North Korea is going to get coal in its stocking

The article that pic clicks to might seem unnerving, but at least it's not Skynet.

Whiny robots are unacceptable. Whiny robots irritate people. #transparency is one thing, #uglytrewth is another. I will quickly power point the current root causes for whine and move on.

• Post acute withdrawal syndrome. I'm only 2 weeks out from surgery, and less than that back off opioids.
• Nasty headache.
• Lost more weight than I went in with because virus on top of recovery and couldn't eat much between the two, imagine how hungry I am.

And now I will entertain myself, like I've been doing for years when I actually had no one to talk to.

Stick Death Run - Push the Death-O-Meter to the limit

Goes to this-

click the pic to get to the game

Or how about an HTML5 version of the original Lemmings game, including the original sound?

But you don't have to load the game to listen to the music!


So when you have arthritis in your cervical spine and a history of trigeminal pain and they do airway for surgery, then have you lay in one position for extended time, the resulting fibro flare is off the wall once the drugs all wear off. Not whining or anything. Just saying. The Lemmings music in my headphones is helping. It's like a brain stim to distract me from paying attention to my nerves pinging over and over like BBs pelting the side of my head.

What was I posting in the old super pain days? Lemme jump back a few years and grab something.

Oh, here you go, my old Sikes and the Alien Nation (all the youtube vid codes got wiped in the Xanga server move). You might not be able to see that on mobile. And that post led to Gary sharing something I put into another post at EMP threat- imminent? Interestingly, just yesterday North Korea demo'd they can reach anywhere they want now with a missile, and next comes a nuclear warhead 'test'. You guys know that 'testing' a nuclear warhead in the atmosphere above the U.S. would knock our power grids offline, right, not to mention the fallout. So I was saying that back in April 2009.

Well, full circle I guess. I ran into Treat Me Like An Athlete, and I'll pull part here and leave it at that. This is an excerpt, because I was still voraciously super wordy back then and this is only a part of that. Bluejacky wasn't a top blog or anything, but got really good traffic on some things, and it was the first blog I tried being both public and myself on, although back then I never shared who I was anywhere else.

Ok, guys, I felt mean the other day, so I'm gonna partially retract and make an apology, but not because anyone got hold of me and demanded one.  And I'm not doing this to get attention from anybody, because I've got recs and comments turned off anyway.  I made a post called 'puny' blogs, which I still stand by because I'm aspie and that's the way my head works, but I can look back and see that it was still a punch below the belt, and I feel like that's not who I am and how I operate.  I'm not trying to do ~this~.

And here I put South Park's infamous cripple fight, which is now blocked for content rights stuff, but here's a snip.

I'm a big believer in the whiny crabby people being the ones who survive.  I have watched others 'wisp away' under the burdens of their illnesses, and even though med info pages on the internet insist that things like lupus and fibromyalgia are NOT terminal, those others I knew have passed on already.  I'm still here, and my whiny crabby butt says hell yeah it's killing me, and dang if I'm gonna lay down and let it.  I'm not against anyone talking about their stuff on their blogs, that was NOT what the 'puny' blogs post was about.  I've got a private blog popping with my crap, and the reason it's private is because the things I say there are things that help me survive, and that includes my black side, my bad attitude, and all the mean feelings that come out on my really bad days.  I don't want to share that with the public.  To me it looks like a big tangled mess of ugly confusion, probably because I see it all the time.  To the few allowed to sub there, it probably looks more like endlessly long boring posts about being sick all the time and every little thing that bugs me, which is probably a real drag to read.  Aspies can be notoriously wordy.

This next part is a big deal. Very few people dare to stick out there and really be REAL without apologizing or masking or faking or fighting. Just being real.

So it's only fair that I bring out where I'm at *right now*.  I created this blog to share information, to 'be real' about stuff like Asperger's, but as I've pointed out in a couple of posts, I feel the Asperger's is what's giving me the edge on surviving the illnesses I live with because I notice patterns and obsess over details and collect information to the point of being irritating.  So this week I'm going to assess what my situation is as of August '08, and then map out my plan of action for dealing with my stuff for the rest of the year.  If you have chronic illness and feel like you are spinning your wheels in the mud, this is how I have survived 20 years of lupus, severe fibromyalgia, and a variety of complications that include things like Lyme disease, heart surgery, and a really wacky immune system.

Kinda what's been happening this week. I'm talking to myself because no one else wants to talk to me like this.

The cold hard truth about illness is that it sux.  Just like with my Asperger's, I pretend to be 'ok' or 'normal' with my illnesses, too, because I learned real fast no one likes a whiny butt with a bad attitude.  That's the real me, but I can't be the real me without people walking away in disgust, and I have learned to hide the howling blackness so I don't scare the straights.  But the real me is the survivor.  I don't whitewash the crap I go through to myself.  I punch the virtual walls and grab myself by the collar and shake me.  There is a piece of brain that refuses to go down with the ship, and thank God I go through the really crabby stuff, because I think it has helped save my life more than once.

I actually do this to people that I love-

Because, damn it, it takes a mean person to survive a mean disease or illness.  And my gut reaction is that any time I see someone else whimpering with their pain, I want to kick *them* into full blown whiny shit kicking mode, too, so *they* can survive.  This isn't about life sux so someone owes me something.  This is about Indiana Jones hanging off a cliff and climbing back up.  It's about Jack Bauer breaking people's necks after he's been tortured nearly to death.  It's about Cat Woman getting fed up and raking her claws around rich bastards.  It's about ~*~surviving~*~.  I personally know a woman who wisped away to her death, refusing to make the necessary changes in her life that would have made all the difference and possibly given her 20 more less miserable years, in spite of surgeries and medications galore.  There are a number of corporate conglomerates, insurance companies, and pharmaceutical CEOs who aren't going to like what I have to say in this post.

True story.

