So I've got evidence that Pinky blog is being mirror accounted in at least one other country, lol. 😂😁 Whatever floats your goat guys. I know curating isn't enough, right. Just slap copies up and go to town with it and stuff. Right now it's more important that some of my words just get spread anyway, so I'm not too bothered. It could all end with dirty nukes and grids going down and who knows, some of my Pinky wisdom might live on somewhere.
Meanwhile, two of us came home with broccoli this week and now I'm working on gastric stack overflow. Today's menu includes a cheesy rice pilaf full of mashed up broccoli, with a slight hint of onion. I use several kinds of cheese so it's super yum. If I had leftover bacon I'd throw that in, too. One time I did that and stirred bits of cream cheese in, that was heavenly.
I just did a thorough research on Edward Lear because The Owl and the Pussycat crossed my mind awhile ago. Of course, that'll never show up on a social media scoring system. Klout keeps insisting that I'm a Stephen King expert for some reason. Confession- I'm well read and I've never opened a single Stephen King book in my life and rarely watch related movies or television show episodes that he's somehow involved with. I've watched Under the Dome, but other than that, I very rarely stop to check out anything his name is on. A few friends of mine are die hard Stephen King fans, so I'm very well aware of his remarkable history. I did see Lawnmower Man but apparently all he gets credit for is the title, lol. And I guess this is odd because anyone who gets to know me eventually compares me to Stephen King for some reason. I'd like to turn that back to Edward Lear, but since I don't often share my prolific penchant for limerick (the majority wind up incredibly yet tastefully naughty for some reason, and I'd rather not become known for that), no one ever says I'm the next Edward Lear. That sort of makes me sad.
From Runcible-Wikipedia- "In Neal Stephenson's 1995 novel The Diamond Age, Runcible is a code name for the Young Lady's Illustrated Primer, an educational computer."
From The Diamond Age-Wikipedia- "Society in The Diamond Age is dominated by a number of phyles, also sometimes called tribes. Phyles are groups of people often distinguished by shared values, similar ethnic heritage, a common religion, or other cultural similarities. In the extremely globalized future depicted in the novel, these cultural divisions have largely supplanted the system of nation-states that divides the world today. Cities in The Diamond Age appear divided into sovereign enclaves affiliated or belonging to different phyles within a single metropolis. Most phyles depicted in the novel have a global scope of sovereignty, and maintain segregated enclaves in or near many cities throughout the world."
You might call that prophetic, since that is a bit depictive of what the U.N. has drawn up in their Agenda 21, but perhaps it's merely an idea that has been intended for a much longer amount of time than we think, since Agenda 21 was heavily discussed and officially drafted several years previously. It would appear a work of fiction materialized after an agenda arose, so one could suppose this particular fiction might be a function of intention. I often look up whether an author's idea came before some kind of official documentation of something. It's interesting how often fiction actually comes after fact and barely anyone notices. Another book by the same author titled Cryptonomicon carries in its description "With this extraordinary first volume in what promises to be an epoch-making masterpiece, Neal Stephenson hacks into the secret histories of nations and the private obsessions of men, decrypting with dazzling virtuosity the forces that shaped this century." Really? He published after Agenda 21 was drawn up. It's not that big a leap to carry that into fiction. Actually, he seems a bit obsessed with the same kind of conspiracy around Nazi code that many still do nowadays, but now we know more and it's not that cryptic once you stick a toe into the weird stuff. It's been all around us this whole time, but as long as our minds are trained onto fictionalized television, we continue to believe our lives and even the world are spectacularly mundane.
Interestingly, diamonds are the top commodity in Minecraft, one of the most popular digital games in the world where players learn to co-op and create sustainable lifestyles against a number of challenges. I hint of the cultural crossing over in my article Atlantis.
Anyway, my point comes back around to Stephen King possibly already writing what was put into his mind by others in the first place. The monarch cinched it for me. Whether King wrote the actual predictive programming or not is irreparably smeared for me now. He may not be a genius so much as just another person fast tracked into success by a group using him as a tool. He is well known for being a self confessed blackout writer, which some blame on trauma or alchohol, but is also explainable with programmed alters, like pop stars today are unabashedly revealing. Basically, he was the Lady Gaga of the book world long before 'dark' became mainstream.
First of all, the in-blog Rick Lagina searches across several states from that last post was like watching lurkers come out of the woodwork. Some of you were already IN Pinky blog and just came alive like I announced I'd hidden Easter eggs. I was honestly not even expecting that. I cannot say clearly enough- "Rick, GET A BLOG. And I'm not your secretary."
Well, @bonenado is, too, so there you go, really cool busy guys are off doing cool things being busy.
Second of all, you hafta admit he's hawter than Benedict Cumberbatch playing Doctor Strange, and I'm the only person in internet history that has combined these two gentleman into one search history, so no wonder y'all hang around here waiting for moar. If I were more considerate I'd do this more often, but I'd rather be playing on Mo Creatures, so... Sorrynotsorry.
See, I totes get that this is important. I know you guys all over the world are suffering and working really hard to find any new info you can about this awesome guy doing really cool stuff that no one's ever done before in our entire world history, right? But you know what? I actually have a friend in Michigan and other friends around Nova Scotia who've never even brought the guy up, so it's not like I have a standby fan crew ready to go out on fact finding missions like the Cumber Collective has. I'm afraid this is the closest you're going to get to seeing Rick Lagina naked.
I've made the horrible confession before that I'm behind in the series. Bad fan! BAD!! If you are behind like me, you can catch up by clicking on this next pic. You can see way more Rick Lagina there than you can here.
And of course, you can go to History's official youtube channel and watch it there, too. 😊You're welcome. (In case this playlist doesn't show up 3rd party on your device, you can see it here.)
Disclaimer- I'm not connected in any way to the History Channel or the Lagina brothers. I'm not paid to link anything and I don't speak for anyone. I'm just a fan being silly, and I really do love the show. I have every single one saved on my DVR. Also, I think it's hilarious how hard Pinky blog gets hit by other fans every time I even whisper "Rick Lagina". I really don't know what else to do for you guys, but I do feel your pain. 💗
This week is hard, but I'm getting those shoes on.
