ten years later

I didn't make this, but google clicks it to the generator and not the finish.

You know how I used to make lists? And then I'd check in on how the lists were going. I'm noticing all that kind of buzzes on automatic now in the background, and nothing is truly being screwed up much any more even though sometimes it feels like it. I started the actual Plan in 2008. I'm just now feeling like I have my whole brain synced up. That's how long health fail and nerve damage can take, but it's so much better than being stuck like that, or worse, gone by now.

I'm still here!!!!!!!!

Ok, where am I now and what am I doing? I'm liking the auto posts that roll out. I'm liking that they tag-thread into a story. I'm liking that I can walk off and not think about that while I work on other things.

One of the more recent things coming up is getting into the old fandom forum for salvage work. Tech support is in now, and the next few steps will involve making decisions here and there about where to house and maintain. I'm cool with whatever we need, the salvage itself is the goal.

Server staff meeting happened this weekend, and my two major assignments are to get back on platforms and research a new End spawn area. That's my homework the rest of this week in between real life.

Google super changed analytics, and all my properties unhooked. I have to go hook all those back up by the 25th.

I still haven't deleted Kaspersky and I really need to shut that auto pay off. Any time now, I think. Facepalm if I missed that. My email has been so screwed on my phone, finally got an app on, now my phone is so bossed around that I just don't even check it because I'm ignoring it so hard. *sigh* I know, not good business practices.

I have been using a Janika Banks address for Klout, and I'm thinking about making it my official contact address for property ownerships. I have to put something down, so that might be a thing.

Real life mode, have made it through this far into tree allergy season without resorting to using a steroid. This is typically one of my big airway rescue times of year, and I'm very pleased that I'm living more normally than ever through it happening all around me. Really cranking the antihistamines, still using hepa all over the house, still running my washer like a crazed maniac, still stopping most of it at the entry room doorway.

Tomorrow is a huge day, two appointments back to back, and Friday, depending on how I assess, I might be done with another round of therapy. No idea yet, but kinda looks like I'll be released. I can always go back later in the year if my shoulder flares up again. This area has turned out to be a crucial key to major pain referral and the reason I finally caved and got on gabapentin in the first place. I don't see me getting off the gabapentin, in fact have increased the dose this spring, but since I'm in Plan C now, I'm not going to waste time frustrating myself. The goal is to work within the parameters for best function as long as possible. That means continuing to control my blood sugar, don't get dehydrated, get plenty of real rest and good sleep, and eat as nutritiously as possible. Medications cannot save anything. They are bandaids, and they bring in setbacks of their own, so I have to be smart about this.

I don't talk about my real actual life a lot, but here is the thing. I don't run around doing much. I don't go to the mall or theme parks (I'm in a tourist area), I don't go to theaters or restaurants, I don't go out in the sun for outdoor events even though I very much wish I could, I don't over plan and over do, and because of all that, I don't wind up laid out on a couch for 3 days recovering. I'm a super spoonie, I know my limits. However, because I am diligent, I am able to drive my own car, do my own shopping, and be there for others as needed (within reasonable limits) because I haven't worn myself out doing all the other things. I am able to self care, self motivate, and self monitor because I try to stay in a good place for depression swings. The worst thing anyone can do for depression is spike their blood sugar and live with high blood pressure, and drag in the door laden with pollen and pet allergies to the point where the house falls into disarray and there's no energy left to clean anything up. I've been there. I've been so down physically and emotionally that I hid in bed for weeks at a time. I had to consciously decide to rearrange my priorities, my needs, and my wants so that I could find my way out of continual super fail on all sides.

I don't sit around, either. I cannot sit and watch TV very long without creating new joint pain and headaches. I can't sit at a computer for a long time doing whatever I want without seriously crashing my day, because I'm so useless when I stand up and I can't think any more. I take lots of breaks moving around and getting chores done. I do touch bases with several groups or family, I do my nerve glosses and stretches, I line up what else I need to be doing through the week/month, and I feel good about being able to do these things.