Yes, the imagery helps.  If your senses are too delicate for this post, go away, and don't pretend to feel sorry for people you don't understand.  True story.  Years ago I was working in a hospital.  I was preparing to put my things away and step onto an elevator to move on to another floor when a couple of older ladies stepped onto the elevator with me.  They were dressed in nice clothing, had nice hair, nice jewelry, but they were not being very nice.  The lady they had come to see was on the cancer floor, and since I'd cleaned her room earlier and spoken to her, I knew she was terminal any time, and that she was distraught with a number of issues about being afraid, stuff about her family, feeling all alone since her husband died, etc.  So the ladies on the elevator (probably from this woman's church) were disgusted that they had taken a really expensive beautiful flower arrangement to this sick woman, and she hadn't even said thank you.  She had gone on and on about something going on in her family, and she didn't even acknowledge that they came out to visit her and bring her flowers.  And I'm standing there thinking- You expected her to be a gracious *hostess* on her death bed????  My God, people, the woman is ~dying~, and you're griping about her failure to say thank you for the flowers.  And that leaves so much wide open to wonder about, like how those nice ladies could judge someone in need like that and think they were better than her because they played a *social game* correctly.  They weren't really there to comfort a dying woman.  There were there for brownie points.  And I can't help but also wonder if the church paid for the flowers, in which case the nice ladies were even that much more ugly about getting that thank you.

Srsly how I feel about comments. I don't need pats on the back cheering me on. If you can't get out there and plow walls with me, just stand back before the bricks fly with me tearing that wall down.

So if you've never known anyone personally or yourself lived with chronic or terminal illness, your advice is not welcome here.  (My mom used to be very eager to give others advice on vitamin E and herbs and stuff  without any experience or medical knowledge whatsoever, so I'm a bit sensitized to that kind of zeal.)  This is partly why I turned comments off.  I don't waste my time with ignorance and pretense.  It's my 'aspie way'.  I am who I am and I don't care if someone gets upset about it.  The rest of you who agree with me, thank you, but I don't feel the need to show that off to anyone by hosting it in visible comments.

I go on, but that's the gist of it. THAT is where it originally all started. Pinky blog is a continuation of Bluejacky. Bluejacky is too gut punchy. Pinky said tone it down a bit.

click pic for more memes

Now where were we? I started out looking for fun, wound up with nukes and a crabby rant. I need to get back on track. I was thinking that maybe in December (tomorrow) I need to go in a different direction than last year. Last December I did a countdown thingy and facepalmed midway over the archive stacking up with identical title beginnings, and by January I was just weird. I floated into dissociation land and wound up on handfuls of meds and then spent nearly the entire year dealing with ignoring a real problem (surgery this month could have been done 9 months ago) and winding up with multiple problems swamping me because I was over medicated.

pic clicks to interesting demotivational collection

And I'm still talking too much, but surely I'll be cured by the time someone is free to hang out on game later, if all works out. My internet was pretty sketchy today. Thankfully, a fiber optic crew has been out this week getting the entire subdivision prepped for a massive fiber optic installation, and their equipment is all parked up and down the street in front of my house. They made it to my house just as it was time to stop and go home, so first thing in the morning it's going to be noisy. Can't complain though if I wind up with fiber for Christmas.

I am admittedly worn out from this post. I just want to lay down for a bit before I get on game. Hopefully I don't fall asleep and miss anyone. I'll pass along what got shared to me today, it's really cute.

sapios

So I'm juggling all this stuff last couple weeks, like 8 days out from surgery was actually babysitting a 4 year old all by myself, so you know I'm pulling a pretty good fake with this. We've had this crazy holiday week supporting her mama pulling extra shifts as a sitter in ER, which is really what it's all about in lots of families having problems coping, and on top of everything out of the blue last night Scott asked when I'm going to get that Mantrid post done, because it's been two years.

😑 Right.

Tomorrow will be 13 days since surgery, and I am crazy bizzy. Bunny says that when she twirls, she gets bizzy. Granted, today was my first big ohHELLno guts waking up and realizing something is really amiss, and it was a fun watch me sprint day (and a really fun race fail), and those of you who've had gallbladder surgery probably know exactly what I'm talking about. I'm finally able to eat again, but for about 3 hours everything was all-stop and red alert low grade pulled me over and asked me if I knew how fast I was going, and I said Hold my apple juice and watch *this*.  Dishes done, laundry done, executive decisions made about remodeling my player shop, Walking Dead watched. #Crushinit. I'm just thrilled my stomach is allowing a handful of mozzarella cheese shred before I go to bed.

I wish we'd had the term sapiosexual about 20 years ago. I've tried to put a finger on why Scott and I work so well, and basically it's exactly that. Funny this got a reject on it 5 years ago and now it's everywhere. Clicks to source.

Six Signs That Prove You're Secretly A Sapiosexual That article is seriously one-sided but spot on. Scott wanted a 'college girl', well, he got one that won't shut up and he's still here. Early on I was intrigued how differently he uses his own brain, actually kind of brilliant about a few things once I got past the dyslexia (I'm merciless, but dang it, he's so cute saying and spelling stuff wrong).

And thanks to Ken Jeong retweeting during the live tweet, that one really took off.

~wild subject change~

Lemme 'splain. My dad was born in the wrong century and refuses to keep up with anything remotely techy, so he's kind of like a cross between an alchemist and a scientist about how the world works, and of course disaster looms because prophecy. He actually literally measures the yearly winter solstice with a pin in a wall that the sun setting through a window casts a moving shadow on, and he marks where the last of the light is with the date. And this year is a month ahead of last year. You know, because like orbit problems maybe. I immediately wondered if the land under his home must have settled or something, this entire area is karst with loads of sinkholes and you can see the big fields drooping away from one particular highway that I drove for years, and they were definitely not doing that when we first moved here. Anyway, naturally I can't help diving into the search bar and reading what I find back over the phone, since NASA obviously won't tell us the truth about what's really going on (you have know idea how thankful I am that he's not a flat earther), so in case you're curious yourself, the winter solstice doesn't necessarily fall on the exact same day every year, and the way it's measured isn't about where the sun falls on a spot on the wall.

December solstice 2017 is the 21st
"Why doesn’t the earliest sunset come on the shortest day? The December solstice marks the shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere and longest day in the Southern Hemisphere. But the earliest sunset – or earliest sunrise if you’re south of the equator – happens before the December solstice. Many people notice this, and ask about it... By the way, the latest sunrise doesn’t come on the solstice either. From mid-northern latitudes, the latest sunrise comes in early January."

It's a bit confusing because it's not about the light we see at what time, but about the length of the day that we have light. I don't know if my dad measures the sunrise as well, but he's adamant that the yearly solstice must be exactly like the year before.