I've apparently missed another big day here over the weekend, over 500 visits pretty much all at the same time from the same referral. Whatever is going on out there, yay! and always remember where your towel is, ok?
We had a big Bunny sleepover wherein I was up past midnight Saturday and then back up around 4 a.m. on Sunday, and good thing because she was back up before 6, and the entire visit was high gear high energy high speed ADHD. And then she went home to her mama and still zoomed circles around her. And hopefully this isn't connected, but last night she zoomed into a 102 temp and now she's got a tummy bug other people in her family had previously. So if I've been exposed, I'm hoping I get a big brain and energy boost from the viral invasion like she did before the croaking off part hits. *joking*
I actually dragged through pretty well, maybe the CPAP is helping. By the time she left here, I had all the dishes AND laundry ~caught up~. That's right, *caught* *up*. That's never happened before. Plus I was still able to hang out with her a little bit and cook and stuff, and that on 4 hours of sleep. But it was CPAP sleep. Keeping that OSAT above the 78 percents is a good thing. I still feel like I'm dragging, and here I am doing all this stuff.
By the way, @bonenado says working in clay and sand all day smelting into clay brick and glass blocks is NOT working (I keep that going in between doing stuff around the house), and I said It is if I write a post about it. So I hope to get a Mo Creatures post out later. I'll insert a cameo feature of another player that I thought was cool.
Since I've seen the Doctor Strange movie twice now, which, by the way, is a fantastically well done preamble to how he fits into the Marvel universe, I've been thinking a bit about arrogance. The focus in the story is that Stephen Strange is one of those 'beautiful brain' people with an eidetic memory, which made him the successful neurosurgeon he became. I think the audience might assume that because he's successful, he became arrogant, and that certainly seems the case as he is discussing which case to take next to keep his unblemished record going in his career. Because of this 'arrogance', he winds up wrecking his car and his life. BUT. That arrogance is what also winds up making him capable of saving the world, since he is able to look the biggest baddie right in the face without hesitation (and seemingly very little fear), and it took that kind of arrogance to be able to handle that situation.
I grew up outside of neurotypical norm, and I tend to notice the 'arrogant' people. They are my people. I love showing off when I'm right about something, or when I do something cool, and yes, I can come across myself as a very arrogant person. But I'd like to take a closer look.
When we have Bunny sleepovers, we feel a bit swooped over with tiny child activity, but one of my favorite things is when she wants to show us what she can do. Bunny is 3 1/2 and can do lots of stuff now, and she loves showing us what she learned in 'gynnasics' and how fast she can go or what she knows about drawing and TV shows and our phones... lol. She's a smart kid.
When I was a little girl, when I wanted to show visitors what I could do, I was told not to 'show off'. I was expected to be 'good' and 'behave'. I was so bad at interrupting conversations and doing things that wound up with me getting hurt that my parents had to really grind into me how important it is to be quiet and let other people do the talking while I behave quietly on the sidelines. These were not pleasant discussions.
I very quietly grew into a very smart and extremely arrogant person, quietly appointing those all around me as 'stupid' and 'slow'. Because I didn't grow up learning how to interact appropriately, I am still learning decades later how to interact appropriately. I'm about to say something really important.
Aren't kids supposed to show you what they can do? They're learning. Demonstrating and getting vital feedback are important and seem to be naturally built into little kids. Is arrogance born out of breaking this natural cycle?
If Stephen Strange was the typical neuroatypical, this likely started in early childhood. He was a little more than the people around him were able to juggle, and instead of embracing his natural skills and abilities, they fenced it off into behavioral problems. That alone stimulates atypical kids to try even harder to get positive attention somehow, and a lot of us wind up in academics. Stephen Strange is a great example (a bit exaggerated, yes) of how a different kind of mind can learn to channel itself into positive outcome.
Part of the Stephen Strange character set up is that he took an oath as a doctor, and he doesn't hesitate to try upholding that oath even if it costs him his life. I know a lot of people who are like that. They are really good at something, they step up into those roles, and they put their lives into thriving at what they do. A lot of those people, incidentally, are neuroatypical.
Still kind of holding my breath, but I think we actually skipped winter this year.
Ok, what's going on with Pinky? What a very long week I've had.
March is my favorite birthday month because of a couple of my fave peoples, so I caved and made cake. Before I share, you must understand that I've not had actual CAKE in a very very long time. I think the last time I had a cupcake was months ago. Even last fall on my own birthday I veered into a chocolate waffles experiment, so the cake craving has grown really strong.
These are a delightfully moist gluten free adaptation of Hershey's Chocolatetown Special Cake recipe. In place of regular flour I used half King Arthur gluten free multi-purpose flour and half Domata gluten free recipe ready flour. You need the xantham gum in Domata for it to rise, but using all Domata turns the batter into bubble gum with the mixer. I also went with a basic cream cheese frosting- one block cream cheese, one stick real butter, 4 cups powdered sugar, 6-7 tablespoons of canned milk. Imagine my first bite of yummy moist cake in forever. I baked it off in giant muffin tins.
And of course I'm diabetic, so I can eat only a bite or two at a time every hour or two, but it was still very pleasant being able to do that.
Anyway, happy birthday to my loved ones. I celebrated. 🎉😁🎈🎂
Have been back on original gabapentin dose (100mg 3xday) for what, a week and half now? My regular doctor is holding me at that dose the rest of this month while I get through physical therapy. I think he'd like me to stay on it indefinitely, and commanded me to touch base with the neurologist about monitoring my dosing. Doctors have a very hard time 'treating' me for fibro and pain the last few years because my PTSD over 'going down' on meds or illness is so bad. I've crashed so hard on handfuls of meds taking down my immune system and spending years recovering that it makes me cry to even just talk about it out loud with my psychologist (#transparency), so from here on out is like walking the line between pain control and mood control. I'm not joking around about any of this, and I'm not saying any of it lightly. I can tell that the darker harder core lurkers hitting me daily are probably in the same boat, and I'll keep saying this forever- you're not alone. I'm here, too, walking the webs in the long, dark nights looking for sparks of hope and distraction, anything to hold onto while I keep hanging on to wisps of myself falling apart.
