Caution: This is a think piece masquerading as conspiracy mockery.
Caution on this vid, probably NSFW. It's ok if you skip it, it's just a perfume commercial. Sort of.
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I know this vid is old (you'll have to click over to that if you want to see it, I'm not sharing it here), and I absolutely do not care whether it's real or not. I mean, it explains a lot of weird dreams and maladies I've had since childhood (and quite a lot of historical art that I run into), but so does basic childhood trauma around the world time out of mind and tons of entertainment saturation and doublespeak. I could point out flaws galore with it, and I could also point out how well it actually works in all our entertainment, especially scifi and porn. You see those motifs in that vid used regularly through the decades in both. Who knows, sometimes truth is stranger than fiction, right.
There is a commonality throughout our entertainment that many of us either don't notice, don't piece together, or don't care about. Tell me how this movie is any different from Lady Gaga and 75% of the scifi, horror, and fantasy out there. You've got the underground, the cloning and recreating, the allusion to pedophilia and the wealthy who seek it, the 'game' that separates kids from families, men in black, the star child, and even a psychiatrist's couch. Every conspiracy you can find in all the other stuff is here, too. Well, maybe not the reptilians. I haven't really tried that hard.
And of course we all saw Johnny go on to become the Hatter in yet another of hundreds of Alice and White Rabbit retells. How are we not frickin' bored to tears yet with the whole rabbit hole thing? Um, maybe because there's some credence to it? But here is where I'm quick to point out that if it's real, then we've been so saturated with it for so long that who even cares any more?
The point is, human brains like patterns. Our minds are especially adapted to making patterns out of everything we see around us. If we are all learning the same things, seeing the same art and entertainment and news, then all our brains are synchronized to start noticing the same kinds of patterns. Some people are a lot better are specific kinds of patterns, like math and music, others are a lot better at social patterns and how people generally behave, others are really good at creating food and art and building and inventing because they catch on so quickly about how bits and pieces combine to become something else. Everything we do as humans is based on being able to recognize and create patterns. I happen to see patterns in entertainment, and I see quite a lot of repetition and borrowing and crossovering kind of stuff, which becomes even more fascinating when I dig into the history of creating entertainment, because that's what my brain is good at.
Just a sec, quick break. Seriously, I took a break.
I know this looks like a wild veer into different thought, but it's important. Part of my own personal inner turmoil and self interrogation is exactly this- Why do I seem to like it rough? (as the video below suggests). Maybe it's because I've been trained to handle life being rough from an early age. It was innocently done, to be sure, but by people so trained themselves that they couldn't see the actual conflict they were living out, with cruelty calling itself love. So much of this started ages and ages ago, long before they were even born. By the way, back to conspiracy, Lady Gaga in the gold outfit is the reptilian mockup, and the guys sitting around her in the rain of diamonds reminds me of the weird phase shifted beings (also shape shifters) sitting around a box full of human souls sucking up the fear and anguish for food in Star Trek Next Generation. I see so many crossover triggers to so many other imagery setups in tv shows and stuff, bits of sets, the way costumes are used, I think the subconscious effect on the brain is about the same between pop music and science fiction on television. And maybe there's a reason for that, but if there is, then we're up to our eyeballs in muppets and Disney while we're at it, so I'm not going there.
Needed another break. You probably did, too. I really like this song.
So I brought up the Paul McCartney conspiracy the other day, right. It's ok, I'm not the only delusional person in the world. And again, I really don't care. I never collected the Beatles stuff, although a nearly complete collection fell into my possession a few years ago. But for argument's sake, let's assume I'm the crazy one, although none of my diagnoses quite go that far.
In case you're new to me and haven't come across any of the general conspiracy crap blowing the world up for the last several decades (and especially over the last few years with the advent of youtube), the root of everything you need to know boils down to stuff being right in front of our faces, like living double lives and not being able to really believe stuff under our noses while we freak out about every little sentence on twitter or something. Conspiracy is a 2 sided coin. People who cover something up create conspiracy, but so do people who believe in something not real. What's it called when the conspiracy isn't hidden any more and the people are still freaking about it being a conspiracy?
What if you could get your wish? What if you had another you to go to work and you wouldn't have to personally experience the drudgery? What if you could turn that part of your mind over to a different you and then flip back and enjoy life after work was over? I know some of us would love that, right? Well, that's basically what some entertainers appear to be doing. Their work is so rigorous that they undergo aggressive, what I call, 'brain training'. And they don't have to really remember any of that if they don't want to, kind of like you don't have to remember having an operation. You go through a process that 'fixes' a few things, do a little recovery time, and find yourself handling so much more than you thought possible, remembering your lines better, having all kinds of fun traveling and being famous. No one has to know or even gets to know what you did to be able to fast track. Because, let's face it, none of us ordinary people could really keep up with a lot of what some of them are doing. 16 hour days? All hours, all kinds of weather, and millions at the box office. Maybe it's worth not remembering half the grueling stuff you had to go through, or at least being able to turn it off a little. Apparently, though, that has its flaws, and so the conspiracies are ramping up and people are freaking out and not realizing that quite a lot of people around the world grow up with the basic first steps of brain prepping for the training in the first place. It's been all around us all along, so why is this a surprise? I actually found it to be a bit familiar, and I've not even been through the 'pro' level.
What do you want? How badly do you want it? What are you willing to agree to do or give up in order to get what you want? Actually, you don't necessarily have to sell your soul or hand your mind over to a trainer to get what you want, but if all you care about is the fast track, yeah, you'd probably jump in without thinking it through.
But really, what if when your life sucks and you have a meltdown, a handler could just magically make it easier to deal? Or a brain chip? What if a frequency could be tweaked the same way a CPAP machine could be adjusted? What if you could message your psychiatrist and get a remote tweak adjust in your chip to get a slight frequency change and feel better? Brain waves are all the rage nowadays. They can be modulated without even touching you, and some day it may be possible from more of a distance.
Back to the Paul McCartney thing. Here are a couple of vids if you're interested, or you can skip them. It's not necessary to watch them, but your arm hairs will go up better later if you do a few minutes on each one first. I can prep your brain for a better experience, lol, setting up a pattern, as it were. And it works even better if you watched that very first link in the first paragraph up there, kinda trippy.
Ok, break time. I love that this next vid gets so many negative comments, but I don't see any pyramid conspiracy freak outs about it. Really flew under the ol' radar.
Ok, back to the Paul McCartney thing. During those vids I got two screenshots in particular. People have been freaking out lately about these kinds of things, and I keep saying I grew up with them. This is the proof.
You can check out these 4 articles if you want. Yes, it's part of the overall experience. I started looking because I've always mildly wondered what the in the world a yellow submarine has to do with anything. Well...
The Illuminatus! Trilogy- These novels go back to 1975, and you can see there is loads of conspiracy set into an entertainment format. This stuff has been going on since before most of you were born. Like I said, I grew up with it. "The prison is bombed and he is rescued by the Discordians, led by the enigmatic Hagbard Celine, captain of agolden submarine. Hagbard represents the Discordians in their eternal battle against the Illuminati, the conspiratorial organization that secretly controls the world. He finances his operations by smuggling illicit substances."
Discordianism- In case you were wondering what that is in the above paragraph, that is the old timey ancient mythological word for Chaos Magick, which is what it's all called today. It's an interesting read. Again, I grew up with those ideas, not in my home per se, but prevalent enough around us that my parents nearly put us kids into a private school.
Operation Mindfuck- Yes, that's a real thing that goes back to the 60s and basically explains what's happening on social media right now. Knowing is power, power is knowing. Step over conspiracy and learn what the real is behind it.
