? I'm not against it, but I'm a little surprised by the flocks that fall into it so quickly. I'm not seeing a lot of thought being generated about what our entertainment industry is slipping into our belief system cocktails. I'm all for shaking things up, but part of that shaking up needs to contain more than being upset that our favorite character died or that a show got canceled. I'm saying this across the board, not because of the Merlin thing up there. I'm seeing this everywhere, all around me. Are we really so spiritually bereft that we cannot handle dozens of icons almost being force fed to us (think about it- you pay them to let you beg for programming...) and then ripped away? We are practically drowning in heroic characters, or at least stoic ones. The fictional characters we idolize far outnumber the amount of people we know in real life now. We live in a dichotomy, lead double lives. What are we hanging onto, and why? It's ok to question what's in your head.



I've been able to slack off on the benadryl a bit this week, thanks to storms. Here's to hoping tree season is just about over. I'm tired of being pickled on H1 blockers.

Next week I start the hard stuff again, back in physical therapy.

is the minecraft pill red or blue?

*wow*

Ok, first of all, @bonenado has gone down that GoT rabbit hole and we are slamming through episode after episode every night after work like nothing we've ever done before. Since we haven't been an HBO subscriber for several years, I more or less ignored all the live tweeting and most of the memes. I think my biggest question right now, waiting on s3 to walk in the door, is whether George RR Martin wakes up sweating from nightmares about all this pressure now. I know I would.

Actually, what I'd really like to ask him are these- 1) when he first hired paid staff (I want staff so bad), 2- whether he uses a personal handler (besides an agent) to interface with his staff and his agent(s) (I need help interfacing so bad), and 3- did he ever hide from a publisher (I'm hiding from my publisher).

Second of all, we went there. Me and psyche guy having the minecraft psyche analysis talk, and me looking more and more crazy by the minute being all excited about my spider spawner room under glass and my Dr. Evil conference room with the shark tank and the cool movie theater I built, and he's never even seen an Austin Powers movie. Or LOTR. I asked. So I totally plunged over the cliff of insanity today with my psychologist, and there may never be any of this going back to my sex life stuff. Just trying to describe shipper vid appreciation from my rather unique angle has swirled those rainbow cupcakes in my little eyes till I glow. I swear I'm morphing into an enderman. I'm nearly in that minecraft spirit world now. About the only thing we truly agree on is that minecraft is better than doing heroin. Yes, he actually said that. I'm sure we both meant it in different ways...

Third of all, I HAVE MY VOICE BACK. I missed talking. I'm ready to talk someone's ears off. I'm ready to hunt someone down and corner them and talktalktalktalktalk. I think I'm catching a break from the big storms that rolled through this week, kinda stripped all those long oak pollen strings and sucked the air out a bit, like Mega Maid.



He's home, here we go.

fighting for our places in history

I saw that vid last night and wanted to hang onto it. It doesn't quite fit the mood, but it fits what I need, I think.

One of those I want to admit defeat weeks. These are really rare. Getting up this morning was hard. It's been hard all week. When I say hard, I don't mean the usual daily grind wearing me down, I don't mean depression, I don't mean life sucks. I mean actually hard. This week has drained me, and the rescue inhaler is the only thing helping me barely hold it together.

As per my usual, I dragged awake, grabbed my phone, checked notifications, and this is my inspiration today. This is a real person, 26, grew up with and still living with a terminal illness. Burying Your Friends and How to Get Around Why it Wasn’t You If you don't have some kind of motivator for your hard mornings, you really need to get one. No platitudes, no moralistic principles, just cold hard truth.

I cried exactly like that one year, except it lasted 7 months. I was about 28, I think, somewhere in there. The year before, I had run into a giant speedbump (a long dusty road, a vision I had during alcohol withdrawal and liver toxicity), and this came hot on its heels a year later. It's not even titled. May 5, 2008 The video code broke during the server move, and if you're on mobile you may have to turn your phone sideways to read it. It's a vision I've never forgotten.

I'm still here. We often think about people who've gone ahead, what the world would be like if they were still here. Well, I'm still here. I haven't left yet. And today, depending on whether plans are still in place, I have two appointments, one with my psychologist and the other with my chiropractor, and then I may be picking up a Bunny, a light in my life I never dreamed possible.

I can do just about anything for my Bunny. I can blow off pain and endure hardship in a way I never could with my own kids. I can step outside of myself and step up far beyond what I could before she came to this earth. Because of a Bunny in my life, I have been able to work harder, be tougher, and smile sweeter. She is here partly because I helped talk her mama through a very hard day where a decision could have been made for her not to be here. I couldn't bear to see another person go through the kind of crying I'd gone through over losing someone who never really existed. The loss is still terribly, horribly real, compounded with the burden of being the one who didn't save that history from being erased. Is it any wonder some people become obsessed with time travel ideas. How do we go back and tell ourselves not to make the biggest mistake of our lives?