In the meantime, I've fixed up my skin! Finally! some of you say. Yeah, I've seen some of you stop and stare at me on Mo Creatures, it's been kinda funny. One guy looked me all over real good because my last skin was so sloppy and crap, like a cracked Easter egg that a 2 year old did. Yeah, that's me running around like I just threw any old wrecked up skin on... Anyway, I'm going with this for awhile now, adapted on Nova Skin. The original is from one of the many Galaxy Girls a lot of different people have done. I might go tweak it later on, but it's kinda the colors I want. I'd prefer black hair, but then the eye accents don't work. Anyway, the overall effect is supposed to be like the galaxy hair and makeup kind of stuff people are doing nowadays.
Kinda having a headache, so I'm going to keep moving. Need to get on laundry and get food lined up to cook later, might or might not have a big Bunny day, I'm already getting all over pain control, and part of that is moving around, so here I go.
click to get to original post and some weird comments
I normally don't spotlight hecklers or coat-tailers and generally dump and delete spammers, but once in awhile I get comments that find ways around my filters and I can't decide whether to laugh or facepalm.
When I first blogged about Rick Lagina and The Curse of Oak Island, there wasn't anything else out there but a few interviews. As the show renewed, they got Facebook pages and more interviews, but I asked why they didn't blog, because I was getting hit so frequently in search engines just from mentioning the guy that I was starting to feel like Rick's secretary. Well, now when you plug Rick Lagina into Google search, third result down is Rick Lagina Wiki, Bio, Age, Wife and Net Worth - WikiPicky written last year and apparently people have been finding it enough now to rank it up in the search field. Three years from original air date went by before that was even written. We could've had Rick Lagina Funkos by now, but noooo.
I first blogged about The Curse of Oak Island on Jan. 8, 2015. I blog about a variety of TV shows I watch, but no other has ever brought me as much direct hit search engine traffic as this one. I'd like to personally thank Rick Lagina for my blog traffic. 💕Thank you. If some of you need more, I can offer a few more posts in this Rick Lagina tag list. This makes the seventh post now, and I'm still the only person in the entire world who has ever memed the guy. Look through Google yourself.
Anyway, someone found a rock and took a picture of it and apparently made a G+ page just to be able to comment on my G+ page and ask Rick Lagina what he thinks about it. Always here for you, Rick. I've come to embrace that on Pinky blog. If a fan had put together some kind of youtube parody or bad lip reading or some kind of music fanvid, this is where I'd be putting it now, but I'm not finding anything, so it's back to Doctor Strange.
Ok, first of all, if anyone is trying to reach me at my JanikaBanks email, it just hit me I haven't checked it since probably before Christmas. I have no inclination to run over there and look, either, so you're kinda stuck in pending.
I should probably power point the rest.
👍 Got an A++ from my sleep doctor. They got the readings off my machine, which I'm finding out is like the Mercedes of CPAP machines. I have complications they'll be monitoring, including central sleep apnea from brain malfunction (not the same thing as obstructive, which in my case is fairly mild, although I'm sure @bonenado would beg to differ) which I'm pretty sure goes back to the wreck and/or viral illness complications or something (I've been really sick a few times with cognitive consequences) and probably explains why I'm so paranoid about both meds and sleeping since meds increase apneas and insomnia keeps a person breathing. CPAP doesn't directly help central apnea, so the hope is that a consistently better OSAT over time will help with continued nerve healing, and we all know the brain is nerve central.
😢 Assessing back into physical therapy was difficult (I cried a bit, I'm such a baby now), but after that stupid medication fail, the only things left now are cortisone shots and surgeries, so I'm all over upper core compliance.
😑 Naturally, I treated myself to the blu ray Doctor Strange release today, and I was going to wait on @bonenado for the first watch, but after losing a knockback 2 smite 5 diamond sword and an unbreaking 2 efficiency 3 pickaxe in something as stupid as a lava spill, I decided I needed a consolation viewing since my morning started off before dawn in physical therapy and then I did some heavy grocery shopping under impending threat of stormy doom. Basically, it's just a long drive into Springfield and I'm very tired already, and dang it, I was strong and didn't buy any ice cream.
😁 I did buy a can ofBush's grillin beans, though. I love that new commercial. Oh, knock me out, they just loaded it only a few minutes ago and I was the 6th view, that rocks. Check it, I got a screen shot. Click it to go see it.
😒 Bing (:edit: Correction, it's Edge browser and Bing search engine, per "Microsoft pitches Edge on Bing to deflect deserters") still has Chrome under siege and is trying even harder to convince me to switch. I'd do it in a heartbeat if it actually loaded faster, but it's like an AOL/Facebook thing, just really bossy, as per the whole Microsoft penchant to take the internet back by owning the tools. Which I respect, by the way. I keep saying I can't wait until all the tech is interfaced well and we can stop this having a jillion accounts and passwords thing. Just send me a note when it's ready and the bugs are worked out.
After a string of 5-6 hour nights since the time change, got one of my rare 8 hour nights last night. Now I'm ready to work and fighting with photobucket over login, whee. I've been riding out upgrades and code tweaks since 2005 with no regrets, but once in awhile we do a sort of Indian wrestling contest before I get the thumbs up to enter. Ah, I can see my account now. No, I still get the boot on upload. Guess I'll go back later. Crossing my phalanges they're just working on coding again because of the BIG NEW SALES THEY KEEP HAMMERING MY EMAIL WITH. #facepalm In my long experience, 3-5 a.m. is maintenance hours, so I guess I'll just do that work later.
Bunny is learning our names. Sploit named me "Janik" when she was four, and it has always stuck. Bunny is three and I hear she just named Papa "Spock". All the Scotts out there- Scott is Earthspeak for "Spock". #thumbsup
Yesterday was the closest thing to an actual business meeting that I've had a very long time. Myke and I met in chat and eventually moved to private and talked about SyfyDesigns stuff. It's been an idea sort of on hold with mostly me playing in what I dub the empty hallways, but I think it's nearly ready to bloom into its originally intended galaxian hipster coffee shop / spaceship dive bar.
Our opinions about the medias-
Facebook is trying too hard to 'do it all' and ultimately cosmically failing at providing a place designed for hang outs. The 'scifi' gangs and groups there don't work in a way where it's easy to see archives, or even last week's discussions if the group is busy enough.