Ok, let's put this all together now, assuming you kept up with all the vids and articles, and I'll say it very simply. Paul McCartney may have been cloned. I'll leave you to wonder what I just did to your head. Those of you who know I'm a huge Lady Gaga fan, *mind blown*. Space was her DJ on her world tour, and she is the best example I've ever seen of purposeful conspiracy paraded around the planet.
You can't find much on this guy, despite his obvious world level fame.
If you skipped all those vids and articles, it's ok to start over. Your arm hairs will still go up, even if you don't believe in it. Like I said, trippy.
click for 4 Ways Coffee Can Keep You Mentally Sharp not paid to link that, just wanted the graphic
take the info with a grain of salt
don't drink a whole pot and wind up in ER with palpitations
I've done that
but I bet their coffee is awesome
Here we go, some counterbalance. Click it for a good Forbes article. This is all real. This is why I stop at 2 cups in the morning now.
You guys know coffee is my last big addiction. I've stopped a couple of times, once for a whole year, but it's really hard when you wake up feeling like crap and need that kick start and can't have any sugar. Click this next for a delightful collection of coffee love.
For people who love techanese and #allthethings and being super smart, click this next pic for a fantastic article.
I love this quote- "Most experts discard the idea that caffeine can be seriously addictive in the vast majority of people. Likewise, it's not very deadly. Sure, 100 cups of coffee in four hours could kill you, but you'd likely vomit or have other physical reactions long before reaching the lethal cup."
Pretty sure I'd be having some pretty outstanding arrhythmias by my 6th cup...
Wording helps me wake up. Research clicking, image linking, speed reading, and word construction are my measure for a good day. If I can do all this before coffee, or with only one cup and completely forgetting to get a second, I know it's going to be a good day.
Needed a break, took a hard fast dive into the nether regions of Yablo that no one really knows about. Before all the blogging stuff, before Bluejacky, even before Janika, Yablo was that deep dive into obsession, burying my brain in repetition and thought and rarely surfacing for air. Very few people have ever seen that part of me, but one post did come out of it.
That's right, I'm a hard core solitaire/free cell junkie. Like these people. Only I don't rig my games for solvable. I take them ALL on. Those people with 90%s are people who set up for solvable only. Babies. I take the brutal road and carve out my 30 and 40% niches against #allthegames while I think.
I also discovered I had let my realms expire, so I got those updated and started a new singleplayer. The way I play now is so very different from a year ago. I've gotten so much done in survival and haven't even died yet.
Colors and music, colors and music, colors and music, and hours going by while I think. Thanx to Microsoft Windows 10, my free cell activity is recorded on my YabloVH account. Years ago, before computers, I carried a pack of cards around to help me handle my anxiety, and I'd play solitaire in between chores. I still get chores done, so some of my free cell games look like they take forever because they time those, that's me up doing stuff. Unfortunately, I don't stream my singleplayer, so you guys don't see me playing. I have friends who stream all the time, plus I follow other people who stream. I don't talk much while I play, if at all. I never do actual real chat on discord like some of the moc players do. I've been really surprised how much I've interacted in the chat screen on this new server, actually. I went months without interacting outside of my town on the old server. It's kinda funny to think about, since Yablo was actually the most prolific with forum interaction compared to all my other user names. But yeah, when I go under, I'm Yablo, and if you don't see me, I'm *thinking* while I play.
And lately while I'm under, I'm digging Djs from Mars.
Yablo is wanting to get busy on the web sculpt again whenever I get back on moc.
I am hopefully assessing out of physical therapy today for either the rest of the year or at least a much longer stretch than I've gone in years. I'm on new ground now. I never EVER envisioned getting this far, although I have pushed hard to get here anyway.
And, like a dork, I let my zyrtec run out. I also completely missed an appointment yesterday. Crashed a little harder than I thought I would coming off the euphoria but it's all good, kept laundry caught up, meals got made, I even worked.
@bonenado sounds terrible, and I'm guessing head cold going into bronchitis. Doesn't seem to be the typical allergy stuff, all the sicky symptoms dragging around. Beautiful spring popping out, @bonenado going all zombie on us. Poor guy.
This is pretty much my head right now. Everything is all stirred up in there bcuz Bunny and PT and pulling all my focus into navigating euphoric ep and allergy boom. Been making my coffee a little stronger this month. I know I'm out of touch out there but srsly thx to my friends for shares around the medias and hopefully I get a lot more work done this year. I feel solid through my hurricanes with my gangs under me.
There's a thing that happens on the Mo Creatures server making me think a bit about time order. The dimension we live in heavily depends on it, but we seem to be able to think in ways contrary to that, which I don't think should even be possible to cross our minds unless it really is possible for time order and spacetime to work differently. Of course our brains have specific wiring for us to be able to experience time order, and certain kinds of brain damage can make time feel jumpier than the smooth moment to moment that we normally experience. At worst, time can become so disconnected that a person can become very confused and disoriented, but it's always within their own cognitive experience. When a group of people share the same time jumpy memories, as in UFO abduction stories, we start to dig deeper into what is really happening, but we still have no conclusive evidence or proof that a time disorder really happened independently of local cognitive processes.
Once in awhile, due to whatever issue, the server goes through a lag and then a sudden jump or series of jumps. Sometimes it simply jumps forward catching up all the commands I've executed to real time. Sometimes it's a little more complex and knocks me back a few blocks and then replays the series of commands I've executed, making it seem like deja vu. And sometimes it suddenly lag-jumps in a way that makes things 'disappear' or 'lost' or at the very least seem a bit nonsensical. Yesterday the jump and replay was so convoluted that I watched all my commands re-happen out of order, but the consequences changed. It involved a re-teleport and items placed not just replayed or backward, but shuffled up completely out of sequence, and all of a sudden I was missing one particular block I had made the special teleport trip to get, but everything I did just before placing it apparently reappeared intact, even though I got 'bumped' over a block. When a moderator got involved, I think they could see I was still holding that block, but there was no way I could see it or interact with it until they handed me more of the same item to my inventory, and once I handed their amount back, I could see my own block just fine and finally placed it where I wanted it. (:edit: I worded that wrong. I was told to keep that extra inventory, but once I opened my inventory and closed it again, I was able to see and use my own block.)
That seems an awful lot like spooky magic. In reality, it's a series of executable commands in lines of code, and they actually have nothing at all to do with each other except they're supposed to retain a sort of time sequence integrity. If we step into the sort of dimension where we see the world as code, we can see what actually happens, but if we step into my laptop dimension java talking to incoming information that has to be processed from a server and then processed and consciously interpreted through a completely different server such as my brain (experiencing my experience, as it were), we see a mangle of what my real life brain interprets as spooky magic. It was only my processor talking to their server in a weird sort of un-time because electrons and radio waves actually are kinda spooky on a quantum level, but my own experience interpreted a code entanglement as time suddenly getting all jumbled up and something disappearing.
This post is me practicing how to do words around that kind of stuff because I'm working on a real story (have been for years) that I'm wondering if I should share straight to a blog because my life keeps getting so interrupted that it seems like I'll never get that story actually published.
This is how a red glass aquarium rock (bead, pellet, whatever it's called) looks from another dimension of light travel.
A sequence of events (executable commands) led to the placement of that rock, and I think 'time travel' is greatly misnomered and could be a very useful tool in lieu of surgery, should it come to that. I think it should be possible to be able to step out and revisit the code lines of executable commands and then take a command line out without messing up the overall sequence of events that led to this 'fix' having to take place. And that alone springs all kinds of philosophical debates to life. Don't worry, I won't list them (but I really could) because I'm still on my first cup of coffee and I really want to get over to Mo Creatures and keep working on my bone block ceiling in the uber cool big spooky dark library I am fixing up to spawn surprise creatures of the night on unsuspecting guests. Too bad I can't code time glitches into their experiences and really freak them out, right?
If you like thinking about code in real life, I've also got a post called wassappening that you might like.