This is the first time I've ever connected those two visions together in a time order.

Because I am still here, I can still share. I'm still learning, still surviving, still connecting. I know my lurkers include bruised and very broken souls, and I know how it feels barely hanging on through the long, dark nights and the flat, empty days. Keep hanging on with me. I will keep telling stories and we will keep loving someone, whether in secret or out loud, and when we look back we will say, "I'm so glad I stuck around." Sometimes hanging on is the secret to changing someone else's history. Every day is a big day for Bunny. Time machine achieved.

We were all tiny once. In the big scheme of things, we're all still very tiny. Find your fit, stick around, and be the one who makes the day better for someone. Even if all you do is hold back your own bad day, you changed history. Find your raison d'etre and devote yourself, commit yourself to being that force that stands up to the wolves of time that ravage us.

what the Pinky love letter all boils down to

I've been trying to put my finger on something this spring, not quite sure what I've been feeling until this sentence suddenly sprung into my mind- I am suffering a debilitating lack of angst in my life. I have lived with angst for so long that I am feeling fresh out of the wrapper and not sure what to do with myself through the days without it. I keep looking for direction and meaning, because whereas my purpose before was to keep doggedly plowing through the angst, now finding myself free of it leaves me not exactly listless, but possibly a bit unmotivated. I was used to using emotional misery as my go-to for motivation.

Don't get me wrong, there's still plenty of drama going on around me, although I endeavor to remain out of the middle of it as much as possible. I lend a hand here and there, sorting through towels to hand off along with the refrigerator in the basement to a person who was recently evicted and stepping into a new life, or offering Bunny sitting service when plans become jagged and emotions rise, or generally just getting the shopping done when specifics are required, even though I find breathing outside the house to be a real challenge lately. But these things don't cause me the sort of continual daily angst I've lived with since I was 19 years old.

My whole world has flipped. My heart, my head. I feel like the black chasm I struggled through every day since way back then just up and tipped over and dumped me out this year, and now I'm standing in a sunny grassy field dotted with little flowers and a nice breeze. You'd think this would feel surreal, but I know it's normal. This is the first time I have felt normal in quite possibly my entire life, but especially since I was 19.

This last January I wrote a sort of TV show review where I think about what was going on in a character's head, called f(x) where x = "reflection John". I got that because most of my previous 8 years had been spent in conversation with someone who wasn't really there. A relationship broke off, but that didn't prevent it from continuing in my mind. I came to rely on that connection in my head through everything going on out here in real life, as they say. I didn't worry about it because I am a huge Count of Monte Cristo fan, read the original Dumas work when I was still a teenager before I ever saw a diluted print version or anything in film. The most intriguing part of the entire story for me was how he survived prison, much of it being devoted to deeply thinking and learning everything he could whenever he got the chance. Our minds can get us through anything if we focus.

click

In my late 20s, about the time I plummeted into devastating crippling pain, Hawking was becoming all the rage, and again, I modeled focusing my mind as a way of dealing with the prison that was my body. I became so obsessed with thinking that I was able to get through many terrible days and nights without falling to suicide or other self harm, or cruelty to my family by way of dumping my misery on them.

Over the years I've had mental conversations with nearly everyone I've met, but no one stuck around like one person in particular. No one had ever bested me, challenged me, propelled me into deeper thought like another person daring to step over lines asking 'what if'. Another person wanted to grab the bit, take control, do more with the world than simply just accept it. I didn't realize at the time, but I'd found another prisoner tunneling under the prison cells our minds are locked into by society. And not just any prisoner.

Life happens, the world turns, and people move on, but like an echo of Guinan in the Nexus, I took her with me. She didn't know I did. Over the years we've had many excellent conversations which I've treasured, but they are arguably not 'real', just as Sherlock's conversations with John in his mind were not 'real'. However, I deduce that a stream of consciousness is its own valid reality, and for me, those ongoing conversations have been an excellent survival skill.

Still, in real real life, as it were, I suffered the angst of not really having that connection. It was, after all, all in my mind. The angst ate away at me, lived alongside me, enveloped me, and everything I lived out in my mind was through an almost corporeal fog of angst. My soul ached for the real connection I'd once had. Well, I've got it back now. And now I've got a funny conundrum- I'm still having conversations with her in my mind and she doesn't know about them.