Twitter is great for live tweeting, in the moment gabbing, and archived convos, but so quickly gets jumbled that even the most ardent payer attentioner can sometimes lose track of hundreds of notifications, and the convo threads splitting don't always stay connected to original thread when one is backtracking.
Reddit is simply just really hard to read and not at all useful for gang hanging outing.
G+ is great for mass distribution but it doesn't draw crowds. At all.
In the old days, fandoms used forums and chatrooms. Believe it or not, those have been quietly evolving in the business world and have turned into sleek limo style high security hosts that can be adjusted down to micromanagement of individual IP masking for clients who'd like to remain anonymous. Usually that sort of thing is bulldozed by the host and people get lost in conglomerates pushing worldwide connecting upping and then fun things happening, like having to submit grievance forms regarding stalkers and ID ripoffs. Yours truly has actually had to report a false Pinky pretending to be me (Janika Banks) in another country because facebook is so connect happy that IDs can be ripped and copied.
SyfyDesigns is owned and operated by a person who has managed business level forums and long dreamed of one day hosting a fun scifi board for people to hang out. It's been a registered domain for some time now, requiring registration for forum interaction and blog posting so that spam could be controlled. Guys, I've watched spam hammering old forums from an admin POV, it super sucketh. For Myke to have gone all these extra steps and the extra mile keeping this forum secure and holding its place all this time with out of pocket expense shows me this is solid planning with clear goals toward the future. All the view counts you see are genuine people, and there are some impressive view counts there for such a slow forum.
We believe forums will be making a comeback as other social medias continue to outgrow themselves and start to decay. Forums allow international readership and interaction, which is awesome for fandoms. They are easy for finding topics and archives and following threads. They are very easy to join, and even better- Myke's SyfyDesigns forum has the most beautiful text editor of any forum I've seen. You no longer have to know or wrangle with BBC code (but you still can if you want to). We are talking WordPress level text editor.
Chatrooms are their own animals. I've used a number of chatrooms through the years, and while I think they're great for real time grouping up like we do with movie gang, they can be a little costly. Myke has graciously paid for chat capability for some time, and this winter we'll be test driving and comparing chatrooms. The latest comparisons are being made between Rumbletalk and Mibbit's IRC style. It's kind of boiling down to ease of use vs micromanaging security.
Still can't upload. I could blame our President-Elect, whatever good that would do (you guys realize he doesn't actually have any POWER yet, right? And when he does he won't be a dictator... get a grip) (I didn't vote for either one of the top 2 candidates, y'all could've totes turned that mess into an entirely different thing noticing other names on the ballot, you know that), anyhoo, guess I'll keep finding other things to do.
TODAY. Money $$$. I have a big spit test payment to make, get those rolling into auto-pay. Still worth knowing I'm not a genetically inclined carrier for key cancers, so that's my Christmas present to my kiddo and the rest will be a little tight till that's paid off. I'm thinking about letting favstar go this year. I've had my fun with it, but I'd rather spend that on Minecraft. Also thinking about letting statcounter expire. I'll still have a free account for immediate tracking, but all the archives will go away. It was fun, too, but honestly, with all the masking people do nowadays, it's just not that useful for actual data, especially when half my readers are coming in through Google translate or referring from facebook. Those are both excellent data masks.
7 days till Thanksgiving! My fave thing about this time of year is all the produce suddenly spiffs up into best of the best, so we're diving back into salads. I cooked a little peppered bacon ahead and chunked some up into my big ol' chef's salad last night, super yum.
HOW TO BE DOCTOR STRANGE IN MINECRAFT
Watch this vid, it's amazing.
Using Minecraft to become part of the Doctor Strange world? Yes, please!
Ug, still waiting on photobucket. May as well get all over folding some laundry and a couple other things before offices open up and I can start making phone calls. Last time photobucket had a code fix it took a few hours. I can get to all my other stuff, just can't upload anything new yet.
Work music! Pick your poison. Some material might be NSFW.
Putting stuff like this into words has been very challenging, but I think I am coming close to more easily talking about who I am now. I've been watching other people write lots of things about religion and politics and mental illnesses and awareness stuff. Have you ever wondered how we arrive at our conclusions? How we come to decide and define what is right and wrong? How we come to believe what we believe?
We (I and all the people who know me in real life) have been dealing with me having what's basically called an emotional switch that gets flipped when I get PTSD triggers. I'm still discovering exactly what these triggers are. I became aware during high school that I go in and out of personality modes that handle different kinds of situations, but mostly I stayed in what I call shut down mode, a flat personality that doesn't get emotionally involved.
As I've progressed through adulthood, I've learned to develop more personality modes so I can better control who I am and how I present, although I didn't realize at those times that's what I was doing. These were most easily seen on the internet as I went through my Yablo, Janika, and Bluejacky stages, which are the most visible.
Pinky is turning out to be an interface for all the modes, much like an office coordinator. As Pinky is going through all the files in the other modes, my psychologist and I are discovering that I have PTSD triggers and different ways of handling them, like adjustment disorders, delayed emotional response, PTSD Tourette's (sort of like an aspie super stim that I can't stop, especially when I'm driving so it gets a little scary and sometimes I have to pull off the road), pain disorder with psychological factors (and that on top of documented nerve damage), and yes, a little bit of narcissism, which actually isn't a joke since it has loads to do with how I survived years of emotional and physical abuse. For example, turning 'what's wrong with me' self harm and suicidal thoughts outward to 'everyone around me is so stupid' is what saved me from the kind of self destruction that a lot of people don't understand. Fortunately, I managed to veer away from what people think I'm joking about when I call it being an evil villain fully intent on revenge.
I started openly bringing all this up on Pinky blog last year, and then started specifically defining it in hybrid- how robots go on (more links there). Later I openly shared the diagnosis documented as part of my disability.
I'm NOT talking about dissociative identity disorder. Despite have some mixed up recall during the roughest PTSD triggering memories, I don't have a dominant personality that takes over and lose actual time, although I do go through time orientation loss jags from stress, which isn't the same thing because I'm able to reconstruct. When I talk about shut down, it's an autism spectrum emotional shut down that allows me to keep interacting on a very low level automatic function so that I can make it home with groceries kind of thing. Shut down helps control meltdown, which is emotions going out of control, another thing autism is famously associated with. Developing personality presentations has helped me step into a sort of acting role as needed so I would be able to handle jobs and stuff, although sometimes this has backfired in unforeseen and sometimes hilarious ways. Pretending to be a Vulcan at all times doesn't actually help a person work well with others on a job...