Had a Lexxellent morning with fans on two other continents as a live stream was attempted, and I have declared Andrey the best LEXX digital artist I've ever seen. Guys, Lexx fans are a true force to be reckoned with.
That's right, I chose the hardened scarring to claim out of an entire gorgeous jungle, and I ripped the jungle down. Because *I CAN*.
Behind that scaffolding...
...is wild beauty.
And the work required keeping that wildly regenerating beauty OUT has been phenomenal.
But I own this.
And I. OWN. THIS.
I've already created a dozen oubliettes getting the magma out.
Everyone who visits will fall into holes without warning.
That cracks me up.
We'll see how this looks when it's all done. It's not going at all where it looks like it's going. Sometimes you hafta scar up the scars to make something beautiful.
Someone irl said (in character) said I'm not 'me' in the minecraft skin I'm using. Um... k. My question is- who does anyone think 'me' is? Because Pinky blog is 'we'.
So packing 6 pounds on in 2 weeks flat has been very uncomfortable. It came on so easy upping the dose, not coming back off as I'm lowering the dose. I worked so hard already getting that off and *bam*, one medication, there it all goes. I have an extra pound of fluid in each of my limbs, in my gut, and all up and down my back, whee. Guys, that's nearly a small bowling ball.
Telling spoonies to 'lose some weight so you'll feel better' is a cruel joke, and I hope none of you ever says that to anyone. All it takes is a medication during a desperate pain crisis to nuke that one right out of the water.
And then my dad goes on about meds being bad for you anyway, and I'm all like ok, I know...
So here come the sensations filtering in again. If you've ever been nipped by a goose, you'll totally get what I mean when I say there's a spot in my back that suddenly feels nipped so hard by a goose that I actually flinch or jump when it shoots across there.
And that's just one spot. Imagine everything from the top of your neck and face down to your feet being caressed with lightning shocks.
I'll tell you what, though, sure beats being so zombied up that I can barely think and can't sleep. At least I've started interacting a little again. I spent years living like that, zombied up and crumbling deeper and deeper into a black pit of losing function. Since I'm dosing back down, I may try tapering off through the winter and see if the pain is any worse just being off the lower dose. Sometimes the best med in the world is simple context.
For new readers, this started just before my 20s and no positive dx (yet, keeping fingers cross it stays that way) for anything beyond fibro, stenosis, and trigeminal. I'm a Lymie and was ejected from a vehicle decades ago, plus my family is genetic for soft tissue 'arthritis'. I used to hug the interwebs through the long, dark nights, and now I'm the one hacking the path through the jungle with a headlamp. I'm on the leading cutting edge of all the new stuff they're learning about aging through fibro, which, as it's turning out, is NOT pretty. Years ago it was all yeah, you hurt but you can live with it, your prognosis isn't that bad. Now it's turning into ok, maybe we didn't realize how bad this is and your life is going to suck while you slowly curl up and die. I've been the guinea pig for decades, and I'm still here to tell you that you can weigh your options, choose what you will or won't tolerate, and take control of how the rest of your life will go.
Your best friend is patience. You can even become friends with depression. You can dwell on relative deprivation or you can focus on what you can still do right now in this moment.
I've been enjoying a multiplayer minecraft server through this, and that for me has been a real life saver through this mess. I let go of trying to keep up, I focused on my own needs and basic functions around my house, I touch base with key people every day so I don't go under feeling alone, and I PLAY.
I know some of you are still trying to work and raise kids. I'm a meemaw now. I made it through all that. You can, too. Each day, one at a time, don't let your sadness and bitterness take you under. Winning is all about seeing those kids grow up, seeing their little ones. If you don't have kids and maybe your families truly suck, find new people to take care of. Taking care of others is what keeps us going. Take care of pets, kids, older gens, whoever, but find a way to take care of people. Some of the people in multiplayer are disabled but are there every day to help kids who are having bad days enjoy some distraction.
I'm still not able to get back out on the medias very much yet, but I'm still here, and the depression I was slipping into is being ramped back into survival beating this stupid med dosing back down.
In the meantime, I have mined nearly 4K blocks of coal, 119 diamonds, farmed 8K watermelon slices, crafted 176 arrows, baked 140 loaves of bread, and cooked up 2K clay bricks. And way more other stuff. Last night I busted open 3 double chests of stone brick blocks and just gave it all away to people working on a castle. It certainly hasn't been boring. I discovered I own a spider spawner on one of my properties, another property is filthy rich with obsidian, magma, and ores, and a third little retirement claim is slowly turning into owning a whole mountain. I have a horse named Westley now. I really need to build a stable before the big cats kill him. I've got a tiger and a panther nearly right on top of my house.
By the way, anyone saying I need to get up and move around- I have been moving around nearly nonstop for 20 years because the pain has been too bad to SIT. Being zombied on the gabapentin was bliss to sit and actually *enjoy* a game without having to stand up and move around every 10-20 minutes. You guys who take for granted that you can sit for an hour straight doing something without even thinking about sitting, let's have a moment of appreciation.
And honestly, that's probably why I'll outlive most of you. Doctors tell me I'm doing everything *right* because I'm so miserable trying to 'treat' for pain. My worst days are when I get the most done, because I am so driven out of a chair that the only peace I find is in constantly moving and doing something to keep me distracted. All the same, it was really nice being able to sit around for a couple of weeks being a zombie.
Also, lurking through the chat drama has been pretty funny. A staff member banned himself night before last, I was cracking up.
Today was the hardest day. This whole week has been difficult, keeping it together driving and doing daily chores and stuff bombed outa my mind. Super stoned and not sleeping, how fun is that? But it gets even funner ramping back down. My brain has been screaming at me, my blood pressure is a mess like someone throwing darts blindfolded, and finally actually sleeping a little was its own nightmare. Fortunately, I know a LOT about GABA receptor meds because I've lived them (although gabapentin actually works on different receptors, go figure), so I just calmly took my brain out and squished it up against Jawn and said GET TO WORK. So I'm currently working several outrageously huge projects on two different claims, and you all can just thank Kai and Mo Creatures right now for being available before Pinky blog turned into ALL THE FRICKIN WORDS.
This ent kinda likes my wall.
So this is a crazy new thing we're doing, working on both Resource and Haven with a cool new manually configured biome mod pack or something, plus new mobs and critters. Even wasted out of my skull I'm having a blast. I have died so many times in this game just in the handful of days I've been on it. Statistics say I've died 56 times, 7 times by skeletons, twice by zombies, once by cave spider, once by black bear, 4 times by leopard, 6 times by panther, 3 times by snake, 13 times by tiger, 3 times by flamewraith, 5 times by manticore, once by scorpion, twice by wraith, once by werewolf, and once by shark. It doesn't say how many times I've died from falling to my death... which is plenty. And it's awesome going back to look for all my stuff, especially when it's dangerous. Every time I die it's like I exploded over several acres.
Oh, that. I'm doing a Lady Gaga-esque nod. I love all her glasses and sunglasses, these frames will be a take on her TV glasses.
My frames are somewhere around 34X25 (not sure about exact), and even though they don't look that big here, they are huge. They'll glow (each lens will be a different design) and sit above a 'floating' aquarium full of pet fish (you might remember my pool of pet fish from the last server) suspended above a flame trench. Players will be able to come and go as they please, walking underneath the aquarium and through the flames. The 'haus' is mostly underground so that the land above can retain its natural biome beauty and all the cool animals that spawn. I currently have a wild elephant, zebra, and ostrich on property. I had several tigers and bears, but the tigers were killing the horses and the bears were killing the sheep, so I had to kill them. Since they're both aggressive, I assume more will spawn to take their place. I've also got a mole infestation and giant scorpions running around (NOT pets, lol), so basically it's every player for themselves if they visit.