I am so glad I made Pinky blog. I started spilling my mind over into public journaling, and it grew into what I've dubbed a love letter. This was the only way I could think of to share what was in my mind with a very real person out there somewhere. I had no idea whether it would ever be seen or read, but like a message in a bottle, this note is still floating intact on the sea of the internet. My mind is readable now.

So I am learning something new- how to integrate my mind conversations into a real life relationship again. I guess a person could call keeping it all in my head a bad habit, because even though I could connect almost any time now in real life, I'm still doing much of the thinking myself, and the whole point to a real relationship is the symbiotic rapport that comes from more than one head.

I see my psychologist in a couple of days. This might be an interesting thing to bring up. Right now on Pinky blog, this is a monologue. Even if she speaks up in my mind, I don't speak for her because I don't really know what is in her real mind. Everything in my mind is based on what I had gathered from the past, what little new stuff I'm picking up now, and my own conjecture.

But the angst is gone. Vanished, without a trace. Nearly every day I poke around in my head to see if I can feel it, and I guess it's just not there. I wanted to make sure, because it could have been simply replaced with relief or elation or something else, but it's been a few months now and it's mostly just a curious absence of angst. I like that. Just still not sure how to live like this, but at least it feels good. So little in my life has really felt good.

Another thing that made me feel really good a couple of weeks ago was psyche guy saying something about my Poe style. That one still hasn't really sunk in, mostly because it's so terribly rare for anyone to discuss literary criticism with me, especially about my own writing (I really am different in real life than in print, I'm so easy to talk to in a real discussion), so I'm just letting it float above my head for awhile.

turtle egonomics

I think it's safe to say I'm out of the fast lane now. What a pace I was keeping up, eh? Let's see how my twitter is doing since I last checked 2 months ago (and I was already slowing down then, too).

This was February.

This is April.

My link clicks are down by an average of 75 over that last 28 days compared to 2 months ago. That's probably because I've not been tweeting a bunch of links like I used to do. My retweets went up, lol.

Let's see how my klout is doing. Holding rock steady, I see.

So basically taking the spring 'off' isn't hurting my platform that much.

I am reeeeaaallllyyyyyy tired of coughing. I used a rescue inhaler only one week and got thrush almost immediately. Made the executive decision to just crank the benadryl up around the clock and ingest a steady diet of zyrtec twice a day, plus pepcid for H2 blocker, and the rest has pretty much been just staying in the house as much as possible, keeping my workouts and chores light, and focusing through the suckage by keeping my mind busy on something. All I can keep saying is thank goodness for minecraft, because this is possibly (so far, fingers crossed) the first April in years I haven't needed to call an ambulance for airway. (I usually need airway assistance within the first couple of weeks, worst year was allergic reaction to the propellant in the inhaler I was prescribed). I've barely touched cheese and chocolate, which are bad to spike histamine levels even if you're not allergic to them, mostly just proteins all day long, and I can't believe how low my pain level is. Once in awhile I have a super tough day where I just can't talk to anyone (besides still keep losing my voice) because the sensation overload is just too much, but I'm still keeping up with dishes and laundry and meals. In years past I would get violent week-long headaches and crippling joint pain, sometimes pleurisy. This year is more like feeling super crabby but still very functional, so I can hardly complain.

this is required reading if you want to be friends with me
ok, j/k, but click it

I know there are a lot of people out there struggling with asthma and diabetes and fibro and all the other things that plague us, and I know I'm very blessed and lucky that so far I'm doing this well on as little medication as possible. Every bit of it is strategy, self monitoring, and planning ahead. I'm controlling my life now instead of falling into all the potholes. It takes skill and attention and a deep commitment to WANTING it. All you guys out there who feel helplessly sucked down massive drain holes and barely hanging on with meds (been there, many hugs to you)- how badly do you want to control? I started planning in 2008. The lengths of dedication I've gone to have created monumental changes in my life since a time I could feel it all slipping away and knew I would be dying soon if I didn't. And I don't kid myself, it could still all go poof any time. I live with odds that aren't easy to stand up to. I just know I want to live.

Back to reality. I'm tired. Not the kind of tired I used to be, thank goodness, but still tired. Part of my dream last night was about bringing a Ginsu steak knife to a slime block brawl. If you have a clue what a slime block is, you can imagine how useless a tiny knife would seem, especially against several big blocks and dozens of smaller ones. But in the dream, it wasn't just about hacking with a tiny knife. It was about strategy and timing and higher ground. It was about understanding how the slimes move and track and attack.