So I'm essentially a real life role player. I learned at a very young age to be a 'doll', to 'perform' or be punished, sometimes severely. It took a few years, but I learned to staunchly control my natural autism spectrum inclinations, not by understanding either them or anything else going on around me, but by strongly stuffing down any and all feelings I might be having and turning into a stone. I survived.
The reason this is important to understand is because a lot of people don't survive. There are too many people who are on the edge of self harm and suicide every day who aren't getting the help they need and who haven't figured out how to survive like I did. They don't feel safe with themselves. They are like ticking time bombs walking on eggshells and hiding all their stuff from people who don't understand and fail to comprehend. I call this the yawning chasm, the lack of real connectivity with others. We might be interacting with others all day long in one form or another but never find that connection that helps us feel stable, or validates our difficulty. We feel emotionally abandoned and ignored.
I had two modes I clicked into throughout childhood, and they both had names. I wasn't particularly aware I was doing it, but I knew the names. I never told anyone those names until I became Pinky and finally brought it up. If I was talking to anyone, it was usually in mode, because deep down I actually prefer not to talk at all, even though I love brain sharing in print. I know, that's funny, because I actually don't shut up once I start talking. It helps to understand that I never saw my mom as a mother figure and never dwelled on how that made me feel. Yes, very seriously shut down emotionally.
I had a secret friend name in high school, essentially creating another me that talked to me. I never really shared that beyond very briefly bringing it up a couple of times in my life. That split helped me keep my balance in a world that was crumbling all around me after we moved to another state and things got really stupid between my parents. When I talked about this part with my psychologist, he became very interested in how I could change reality in my mind and believe it, a sort of consciousness of reality toy I played with without realizing it (which later grew into a love of philosophies). That link goes to a list of links. Essentially, because I couldn't look at faces at all one year and was so disconnected from other people, I reworked reality to be more like an alien world and I was the visiting alien. The halls were sloped like a stream could run down the middle, so I had to stick to the sides by the walls so I wouldn't slide in, all the glass was pink and everything I saw through them was pink because of that, my line of sight was knee level and I got to know people by their knees, and talking sounded like gibberish. I carried this out for a couple of months until I realized I was kind of stuck in it and it had become tiresome, so I snapped back to 'real' and started looking at faces again. When I did that, I also snapped into a personality mode and got kind of mean and secretly destructive, pretending I was a spy and committing sabotage that backfired on other people. I never got caught, but looking back, some of the fallout wasn't cool. Very real consequences were inacted on wrongly accused innocents, although I thought it was funny back then because I intensely disliked them.
I didn't think very much about that stuff in my 20s, which got pretty chaotic from the poor choices I kept making, but by my 30s I was back into mode switching so I could handle being married and raising kids. From there on out people have known me as Janika and Yablo. Bluejacky came a little later, and Pinky is the last. There may be a couple more very minor nearly inconsequential modes tucked here and there.
Janika is like a baseline, an umbrella over the old modes, a central hub of sorts, and eventually an epic fail. Janika history is volatile and never had a direction goaled out. Janika was stuck with Yablo's mess and Bluejacky's anger and didn't see a way beyond any of it, so Janika disappeared.
Pinky is an Idea. Pinky thought long and hard about goals and plans and modus operandi. Pinky wrote out a mission statement. Pinky incorporated all the modes into one whole and is mapping how they all became part of a survival story. Pinky sees the bigger picture and brings all the things into focus. Pinky named Aspienado and created a direction for all the modes to go in together. Pinky is sharing real life stuff, what's really inside this kind of head, because it's important for other people to see that 1- kids like me can turn out ok, 2- honesty is what saves us, and 3- kindness is logical.
There are others out there arguing semantics about whether or not it's acceptable to say someone has autism (which sounds more disease-y) vs someone is autistic (which sounds more label-y), among many other things. I don't take sides because I don't care. I have it, I am it, I am living and breathing it, and I know that the bickering is borne of being who we are- super definers of all the reality around us. We are the brains that want specific answers to vague questions, that want words to be used correctly while we simultaneously don't understand how the way we use our own words mixes people up, the brains that thrill to find and point out flaws and figure out people puzzles and solve problems all around us by thinking of better ways to do things while we gunk up our own days getting too caught up in these things. We are glorious spatters of thought that either reclusively don't share or just never shut up.
Everything in this universe is a spectrum. We are all waking up to that, some more slowly than others, but eventually the entire world will learn to stop rigidly defining and start allowing variance. Where in the world humans got the idea that things have to be rigidly defined is probably a Hitler thing, or the Ancient Aliens telling us what to do and how to do it. Who we have to be laid over who we are born to be is the modern conundrum in philosophy. Who is to say what true freedom is if we keep fighting over every little thing we are supposed to do and think? We are free to fight, wheee...
Someone shared a thing on facebook last week about how if we had big old fashioned porches around our houses like in the olden days, our world would be a friendlier place, or something to that affect. Please allow me to point out the flaws in this thought-
Being stuck in low tech nearly nonmobile society in a hot environment with no air conditioning was why those big porches were a thing.
The cost of building houses with big wraparound porches nowadays generally precludes wasting materials on 'dead space' unless a person has the money to blow on it.
Bugs.
The views pretty much suck unless you're lucky enough to live near a nice vista, a water front, or a cool skyline.
The TV is inside and the neighbors are irksome.
Sweet memories of big porches might be a little skewed...
Those kinds of old houses are nowadays becoming synonymous with drug dealing and weapons caching, at least in popular entertainment.
Need I go on.