I'm also hoarding stashes of stuff for other big projects, so there's a list of stuff to keep me busy. I had 3 or 4 months to think about it after the old server got wiped, so I'm all over it this week, and it couldn't have been more perfectly timed for how venomous I've felt med adjusting this week. It's keeping me clear of the medias, thank goodness.
Good things happening despite all the drag-
👍 I'm using my hands way better.
💟 I'm functioning really well around my house.
😇 I seem to still be kinda smart in spite of the whole week feeling hazy.
😎 I am doing super cool stuff on MoC.
I looked up the sponge thing and why this is taking so long. Before I say anything about how people shouldn't be announcing sweeping changes when they are seriously not that ready yet, I'm remembering that I announced a Mantrid post was on the way nearly a year ago and still have yet to publish it. Touche.
Turns out I do have the zombie virus, because strep and influenza swabs came up negative, and ears, throat, bloodwork, and x-ray are fantastic. Doc still wasn't happy with 102.8 fever, so I have a follow up with my regular dr on Friday. @bonenado seems to be sporting a much milder version without fever, so he sucks, lol. Actually, I'm glad he's not, this has been really sucktastic. I finally ate a little bit of real food last night. At any rate, fever hasn't come back and I'm mostly just really tired.
Plan assessing out of physical therapy is to take a month off while continuing home maintenance and then assess back in for more. Home maintenance includes what I've already learned about daily stretching, core strength, nerve glossing, and my usual workouts, with attention to good hydration, nutrition, and rest.
My brain is still under zombie virus attack, so I'm in robot mode and feeling very lectury, which means this is a great time to get back off here and go do useful things. Here you go, still fresh and trending on youtube.
-or, exploring the boundaries of taste in TMI. Trigger warning, stop here if you have any triggers at all.
I was going over some really old stuff in my last post, pulling all the things together over time into one final look at why I'm here, had hit the publish button, thought everything was all done and wandered off to work on some chores and just stopped and broke apart.
It hit me really hard- it really is all done. I'm on the other side now. I made it.
I've been visualizing myself slowly clawing my way up the side of a steep cliff for so long that I was almost dizzy realizing that part is over now. I can look back at my past, across a vast chasm over to another cliff that I fell off of a long time ago, and I'm standing in a spot I only dreamed of, only ever wished for. I'm actually standing here feeling relieved, and better, and relieved.
I've worked so hard to be able to say what I really need to say. Well, I've said it. I've arrived. I have actually circled the globe, thanks to the internet, and torn out my heart and soul looking for a way to feel whole again, to not feel lost and failed on a sheer cliff side. And after I hit publish it hit me I really did do what I set out to do. My mission, clearly stated to a psychologist on the very first day we met, was to be able to communicate better so I wouldn't keep losing friends, and I've got the very friend back that this whole thing with the psychologist started over. And as I put those final words together in that last post, as I looked back at all the work I put into keeping my little empire from shattering again, the blind trust and faith I've put into stepping out into a spotlight against everything in my nature, the solid belief that I was doing something good or I was worth nothing- I'm here. I'm where I've been trying to get to for so many long years.
I talked before about how much time I've spent in my head working through things even when real people aren't around for me to talk to. I've decided to share some of how that works for me. This is just one of many very different examples of what runs in the background while I drone around doing stuff like laundry and all the other mundane stuff people do when they're alone in a house all day. While I was on break from my psychologist about a year and a half ago and started sliding into my weird labyrinth working toward uncovering a repressed memory, I created a new psychologist in my head. Totally different guy, different office, different me. The me no one ever really sees...
~~~~~~~~~
First visits are always awkward, this was no different. He said my name from the waiting room doorway, I looked up from a fish tank I'd been absorbed with, collected my backpack, followed down a short hallway into one of the inner offices, and then stopped just inside the door as he closed it. He moved on into the room, saying the usual opening lines and then noticed I'd stopped. This office was very different from the ones I'd been in before. The carpet, the furniture, the molding and wallpaper all whispered "I'm used to nice things", mostly in darker colors. I like a rich blue with mahogany myself, but this guy used more midnightish blues with dark walnut. The couch was odd, bright white and light gray damask with big pink roses splashed around, as if his mother might have walked in and insisted on brightening up the room, and by the couch was a small atrium style floor to ceiling window. A womb with a view, as it were. Outside the window was peaceful, pointed toward a gardened greenway between businesses, no sign of traffic or disturbance, and a very nice change from seeing a parking lot out a window, or a coworker on smoke break. Looking back into the room seemed darker at first, but it really wasn't, just darkish nice things. The bookshelves were all full and very tidy, no embellishments or stuffy or whimsical wall hangings, no sign of other people ever visiting that same office. Even the chess board off to one side looked immaculately untouched, obviously one-offed from auction outside of the country, deluxe hand made collector's table made entirely of semi-precious stone, every piece unique and quietly worth more than the car I'd driven in to get there.
~~~~~~~~~~~
I like playing this way in my head, surprising myself with "Let's see what comes out" games. It's a free association technique, sort of like lucid dreaming, except I don't direct the flow as much as I am able to free myself of it. I remain awake but suspended, waiting to see what the characters do. I don't consciously direct them, and I'm often caught off guard almost as if I really didn't know my own head. Honestly, I think we all know ourselves far less than we are willing to open up to.
I taught myself to step out of myself like this as a child, partly because I had no one who knew how to talk to me at all besides a sibling younger than me, and partly because I wanted to see if I could. I wasn't interested in friends, or whether or not I felt lonely, never developed a close relationship with either parent or any other adult. I experimented rigorously to see if I could tear myself into 2 different people in one head so I'd be able to play board games with myself and not be able to know the other me's strategies or plans, someone who would give me a good run for the win. It never worked, of course, but I did get very good at disassociating from myself. ~~~~~~~~~~~
I loathe the way he pretends not to know anything about me, how he waits for me to lead the way into my head. That's what psychologists do, right? It's their job to feign ignorance to get the person talking. I don't want to talk, to have to explain again who I am, why I am, where I'm stuck, what I want. He can see all that. He knows. And I know he knows because his best friend is my fictionalized brother, who got me out of a group home for mentally handicapped people, and even though it's kind of a conflict of interest for me to be here, my brother hoped this would be a good way to help ease me back into a more regular life since I'm so uncooperative with strangers. I met this guy briefly in the past, I know his face and that he's already accepted with my family, but I know very little else. I loathe that he's waiting for me to say the first stumbly awkward words out into the open for him to target and start directing into lines of question and response. The first day he started off by saying I could sit down if I wished, so I remained standing by the door, taking my time feeling the room. I hated that couch as soon as I saw it, but I loved it. I think I hated it because I knew I had to share it. This room wasn't for me at all, it was for everyone. Lots of butts had sat on that couch, in lots of different clothes, some with pet hair, some maybe worn too long between washings, maybe even incontinent, although the couch didn't look it, and surely that would show up on a whitish couch. Maybe the couch would be ok. It was next to the window, and I loved that window. Still, I moved the other direction, to the opposite corner, looking at the books on the bookshelf. I could tell that sort of irked him because he could tell I was doing it on purpose and maybe he wasn't in the mood for it. He asked again if I'd please sit down, so I sat down in that corner, in the darkest part of the room, and put my arms around my knees. The whole first session was cat and mouse. Who would give in first? He'd ask a vague question, I'd ignore it with a specific statement that had nothing to do with the question. I told him I liked this room, and asked if he fixed it up himself. He asked why I asked that. I said because none of the other rooms were like this one. Every time I asked a question, he asked me why I asked it, and after about 5 of those, he said we weren't there to talk about him, but to talk about me.