One of the neatest things I've picked up playing survival mode in minecraft is that hostile mobs can be used against each other. How many times have I dived into 3-4 (and more!) mobs spawning around me in caves or dark fields and their own algorithms bumping each other back just enough for me to get away. It doesn't always work, but mobs don't have plan Bs in case their A strategies fail. They don't anticipate and plan accordingly. I've been surprised how many crazy really bad situations I've been able to survive by charging straight into them. Even catching on fire falling into lava or being poisoned by a witch, with my last few ticks of health it's all about getting to a spot where I know I'll be able to come back for all my stuff. I still panic once in awhile. Yesterday I lost several blocks of obsidian, my cool enchanted chitin armor, and a diamond pickaxe because I slipped into lava and didn't keep a cool enough head to use my pickaxe to break a block and jump up a couple steps before I croaked. All that work for nothing. No, not for nothing. I learned something. I learned to drop off my stuff instead of carrying it around in dangerous situations. I learned that obsessing and not taking a break was what wasted my time. I learned to get smarter, think while I do. And then I basically rebuilt an entire floor underneath the obsidian bed because there was live lava under every bit of it, and I was patient enough to want it that badly.

Not all obsidian has live lava underneath. I cleared a whole other bed of it easy peasy because it was just sitting there on cobblestone. And I found that boring, because I didn't have to think about what I was doing...

Real life is like that. We're all bored, aren't we? We want to be entertained, but we really don't want to work for it. Life sucks and it's not fair and we're bored.

We are in a real game. We want to live and not be killed right away. We want the freedom to do things and the means with which to do them. We must think. Strategize. No one owes us anything that we aren't willing to get up and try to do for ourselves. No one is going to miss us if all we do is whine.

My first real post on twitter analytics was about 10 months ago- twitter analytics. I've noticed that twitter still fails big time with a certain thing- I can get direct stat feedback from a blog that actually says how many referrals came in from a specific tweet link, and twitter still to this day does NOT live up in it's own analytics to that count number. My engagement rate is actually a lot higher than what twitter tells me it is, and I have the stats to prove it. I've seen plenty of times where tweet activity reports waaaaay fewer link clicks than what my blogs or SyfyDesigns will say is happening. On the other hand, G+ is dumping 'impressions' while twitter is still pumping up impressions as their selling tool. Impressions don't mean anything except potential. I mean, yeah, it's fun to see a really big number sometimes, but the true test is favstar keeping track of actual interaction.

Years ago I noticed that fans in forums sit around doing and saying the same things over and over and over, year in and year out. Years have gone by, I go back and lurk, same people, same thing, over and over and over. Twitter is exactly the same thing. People making almost identical tweets year in and year out. One person says they never get sick every year on a certain month, but without fail gets the nasty crud on another month every single year. Another person is very healthy and works out, but never fails to self sabotage with injury during workouts, and healing winds up lasting longer than the work out time spent, and this has happened several times now. And on and on. I have an eidetic memory for things I see in print, especially with timestamps, and I can usually find things I can remember seeing very quickly. It's all there, unless someone closes an account. I'm a speed reader, a search queen, and I remember nearly 4 years of twitter.

Some of you really need to get lives. Your repetition is stultifying, unless it's part of your strategy for the world to believe your life is really that empty and boring. Those of you who are homebound or dealing with stuff you haven't shared out loud, all well and good and many kudos to you (been there), but seriously, repeating yourselves for years, how in the world do you guys not notice you are doing that? (You too, celebs...) omg, I've written probably 3 millions words now, and I'm still always finding something new to write. Nearly 4 years on twitter and I'm bored to tears with it. I'm sure that's a really good way to vilify myself on twitter, but I'm not actually saying it ON twitter.



I should probably apologize. My brain is brined in antihistamines. Oh, btw, the blog title is a pun on ergonomics, because I'm a narcissist going in slo-mo this month.

Yeah, so life in the slow lane, as it were. Oh, the bee swarm was smoked and gently removed into a hive yesterday. It's funny I had noted just a few days earlier that I hadn't seen a single bee yet this year, which is odd because I've never been able to get close up pix of my flowering trees without being in bee danger, and suddenly there's a swarm of thousands all gobbed on a tree like bee hell burped them out.

I've gotta enjoy my last two days of real freedom (today and tomorrow). Thursday and Friday are booked up, and next week I start back into physical therapy. Time to tackle that upper core strength again, see if I can get past that wall now that I kept hitting and splatting on.

I really need to gather my brain back up, get it into coffee cup, get some clothes on, get a plan going, get on some kind of track today.

the ugly side of twitter luv

Mentioning in passing that one of my top 5 fave people on the entire internet has gone private on several accounts because of the bull crap head games some people play on twitter, and you all have no idea what you lost.

I'm going to tell you what you lost. Access to one of the most brilliant minds in the country. Access to a real insider. Access to a person who genuinely wanted to be part of the gangs. Access to so much more.