I don't dwell. I don't dare. The minute I go into 'poor me' mode, I lose. Profoundly. I sink into a bog and ruin the rest of my day with sadness. There is no one I know anywhere who can pull me out of that, and they shouldn't have to, in my opinion. If my mood is entirely dependent on another person boosting me back up, and they don't do it continually, then we both lose. I wear someone out, the relationship fails, and I'm alone. It's up to me to want to live badly enough to stand up myself. I want to live in a clean home. I want to eat good food. I want to look a little better than just rolled out of bed. When left on my own and no real humans, I'm the worst bachelor in the world. I'll wear the same clothes for a week, won't comb my hair, forget whether I've eaten, and utterly fail to meet anyone halfway by making it to an appointment. Because other people are in my life, I rise to better, and I'm glad I have those challenges. Without them I would be a blob of gross wasting away, curled up in a dark room with headphones on and medicated out of my mind.

I had a good mother's day this year. It's one of the first ones I've made it through without a big depression dive. Between that and still floating above the tree allergies, I'm pretty much having a phenomenal spring.

And since I have memory fail, I'm putting it all here so I can come back and see that I had a good day/week/month. 😊

super jetsetter brain melt

Busy week!

• Ripped down curtains and threw them in the wash with rugs, stripped bedding and bathrooms, the usual deeper spring cleaning kind of stuff.
• Confirmed no incision hernia from all that flu coughing, yay! Always hard to tell what's going on with fibro flare and pain referral stuffs.
• Also confirmed healthy bones, soft tissues, and no arthritis in feet even though they hurt like hell nonstop and make life difficult, but now have hardcore dx of diabetic neuropathy, even as stringent as I am about keeping my blood sugar down with diet. The only thing I can do going forward is increase gabapentin in order to keep moving to stay healthy, and tighten up my diet as much as possible in case my A1C is slipping, which can happen when one indulges in even small amounts of carbs regularly. Just because my blood sugar is controlled doesn't mean it's not sticky and literally shredding nerve sheaths. If I want to keep being able to walk, I have to get smarter again. Kinda slid into a bit of leniency this last year with the kiddos around me.
• Spent more time being staff on game server during winter hammering other staff with power outages, but learning faster that way and handling more stuff now, including helping with the launch of official social medias. The luck perms tutorial is going over my head atm, but I'm sure I'll pick it up.
• Our money is a mess this year and we're hanging in there until tax refunds and hoping that covers what we need. @bonenado doesn't get overtime since the company sold around Christmas, and Twink's work might outsource, which, if it does, means she'll have changed jobs twice in less than 5 years over budget cuts. I'm still paying cash on the genetic cancer testing, so no play money until that's done around Christmas-ish. I still have tech, a house, and a car, so I'm grateful.
• Made it through about a week-long euphoric episode, crashed a little, and bounced back without missing meals or losing that much sleep, so that was nicely controlled. I'm getting better at this!
• I'm otherwise time jagging a lot again and barely staying in the right day/week/month, but I think I'm making good progress with my psychologist about what's behind that. Still able to deal in real time with real life even when I don't know where on a clock or calendar I happen to be.
• I'm also managing somehow to keep up with a number of people all over the webs, which cheers me up. Starting to get my regular touch bases back on. Actually making it to movie gang weekly and have regained a little control over juggling my medias.

I don't even know how all that is happening. I feel like I'm barely aware, not because of the meds but because living on the edge of full aspienado shutdown through all of this. I may need to take a day off and not interact with anyone till my brain sops up this drippy gooey mess I feel like I'm sludging through. I mean, who is this person doing all this stuff, lol. Whatever is going on, apparently I've still got some brain healing going on.

Finally hiding in my room

click for omg missing lappy story

I have really been missing Pinky blog.

Let's see if I can bullet point.