10 Things About the December Solstice
"Most people count the whole day as the December Solstice. However, the Solstice is actually at a specific moment - when the Sun is exactly overhead the Tropic of Capricorn."

Probably lost a few wanderers during that, but basically it demos my sapio thing. A LOT of people love knowledge. They love it so much they'll spend lifetimes pursuing it. If you are one of those people and wanting to find a good match for a lifelong relationship, make sure that person is cool about the obsessions you love. If you're going to have to BE HOME at the exact same time and date every single year to make a mark on a wall, make sure they know that.

Oh thank goodness, I finally just yawned. OH, almost forgot. I dropped outa #latenightmovie last night because I was so fried, but at least I can now say Yes, I have seen the Star Wars Holiday Special. I made it up to the cartoon, at least. "The special is notorious for its extremely negative reception and has never been rebroadcast or officially released on home video."  Like one of the gang said, it was more like a Pink Floyd experience than anything.

K, I'm about to fall over now, thank goodness. I need sleep so bad.

emotional consorts

click to Get Peanutized

I've been thinking for a long time about how social media has created new ways to connect that no longer fall into traditional roles. I've been on the internet since 1994 and have seen it all in so many varieties of ways that I'm convinced traditional roles in societal norms in developing civilizations over tens of thousands of years catered to the purpose of crowd control, when all else is brushed away from the archaeological bones of our anthropological history as a human race.

I remember my mom being on the phone quite a bit on some days when I was a kid. We shared a party line with several neighboring houses, about ten miles out of town along a rural highway. Back then we didn't know anything about depression and how connecting helps people get through rough days. Telephones were probably a godsend to her on some days, but none of us really understood the need. Our world was pretty black and white back then.

I was in the 9th grade when we moved to another state. My best friend and I snail mailed each other faithfully 3 times a week for a little over 4 years. I'm not exaggerating that at all. I had a huge box full of letters that documented her half of our unending conversation, and when that conversation ended, I was so lost that I completely shut down emotionally. It took me years to understand why that particular friendship was so deep.

In the mid 90s I jumped into the email trend, which was basically a lot like twitter in slo-mo, and wound up in fan groups and forums quickly after that. I had never had so much connection in my whole life. I cannonballed with so much gusto into connecting all over the place that I irritated a few people with my splashing, but I loved every minute of it. I didn't learn how to emotionally connect, though, until real faces started showing up with all that connecting. I had no idea what to even do with that, but I learned very quickly that's when it starts to hurt. It took more years to figure that part out. I had to learn to be more careful and play nice, and I'm the first to admit that my idea of careful and nice back then were not careful and nice.

I ran into a wall one year that disconnected my whole world, and everything felt like the rubble in the wake of the Nothing in Neverending Story. Several horrible years of rubble went by before I decided to give up and walk away. I was on the verge of deleting the very last of the rubble when Something Happened and shook me awake in seconds. From that moment I have intensely interrogated myself and studied how to get what I want.

I made a Plan and got back into the internet, learning to swim all over again, trying new ways of connecting. People are real, and I need people. I've spent most of my life so alone inside of myself. I have felt several times like if I didn't find a way to connect to my own humanity I would wilt and die inside. I cannot connect if I'm alone.

Part of my motivation was unclear at first. I had to keep reaching deeper and deeper inside myself, pulling out ripped up shreds of cast off emotions I never dealt with. My survival skills were a lot like the Walking Dead, shoot first and walk away, or just go another direction and disappear so no one can find me. I've done that both in real life and on internet. I am really good at knowing how to just go away. Part of my intense self questioning vomited up a very ugly self righteous gloater that didn't have a clue how to care about other people (my narcissism diagnosis, guys), an emotionally distant loner buried deep in obsessions (my autism diagnosis), a sad cynic who refused to believe happiness was nothing more than a lie invented by social structure controlling people (severe depression), a tiny child terrified of monsters and shadows and water and death (anxiety and dissociative disorders), and an overlord squeezing all of that together into a tightly controlled survival unit that blew apart after a string of viral illnesses affected my brain.

I watched everything about me fall apart as I raced time to keep dissecting, keep laying it all out in autopsy, keep looking for all the pieces I need to make all of this functional again, because without a coherent goal, 'I' simply have no meaning. My soul is a tattered shred on a crusty plain in a very long night. There is nothing else laying around inside myself that I am able to see that gives any part of me a tic mark in a box that doesn't say 'FAIL'.

Except to tell the stories.

There is redemption in honesty. I think that is inside all of us. Humanity is a story. We are all stories.

HEAR and attend and listen; for this befell and behappened and became and was, O my Best Beloved, when the Tame animals were wild. The Dog was wild, and the Horse was wild, and the Cow was wild, and the Sheep was wild, and the Pig was wild--as wild as wild could be--and they walked in the Wet Wild Woods by their wild lones. But the wildest of all the wild animals was the Cat. He walked by himself, and all places were alike to him.

That paragraph clicks back to source.

I need each of my people in each of their individual places. I can no longer slot people into categories like a tackle or embroidery box. Each person I connect to is unique to me and in their very own slot in my mind. Each slot has its own kind of personal reason we are connected, and I will never be able to go back to the traditional slotting of genders and roles and whatever else people get labeled with. Each and every person I've ever met seems to have grown into their own thing inside of me while I have taken myself apart, and as I put myself back together I can see now that the only way any of me goes all back together is by intersecting the connecting lines of other people with myself. I still feel all the same feelings about each person now that I did years (or days) ago when we last connected, and those feelings never change, even though I keep changing. Each person I have encountered has helped create who I am now, and I could never go forward as a soul being severed from that.

One of the things I've learned over time is that no one person can hold all my feelings. I am a wildly oscillating passion of obsessions with very little natural social intuition, so when my emotions, whatever they may be, blow up into roller coaster rides, the only way to survive them is to spread myself across as many friends as possible as quickly as I can before one unlucky person gets yanked into the roller coaster with me. I'm afraid I'm only just lately over the last few months becoming cognizant of this, so apologies to a few people who've been dragged in front of the bus with me, and especially one nobody really knows about who has actually been surviving that in real time.

I am part of what I now privately think of as a small tribe of emotional consorts. I can see now that the one person I needed and pulled into that crazy upside down fling needs to reach out and balance with others who need to know what's going on for the support system to work. I can be very selfish when I'm stuck in my tunnel vision, but to get what I need the most, I need that entire support system in place. I'm still getting used to this idea.