It's about perspective. What one person thinks cannot apply to all brains at any given time. It's only been in the last 10 years that brain variance is becoming recognized as 'ok'. I'd love to posit that 'neurotypical' is a widely overused and misconstrued word, and that we've got this weird neurotypical until proven otherwise thing turning mental hypochondria accusations into a circus. Yes, there is abuse of entitlement, but people actually do need help, and the ones needing it the most are having to fight through a barrage of hate trying to get it, which seems a bit odd since the hate is springing from standing up for - ok, that's dumb and I can't even go there saying it. I watched the same fight over ADHD, it was like a witch hunt, OCD people are rising up now (about time), and basically everyone with even a hint of probably need for diagnosis is finally standing up for themselves. YAY, *finally*. If we're going to complain about NTs defining atypicality, let's keep in mind that NTs are slang for haven't been dx'd with anything yet. Their turn is coming. Everyone on the planet has *something* wrong with them, be it physical, mental, emotional, whatever. Not one person on this planet is a perfect specimen of humanity. The idea that we've got to measure ourselves against each other is a bunch of hogwash with a sales pitch behind it, and I wish everyone would stop falling for the pausing to argue thing. Go enjoy something today.
When I was little, if I didn't 'behave' properly, I got punished. When behaving properly gets judged by someone who is having a succession of very bad days around very unsupportive people, things can trickle down onto a child like a break in a dam, and then justification sets in and then recriminations abound, and pretty soon it's not about the child needing help at all, but about other people desperately needing help themselves and not understanding why their worlds are screwed up.
So to sit around arguing over semantics seems a bit time-wastey to me. Sitting around defining religion and salvation and the world sliding into a big black hole seems a bit displacing coming from people whose lives are messes.
Aspienado was spawned out of a really big mess. Aspienado is tired of the words. Pinky says we must keep using words, so Aspienado wants to use words in a really big way. Pinky says WE'RE WORKING ON IT.
Ascospores(ass-co’-spores) – A large category of spores (produced in a sac-like structure) that are found everywhere in nature and include more than 3000 genera. Most Ascospores of health or IAQ importance are identified separately by their genus (e.g. Chaetomium) when possible on a IAQ report, and the Ascospore category is used primarily on these reports for a large group of less important spore types often found in quantity on outdoor air samples. On tape samples, Ascospore is sometimes also used as a general morphological identification (i.e. the ascus or sac structure is present) for certain samples in those cases when the spores do not appear to represent any of the IAQ significant genera.
What I'm finding is that very little is known about this class of molds which is considered to have little effect on human health. However, descending into sore throat hell for 2 full weeks and the doctor clearing me for everything except unidentifiable "upper respiratory infection", I finally looked up the pollen count last night. Surely there can't be that much whatever bothering me now, can it? I do have a documented 'leaf mold' allergy, but the leaves are just drying up on the trees, we're not even getting much of real autumn this year at my house. These snips click to sources.
Ok, so 75K+ on the mold thing is not good. In the last 6 weeks I have tested negative for strep and influenza and I know a snotty virus from 2-week hell came through that everyone got, but it's gone now and I'm the one left with the icky snotty nose and the super raw sore throat. We've had winds kicking up, fluctuating temps, hard rains in between dry spells, dead critters on the highways out of season (whatever that indicates), the wrong infestations happening (caterpillars vs ladybugs), and an autumn that is saying f* the peak thing and dropping leaves going straight from green to brown and crunchy. Ok, we do see the occasional tree here or there that's doing it right, but not anywhere near my house.
I've noticed the sore throat has gotten dramatically worse immediately after a couple of big hospital tests this month, and at first it was easy to think they were the culprits, but now I'm thinking about feeling absolutely miserable through all the extra early morning driving I've been doing this month, the mornings thick with high humidity and probably jillions of mold spores. My head probably looks all gunked up inside the same way clogged drains do, all that nasty thick goo, and the tissues trying to be supportive going down in inflammatory redness and swelling.
I WAS A FOOL TO LOWER MY ZYRTEC DOSE THIS MONTH. *slap!**slap!* That was one side of my head last night slapping the other side of my head. It got so bad through the day yesterday that I felt almost like I was going to choke in my sleep last night, and a few brain cells tore the rest of my brain off of watching the Marvel red carpet Doctor Strange world premier live stream (that goes to the twitter hashtag so you can see all the things) and said LOOK AT THIS MOLD COUNT AND START SCARFING BENADRYL YOU IDIOT.
And that actually worked. It's starting to dry up and my throat is so grateful that I can almost swallow without chloraseptic this morning.
Among my goals today is aggressive round the clock antihistamine vigilance, because I really am tired of this. In years past I've wound up on prednisone in August-September for really bad allergy outbreaks that go anaphylactic trying to eat something, this year I made it past all that and thought I was clear and could starting ramping down for a winter break off zyrtec before I have to start all over again when cedars erupt next February, but I guess I'm not the boss of me and this planet is going to kill me if I don't pay attention.
I am an Ancient Aliens enthusiast, have seen every single show they've ever made, and I have one question- IF humans really are genetically created interspecies hybrids (pleeeease let me be an interspecies hybrid), why in the world have they not fixed our immune systems yet? This is such a miserable planet to breathe on for quite a lot of us, and it seems to me that if we had naturally evolved here, we'd be more adapted to living with all this junk, but our own bodies fight against us just breathing air full of molds and pollens that otherwise never hurt us at all. So what gives? When are they going to fix that???
Side notes.
I still keep getting auto-thanked for being a top interactor for a group tag I very rarely respond to.
I thought I fixed my Java problem with Kaspersky but apparently not, because it still can't update and now blogger is having fits showing me youtubes on my blogs, which Google search says might mean I need Java...
I've been regularly reading other aspie-autie bloggers and discovering my lengthy posts got nuthin on them being singularly focused on their self discoveries on spectrum with all its ups and downs, and while they're very well written and spot on, that's just a LOT of time spent on introspection, which makes my mold post today kinda funny to me.
I'm learning the Amazon review ropes, which I hope to expand on at SyfyDesigns, so plenty to keep me busier.
This is the most important tweet in the history of twitter. Well, ok, everyone's tweeting it and you can even get video and gifs in the hashtag stream.
Oh, and this. Lovedit. Loooove Frankenfurter's red outfit, looooove the new choreography, the Eddie scene is fantastic, adore Columbia's new look, I could go on. They totally nailed it. I'll hafta go back and watch again, Benny C distraction kinda bombed everything. Thrilled to see Tim Curry in it. Way before I was a Lexx fan, I was a huge Curry fan and did Curry Toons.