• We all lived through the tamiflu. I'm finding it difficult to believe studies showed only 10-17% nausea in clinical trials. We all went down like a bad carnival ride on way too much cotton candy.
• My endocrinologist laughed when my TSH score was identical to last year, which is a good thing. Guess he doesn't see that very often.
• My neurologist was very encouraging about a very discouraging future. Four doctors in my past in particular could learn a lot from him.
• Overall, this year compared to this time last year is markedly improved on several levels, including depression cycles, pain levels, mobility issues, and world conquering, thank you CPAP, gallbladder removal, sticking to fascia shredding massage and chiropractor after physical therapy was over, and a very demanding Bunny challenge akin to a reality show competition series.

I could have kept going, but I'm still spacey and need an aspienado hard shutdown so bad that I'm only functioning on base level right now. I'm still good in a pinch, like emergency/crisis management, but it would all be auto reflex if anything were to really happen. Here you go, have fun with this, especially if you're an X-Files fan. I was one of the very first very few people bringing up The Lone Gunmen abruptly disappearing after that. (:edit: This was my aol group address at the time, aol groups are now gone. http://groups.aol.com/yablostimewarp2)

dang it, forgot the title again

Sorry, no linkback on that. I'm kinda doing a flashback thingy, and it's out of last year's folder.

I was a mess last year. I'm not a mess this year. So far 2018 is significantly improved on 2017 in my house.

The year before that was pretty good on this day. Well, I was faking that it was. I pulled off a pretty good fake, I think.

The year before that one (3 years ago today, well, the 29th, because I didn't make a post on this day) was probably the most focused.

2014 I was all like STOP stop stop... I've gotta get off here before all my work ethic rambles out into blah blah blah and unknits my brain.


2013 in my private blog. (Six months later I would have 2 grandkids and a huge server move on my hands.)

Oh, yeah, need to get my bills done today too. Actually in a pretty good mood since I got good sleep. Totally betting on everyone involved in the drama dept in my life to start shooting all at once sometime during the day, so it won't be any real surprise if and when it happens. Meeting with Griff, JUST SAY NO.

2012 I was incognito and about to make a disastrous mistake throwing everything I ever did on the internet into the trash. Everything still surviving was in lockdown.

2011 and 2010 are inaccessible at the moment because I slipped up this year and didn't pay my Xanga fees. Actually, I opted to get that genetic cancer testing and have been paying $100/mo out of pocket and had to let a few other things fall out of my longterm plan, hopefully I'll be picking those back up and super crossing my fingers they don't disappear in the meantime. I still have a year left to go on those payments I'm making.

2009 around this time I was working on a survey. It included this question-
What do you want to know about the future?
Am I about done cycling through human lives, because I’m getting really tired of this.  I’m ready to move on to the next planet on the roster. 

2008 was horrible and I was watching the birds fighting over the bird feeder in the snow. The only way I was able to see this was pure accident via fluke. I shouldn't have been able to because the fee expired.

2004-2007 are gone. I had a handful of blogs and nearly all that content is gone now. I was dumb and deleted stuff, alas.

Every year is its own kind of hard. Every kind of hard was really hard while I was in it. I don't think it will ever not be hard. I think over time I have watched myself get better at not taking the universe personally, like letting go of blame and getting really good at rolling with the punches. I feel like I have an emotional six pack. I am in really good psychological shape nowadays. I think a lot of it was realizing over an extended period of time that I can actually be very powerful when I am still, that I can be a force without exerting force, and that I really don't mind so much when life sucks because it means I'm still here.

I'm still here.

Super flashback vid. You're welcome.

how are those resolutions going so far?

Jan. 5, Friday

Back to the ordinary. Kiddo is back in routine. @bonenado is on antibiotic getting better. The nastiest part of the intense cold is slightly warming up. We may get above freezing for a few days.