This is all new to me, but I think it's what I've been missing and needing all my life. I just never knew how to be part of a little group of close knit friends. It's exhilarating. And I think that's how it's supposed to be. It's not about rigid roles in labeled slots, and I don't think it ever has been. Psychological health in homo sapiens sapiens is about the connect/disconnect. Before there were societal norms, there were little groups interacting without labels, without rules about roles. Maybe aspienado kicking at the cart all these years was simply about persisting in my quest to find other brains that mine can fit with, without all the junk in the way. Like the first friend I faithfully wrote letters with 3 times a week for 4 years. She was popular and had lots of friends, and she was my only. She incorporated me, the others moved over, and I dismissed them a bit (I accepted and talked to each of them in school, just never thought of them as *my* friends), but maybe it's time to finish growing up. I run with a pack now, and we take turns stepping aside for each other. I got that a bit wrong on the medias, but I think I'm kind of getting it right now in the background. I sure hope so.

just enjoy the game

you get far enough down 'thanksgiving walking dead meme' in google search, you forget why you were even there

I got lost in that search last night before I caved and went to bed. I think I'd go to sleep faster with a brain chip letting me mindlessly cruise nonsense.

So last week today I was 203 pounds and super calm before surgery. Within 24 hours I'd zoomed up to 215 on IV fluids and whatever my body started hoarding because it must've thought I'd been attacked by ice picks and had a piece of me stolen slick as slick. That was a little alarming so I looked it up, guess it's common to do that with surgeries, basically just take good care of yourself and let the fluids sort themselves back out. Today I am down to 206, which is fantastic compared to some people in the med forums, and apparently means my kidneys are in great shape chugging it out, yay! And that is why you wanna take care of your kidneys, people.

Another thing I learned, since I'm not a surgery queen and usually stick to the more mundane whiny chronic stuff, is that an ileum is about the last thing to come out of the whole knocked out stupor, and everything trying to leave ahead of it is like the worst traffic pileup you ever saw. I wasn't given after care instructions on anything diet or digestive except start slow and eat what I want. By day 4 I was becoming an expert on looking all the things up, and after all the stuff I've read from every point of view imaginable, it really doesn't matter a hill of beans what you eat and you should always have a bottle of milk of magnesia on hand anyway. Softeners and hydrating didn't work at all, moving around more while slacking off on pain meds backfired into every conceivable regret, all the correct food in the world can't make a difference if it's at the back of the line, and probably the only thing I'll do next time I have surgery is stick to clear fluids the last 12 hours or something. At any rate, we're all very happy now. If you've got a friend or family member going through surgery and don't know what to do for them, trust me, a bottle of milk of magnesia is pretty wonderful and will make you the hero.

And then of course, I just started typing in whatever question popped into my head into the search bar. How long do my incisions hurt after gallbladder surgery? Hundreds, maybe even thousands of people had asked the same thing. Some people hurt for weeks when they sneeze or move wrong or sit too long, so grain of salt, I'm keeping in mind that I got stabbed by ice picks and there are lots of little nerve endings in skin and the tissues underneath because being able to feel stabs kept our ancestors alive longer and they probably fought back, ducked and dodged, or ran for cover while I was knocked unconscious and purposely stabbed under some big lights. That stab memory will probably always be there locked in the tissues now, and it'll just become part of my overall nerve pain disorder if it becomes bothersome. Other people yapping about weeks later sneezing took a big load off my mind. It's easy to imagine the worst when someone else pokes a hole in you.

And I got to thinking, it's funny that people will let their gallbladders go defcon and become emergencies while they ignore them, but then fret over ever little sensation while they heal after surgery. Humans are weird.

Bottom line, if you're not taking good care of yourself before the surgeries start rolling in, don't expect to heal on demand kind of thing. And the opposite is true, too, ran into a lot of people getting back to their workouts too quickly and winding up back in surgeries to fix rips in what wasn't done healing yet. Y'all need to chill. Just because you think your body should such and such in your mind doesn't mean you're the boss of reality. Just because people are going back to work in 3 days or a week doesn't mean everything super healed super fast and you're a chump because you can't live up to a rumor standard. As far as I can tell, it all sucks, we all suffer, and it all takes time.

When I was in ER earlier this year, hanging out for a few hours in the waiting room, there was a guy dripping blood down his arm who had managed to elude everyone and went straight to the public coffee cart. I was mind numb with pain in a wheelchair after an ambulance ride, still waiting to get triaged, everyone around me pulling back from this guy and I'm parked right there. I just smiled and said You need to keep pressure on that. I mean, crazy or not, I'm probably crazier, so who cares. He got bashful trying to cover the blood dripping and getting coffee at the same time, evidently priorities are a problem in his brain, and he said he pulled his IV out. I laughed and said It's not like TV is it? I did that once, ripped it out in a bathroom, blood everywhere like the zombie apocalypse. And then everyone around us started relaxing and people finally found the guy and got him to the police desk to get his arm bandaged, and someone else cleaned up. I cleaned in hospital one year, I had no problem with that blood. I am OSHA trained and cleaned stat contagion many times all over the hospital. I was also the only one who talked to that man like a human being. The rest was just funny to me, but I thought that part was sad.

Around Thanksgiving, Americans make big deals about going to homeless shelters and feeding people. There were plenty of people in need around me in that hospital waiting room. One woman was clearly homeless but very organized. She had a travel case with wheels and a couple old pillows tucked into the pull out handle. Everything she needed was in that bag, including a book. I take a bug out bag with me nearly everywhere I go, too. I feel safer when I have all my little comforts with me if I wind up stuck some place waiting for something, like having my car worked on. When pre-triage came out to get her vitals, she clearly stated she was there because it hurt to pee, and apparently knew how to get help about it, was probably the best behaved person in the whole waiting room because she knew how to stay out of trouble. Conveniently, it was also better than being outside in the cold. I'm sure she knows every public area open through the night all over town. On my own really bad days when I can't stand being alone, I take my bug out bag and go hang out at the library or the hospital, some place big where I can move around a bit and still have facilities and people around me. I used to hang out at the airport when I was younger. I don't think I'm alone doing that. I think a lot of people hang out all over town like that. Some people go shopping and don't realize they're using the excuse to be doing something when they really just want to not be alone. When I retailed, there were customers who knew the store better than we did.