Y'all tweet real big about the TV shows you like and posting your suicide hotlines and how we're all buddies and supportive, but. you. guys. lost. the. coolest. person. I've. ever. met. on. this. entire. planet.

Some of you need to look around at how dumb you look playing twitter games, the people you really gloss over because they don't play right for you, or make *you* look cool enough.

Sometimes there is a lurker hanging around that you really have no idea is the very icon of everything you wish would happen in your lives because you're too busy rattling to stop and notice something going on right under your noses.

And that's all I can say, and all I ever will say. You don't know who and what you lost.

Don't contact me privately about this.

Us, and so we begin. Ok, again.

Poor @bonenado dragging out of bed for work after a big weekend doing nonstop work outside and then a late night marathoning several eps of s2 GoT. (Yes, we're behind.) Happy Monday.

Don't you 'Happy Monday' ~me~
click pic for more

Part of our big excitement was a bee swarm showing up a little too close to where we all wind up outside. It is practically on top of the neighbor's garden, and directly across that from my car. Last thing I need on top of the worst tree allergy season ever is a bee sting. Between 2 different bee crews, we'll see who gets it taken care of the fastest this morning. Lotta beekeepers in the Ozarks. This is a good way to fill a hive with new stock for free.

The hummingbirds finally showed up, too. @bonenado was actually starting to pace over it.

click for vid loop

This next is me fussing yesterday about an algorithm again. Ignore it.

I've been a little irked with blogger's inbuilt top count system because it isn't accurate at all. Out of the top ten posts of all time displayed, one never actually made it into the top 18, according to my list of anything that broke over 150 views. 2 more displayed in the top ten never made it into the actual real top ten, yet they are sprinkled through the top ten rank like they're big stuff, while 3 others that got more views never made the top ten at all. It's very disappointing to see it so mangled like this, and I have no idea how in the world their counting algorithm explains any of it (unless it's a sort of burst count on how fast views come in when first published, but that still doesn't really explain it), so I removed my top ten all time widget. I thought about making a manual list of top 5 posts, because they've held pretty steady and they're easy to check on, since the view counts are way higher than my regular highs, but meh. I already have too much real work to do. Top 5 counts right now are 629, 544, 291, 225, and 217. Pretty sure the first two are Ukraine app bot thingies, the 3rd one has meth in the title so of course it gets hit, the 4th links from my Lexxperience blog, and the 5th is featured in my right side column. No big secrets to popular posts. If I wanted to venture into 6th, I'd just facepalm about possibly being the only person in the world actually blogging about rioting if Rick Lagina dies. I really do need a blue ribbon for that title, yet it never showed up in my top ten all time, thanks a lot, Blogger. 7th is actually one that earned it's spot, and I worked hard for it, 8th was a porn gimmick fluke, 9th was a complete misunderstanding, and 10th was a thought process about identifying with characters in a TV show, and I'm a little fond of it so I'm glad to see it actually gets read a bit.

I put this here for a friend

The popular last 30 days is actually correct, and the top posts as time clicks by every day are genuinely reflected in that count. Even if an older post suddenly takes off again, it gets picked up by the counters, and as the counts drop back off over the last calendar month, the ranks go back down.

click for hilarious Russian antics

Question everything. Never take your counter widgets and services for granted. I could go on about google analytics not being the darling so many think it is, but again, meh. I actually get more hits on tags anyway (groups of posts), which only show up as overall visits, so I don't have a clue what a lot of you are even reading, unless you load the main dotcom from a bookmark or outside source. But not to worry, still can't see you because you're all smart being logged into google browser and masking yourselves. Well, most of you.

I'm being boring this morning. It's part of being in withdrawal and filling up the void with GoT instead.

do I even have to say 'click for more'?

clicks to moving gifs

One more? Srsly, bcuz #Monday.

actually clicks to other cute memes that have nothing to do with Benny C

Me yesterday after @bonenado laughed at my hair. Yes, I know, I'm not Benedict. Look anyway.

Yes, yes, one more... Just a real guy like us. Except he doesn't dare whine about Monday mornings out loud. Clicks to more Ben stuff in case you can't move on yet. I need to move on.

Go have good Mondays.

notes d'amour dans une bouteille, exprimés sur la mer

Playing survival in a creative realm. I fixed a giant hole a creeper made at one of the gates. I'm getting really good at that. Going in and out of cheats helps (I really like diamond armor), but shooting creepers with bows and arrows is just really cool, even with the damage I have to fix later. What seemed overwhelming 2 months ago has become second nature and fun.