Started my new year off right with neurologist, rest of the month will be MRIs on 2 spine areas and a follow up EMG to check for nerve dysfunction. I haven't been able get back into my walking routine without acutely intensifying my foot pain for months, and if it's coming from spinal stenosis, I need to know before I possibly increase meds again trying to get back into that game. Continuing to ignore it and not exercise only lets it get worse, but I need to make sure I'm not making it worse myself. Closer to end game steps are steroid shots and surgeries (worse case scenario is crippling and paralysis), but I don't show obvious damage (leg weakness, foot drop, etc) during office assessment, which is really good. I'm still doing really well for all the work I've had to put into regaining my mobility the last 6 years. I started mobility and strength work 6 years ago. 6 years ago I was barely able to walk around a store and often used motor carts (for much more than this one problem), and I barely did the shopping. Now I do most of the shopping on a regular basis and never use a motor cart. I'd like to keep it that way for awhile, but this foot pain is becoming a real bear again over the last year.

Jan. 6, Saturday

Routine is such a funny word around here. 😂 The roller coaster is still there, just more predictable.

I've got my part of it broken down into a 3X3 format of things I need to keep getting done or work on this winter and spring. In one format it's personal, home, internet, in another format it's daily, weekly, monthly. The time jags I went through in December necessitate an urgent need to get myself back on track asap. I was able to fake my way through most of it, probably even surprisingly well, but underneath I was barely containing a mess way out of control.

When you throw depression, finances, daily chores, holiday expectations (that's it's own horrible list right there), forgetfulness, and the inevitable emotional fallout all into a dogpile together (I basically just described Christmas for at least 50% of everyone I know), it's a mess. And then January is about crawling out from that mess and starting the cleanup. A lot of people usually give up by March if not sooner, and I think that's because the mess never gets properly defined. Exercising our way to health without dealing with our healthy in any form in the first place (physical, mental, spiritual) is like putting a bandaid on a 6 inch gash. Going to a gym doesn't fix anything. It can help, yes. But without some kind of guidelines, it can actually make the mess harder to deal with.

So, the whole frickin' mess. I have to stay on top of money and calendar sync weekly. I have to stay on top of certain household chores daily. I have to stay on top of internet goals weekly/monthly.

Example- Personal includes hair and nail maintenance, right. Once a month. I actually have it written down because I'm so bad to neglect myself. I'm not the sort of person who even looks in a mirror. I'm not ashamed to admit it. Some people freak out about how they present round the clock, and I'll admit I've had years where I slacked around like The Dude. I try not to do that any more. Personal also includes calling my dad. I am super fail to check in with him, and I need to at least call him once a week. He's old and alone much of the time, and we can always talk about the impending apocalypse and the lastest homeopathic fad in the spam catalogs coming in his mail. Other personal things include medical. I found out last month that my disability papers aren't on file with my doctor, super fail since I got that years ago. I need to make a phone call and find out how to go about getting a copy into their software system. There's more, but you can see how organizing a time table for some things slightly improves my existence.

Example- Home includes the regular laundry and dishes, of course, but I've been extra fail this year with floors and rugs. I used to be pretty OCD about my floors. I have more difficulty nowadays, @bonenado is way overworked, Bunny is tearing around the house, and the floors have been pretty neglected. Well, plus my surgery. I've managed to pull off deep cleaning my floors about every 6 weeks this year. That is unacceptable, even without pets, if for nothing else than my allergies to Mirkwood. If I want to feel better, I need to hold the micro crap down, and don't for one second misunderstand that micro couldn't mean billions and billions of leaf mold spores. I want to breathe easily, so I need to clean my floors. I'm tightening the deep cleaning up to monthly, with weekly touchups when I do my regular weekly cleaning on certain chores. Years ago during my worst horrible year of being nonstop sick, I made a list and we executed it. We threw out our fabric covered couch and replaced it with leather. We shampooed the carpets. We set up hepa filters around the house. Within 3 months I went from monthly antibiotics for continual acute upper respiratory to not sick at all in sinus, glands, throat, or ears. So now I pull down curtains and wash those and rugs religiously. I change the bedding religiously. I rotate all the linens religiously. Been slipping up a bit this year, and it's showing, and that alone is dragging all the rest down.