Guess I need to pull my snotty head together. Srsly, most Pinkyween month EVER between the glue in my hair and weeks of snot and I don't even care any more how crap I look. It's been an excellent month, however, for pulling together a few sacks of stuff for Good Will, getting my holiday greeting cards all lined out and ready to go, and even got popcorn balls made already (and going to make more!). It's been epic fail for menu planning, but high five for EOB and other paperwork organization, fail for keeping my floors done but awesome for actually losing a few pounds. Anyway, need to get moving again. My strategies yesterday WORKED and I'm mobile again, yay!!! Assess back into physical therapy on Nov. 3rd.
Still fighting with Kaspersky over trusted applications, but here you go. I can at least see it on my phone. This all started suddenly yesterday, so maybe I bumped a setting or something, who knows. Well, actually, I can see it in my Torch browser, so it's definitely a Chrome problem. Whatever. I prefer youtube through Torch, anyway. I'm rambling, ta-ta.
Today is a little delicate, super spastic fibro spaz in lower back started coming on after the bed at the sleep clinic. It wasn't a bad bed, actually slept ok, but I'm so used to getting up to move around or switch to the couch to prevent this kind of muscle response that it's feeling very 'old days' before I figured all this stuff out. I may be having to switch off ice and heat and doing lower core and stretches off and on all day just to keep walking, and I daresay sitting to 'rest' won't help as much as make it worse. I'd say this sucks, but saying stuff like that prematurely tends to make the cosmos bwahahaha in You think THAT sucks? Try THIS and then I'd probably wind up staggering from countertop to chair back kind of thing wishing I had a walker or a couple of canes. In the old days I'd be able to hands and knees if I had to, that's very simply out now. I cannot resort to destroying what's left of hands and knees sloppily dealing with this without strategic planning.
Those of you with alt remedies on the tip of your tongue, don't even go there. If you really think I haven't tried just about everything short of risking paralyzation in surgery, you either don't know me or you're dumb, so nip it and don't even start. This ain't my first rodeo, and I've already gone through several rounds of not being able to walk, one lasting for months. Unless you've lived like this, you can't fathom it, so back off.
I've thought a LOT about Stephen Strange wrecking up his arms and hands in that car wreck (pre Doctor Strange thoughts). I know what it's like living with all that nerve pain, losing control of fine detail function, the frustration that comes with all the clumsy little things your hands go through. I totally get the guy going from arrogant to pissy and grim determination to f* it all and keep plowing through anything to find some kind of answers or relief, because the only alternative is to quit. Most of you comic book fans are loving all this hype, but not as much as the fans who know what Doctor Strange is going through emotionally being trapped in a crap body and feeling useless and hopeless and very angry about it. It is all our dreams to be able to overcome our challenges and be useful or to be able to once again express what we are good at without ugly pain and clumsiness in the way.
Ok, enough of that. I've got things I need to get done today in between and around all this twingy back stuff, so time to get all over it. Definitely need some go music. Ok, here we go, totally dorky and something I can move around to.
Dr. Stephen Strange: What will I be called upon to do? Thomas Lindmer: Become more than a man. And renounce such Earthly pleasures as are given to men who are only mortal: the pleasure of ignorance, or offspring, or an easy death. Dr. Stephen Strange: Will I be asked to give up even love? Thomas Lindmer: The universe is love. That you shall have.
In the meantime, autumn is kinda meh here. This is as far as we've gotten.
That's right, last time I showed you this street there was 6-8 foot tall wild grass lining it on both sides. Looks so tame now.
This is a fan made supercut extended trailer. Niiiice.
There are a handful of 'Muricans I try to ignore who never discuss life through story telling outside of something biblical. They are entrenched in a decades old mindset and really do believe the world still runs the way they've been clicheing it all their lives in their heads. Some of them actually think fiction story telling is evil and warps the mind to the point of paving the wide road to hell and being lost forever, or, having not seen all the stuff on TV, fail to realize their apocalypse theories are based on what others really believe they see coming out of script writing and acting. To be fair, these are smart people, even brilliant, just fantastically repressed into end world, end times, truther, anti-science, or science weirdly proving something politically horribly wrong with religion(s), and since I grew up like this around people like this and every day of my childhood and parts of my adulthood were like this- I'm tired.
What is or is not truth boils down to who we are and whether we are being real and honest. Until we can stop living double lives as individuals, hiding secrets and masking our own truths, none of the rest matters. Standing up for and defending bastardized politics and religions based on centuries long crafted belief systems essentially brainwashing people while we ourselves never share our own truths is what is at stake here. Pointing at someone else while covering up our own stuff is the shallowest part of humanity, and why most of humanity will always voluntarily be slaves.
I am so, so tired of people being stupid. We are so much more powerful than fear. Fear-driven belief systems have been happening since the dawn of civilization. The gods fight over us, divide us, punish us, and if not them, then we do this to each other in the name of the gods.
Ok, did you catch that? WE DO THIS TO EACH OTHER IN THE NAME OF THE GODS.
I've said in other places that humans have elevated monkeys flinging poop at each other to an art form. I've been saying since I was small that I never wanted to be a human, that I'd rather have been a dog or a horse.
But you know what? There are also some really brilliant people on this planet who use story-telling wisely. They accomplish far more on a world scale in real time than any religion on this planet. If anyone wants to believe I'm going to hell for appreciating this skill and the way it networks people all over the world into a family of fans that care about each other across national boundaries and beliefs, then fine, believe what you want.
I'm done with intellectual jousting from the dark ages, and I'm especially done sharing my thoughts on it because it gets people too excited and then the misunderstandings run rampant into even wilder prognosticating. Trying to explain this to the people who need to hear it is a waste of time, apparently. So, it goes here, where it won't be seen, because who I actually am on this planet isn't nearly so important as the lengthy deep secret discussions over what amounts to fear-driven madness, which does absolutely nothing to help anyone heal or feel loved. I have better things to do with my intellect than spend it in secret caves getting excited about things we can't do anything about.
Eating coffee ice cream at 10:30 last night wasn't the brightest idea I've had, but hey, it was ~partytime~! Unfortunately, my personal party time continued till about 1:00 a.m., long past Bunny and Papa falling asleep. And I am the first one dragging back up at 6 a.m. hovering over coffee like a hobo over a tiny fire.