~~~~~~~~~
I've never acted this way in a real psychologist's office, but it's my first instinct. I've never revealed to anyone what my natural behaviors are because my mother beat them out of me. I'd love to be able to be myself, or to be a natural socialite, but I'm stuck in between, like being stuck between dimensions. I can see and hear both sides, but I can't cross into either one and stay there. I've learned how to pretend to be able to keep up a dialogue, and sometimes I can tell when I'm missing something, but most of the time I meander whatever direction I'm led in without even realizing it. I've apparently been taken advantage of throughout my life in most of my friendships and didn't even know it. Slowly opening my eyes to a new point of view has been one of the most heartbreaking things I've experienced, partly because being able to see myself being the burden or fool or the difficult challenge to other people is sad, but also partly because now I can look back and see all their motivations, even if they couldn't and probably still can't. One of the really unique things about my point of view in autism spectrum is that I've had to study so hard how to pass for normal that I've learned all the ways other people also pass. None of us is 'normal'. There is no normal. We are all sad judgy misfits who won't forgive each other for being sad judgy misfits. ~~~~~~~~~
We didn't play chess that first appointment, but we started the second appointment right away with my first move. I generally just throw a pawn out, I don't care from where. I never care what color I am, either, but I guess he wanted me to make the first move, so I played white, which was really almost a decadent dark butterscotch with darker flecks, like chocolate flakes. His black pieces were a very dark brown, like the walls in his office, only made of stone. The board was a luxurious dark green marble with the serpentine slashes and foliation nicely dispersed so it wouldn't create false background patterns to the eye while playing. The table was made of lacewood, stained, in my opinion, an ugly dark walnut, but which made the lace effect look more like a blacker web draped around the wood, hardly noticeable until one sat right up next to the board. I looked up right after noticing that and saw his eyes noticing I noticed that, but revealing nothing. "Your move," I said. My first game with someone is always a mockery, whether they realize it or not. He realized about halfway through. He was good, but he was more interested in how I played than whether he'd win, and I could tell was still playing on the edge of whether he should let me win or not just to see how I'd react to the winning part. So I bluntly commanded, "Don't let me win! Stop me!", and then I mock-played even harder until I couldn't tell if he could tell whether he was playing with an idiot. He obviously couldn't help nearly winning, but I'd so distracted him that just after he said "Check" for the final time, with no move that could save me, I advanced a lonely pawn to the far end and said "Queen me." He didn't get it at first, tried to explain to me that I'd forfeit the game if I didn't move to save my king immediately, and I explained back that I had the right to move whatever I wanted. He still didn't see it. So he queened me, and I said "Checkmate." And there our session ended and I walked out without another word, without any eye contact, and him staring at the board.
~~~~~~~~~~
If it's not obvious by now to some readers, the psychologist is the target here. Normally the psychologist gets the patient to arrive at answers, but I've reversed the roles. I'm trying to get into that psychologist's head, which is weird because we're already in my head... It's his job to withhold from me, and it's my challenge to find a way in and find that treasure. To reach a place in my mind where I can surprise myself with a move and still not know how to envision that other reaction is key to understanding what I'm trying to do with this mind experiment. I've discussed in past how we're taught almost from birth to wear masks, to become at least two different people, and then taught how to hide our honesty in favor of stable social interaction and relationships, and we all know that can develop into runaway trains so full of masks and layers that the real person inside becomes lost, and that, I feel, is the root of the human condition we call loneliness in a crowded room.
I have a sociology degree with anthropology minor, heavily laced with stats, political science, ethnicity and ethics, world religions, social psychology, and childhood psychology. I was such a broken person by the time I got to college that my sole purpose for living was to find an answer to "Why am I like this? Why don't I understand the world around me?" Besides eventually being diagnosed autism spectrum, I have learned an awful lot about 'regular' humans that defies the standard issue definition of psychological health. If our entire mental health field is precariously balanced between self and group, and self must sacrifice in order to fit into group, or group must be left to be true to self, and either of those winds up with suicide of self, then something is still very wrong with the mental health field. People around the world are still killing themselves, and I don't believe we can tidily sum it up into a box labeled 'depression' or 'mental illness'.
My need to win at any cost is detrimental to happiness in my life. I used to argue there's no such thing as happiness, sometimes at great length, but eventually my eyes opened to that being a condition I myself was causing, so I modified my need to win to navigating and negotiating cost, and trying to bear the brunt of the cost myself as much as possible so that I would not be a disruptive force to everyone around me. It's a little too ironic that a person needing to win becomes the person creating that same need in whoever is left undestroyed, right? Revenge isn't really revenge if it spreads like a virus. Creating more and more revenge while exacting revenge is ultimately epic fail, if you think about it.
What am I hiding from myself? Why couldn't that psychologist see what I was doing?
~~~~~~~~~~
The third visit was much more relaxed. I so rarely get a game out of anyone that I felt good good walking back into that office, and I knew the next few steps would be about what happened and whether he'd be able to relax back around me. Psychologists aren't supposed to relax and become friends, so I wasn't expecting anything like rapport, but I did expect another sort of contest. Now it could become a word joust if I didn't stay focused, but he didn't need to know I was there to outwit him. All the same, I intro'd by blowing off the queen thing, and when he asked if I'd like to play again I said not this time, and immediately launched into a mundane problem I was having with another person that actually didn't mean that much to me. If he couldn't see that I was replaying that pawn scene all over again off the board now, he was pretty damn thick.
~~~~~~~~~~
That queen move eventually turned into a post called hybrid- how robots go on. The first video I included was an important part of that.
~~~~~~~~~
There have been only two more visits since then with this made up psychologist in my mind. I suppose a common direction many people take in fantasy winds up becoming a dance around sexual tension, but since my sexual tension is wrapped up around murder and sadness, it played out very differently. The fourth visit was another chess game, and I wanted it to be more fun and talk about how we were actually playing, how I see the board and characters on it, how I watch the other player, but he was so disinterested in the game itself that I lost interest myself and suddenly just swooped in and checkmated the hell out of his head. We still had 15 minutes left, which I spent flopped on the couch looking out the window.
The last visit was a sort of mixed up mess. I never did settle into how it played out in my head, and since I was trying to allow it to go where it wanted without interference, the random interference I kept getting from other noise in my head finally revealed as the psychologist shutting me down.
~~~~~~~~~
There are still things locked away in my head that come out very slowly, tiny piece by tiny piece over a very long time, usually memories that show up in dreams. "Come here and let me spank you," was what abruptly woke me up very early this morning, just before 3 a.m. Wtf, right? Like, obey what I say and let me hurt you kind of thing. The pressure on someone very small to cow down to a much bigger person intent on obvious physical harm and much deeper (hopefully unintended) psychological harm is a terrible thing.
I used to sing a song in church called "Trust and Obey". I have digested this conundrum very thoroughly over several decades, over the lines "for there's no other way, to be happy..." Blindly obeying isn't the same thing as trust, obvious epic fail is Hitler, much less obvious is the human trafficking industry which pervades all of world society. Psychologically healthy trust is developed over time, and we all know you don't just decide to trust and step out off a cliff onto thin air believing there's an invisible platform under you. To not understand the dysfunction behind the command to begin with (come back and let me strike you), to not understand obedience and compliance to punishment that isn't understood (we are good if we allow someone to strike us), to grow up with people who don't understand how to foster trust without several severe dysfunctional behaviors (rigid belief is paramount to logic and reason), to turn that back into finding fault with self over not being able to properly trust and obey...
This is how people wind up murdered. If someone ever tries making me get into a car at knife point, they'd better try using it because I will rain hell and death on them before they can disappear me into a vehicle, remove me from the public eye, and torture me to death in private. This is so common around the world that unless it touches us personally, we actually use it as entertainment in a variety of ways. If I have any choice in a no win situation, I'd much rather die publicly than privately. To break out against authoritarian threat at any level is the hardest challenge humans have had throughout our entire history.