Example- Internet includes pulling focus back onto the little daily chores I used to do to stay focused on bigger picture. I nearly threw all that out the door the last 6 months. I don't mean Pinky blog, I mean the entire structure I've spent 5 years building. I'm so close to being there. It would be a real shame to let all this slip away. I know the rest is already long, so I won't keep boring you. I'll just say that every little bit adds up, and it's all transient. It's my job to create and maintain my own presence.

From BFF convo

I can do amazing things sometimes a micrometer at a time, as long as I keep tacking on those micrometers. They add up. Again, thank you Chris Hardwick. By the way, all the pics in this post click out to funny sources, check those out.

Stuff is hard. Life can suck. Sometimes perspective is all that stands between us and doom. I can do this.

Watch me fly, 2018. Yes, you can laugh when I faceplant, but I'm still going to make it a few feet through some real air before that happens. Watch me.

several blurs later

Check out this coolness.

Barry sent official letters, pretty awesome!

I need to look for frames. 😁

click for space humor on pinterest

So I'm looking at this movie reviewer's all-time stats since 2014 after reviewing 1,078 films (no one any of you guys know, but I found his Lexx review), and the only stats he has is about actual content, like 35 countries the movies he's seen were made in. As far as I can tell, the goal is to tic off as many movies as he can from several different lists, like IMDb top 250 and Oscar Best Picture Winners kind of thing, and in 3 years he has spent 1,847 hours watching these films so he can write little paragraphs and tic lists. That's his stats.

I, on the other hand, have no idea how many movies I've seen, how many directors I've gotten to know through their work, how many hours I've spent watching any particular thing or even all the things, but I can see that the thread with yesterday's review commentary that I put on SyfyDesigns.com has over 4300 views on it, that my Walking Dead think piece has over 13K now, and that my James T. Kirk homage now has over 17K. I can't really see where they're coming from, like I sometimes can on a couple of my own blogs. Today I got a street view of someone's house from stats on one of my other blogs, but that's really rare, and don't worry, I still don't have a clue who it really is.

We all do what we love, play the games that keep us going on this little blue planet. Whatever keeps turning this earth for us, right?

Every year I assess where I'm at, check it against how far I've come, and make a plan about how to continue. "The way forward is sometimes the way back."


From a year ago, give or take a few days.

I dreamed the other night that someone gently kissed me and told me to keep going. I won't say who, but it was extremely significant because it's not someone I'd ever have thought of on purpose, but definitely someone significant. I think I was being told to turn back to my original direction, the one direction that has always held true for me.

I have wanted to quit so. many. times.

I'm still not going to say who it was, but I will say that direction did hold true when all else was failing me this year. It's been a very hard year to stay focused and keep any kind of direction. Despite my facepalm super fail feels most of the year, reader spikes doubled and I pretty much just fell to my knees and onto my face wondering how stuff like that even happens.

I didn't know what to do with it, so I came this close to abandoning Pinky blog till the numbers dropped back to some semblance of normal, which took about 4 months. I thought about going after bigger tracking systems and roundly vetoed that with a few metaphorical slaps to my own face, and jumped clear into a tuck and roll while the stats thundered by, then peeked out of the bushes a bit after it kinda died back down. It's bad enough that I obsess over maps, and worse (or a blessing???) that my life has been upside down for the last 8 months. Time to walk away and not look at the numbers.

Best move I ever made. Got my breath, felt my brain start to purr again, tossed a little catnip out for it, and watched it start pouncing again. That felt really good.