This is the backside of the huge place I'm building my real first 'house' in now on MoC. Not a hut, not a base camp, but a real place I'll call home. On the other side is the huge archway over the theater and evil conference room with the glassed off spider spawner and the shark tank. And the Avatar island, and the big platform I'm going to build a luxury house on. You can't tell from this angle how utterly huge the whole estate is. If Johnny Depp played minecraft, this would be on par to his level of eccentricity.

Working on my first obsidian dig in MoC. There is live lava directly beneath the obsidian. I'm spending an incredible amount of time rebuilding the floor underneath it block by block at great peril to myself just to be able to get the obsidian. I wised up after my first misstep into lava death and set up a trunk on the side so I won't lose everything again.

That is what real life used to be, problem solving for food and the daily materials we need for shelter, protection, and economic growth, but without the sunburns, bug bites, weather disasters... hospital bills.

I know, I have work to do, but I'm still trying to wake up. Actually slept in a real bed last night. This whole month has been about sleeping on the couch because coughing when I lay down.

Meanwhile, in real life, Bunny went out fishing this weekend, while Papa stayed home setting up a new swingset.

The irises are coming out a bit early. They usually bloom just before Mother's Day.

My sister is going through old pix while we get travel plans in place for a reunion.

My dad, lol.

All the wonderful deep talks over the last couple months.

the soldier and the oak

Oak.

The juniper, cedar, ash, birch, and maple were enough. And now- oak.

The mighty oaks...

click if you love oak trees

Missouri actually used to be a pine forest and was replaced with several species of oak after the pine was logged out- Missouri Forest Facts. From Missouri's Oaks- "Missouri is home to 19 species and at least 16 hybrids of oaks. Most of our forest products industry, including flooring, barrel staves, pallets and railroad ties, is based on the oaks. Oaks are also the most important hardwoods in North America. Only three other species or groups of trees—all conifers—exceed them nationally in lumber production. Here in Missouri our oak saw timber volume of 8.3 billion board feet represents 63 percent of all our saw timber."

I live on the edge of a state forest and near a national forest. I see bee and spider species that aren't even in books yet. To joke that I live in Mirkwood is putting it lightly.

Any color ribbon would be coated yellow with pollen this time of year...



THIS. Subscribe on youtube to Elliot Park Music. Check out his website.

opportunities

What better way to celebrate being contacted last night for a sneak peek write up than to jump back into Rivyndell realm this morning and immediately get killed 3 times in a row by a bow slinging zombie with a pumpkin head. I got most of my stuff back every time, but decided the crazy respawn point on the ____ (you can't know yet) had to be moved back to my old bed at the castle, at least for the time being. Ben Solo lectured me a bit on nearly getting the village massacred. He likes to exaggerate, but he had a golem, so I didn't argue. I would've pointed out that a stupid villager was the one who let the zombie into the house and the golem wouldn't have been any good with doors, but I apologized and went about fixing up a couple of the gardens. I'm getting pretty good with gardens now, thanks to the sheltered village on MoC. Riv has a soft spot for villagers. I'm trying to pick up a few things before I go back to Starrstrukk and keep working on saving my desert village from complete ruin. I did get a couple pix though while I was in Rivyndell.

Oh, nothing, just leaving this here...

Anyway, work is starting to pick back up, and I spent a glorious day yesterday touching base with several people and getting a few projects lined back up. Yes, I mentioned a headache on the twitters, it's that time of year where spring allergy season clashes with old occular and trigeminal leftovers and I go into a weird feedback loop in my nerves because fibro/Lymie (srsly, u can haz both), and aspienado overload and divert through shutdown kind of thing. It was a good Lexx day, let's just say that. That's how I used to do it in the old days, sling through the hard stuff bouncing off the writing and coding walls. All familiar stuff.

So I'm excited. I mean, who wouldn't be with the words- "How would you like to be the first American to..."

scattered in a focused kind of way, sort of

my new theater next to my evil conference room and shark tank

Looking at 4:28 a.m. wondering where in the world all the days went because it was just 4/20...

I made the executive decision last night to break my evening zyrtec in half. Yesterday's point of saturation created mildly dissonant leaps into alternate dimensions, and I'm losing track of the important stuff, like suddenly realizing yesterday that my automatic withdrawals for my part D and F plans might still be screwed by the 4/19 thing and then promptly forgetting it.

I'm barely even out on the medias and still managed to tick someone off yesterday, so I'm going to keep sticking to minecraft or something. I dreamed last night we could make real life stuff with minecraft, and I had made a nice RV like rich people have when they do travel vacations, filled it full of neat stuff, and then other people showed up one day and totally griefed it, just tore it apart and took everything. All my clothes were gone, my debit card had been in one of the minecraft bureau drawers in one of the little bedrooms, so that was gone, all the food was gone, and I was just stuck with everything gone and no way to replace it. I had to start all over from scratch. Since I've literally gone through that on blogs and had to start all over again on social medias, the dream doesn't surprise me. I'm sure the debit card part came from having to update my info across all those accounts.