If you don't know what to do with yourself or your life and you want to be helpful, go hang out at a hospital on a holiday. Just move around from one waiting area to another, check out the coffee shops and gift shops, notice the families camping out around births and deaths and horrible accidents and cancers and stuff. And then go check out the opportunities board and ask about volunteer positions. Volunteers are awesome in big buildings. They train you to help move patients in wheelchairs after check in, or answer questions at a desk, or other stuff. A lot of places have volunteer programs. You don't have to just do it on holidays and twiddle your thumbs the rest of the year.

This meme cracks me up because I saw someone actually do this on a minecraft server, just purposely dump a lot of leveled up diamond armor and weapons into a deep ocean after a bad day. Sometimes you let go of the material stuff and just enjoy the game.

click for diamond memes

I've got Bunny tomorrow while her mama works, and Papa's work is having an employee cookout, so I think me and Bunny are going to try making shortbread cookies. I'm stuck with gluten free flour and no xantham gum, and it hit me that shortbread might be the ticket. There are no eggs or leavening, just 3 basic ingredients, and from there I can add gingerbread spices or melt chocolate chips into butter or whatever, and we can do cut outs and colored pinwheels, and I also found a shortbread spritz, so we can get the cookie press out, too. I haven't had a real cookie day from scratch in a long time, and I think tomorrow will be a really good day for that.

I've also been getting my own Turkey Day menu assembled, getting that cooked up today so I'll be out of the way tomorrow. I'm making cornish hens with homemade herbed biscuit and cornbread stuffing (yes, all gluten free, super allergic to wheat), a mashed tato and steamed broccoli. I'm going to record Macy's parade on Thursday in case Bunny misses the balloons, because she's high energy and will probably be too excited to be that patient. I stopped my pain pills so I could save one for tomorrow and one for Turkey Day, so today I'm having a little bit of a withdrawal headache, but I'll be ok. Me and opioids probably go back through several lifetimes, I'm pure addict on those, and have mentioned my love for vicoden in the past outweighing my love for anything and anybody else. If you know someone who has quit drinking or doing drugs/meds over the holidays, please be kind and gentle with them. They won't be feeling well because it's a real bitch dealing through that thick haze of suck, and it takes awhile to get through it. I still crave every single day and it's been at least 25 years since I quite drinking and smoking, plus here I am back on an opioid for surgery and doing low dose xanax this year staying mood stable (I check in regularly with both psychologist and psychiatrist). Holidays are very stressful. If you're stressed out, then you know the person in withdrawal is very stressed out, too. Not the best time to talk politics and religion. If you can't just enjoy your family over a nice meal, maybe make other plans that are healthier for your mental and emotional function.

Sorry so wordy, this might be my last chance to hang out on Pinky blog for awhile. Not sure how the rest of the week is going to go.

Love you guys. All my people. You know who you are. 💕

'Murican conspiracy turkeys

There's a room I keep in my head where it's always this. No matter what else is going on in real life, this is tucked away from the first time I heard it many years ago, and every time I play it back in my head I think about all the people I've met (both online and real life) and how glad I am I got to know them.


I'm the sort of person who took a very long time to figure out I actually had friends whether I realized it or not, and I usually didn't because I'm such an aspienado pinhead. I spent years autopsying every relationship I went through until I finally started noticing that I'm the dork who takes dolls apart and sets them on fire. If you translate this to people, I do it while they're still alive and trying to be friends with me. I'm sure it's been a little odd at times.


The comments on that vid are delightful, btw.

• I'm pretty sure this is how they greet you in Hell.
• This is the one song that will be burned into my mind until the day I die.
• I love this, subtly alluding to the children being lured to their planned deaths.
• I remember the first time I saw this movie I laughed like a madman at this part and my mom was so concerned
• 1:03 a reference to laughing in ''I am the walrus''
• Is it me or do the instrumentals for this song sound similar to the Silver Shamrock song from Halloween 3? They're by no means identical but for some reason that's where my mind went during this scene. -Me too.

Anyway, I'm coming off a week of coasting through brain fragments on happy pills, and I can't help noticing how much I deeply care about all my people lately. I struggled for years, some of you saw that happening on twitter and this blog, and it's like this year my junk finally settled into place and now I kinda get it all now. I get me. I get that I'm a roller coaster slinging around other people's heads and I'm the one who looks blurry, not you guys.

Context relies on experience over time. I have 5 years under my belt now, my glitchy head is getting more reliable, I'm remembering better who everyone is and where they're from and what their situations are, and most of all, I'm managing to organize this info into my memory closet in real time nowadays. I have these friends here, those friends there, we like to do this and that, and it makes a nice little spreadsheet of activities I can look forward to each week. So much of that was a mixed up blur for so long, even at the beginning of this very year I could still barely keep names and locations straight, much less other kinds of stuff that makes hanging out better. I remember when I thought Penny was another child, kind of a private joke going back a bit. But yeah, it's like years ago asking people in real life at work or down the street about something they said and they look at me weird because they didn't realize they left me dangling assuming I understood, when my brain was naturally concocting more interesting stories about their lives behind their backs just to fill in missing info. One person was shocked when I asked whether her daughter was her husband's daughter too, or someone else's. I get very hung up on pronouns and names not being used interchangeably to denote shared relationships because hey, autism, so little things kinda made me the weird friend people wound up tiptoeing away from eventually. I have no problem accepting that everyone's got some level of hash slinging slasher in their past, so it's up to you guys to make sure I'm not running off perpetuating myths of some kind.


Well, ok, except for Mike Bilinski. He might really be some kind of *cough* interesting *cough* or something, so always keep your spatula handy.