So here we are, a 4 year old zooming around me

several blurs later, I finally got her to be still...

and @bonenado's show on the TV and the phone ringing and mama coming home any minute now and the next 2 hours of wonderful chaos reigning with a Christmas tree in the background behind my messy floors and dishes piling up on the counter.

I consider myself very lucky. I also think about my mom a lot. I wasn't shiftless or anything, because I worked hard, but I was selfish and spent many a night running with a rough crowd while she put my kiddo to bed after my own divorce, and I truly appreciate Bunny's mama not falling into that crazy life crash trap. I'm happy being part of this chaos because I see us being a team getting through a challenge together. I didn't know how to do that when I was younger.

I take full blame otherwise for my entire year diverting onto the slow track. I started off not feeling well and ignoring the real problem, thankfully that is solved now. I slugged my way against my own current and then lost myself in white waters, but along the way I found my joy, and that was exactly what I needed, so I don't count this year a waste at all. With that in mind, now I can properly assess.

Pinky blog clearly outstrips my spoonie blog, my fansite blog, my aspienado blog, my minecraft blog, I could go on, but it has never pulled in the specific high traffic like I get at SyfyDesigns. I should be over there more, and I do have good intentions. Currently in my background is a very noisy kid game going on, some kind of wack a mole music thing, and there is no place to hide in this house, which I call my spaceship. This is where I could argue with filmmakers showing personnel walking endless hallways in spaceships while they talk- my house doesn't have a single hallway in 3 floors of it, not even a very short one. It's the most efficient house you've ever seen. There is no escape. I can close a door, but anyone with a 4 year old in the house knows that's an invitation to be swooped on and winds up with all kinds of bouncing on beds and bringing #allthetoys and stuff like that. So when I think about needing to do stuff over at SyfyDesigns, I almost immediately collapse into exhaustion mode and crawl back to real life. But it's definitely priority. I've already lost a couple of lists about directions and goals over there, and I want to jump back over in 2018 with a vengeance. We'll come back this time next year and see if I laugh sarcastically or triumphantly.

I've never compared all my blogs in one place before, mostly because I barely work on most of them, but I'm curious what the all-time top post is on each one.

WordPress blogs

Arch Heretic- top post Stalking Mike Bilinski 101

Aspienado- top post Me and Willy Wonka, or, How I Learned I’m Aspie

DuckLordsOfTheSith- top post when the pecking order gets a little ugly

JanikaBanks- top post Help me choose an author pic

ExistentialAspie- About is the only thing available to read

Blogger blogs

Surveypalooza- top post Future Survey

spaz- top post things that have dramatically impacted my depression and anxiety levels

YabloVH on Minecraft- top post slain by brian

Lexxperience- top post Zev vs Xev

Pinky's Sox- top post The Sox of Truth

Staircase of Satan, Pond of Death- top post my Dear Jeff letter

That wasn't an exhaustive blog list because some of them have no tracking whatsoever any more (Xanga), a few more remain private, and one is unlisted and I'm not going to link it.

The point to assessing is to gather info and learn. On the blogs with very few posts, I was surprised at the incoming to the home pages (like people checking on the dotcoms themselves) were in the hundreds every year since I made them, especially on my two 'official' placeholders. One of those has been checked nearly every single day for 3 solid years. Had to put my eyeballs back in after they fell out. On the blogs with more goal-oriented directions, it was very surprising to find posts I didn't expect hitting the top all-time.

And then out of 1,111 published posts here on Pinky blog (this post is 1,112), my all-time top post now is summer syllabus. Most of my posts here average between 50-100, some hit around 300 once in awhile, but this was one of two that went over 2000. I'm sure it got caught up in the weird surgey spike last summer, whatever that was, but even then it was nearly double the other stuff also caught up in the surgey spike.

I'm not blogging to win points or make money. I blab away whether anyone reads this or not, because I do it for me. I am learning, though. I'm going deeper into me dredging out my closets, I'm getting a feel for what readers prefer in content, I'm finding out this whole #transparency thing isn't the big, bad monster it used to feel like not so long ago.