We are a trusting society, an obedient society. Even the most strong minded fold up under unexpected pressure. Well, I've had pressure all my life, and I'm learning to unfold. My sexual tension is still sitting in a prison in another state, and the pawn is slowly advancing across the board. My faith and trust have become directed into believing what I'm doing is the right thing, that what I do will be good for all us sad judgy misfits who won't forgive each other for being sad judgy misfits.
I joked a few months ago about betting @bonenado I could make it to 100,000 by this next Pinkyblogversary and then promptly slid out of the fast track. On purpose. But I'm still doing ok. Last year I was at 22,300 on my one year anniversary. As of writing this sentence I'm spot on 61,600 just under a month till my 2nd anniversary, so I've not only doubled, but nearly tripled. I'm sure I could have done better, but I'm not going to kick myself. I've watched a lot of people playing the blog game over the last ten years, and I'll stick by what I've always said- this dedicated blog property is officially declared bounce rate efficient by google analytics and heavily controlled for bots and spam. Numbers are just numbers until you lay the autopsy out on the table.
I tend to let thoughts percolate for months before I finally put a finger on whatever, and I've decided lately that the narcissism jabs I see in other places should be using a different term instead of lumping something they don't like about someone else into a disorder, because that really does undermine the actual disorder and people getting real help. How about we just call it like we see it, ok? I think "attention hog" would be a better term. And I think some of the people who point are just as deserving of that term as the people they very publicly pretend not to point to.
Attention hogs butt into convos, draw comments away from the originator, collect 'friends' like trading cards, turn awareness about #allthethings other people deal with into a competition over their own growing stash of compassion, and parasite off others in order to feed themselves. It's your basic bad manners thing.
This is probably the last time I'll bring that up. I'm so done with 'friends' whining about each other and the tiffs and tussles and hurt feelings. I'm not understanding why people who've known each other for several years online can't let go of each other if a whole year is slipping by and the same hurt feelings keep coming up over and over. In one case, I feel like I'm watching a married couple pouting, but they live on different continents, so it's just weird. I mean, even if I lurk only once a month, I see the same thing over and over. Do you guys not notice how redundant you are? *wow* I'd like to think we've evolved beyond monkeys flinging poop and acting surprised if someone flings back. Just because we do it digitally and virtually now doesn't mean we've risen above exactly that.
But maybe you're not supposed to notice. The whole point to social media is brain training the masses.
I don't care about either side of the argument in this vid, I could care less who is right or wrong, because I've been saying all this has been part of human history for so long anyway that it's already who we are. What this youtuber missed, though, is how smooth doublethink is. Every bit of this is about embracing 2 conflicting ideas at the same time. It's not about awareness and beliefs and truth, it's about being so slick that you don't realize you just agreed with something you disagree with, and now you'll go around reinforcing it because you don't realize there is a double meaning. I'm not talking about the Illuminati or the alchemy blurt or Stefani's confessions or hidden meanings, I'm talking about the researcher himself making it through this entire discussion without once realizing the doublethink was already planted. He thought he caught the alchemy, big deal neal. He didn't catch the concept that speaking to preformed society about freedom to choose is a controlled guide through a cattle chute. There is no freedom. If there were true freedom, we wouldn't even have the need to bring up freedom to choose being an option.
There is fear out there that Stefani will be murdered like other big stars for spilling the beans and rising up against the fame machine that made her. I see her still playing the game here. She didn't once cross the line. All good players know what lines not to step over. She is speaking to an audience who have been playing the game since birth. I mean, look at the college they're in. And I don't believe for one second that Mark Z. wasn't pressured on all sides and had the choice to say no.
All the moaning and fussing and flinging going on out there, all the emotions sparking- you guys are being brain trained to react certain ways on purpose. The more something or someone on social media (or talk radio, or whatever) affects you emotionally, the easier it is to create doublethink in your head. Pictures of animal abuse and political hate scroll by. "I hate people." A kitten or ducklings are saved on a highway. "Faith in humanity restored." Do you not see them doing this to you... Srsly, that is so ridiculous it's all I can do to stay on social media at all sometimes, but dang it, I'm on a mission.
As long as we snark out things like 'narcissist' when someone doesn't respond to us the way we want and then turn around and share loving all the beautiful things memes, we don't see that we are literally being split in half. We become part of the big machine, jerking each other around in rhythm, all because social media brain trains us to step up and play the game and shit on those who don't, even if they are polite about saying 'no', the way Lady Gaga was modeling for us.
She knew going into this that the industry training was a one-way ticket, and she still pays the price. There are so many people out there caught in the giant web of pretense and allegory, and now it's shedding down to us at the street level, and we're all caught between this pressure to perform and the belief that we are free to choose not to.
You know why so many people are critically anxious and depressed? Because from the very start, we've lived this dichotomy and don't know how to reconcile it. Fortunately, aspienado is like the Electric Monk and has no problem believing many mutually exclusive yet coexisting ideas without frying circuits. You know, like knowing when a meme is just a meme, not a trigger.
I really wish the youtuber doing the narrative about his research (and pushing his book sales, don't forget that) had done something with the 'digital matrix' phrase of the facebook part of the discussion. How long have I been saying one day we'll be using brain chips to tweak brain waves to control depression and anxiety?
Some of you are going oh thank god this wasn't minecraft, the rest of you are grumbling go back to minecraft. Or something.
I dug my bitch music out today for the road into town. Got more thinking done.
I know, I said I'm taking a few days off, so right now this is the real deal and I'm not going to post it yet. It needs to age a little.
Just after midnight last night there was a shooting at a school in a small town that I know well, or at least used to. I haven't been back there much since my mom died a few years ago. My whole family is down there (except my kiddo in Houston), and since I have history in that small town going into a book (not naming names), it doesn't matter that I didn't know the kids involved in the shooting. All it took was hearing it happened to set off an entire day of funk and memories.
Later in the day I was doing dishes and one of the sudden memories that triggered was Scott putting these almost ridiculously heavy giant boots on (think logger boots on steroids) to go with me to meet an ex family member because we didn't know if my ex would show up, and I was understandably very nervous (well, you'll understand if I ever get the book out). After the meet up was over and Scott was back home taking his boots off, I asked why in the world he wore them, and he said it was in case there was a fight. Apparently he's been scrappy enough to understand the importance of footwear in a nasty showdown, which it thankfully didn't come down to because my ex didn't show up with the other person, but when he said those words I thought, "This man will take care of me", and that was the moment that really sealed the deal on our lifelong friendship. I've always felt safe with him. Next week we'll be celebrating our 23rd wedding anniversary.
A few years after that happened, the memory about the boots triggered and I realized for the first time that my husband (we were married by then) was the only person who had really believed the stories I told about my ex without question, and that blew me away. I had been grappling with a small handful of people not believing me for years. My mom called me a liar to my face, and her friend, an elder's wife, said I watched too much TV and was trying to get attention (which still pisses me off to this day), so the memory of someone believing me enough to take "silly" precautions like putting on a giant pair of heavy boots nearly brought me to tears. And then a few years after that, he finally shared some pretty scary stories from his own childhood. Turns out he believed me because he'd personally seen abuse up close.
I've been talking about where I got the name Pinky and how Bluejacky spawned Aspienado, but I've never said where Janika actually comes from. I've mentioned that my little girl named me Janik when she was four, but now I'll say that was the town we lived in, where this shooting last night took place. Back then, Janik was an alcoholic that told her little girl to lie down in a ditch and hide if the police came. Janik survived the Phoenix underground because she survived a nearly off the grid family of in-laws and a crazy ex in the heart of Booger County, a place where people go to disappear from the law. Despite the peaceful overtones, that town is a boiling cauldron of teenage time bombs caught in the event horizon of a black hole of drugs and porn and violence lurking in shadows many fail to even see. I often feel like I escaped, as do others who move away, never to return. I met people that would quail your souls, people the world doesn't even know exist.