I think this is the most off track I've been since I came back out in 2012. Every month has been a real grind through something. I keep reminding myself I still haven't made any money mixups for months now (almost a year), which is really big. Whatever ground I feel like I'm losing is still progress.

Statcounter says I've just passed in the first 4 months of this year on Pinky blog what I got in the whole year of 2014, which is interesting because this blog has actually slowed down quite a bit. Lexxperience blog is about to catch up to and pass last year already and I've barely posted. Everything else is declining, which is logical since the other blogs are just sitting there.

I've been talking with Myke about Lexx on SyfyDesigns, about how the forums out there are kind of going down as people go MIA for whatever reasons, and how maybe it's time to step up and offer another forum on neutral turf (Myke has never been part of any of the older fandom forums and doesn't have a clue about how political the fandom history got). Right now SyfyDesigns is still in a pre-something stage and fairly locked down, contributors must contact Myke personally for registration, which means bots don't get into the forum. I've felt almost headlocked over the way I'm watching what's left of the public fandom on U.S. and Canadian soil kind of wind down to nothing, like an old clock, and I think it has everything to do with all of us getting older and money getting a little tighter. Anyway, Myke has graciously created a separate forum space for Lexx, and I'm going to see what I can do with it over this year. I'd love to get a few fans in there with me, but it would all be public and Lexx fans are generally super skittish.

Ok, that was a big thing. I just wrote out a proposal and posted it all over the place. It's funny how I can get something big done and whipped out and still feel brainless and like I'm faceflopping all over my day.

I always still pause wherever I'm working to watch the first blush of morning
that will always be magical for me

I've still been thinking about the dysphoria thing. Dysphoria can be any self image distortion, doesn't have to be gender, like skinny people actually thinking they're fat, or really pretty people feeling ugly, or someone (either sex) losing hair (I've been through that), or people who've been through body and face changing accidents or illnesses coping through the dysphoria of looking completely different now. It's a thing with chickens, too, they're very self aware. If you have an evil hen that won't stop beating other chickens up, you can sometimes curb that behavior by marking a wild discolored spot somewhere (nontoxic, because preening). I've seen chickens go through status changes during molting, so it's not just a human thing to be aware of how we look, and whether we are confident or not in how we look on top of the awareness.

But you all know how I feel about confidence.

For instance, I wasn't confident when I posted that proposal in other people's facebook groups or a picture of myself in a Lexx t-shirt on twitter and facebook, but I'm so used to the idea now that haters dis me anyway that it's less and less of a bump in my road now. I really haven't had to deal with much in the way of haters last few years anyway, but I'm not out there trying to start trubbas, either. Some people might think that proposal is very arrogant of me and none of my business, others might think yay, the ones who really need to see it might not even see it at all, in which case it'll fall flat.

I know, kinda blathering away the morning. Steamed up 10 pounds of pork ribs yesterday (Ruby Tuesday secret- super slow steam rib racks tightly sealed in a low heat oven with an inch of water), sauce it up, throw back in the oven on 'warm' for an hour, delightfully tender and the bones slip right out. I'm sure we'll be sick of ribs by the time weekend is over.

Me the rest of my life. This is how my head works when I think of all the things I still want to do.

already apologizing

Getting snapped up for a rockin' French news list at 5 a.m. and I'm all bleary eyed going wha?

Here you go, I haven't done a #TBT in awhile.

I like this edit better.

Yes, cute little pinstriped overalls and a fancy top stitched double ringer tee. Way ahead of the crazy crowd around me in rural SW MO.

Ok, anybody getting any kind of negative flak from me this month (yes, including the facepalm I just added to another Kai parody account using my G+ groups to get attention), it's the zyrtec, ok? I'm so bombed on this and enough benadryl to take out a mastadon, just whatever you think is cool or cute or whatevs, run with it wherever, just because I mock on my own turf doesn't mean I hate it, ok? If I hated it I'd remove it.

I have no idea what direction this day will go, so maybe just leave this here and get moving.

dysphoria

This month is like a brain and body crawl through pollen boot camp, and as another 20 days are slipping by already without seriously addressing goals and objectives, I've pretty much given up and settled for basic survival mode.

I generally stay off the health/med/spoonie forums when I'm like this, no sense jumping in or tangling or generally trying not to win contests. April is the month from hell for some of us, so let's just let this one go with f(x) where the function of aspienado is = an inverse ratio of pollen to airway (multiplied by fibromyalgia of the rib cage and sternum plus + sensation overload divided by / energy) minus - sleep lost squared.