Now that I've explained myself, I feel more comfortable asking these questions about some of my sketchier friends-

• Does Kurt keep *ahem* guests tied to, wait, I mean locked in, no wait, I mean on an extended visit plan, yeah that's it.
• Is Phil one of those retired dudes who runs a barside pool party? Because I wanna be where he is.
• I'm kinda getting the feeling Jinni knows where all the good dumpsters are for body emergencies, and always packing cute little cookies and a thermos in case the nights get long.
• I find it comforting that Lisa could be part of the mass brain training entertainment wave before aliens really do take over and recreate our society without a Vermont. Except I'll miss Cabot seriously sharp cheddar cheese. I wonder if she knows Benedict Cumberbatch. Pretty sure he's one of them.
• Are Chris and Tammy siblings? Cousins? Secret agents spying on us?
• Is Cindy in league with the Martians??? 😲

So in a few days it's a huge holiday in the U.S. and nearly everyone will be busy or comatose on the feasting, so before y'all hit the highways, I just wanna say be safe. This has been a challenging and sad year for a few of us already, so pleasepleaseplease stay safe. 💟💖💗 Especially you fun grillmeisters trying out turkey frying equipment for the first time. Show me some purty turkeys on facebook, not big lumpy bandages or something. Get those turkeys thawing! Do NOT toss a frozen bird into a deep fryer!!!! Yes, I feel like I have to say that. This year has been a little too ripe for facepalm. 🦃

day 4

Crazy weekend smashing junk around but I think we're making it. I seem to be past the worst of pain med withdrawal, got a little unreal for awhile earlier today. I can't express enough how serious a problem that is for people like me who spend like 2 chronic spoonie decades surviving med addictions and withdrawals, especially after meds have impacted organs. My liver has been the star of my medical history for about 15 years, more notations have been made on it than anything else in my body, and I'm not even a drinker.

I planned the tree getting set up this weekend way ahead of time, so I got that on track this morning when I was able and Papa was awesome with Bunny getting it up. It's the old easy tree, prelit and only 3 pieces to put together, and Bunny is big enough to do the decorating herself now. We can keep adding colorful candy canes and tinsel as we get closer to Santa. We've come a long way from the winter an undecorated tree sat there for several weeks through the entire holiday while Bunny's mama was in another hospital across the state for complications, same surgery I just had. That was 11 years ago.

I think Bunny just had her 3rd basketball game this weekend. Heard she tackled a little boy to keep him from getting the ball, lol. 😁 Has made a few baskets here and there, so she's getting the hang of it.

I'm barely aware of time flow, being so medicated, but ran across a couple of difficulties others are having. Brianne's family lost their home and everything they had this week to a fire while they were out of town. If readers know her from the #Snarkalecs or other groups on twitter and facebook and are wondering what to do for a holiday charity, there you go right there. I don't know if she'll be available for DMs like where to send gift cards, and I'm still waiting on a link for a fund page, but don't let me being goofy on meds after surgery stop you from being awesome, ok? And if I get more info I'll come back and link it here. Ok, here is the fund page. I've known Brianne for several years, huge Stargate fan, loves teaching, had the coolest Stargate wedding on live facebook and her kids were part of it, thought it was pretty special that she included her media friends in that. She's a bright light in this world, so like I said, if you're looking for a charity, she's needing our help right now. 💕

I'm still floaty but I think I can hang in there for #latenightmovie tonight in the chat room at SyfyDesigns with @LNMGang around 11ish pm eastern time. 🍿

checking in, day 3 after

I'm about 1/3 of the way through the book I'm reading for review, third day out from surgery. Keep conking over today, lotta sleep going on. Feels really good. And so far so good on healing. No fever, no problems with incisions, little bit of pain from the hole punches but not enough to keep taking the pain pills on a tight schedule. Was able to start light chores, dishes and laundry getting back on track already.

All week has been a little bit gray out, nice autumn look out the window, but stepping out feels a little warm and muggy.

Got pathology back today- "Upon opening the gallbladder was found to contain greater than 30 yellow green multifaceted calculi measuring up to 0.5 cm in greatest dimension. The gallbladder wall measures 0.2 cm in thickness. The lining of the gallbladder shows intact mucosa. Numerous calculi are present within the cystic duct." Other liver condition and history is noted elsewhere, but this should definitely help.

And here I go again, about to tip over and conk out for another hour. But everything's still good. 💟

turkey fam

Things going on this week.

On twitter-

My twitter family tree- Part 1 via Twitter Family game
Love my mama and papa! @DxDerailed @kurtzellner
Mama Deb is my go-to fandom nerd for #DirkGently and Dieter Laser
Papa Kurt gets after me all the time in #latenightmove @LNMgang movie chat at SyfyDesigns.com
You and me, babe @dawnsnarks 😆

My twitter family tree- Part 2 via Twitter Family game
So proud of my kids! @SesameSquirrel and @TScottBrave
My kid Seseme is my fave squirrel source linker and so much more
My kid Scott is my bug and spider expert and hopefully future reference checker on a side project

Also this thread about autism is awesome. Next snip clicks directly to that part of the convo.

On facebook-

In my G+ Lexx community hangout-

I prioritized my work schedule, AJ found out "May" is a college professor now, and Sanguinessa is starting on part 4 of a continuing Tales from a Parallel Universe fanfic series that I've promised to read and review.

I passed the 48 hour mark after surgery today with flying colors, incisions look great, no fever, was even able to skip the pain pill for 15 hours which was awesome because high dose opioids put your digestive system to sleep and I needed mine to wake up. 😋

click for article on wild turkeys

I have come up with a Thanksgiving plan. Our holiday is kinda blown apart with way too much happening around here, but I think this will work ok. I'm going to cook my personal Turkey food a day ahead and then have the kitchen cleaned up and I'm out of the way for Twink to help Granny get a bunch of cooking done with my stove. I'll get up early, as usual, and make hot chocolate on the stove like I do every year, and then I'm going to camp out on my bed with Jawn and hang out on Mo Creatures while I watch Macy's parade on the TV in my bedroom, and Bunny can hang out with me if mama needs her out of her hair. I'm sure I'll be popping on and off the internet randomly as the chaos rolls out, but I do want to hang out online through the day. Hopefully that will work out well.

gotta see your face some more

*floating*

My first opioid since the 5 mg shot of morphine in ER last year that sent me straight into PAWS hell. Post surgery medication this time sent me super floating straight into euphoria. I. love. EVERYONE. And now that I've been intro'd to high dose vicoprofen, I'm already planning strategy getting back off it before I abruptly run out. Can't break them in half because enteric coating, so trying to stretch them out longer in between. So far handling nearly 6 hours between doses now. I know they want my pain well controlled but I started with only 20 pills every 4 hours and that drop off is going to be pretty evil.