Janik was a survivor. Janik learned hard and fast sliding out of control during a slew of big mistakes slamming one right after another why we need to be kind and honest and take care of each other. Janik was a ringleader keeping a gang of underage kids out of trouble one year, maybe not in the right way, but none of mine got shot or shot anyone else. Three of us were shot at, but not shot. I won't bring up the people outside of Wendy and the Lost Boys that we knew who were raped and questionably murdered around that time and no one ever got caught. All I'll say is I kept my boys away from the bad stuff. Wish someone had been looking out for me when I needed it.
This came in the mail today. Over 300 hardback pages of high quality behind the scenes photos and stories about filming Sherlock. Clicks to amazon if you want a copy. Not being paid to share that.
Tuesday 7-26
I'm allowing myself an hour a day on singleplayer if I've been good all morning doing real stuff getting my life back around my house. This is from a mesa world where I've built the most hideously ugly house you ever saw over a gaping cavern and have been playing let's see what happens if with the natives. For instance, they don't all understand to come up the stairs into the house, and they hide underneath watching their family remain safe while they wind up plunging through the sticky webs trying to get away from zombies.
Meanwhile, upstairs we're having cake and watching scary movies and posing for pix, just a jolly good time.
Yes, very nice pose, got it, thanks. They love having their pictures taken. But yeah, seriously hideously ugly house.
With taste.
I may be a cruel dictator, but we still enjoy the finer things in life. Yes, that's a big screen TV on the left that we watch from the bed.
Holding a couple librarians hostage is the only way I convince the gang to come back into the house, but some of them are still stupid enough to run underneath and get zombied.
I want a real house like this over a gaping cavern.
This is from earlier, did a float outside the window peeping Tom kind of thing. It all went to hell when one of the guys stupidly opened the door for a zombie crashing the party and I wound up nearly destroying the room over all of them fleeing upstairs and turning. Totes had to redecorate.
Side notes- Back on double zyrtec, thank you rain burst over Mirkwood. It'll be like this through September now. Also, this week is full blown aspienado. You guys have no idea the 'nothing' I feel like I'm hanging onto a sheer cliff face and the people I really need not being available, the panic attack I made it through in the shower, the self doubts eating me like piles of worms, the horrible realizations that I'll realize later were lies my head is telling me. Staring at this pic on Jawn's screen and telling myself I can do this...
Scott forgot his phone today, and I conveniently have a blood draw scheduled, so I'm going to get out of the house and take his phone up to him.
Thoughts.
My best months on twitter are all Lexx related, bar none. In the past I've gotten nearly 9000 profile visits a month, and top tweet stuff in twitter analytics is always Lexx. For some reason I seem to have developed a different awareness of my public self over the last year, like I have never before felt this kind of shyness. This is a brand new feeling for me, feeling shy after years of Lexxing to the entire world, having my stuff translated and copied and replicated all over the world, talking to people in entertainment like it's all cool and not a big deal, knowing from my stats that some fairly big players glance at my stuff sometimes. I did all that not caring who saw what, who said what, who hated or liked me, it was all the same to me. Suddenly- it's not all the same.
I didn't come back out for Lexx, and even though Pinky far outstrips anything Lexx for blog stats, Lexx has been and always will be part of who I am everywhere I go online. Why do I feel shy now? STA, as a niece used to say. Something to think about.
Bluejacky is at a standstill. I am the cat who walks by himself, and all things are alike to me. quote
Pinky says maybe not.
Aspienado is past the panic attack now and looking around for breakfast.
They had to use my hand for blood draw yesterday. This is getting ridiculous. They say drink water, well, I drank water. This guy told me it's more about the water I've had over the last couple of days, just drinking water right before going in doesn't do the trick. I'd like to blame my new med arrangement, but we were blowing veins out before we rearranged. I must be chronically dehydrated in spite of how I think I'm doing.
Never chug 3 bottles of water in a row. I used to do that. You get weird headaches doing that, and it's not good for you. I drink 1-2 bottles/glasses of water with every meal, plus a couple tall glasses in the mornings waking up and meds and stuff, plus the glass in between here and there through the day, plus 2-3 bottles of water in the car every time I go to town. Is that not enough? What changed? It used to be enough. I don't know what's going on in there. I wish I could get direct cell reports and do projection meetings with organ groups.
A little real world before I go all minecrafty again. I like looking up real estate from some of the places that check in on trackers. I don't mean specific incoming, I mean the general areas. This one is pretty sweet, asking price $817,000. Nice digs.
What's funny is I'm living in a house on acreage that easily be worth half a million on the east or west coast but assesses to only 126,000 here now (goes up and down with the market) because cost of living is so much lower. We're mortgaged out because real life stuff, pretty sure half the nation is living by the skin of their teeth right on the edge of possible job loss (company sell out in our case) after medically inspired bankruptcy. It's neat seeing other real estate from incoming tracker areas, kind of get a feel for some of you. Anyway, I seem to be getting to know the southern California area pretty good in particular. waving hi
You caught that hint, good. Yeah, little bit of stress going on, some of you probably remember me mentioning Scott's boss maybe selling out any time over the last couple of years, just got more hints it could be imminent (as soon as next month) or by the end of the year or something. We've been living on this edge for so long.
And since I bring up stress, I noticed last night that a few of my family are involved in fundraising for the medical expenses mounting up on the shooting victim I brought up a couple days ago. If there is a good part at all to a shooting on school property, it's that the main target survived being shot 3 times.
Despite my anxiety surge yesterday, I noticed I handled traffic just fine. *hugs neurontin*Thanx, buddy. I think I'm adapting, though. Starting to boing out of bed early again. *I* personally think that's a good thing, my health team might not.
Ok, first off, quick disclaimer- it's amazing how much a person can do with an hour of minecraft once you're used to playing it, so all the following is NOT me playing on minecraft all day. I spent my morning yesterday during my drive into town thinking about new strategy going forward on the webs, and I'm liking what I'm thinking, plus I made @bonenado an awesome supper of stuffed pork chop and seasoned roasted mixed veg (it really was a pretty dinner), so I allowed my hour of solace in minecraft for being a good girl. I'm a nice boss.
THIS is the hideously ugly house from the outside. I love it.
Got that last room done.
Me and the guys out for a night of ghost hunting. The excitement was palpable.
Aaaand it all went to hell. I just left the vid running like a web cam and walked around doing things in real life. You get to see villagers panic and bump each other off into the cavern like idiots, and the zombies getting in. I mean, if you're bored and really need something, here you go.
*I* was bored by then, so I moved to another singleplayer world I'll likely keep. I world spawned practically in a village and there are 2 more within a hundred blocks of each other, a mesa only a thousand blocks away, and just really neat stuff. I looooove this acacia village. I'm not going to fence it, but I lit it up and fixed the doorways.
And after that I was flying around some more and this happened. Ran into a lone block hanging in the sky, was right in the middle of lighting it up for a marker when a cow spawned right on top of me. Next thing you know I'm in an episode of Can This Cow Be Saved? and throwing dirt blocks around for her to climb down on to the ground. If you don't play minecraft, you might not be aware that passive mobs walk right off cliffs and tree tops and fall to their deaths. I was in a silly mood and took her spawning right there as a Sign.
After I saved her, I knocked the extra dirt blocks back off and created a monument.
And then a trail of roses...
... to a Valley of the Roses where the treetops became natural rose-ringed temples. And the morning and the night were the first day, and the Pinky said, "All is good."
And then over the next hill there was the most nearly perfect desert temple I've ever found, so I'm calling the whole cow thing miraculous and leaving it at that.
And the morning and the night were the second day, and the Pinky said, "All is good."