Or something like that.

f(A)=pollen/airway({fibro+overload}/energy) - sleep lost squared.

The editor in here sux.

I'm sure I could complicate that equation with depression, but I'm too tired to care. I'm in 'hiding out' mode in general, avoiding talking to people. Well, I couldn't even talk in real life for about 2 weeks, and trying to still nearly sends me into coughing fits. Worst. Allergy. Season. Ever.

Imagine me actually wanting to talk on a phone to a real live person this month. I've actually been in the mood to talk on the phone, and there's just almost no way I can. I need a small amount of comfort, a real human voice on the other end of my tech. I doubt anyone wants to hear me struggling with trying not to cough.

I'm too tired to cry, thank goodness, because that makes anything remotely airway exponentially worse. I'm too tired to watch TV. I can barely concentrate on reading. I've been steadily plowing my way through acres of cobblestone, sand, and forests on minecraft just to be busy doing something. In multiplayer I'm at least watching a chat and sometimes responding with filling a request for a store item. The barest of human contact.

This kind of month is perfect for sliding off into random whatever catches my interest, so I've been following Bunny Bennett's vlogs about transitioning. I'm not gender dysphoric because I've always felt so disconnected anyway via asexuality and weird synesthesia and generally prefer androgyny because it's just easier and I'm lazy (and allergic to make up and salon products, but I digress), but I've known a number of people for years who are, and I've heard much the same thing from all of them. When I retailed in lingerie, I often helped men shop for everything from support hosiery and shapewear (some jobs are hell on varicose veins and hernias) to everything frilly and all kinds of bras, and I never felt uncomfortable because I've never felt sexually biased in the first place. I never cared whether I was girl or boy. I can easily pass for either one.

But I am dysphoric. I've been very upset since I was a very small child that I am human. I was angry with God for years for forcing me to be born into a human body instead of a dog or a horse. I went out of my way to mimic being dogs and horses, and daydreamed about being a horse well into puberty. I'm definitely in the wrong body. I feel clumsy and awkward and like this is all wrong.

So I totally get transgender. The male/female thing not feeling right probably has the same sort of roots, because everything in the brain is chemical and hormonal. I know mine are all wrong, because I can feel it. Nothing fits right, I don't fit right, I'm uncomfortable like this, and it's been a really big deal having to hide how I really feel and try, if not to actually fit in, at least pretend to want to. And I don't even want to. And I suck at pretending.

I have no idea if this is relatable to people who feel compelled to change their bodies to be more animal or go out of their way to paint or laser animal spots or markings all over their bodies. I could care less how THIS body looks, and I see no reason to spend my time mimicking another body in this one. I'm so disconnected from this body that I simply just live in it, the same way you live in an apartment. Yeah, it's mine, and yeah, I take care of it and keep it cleaned up and I'm kind of picky about a few things, but I'm not going to miss it in my next life. Which hopefully is on another planet or nebula or dimension or something.

When I'm like this I'm not easy to be around, so I don't bother people. I'm just tired, and that makes me feel more impatient. It's already hard understanding convos most of the time anyway because of the asperger's, so I've learned just let it go. Trying to get a grip on my head and steer it when it's like this is about as dumb as trying to ride an ostrich, so howdy Pinky blog, you're my buddy right now.

I would love to have a real convo about feeling dysphoric with someone besides my psychologist, and I bet I'd be able to get a hilarious live stream hangout going over it, but even if someone volunteered right now to babysit me through tech setup, I would be such a drag to work with my brain flat like this that the fun part wouldn't last very long for me. I get these really cool ideas, and I keep saying I need staff, I need a team, and I've yet to find anyone 1- willing to embarrass themselves to death in public with me, 2- go through the popularity stoning I've been through over the years, 3- deal well with public instead of starting fights, and 4- actually help with the real work.

Several people have suggested vlogging (bless your hearts). I vlogged one year, around 2008 I think, and people actually watched the vids. I kept them fairly short because I don't sit still that long and I bore myself to death just talking (I'm not a natural talker), but it was a bad year going on worse, and I just wiped them out. But I have absolutely no qualms about how I look in public, and as long as I'm not expected to pretend anything or have to sit still too long, I imagine I could do just fine, except I hit all the wrong buttons like a super klutz. I do that in minecraft, too, basically throw wool at zombies, like I'm making knitting buddies or something.

This is long, and I wound up skyping, so maybe I'll just post it. I haven't even proofed it yet, no telling what you'll get. Here, click this and go look at food. You're welcome.