2017 was my sabbatical year, perhaps. I'm getting anxious to FOCUS! GET BACK TO WORK!

5 years from now

When I first came back out public I had a 5-year plan, and so far it's going ok, just on a slower track than I originally envisioned, but a much richer and more vibrant track, so I'm good with it. It hit me today that I haven't thought much beyond that, and here I am already past the 5 year milestone.

So- Where do I want to be 5 years from NOW? This is a game I've played with myself for a couple of decades, and it actually works because it makes me think about priorities and goals and stagnation and stuff like that. I got the idea from a survey I did once.

1) What were you doing 10 Years Ago?
Wow, the nursing school year.  I remember the big mystery over who was smuggling mummified cats out of lab, and practicing catheterizing fake people.  My favorite word was auscultate.

2) 5 Years Ago?
I crashed into the fabled midlife review crap I used to ridicule others for.  Can’t wait to find out why old people are saying “60 is the new 40″…  Sounds like a very loaded statement.  Let’s see how gracefully we can hit brick walls every other decade.  Heads up to the mid-30′s crowd.

3) 1 Year Ago?
Wasted out of my skull on medication just to be able to walk, heartbreaking end to an awesome friendship, discovering the joys of the empty nest, and plunging headlong into youtube fanaticism.

The year I took a break from the internet I did a lot of deep thinking about that stuff in reverse- where do I want to be a year from now, 3 years from now, 5 years from now kind of thing. I stopped at 5 because I really couldn't see past it. So many things in my life have abruptly changed or cut off and you never know who is next on the ol' chopping block and all the changes things like that entail, so I didn't force it.

I've done plenty of looking back and assessing how far I've come posts. I haven't really done any going forward that far posts. Part of looking and planning forward is assessing right now, and I think I pretty much assess right now to death, don't I? I'm done with physical therapy unless something changes, I'm continuing to self monitor with a medical team, OH, Scott's job finally sold so there's a little bit of a snip in the annual income, kiddos are in my house, and we're dealing with even more hard stuff, so this post is more an exercise in focus than actual planning, but this is a good way to lay down a foundation and set up scaffolding for that.

Let's get a direction. I could go in any direction, and a lot of it depends on financial independence (which my original plan was intended to help push). I have kiddos in Houston, I have people all over the world I'd like to see, plus things I'd love to do if I were able, but if I've learned anything it's Keep It Simple, Stupid. The simplest thing to do is sift top priority out, and that's kiddos. In the last 10 years I've seen my Houston kiddos what, 3 times? I think in the next 5 years I'd like to see them at least a couple more times. If I'm going to do that, I have to be able to travel and survive stepping out of my own routine and comfort zone into a different environment, and I'd really like to do that with more brain on. So of course, top goal for the next 5 years is be ready to travel. NO JUNK FOOD, no stupid mistakes like what happened with the new shoes being laced too tight, no wasting my money or energy on things (or people) who will make this priority drop into a lower place. And anyone who expects that will need to understand I might feel very crabby about making that kind of a choice. I used to be able to jump and go be with people through crises at the drop of a hat, and I did it all the time for a number of people, and I just can't any more. I need to be ready to say a polite NO and stick to my guns if I want my own kiddos to stay top priority.