The party began just before sundown when prehistoric Bunny walked into our house. This is a pic mama got her to stand still for, there's no way I could've gotten a pic myself last night because she was so wound up from a party at her daycare. She looooooves having a tail.
A Batman pic came in, too, with a notation that this was his attitude toward pumpkins the entire time, which cracks me up.
I did loads of multitasking during last night's #Stakeland2 live tweet on @Syfy. First, I got bumped to the TV in the bedroom because Bunny was watching Care Bears on the big TV, then 5 minutes later she was running back and forth between rooms making a game out of bringing me fake meals, then she wanted another bread and butter sandwich (wound up making 3, and she got jelly all over the couch, but that was Papa's problem). I can't believe I was able to live tweet at all since I was missing so much, but it kinda made it way more fun.
For a super dead live tweet, I got a sweet 199 impressions on this one
and I couldn't believe this one pulled in 250.
I know, I'm excited over that when last week I pulled in 14K just on one tweet during a live tweet. I think the dead live tweets are more challenging, like a game. If you can score, it's real.
Anyway, Bunny found the change bowl and stuck her fingers in my face commanding me that we were going to play pennies for "2 MINUTES" (funny how they mimic what adults do, so now I'm wondering who got in her face about "2 MINUTES" because she looked pretty stern and kept repeating it), so we spent 20 minutes sorting and resorting pennies, big ones, tiny ones, and nickels (nickels are always the hardest)
and by the time I got back to the live tweet, only 2 people got the joke, and I'm pretty sure one of them wasn't even watching.
I love controlled chaos, so of course I let Bunny break all the eggs herself this morning, but later I took the heat for the bit of shell she ran into that put her off the rest of her scrambled eggs. I could easily blame the sous chef, but meemaw admitted fault for missing one of about 20 pieces of shell that got picked out. Bad chef! NO TIP FOR ME!
And then Papa was her best friend for awhile going outside while I cleaned up. This is a rare capture, they're usually blurs. Mama would be horrified at the glorious unmatchiness since Bunny pretty much grew up baby GAP at home, so hopefully 60s hippie meemaw doesn't get called on this, lol.
I regained my uber cool status when we got this thing going. That was an interesting mess. Papa said the little bones tasted sour, so he munched on those while Bunny discovered candy corn. Mama is going to have a big surprise later between the black icing and the quart of grapes she's eaten so far.
Most of the rest of this is rambly, but I'm parking thoughts here so I'll know later about when I was thinking them. I'll need point of reference if things change.
Other stuff going on in the background this weekend has included researching a couple of host sites that will allow me to build my own webpage from scratch, which would be as close to self-hosting as I could get without actually running my own server 24/7. The big photobucket fail for several hours was very disturbing, and I need a redundancy plan.
I need this... I'll probably never own one.
I may also wind up going into partial seclusion sometime in hopefully the not too near future (I haven't been talking about the 3 writing projects I keep diving into on the side on top of everything else, because alla sudden there is real science coming out about some of the ideas I first got 10-20 years ago and I could have totally been vindicated by now if I'd gotten those into print), and the neverending cycle of not feeling like I'm getting anywhere is shredding my attitude, so somehow I've gotta collect myself and focus on the Plans around my stack of spirals, which mysteriously float hither and yon. Bunny nearly pulled a stack out of a sack last night, and I was diving for it going NOOOOOOoooooooo.....
By the way, this wins facebook this week, click for the source.
Another thing I've been thinking deeply about for a couple of months is titrating off the xanax again. It's super low dose, I haven't been back on it that long, I've got back up from gabapentin now, and my health is super this time around (my first titration lasted 2 years coming out of illness that had taken me down for several years), so surely I can do this again. I know, right, titrating off a mood stabilizer over holidays, but seriously, I think it's important to keep letting my nervous system try to heal, and suppressing GABA receptors probably isn't the best way to do that. I'll hafta grain by grain it, I'm not stupid. It could take a year to get clean again without going through nasty withdrawal.
This wins, too, and clicks to source.
I have a sleep study Monday night. I'm hoping daily zyrtec-gabapentin-xanax doesn't skew it, because I'm not comfortable with the way I'm zonking so hard lately, and I really don't want to wind up on some kind of breathing assistance while I sleep. I understand it's important to brain health, but it's not the answer to underlying problems. I'm not that overweight, and I've noticed that even sitting up I automatically stop breathing when I fall asleep, and I think it's because I'm so relaxed that I just don't breathe for awhile. I've been doing this for years, but it's worse lately and I think the gabapentin isn't letting me wake up like I'd prefer to do. Fibromyalgia is much easier to deal with in the mornings if I'm not conked like a log straight through the night with very little position change. The more I move around through the night, the easier the next day is, have noticed this for years. When a doctor asks if I'm sleeping good, I point blank say I prefer not to sleep good, because I actually hurt less when I wake up a lot, because I get up and walk around. I know this is screwing up the deep sleep rhythms that need to keep cycling without interruption, but so is everything else, meds especially. I'd rather sleep 6 or less hours a night than 8 hours a night, and I think that's been a natural thing for me since childhood because I've always woken up a lot through the night. I don't know how people can sleep 10 hours away. That's like a once in 5 years event for me.
Wo, this is cool.
I think I've had enough of the whole 'you owe me' swap on social medias. I don't owe anyone follow backs or friend adds on twitter or facebook or to keep a polite connection when they abandon or don't interact, and I'm using an app that's letting me see accounts that have gone inactive. Since I've so rigorously scrubbed my twitter twice now, I was really surprised to find out 300+ more accounts have simply gone dormant just in the last 3-6 months, so since there's nothing for me to keep up with, I'm waving goodbye to them. Likewise, I have finally embraced exclusionary lists on facebook when the need arises. Several acquaintances don't seem to understand my preference for respect and courtesy across all of humanity in a public venue, and since it's MY page, I'm going to start taking my cue from a couple of very visible and prominent female celebrities I'm friended with and simply cut people off when it happens. I've been able to remain as public as I can for 4 years now so that lurkers and followers don't have to jump hoops just to see what I'm doing, and all it takes is a few to undermine the integrity of my content and degrade it into mockery or hate. I'm done with that. I don't owe anyone equal time on my own turf. No one ever sees how many friend adds I decline. I'm about ready for people who ignore the real me to get a clue. I'm not on social media to be used.