And my dreams are wildly unreal. Everything disconnected the first night, literally watching myself doing cartoon dishes in a cartoon house, everything in my dream was animated and blinking back and forth between minecraft. Cartoon, blocks, cartoon, blocks, I finally just got up for awhile. When I went back to bed I started having memory dreams from being under anesthesia, like when my airway was put in. Felt my teeth clonk, abruptly woke up. It was fake. Felt a knuckle bump on the top of my head and abruptly woke up. It was fake. Kept falling back to sleep and abruptly waking up as I relived some of the prep before the really deeper going under, so just staying up nearly all night was easier. Couldn't really function, so just played on facebook. Sorry if I flooded your feeds with super share, lol.

The really cool thing was pre-op before anesthesia. For the first time in my life I had absolutely no anxiety at all in a medical setting. I don't know if I finally just reached a state of too tired and didn't care or what, but nothing at all bothered me or stressed me out. I knew I'd be knocked out soon and was looking forward to it, answered questions over and over again like a string pulled doll. I managed to do the smile and eye contact thing, everything went smooth with interaction, yay.

Pre-op was sad for the people around me though. A much older guy on my right was there for lots of lymph removal around his face and neck, would be a long surgery, and he rattled everything he knew about American presidential history, all the places of historical significance he'd traveled. Heard quite a lot about Andrew Jackson before someone asked him if family members were there to drive him home, then he stopped and there was a sad no. Was anyone out there for him? His pastor... Did he not have family living nearby? A son and a daughter, and neither one made the time to be there with him. He's obviously end of life in a high risk surgery and his own kids weren't there. He stopped talking after that.

An older woman on my left just quietly cried. Not quite sobbing, but nonstop quiet crying. She was asked if she'd like family to come sit with her, said no. Was anyone out there for her? Yes, her mother and her daughter. Was she sure she didn't want anyone? She answered with a very miserable sounding quiet no. I guess the relationships were better held at a distance. She wound up having a very horrible surgery involving vulva repair after leg loss, and we wound up in recovery beside each other. She was right, both her mother and daughter were emotionally distant. At least they were there, though. She got a call from her husband on dialysis during recovery, and she asked how much he'd been drinking before dialysis, sounded like he made it to fourth in a bottle of fifth and it wasn't even noon. She got after him, hung up, rolled on her side facing me and shut her eyes, didn't talk to anyone. At least he called, and at least they were there.

Through all this I reflected on my own life. I have family who loves me. We're not perfect and quite a lot of our backgrounds are highly dysfunctional, be we love. each. other. We are there for each other every day, we talk and say I love you every day, we care about each other having sucky days. And I felt fine in pre and post op knowing I was loved and I loved my people. I was truly at peace.

It's really nice to reach a place in aging life where you realize you don't have any sadness left in you about relationships. I've reached out, done what I can to heal with my loved ones, let go of the rest. Every day I do my best to reach out to someone, be there for someone. I don't always feel reciprocated, but I know those are my own brain chemicals, not theirs. I know all I have to do is say "I need help" or "please help me" and they'll be right there. If I feel blown off, I don't sit and sulk like I used to when I was younger. I ask the TV to be paused and I start talking. We talk until I either get tired of my own voice or feel like I said what I need to say. No one yells at me, and I know my own tension is a burden so I try to reign it in. I don't put head games on my people because I know I'm the one with the personality problems from my mental health diagnoses, and I do my best to communicate clearly, effectively, and succinctly. I need you, I love you, thank you.

And then realizing all the changes I've been working on also helped-

• I changed my diet in 2011 and started healing my diabetes damage
• I started physical therapy in 2011 and worked on better mobility and endurance
• I have been working with a psychologist on depression since 2007
• CPAP has been wonderful helping me get my brain problems under better control as I'm learning to sleep properly
• Being on gabapentin has helped so much with the nerve pain that my anxiety levels have gone down in general
• Being able to see success in what I'm doing through stats gives me goals, something to work on, so I feel productive. I hadn't looked at stats on wordpress in a long time, so when I got a real question asking for help yesterday with a real problem, I got to work focusing on helping someone instead of whining about myself after surgery. And then I looked up my stats and was blown away. Aspienado is my most viewed wordpress blog. I don't like using wordpress and rarely check stats, and Aspienado is a work blog for my first book and mostly private. But what is available to read gets found, from all over the world.
• I also spent much of today downloading and reading a new book that I'm writing a review on, and I want to do a good job because I know it'll be seen over time by thousands, including a handful of directors, producers, actors, and a worldwide fandom. It's important to feel successful doing real work, and opioids through pain have made it really easy over the last 24 hours to focus on work. This is how it was for years, opioids and pain. I remember feeling good about being a difference to someone even with so much pain. Lately I've diverted into genuinely enjoying playing and being creative on a game server with a family of very diverse people, some with their own physical and mental/emotional challenges, but it felt really good getting back into writing over this last 24 hours. I'm glad I have built all that up to fall back on. I've come from hermit to twitter gang to facebook groups to #clanfam. I have a large network of people who care if I show up, and I love seeing them online, as well. I even got a phone call today and was elated. Barry is glitchy, too, like me, and we're both working on reconstructing how our friendship started. Imagine years of memories just falling right out of your head. We both know what that's like.
• And most of all on my list of how I've come to be at peace is my joy. I was depressed for so many years, at times quite severely, and I hung on so hard. Bunny's little face very day is my joy, and I'm glad I'm still here every time I see her. She's my baby's baby, my pet kid, my challenge, sometimes my boss, lol. It's very fulfilling when a little kid genuinely loves you. I guess I was needing that.

Through all these things I've been learning how to balance my natural innate negativity through embracing publicity, challenging my baditudes and praying to be good for other people. I have prayed for 2 things for myself through the years. Usually prayers are for other people or all of us or something, but 2 very definite things I have prayed for myself.