This made me feel good last night. You understand what this means to a fansite owner of a show about a talking spaceship, right? It felt like a synchronicity hug from the cosmos. Tamsen McDonough voices Lucy, the spaceship on Killjoys. Well, the Lexx was voiced by Tom Gallant, and Ellen Dubin, who played Giggerota on Lexx, is also big voice actor in gaming (her IMDB list is impressive). I'm a big spaceship voice fan, all the Star Trek and Andromeda and other shows that used voice actors for ships, so this is a big deal to me, and I very much appreciate that click during this difficult week.
I'm not ready to push this one out yet. Still got some thinking to do.
This interview wins all the interviews.
~later~ Ok, it's been 3 weeks since med changes and I'm pretty sure a big part of this week's way heftier than usual funk is a result of that (years of blogging comes in so handy), so I went ahead and looked up side effects (I've learned to avoid doing that the first couple weeks so it's not psychosomatic, give the meds a chance to work) and wrote a note to my doctor. I think he's on vacation this week, but I'm on a 9-day countdown to follow up now, so it's up to him if he wants to change anything when he gets back before I see him again. I can handle a list of minor inconveniences with meds, and @bonenado is used to the mood swings, but plunging into actual exercise intolerance isn't acceptable. I've already been through that trade-off for pain management, it doesn't work. It only makes things worse in the long run to turn into a lethargic lump with puffy limbs. I suppose a phlebe remarking on my severe vasodilation during yesterday's blood draw is a red flag, as well, found that on the list for one of the meds. All together there were 14 different side effects piling up on me, many of them common, but a couple of them problematic.
It was nice while it lasted... We'll always have that first wonderful week on cartia and neurontin. I think I'm ok to make it to appointment date, which happens to be my wedding anniversary, lol. I usually wind up with psychologist appointments on that date, one year was neurologist, but almost without fail, every year I'm seeing someone besides my husband for a date on my wedding anniversary.
In the meantime, took a little ride down a lava fall. You don't die in creative mode, so it's fun messing around. Yes, totally swam back up, too. That little white square at the beginning is a block of wool. A sheep fell in and died there.
A note about withdrawing from public this week- People who watch me tend to worry, and then they start contacting when I'm my least capable of handling contact. I'm still popping up on facebook to check on family, still showing up on twitter every day, however briefly, so we know I'm ok, even though this is a very hard week. I'm not in the mood to spell out how hard. Go watch the lava fall video again. Maybe it's a form of subtext or communication from my brain about what's going on inside me. Maybe this entire post is a metaphor. I'm sure it would make a great psyche analysis, all things considered.
I will share one real thing. Weird pain running up one's chest and side of a neck for days on end while meds are excellently controlling nerve chatter and blood pressure and heart rate is still unnerving as hell, and it being muffled like this doesn't make it less scary. If it were in a different part of my body I'd wonder if I had appendicitis or a broken toe or a migraine being muffled by meds, but it's nerve centers that happen to be situated around my chest with my heart beating in the middle of it all, and I can totally understand why some people don't want to live like this. But I don't want you guys to worry so I'm not out there saying it. By the time you read this I'll be past it and busy doing something else, most likely in minecraft or watching TV with @bonenado after work, and we all know talking about it will only make it worse by drawing attention back to it, so don't comment. I have lived through 25 years of trigeminal neuralgia (deemed the suicide disease) and now this unremitting nerve pain through my chest is back full force. If you knew how many kinds of scans I've had and how many different heart monitors I've worn (and how often) ruling out heart problems, you wouldn't believe it, but it's standard protocol every single time I complain about this. Feeling like I'm being shocked and stabbed all day long in my ears and eyes and neck and chest and shoulder and back for 25 years has been very, very, very hard. But I'm still here. I feel like that is my defiant whisper back to the cosmos- I'm still here.
I've fantasized about how good it would feel to kill someone who was trying to kill me. I know that sounds horrible, but visualizing success and positive imaging are good for emotional and physical health, and I often run through scenarios where I rip someone apart with my bare hands just for trying to hurt me. I think my will to live far outweighs my need to escape this suffering, and I know it's solid because I really do enjoy those scenarios. I think the Spock/Khan fight is my fave.
You didn't see me cry a couple of paragraphs back. Pretty sure it's the meds. They're destroying my kill mode vibe. I need my evil villain-ness back.
This is my house in the winter. In the summer it's way too jungley to see the ground.
It has also occurred to me that whatever meds I start or stop, all must be compatible with the extra zyrtec I'm on now. Zyrtec shouldn't really be a potentiator, but there's a bit of debate both ways with hardcore users. This is one of the milder debates. Back in the day I was really good at timing out and pushing my cocktails, and my doctors kept me well stocked for years until I got this new guy. Well, that's not the goal now. When I'm way closer to end game, yeah, I'll just stay stoned outa my mind, on brandy if I can't take anything else (especially now that opioids are out, and still not allergic to grapes yet), but right now the goal is to be able to stay healthy enough to push end game off further, right?
~~~~~~~~~~more thoughts~~~~~~~~~~~
I have been kicking around several ideas about migrating my Xanga Lexx stuff to wordpress, an arduous job, or custom redesigning blogger, and I keep thinking but I've already done so much of this work... I've tossed around better hubbing and I can't help thinking but I already hub better than nearly everyone else I know, and the ones who are better have staff. Then I think how much time I've wasted and I can't help thinking but my launch platform survived all the stuff and is actually stronger than first projected. What it all finally really boils down to is whether I'm going to publish sooner or later, and none of the rest will matter that much once I do, so the real REAL stuff bantering around my head is whether to just lay it all out on private blogs anyway, because other people do that all the time. I'm not keen on previewing, but I'm very seriously cross with MS Word because I'm so used to a blogging format- omg, after all the work I've been through, would it really be any harder to just blog the frickin books out and manually paste the content over? I can't even tell you the kind of headache I get having to think this stuff through. But everybody does that, don't they?
I've got the titles, one is already a domain, all I have to do is put my content on the web anyway. That's it. It's where I'm comfortable, where I'm most at home. This folders and files stuff and book style format makes my eyes crazy. If you guys have never had optic nerve headaches, you cannot truly appreciate being able to use your eyes without thinking.
Whiny, crabby, bitchy me. Thursday
I think I need to release this into the wild today before it turns into its own book or something. This has been just about the worst head week I've had since I came back out 4 years ago. Pretty sure the beginning of slinging into this unreal number dimension started with that morphine shot reaction, and then the rest is just a domino effect from there.
And now Jawn is disk checking and bossing me around and stuff. I'm this close to just pouring coffee on the keyboard.
Anyways, I'm doing ok, already demanding Sharknado 4 live tweet time in the family schedule because Bunny bomb on Saturday. I normally don't dwell, so the med thing has settled into I can do this because it's working for what it's supposed to be doing, and it'll be the doctor's call if I continue and tweak. I'm not sure at this point how, but I've got to get my workout routine back. This feeling knocked flat thing might be temporary because the utter relief after living so long through such hard pain yadayada. Maybe I really did just need a week OFF that bad. I spent hours laying around looking at the walls, not even moving. I wasn't too worried until I noticed 4 hours had passed, and then another time 3 hours had passed, but when I'm on my feet I feel every minute and time takes forever to go by and I can't think what to do. Actually got my shoes on a couple of times, but what triggered shooting that note to the doctor was not being able to get past 2 whole minutes of mild exercise. THAT really is the deciding factor on what happens next.
Beating Pinky blog to a ragged pulp, I really need to let this one go. Here, look at my cool ocean stuff going on with Planet Yablo. I found 3 ocean monuments in the same ocean, so I'm linking them up and I'm going to build an underwater city. Yes, I'm sure it'll take a very long time, but something to go back to when I'm bored with regular stuff. This one actually belongs on the StarrStrukk blog, so anything else there has to wait for later.
I guess that's as good a song as any to go out on. Mood I'm in, anything could happen today.