• Years ago during my worst illness and growing ugliness (hair loss, weight gain, attitude affected by meds and pain), I cried and told God if I must lose everything else, at least let Scott come home happy to see my face. I looked pretty rough for a few years, and I had to stop fixing my hair and wearing makeup. I couldn't afford nice clothes with all the money going out for medical, and we went bankrupt before I wound up with full disability. I was so depressed. God, please let Scott be happy to see my face, because I don't know how he can stand to even look at me. Well, my hair still hasn't gone gray and I barely have a wrinkle on my whole face and I'm 56. I've been told that being on estrogen therapy for 20 years can do that, but was also told I'd start aging very quickly after getting off those in 2012. Not really holding my breath resisting, still can't wear makeup, but I've been able to grow my hair back out and Scott and I laugh together about something every day. I'm glad to see his face because he's my best friend, and I guess and hope he's still glad to see mine, even when I still have bad days and get very cranky with him, and he doesn't deserve it. My brain is my enemy on those days, not him.
• I also reached a point where I prayed for healing. I was raised stoicly believing that to pray for one's own anything was vain, so I've never really prayed for my own well being. We are all here to learn through our suffering, right? Well, after some deep thought just before I met my latest doctor in 2011, just before Christmas of 2010, I prayed for healing. I had come through some very hard years of months and months of back to back viral illnesses on top of severe nearly unlivable nerve disorder pain, and I was reaching a point where I wasn't sure I could keep hanging on out of spiritual duty. I was breaking inside and could no longer hide it. I reasoned for a few days that if I really do pray for healing, I mustn't be stupid about it. God doesn't work miracles for us to toss it back. If I commit to that prayer, then I commit to true healing with everything possible I can do to help take care of myself. I wouldn't get better to be stupid about it and ruin my health again. One day I was ready and I prayed. The next day the holes in my pierced ears had both closed up. They had never done that in 20 years. I immediately decided it would be blasphemous to get them repierced and gave all my earrings away. From then on has all been positive progress. It has been long and hard, but I wound up with the best possible primary care doctor, got diagnosed immediately and fast tracked so the right specialists and physical therapy. Years of doctors before him were just struggles with very addicting medications and the long slow descent into the hell of premature aging, without hope.

So laying there in pre-op, I knew I am ready now. I've done what I've apparently set out to do in this life coming to this earth, and I felt at peace. I've learned how to heal relationships, how to take much better care of myself, how to network with other real people with success and hope in mind for all of us. And I want to continue that. I know I'll have brain crash days and be very mixed up and brain chemical spills splashing on others, and I hope they can keep forgiving me. I'm facing a future of dementia as I age, and since brain problems run in my family, I've accepted the idea that I need to keep brain training now while I can to be good for people before I lose more control of this wonderful machine I live in.

This is very long and right now my brain is tired. I've made it through nearly 24 hours of fairly high dose opioids and enjoyed it immensely, but soon I let it go again. Addiction is a bitch, protracted withdrawal will make me mean again, and I wanted to write these feelings out before I forget I had them.

goin nowhere in slo-mo

Part of the big lead up to surgery is covering all the bases so there won't be any medical mistakes or accidents. I'd love to go into it blissfully ignorant and trust that things will all work out fine, but of course I have just enough experience to know how those stats really work and not quite enough access to my own records (notes of interest) and medical knowledge (search engines and acing medical terminology and nursing school go only so far) to wring any confidence into my head. I'm extremely grateful I got such a good critical care nurse calling me for preregistration or I'd probably have backed out by now. I could tell that person had seen it all and knew every detail mattered for every possible fail rescue.

The propofol from a test last week screwed my brain rhythm, so I've been shunting through extreme depression and worse mood swings. Can't wait for general anesthesia to add to that. Plus the preregistration questions about chest pain and family history of everything cardiac and brain fail prompted responses as me being already there with the pain/fail stuff since spoonie nerve probs, pretty much whatever statistical outcome for more serious chest pain and brain fail during recovery might not even be noticed. I live with fibro of the chest wall and on meds to help control Lhermitte's sign level pain, so just saying 'chest pain' is pretty complicated. I won't even go into the brain part again.

 

And of course I'll be asking a nurse tomorrow to get a note to the surgeon to please consider a different pain med than he's used to scripting and then having to deal with protracted withdrawal all over again on top of recovery. While my support system at home keeps zooming around full blast over-planning, the main question is how quickly will I be able to be left alone again. Um... I just asked my husband to make sure I don't do anything stupid and not to assume I'm ok. I'm pretty sure my depression will be more severe for a few days with my brain coils all tangled up again.

I'm very much looking forward to this particular pain being over after surgery/recovery. I'm also very much looking forward to holidays. But I've already been through the kind of fail that kept me from driving for 4 months or being able to read or watch TV for a couple of years. I sincerely hope I'll be touching base as usual as soon as possible, but it may or may not be a few days. I don't know yet.

I don't have any contingency plans in place, so if I'm one of those weird statistical fails, oh well. The only things I've done for real are getting laundry and dishes caught up and the bathrooms cleaned, and untrusting everyone on my game server claims. Don't want to come back to my stuff pillaged if I can't log on for a week or something. j/k #clanfam Hopefully, though, I can log on and play through recovery for distraction.

Apologies for my rough week. A few people got caught in a bit of brain flux.

I'm dreaming of a Pinky Christmas

Looking up stuff like 'vintage pastel Christmas' for rotating wallpapers on Jawn.

click for a really pretty dessert table idea

I had saved ornaments just like these from my childhood and they all broke one year when the tree fell over. Oh, well.

click for a really nice collection of pinterest pix

It's taken a few years to get my holiday mood back on proper, and this year it's all good. I guess having a kiddo in the house is really good for me. I'm actually enjoying the idea of 'holiday season'. We had this next set when I was growing up, too, and they were probably vintage before I was ever out of high school. They'd be super vintage by now.

click to get to vendor description

I guess we can see where my 'pink Christmas' interest comes from. Pinky may have started further back than I realized.

1600

Let's see, what have I been doing this week... I've passed 1600 hours on server. You guys coming in on mobile don't see my gamer banner.

I fixed up my MS solitaire with a minecraft mesa background at sunset and a floating autumn leaves screensaver to look like a desolate planet with falling embers while I play. I find it soothing.

Just finished #latenightmovie with the gang.

I found myself content curated into a page on nerf gun sales.

I haven't been on twitter much, but still checking in.

Main thing is we're not dropping too many eggs or chainsaws around here, although we are extra very tired this week. Bunny's mama is taking on extra shifts at hospital, my surgery has been scheduled for Tuesday, and mostly I'm just getting my house in order and my player shop stocked for down time. And naturally, while we're so busy, deer are practically walking up and knocking on the door during deer season. Bunny says Papa can't shoot one.

I think I'll be taking a nap tomorrow.