I know this sounds trivial, but I want to be done with the junk in my room. Every time I've started going through this old stuff that has piled up (and a good chunk of it isn't even mine), more gets piled up on me. My room is like a catchall in a family of packrats. Granted, @bonenado is a very neat packrat, constantly rearranging the entire basement and keeping a spotless closet, but a lot of this stuff is pure junk in my eyes, and we're so busy sifting through more junk (Bunny is a funny cosmic joke on this whole thing) that I never seem to get back to the original junk I keep trying to get rid of. I used to have to keep organized piles of stuff from the bankruptcy and my disability case, just piles of EOBs overtaking piles of other stuff that never quite got done for Christmases and stuff, and it's just ridiculous now. It's been so long since some of that happened that I can now just burn whole sacks of stuff, but they're buried under more sacks of stuff that needed sifting out, including baby stuff and my mobile office stuff that keeps getting bombed apart. I finally taped my publishing contract up on the wall. I see it every day. I lost that piece of paper so many times because suddenly people in my house in the middle of sorting and writing. I need a whole room I can spread stuff out in that can be guaranteed no one will ever touch, but I have basically 2 feet of kitchen counter I've commandeered, a corner of a table, the dresser in my bedroom, and a strip of wall by my bed. Oh, and a corner in the closet I won't let @bonenado touch. I can't even tell you where my stuff is in the basement any more. I have entire music collections probably worth some money that have been engulfed. Everything ever done by the old guys like Bach, music from all over the world, a collection I dreamed of growing up and to this day have never enjoyed. I don't have the kind of life that allows me to have my own record collection out where I can get to it in my own house where no one will destroy it or move it or bother it, and it has sat for years down in the dark with the spiders. To get it all out now and listen to it- I'm trying to guesstimate how long it would take to listen to the entire collection in the few hours a day I actually get to be home, and that is usually interrupted somehow. 2 months? I'm guessing at least 2 months to listen to all that. Maybe 3. Chopin, Schupert, Rachmaninov... Yes, all the Beethoven, all the everything you ever heard of. I own it. I've talked before in the night was smashy about how I don't get to run my house the way I want.

dragging brain back into focus

Actually, that all reminds me of a very realistic dream I had a kind of long time ago that stuck with me and helped me let go of fighting for all that stuff.

I was a very old woman, at least for the time, and fashionably modern. I had all the latest in clothing, home decor, and lived very comfortably. In the dream I just knew this, I didn't see a lot of it. In the dream I was dressed to leave, in a sitting room detailed with brocades and dark striped wallpaper, velvet covered mahogany stuffed chairs, patterned prints and lots of lace, and I was dressed to the hilt right down to the latest dress boots, gloves, and hat.

I was looking around at all of it. I had to leave it. Something had happened (what?) and I had to leave all of it, and I detested the future that lay before me. Someone else would have all my nice things (the grand piano! the drapes! the imported carpeting!!!), and I was galled that I would be forced to step down into squalor. I kept looking around the room, cherishing the finery, cherishing my 'place' in the world, cherishing the quiet wealth dripping all around me. Cherishing my buffer against all the dirty world outside.

A carriage was coming to pick me up. Men would come into the house and escort me into the carriage, and I would leave this place and never come back. MY things. MY life. Another family would come in and mess up all MY stuff like a bunch of heathens. But I felt fine, even smug. In the dream I thought and felt all these things, and I felt smug that they would never take them away from me, never really force me to leave.

In the dream it was about sitting in that posh room and waiting. No one else was with me, no words were spoken, but deep down I knew that was me, and I watched myself like that, an ugly soul inside a beautiful home. Not one thought was wasted on remembering a person, not one moment of cherishing was about someone who was loved, not even a pet. All that went on while the clock ticked was looking around at the wealth and feeling smug that they couldn't take me from it. I realized after waking it was because I had overdosed on something and timed it for when the carriage would be arriving. They would walk in to find me dead, which would create a whole other fuss and stir, and technically I'd never have been forced to leave my house. Bah on them!

O_O I know, right. What a biatch. Well, I'm not sure what's up with the vividness of it and it really feeling like it was me unless possibly that's a past life or someone else's memories floating around in the night or a remote viewing kind of a dream, which I've done a few times, but whatever it was, I feel very strongly like I dreamed it for a very good reason, and that's NOT to make the same mistake again. In this life now I'm still very drawn to nicer things (not like I wish I had them but more like I feel that it's familiar) but shun them almost with repulsion and live a mostly immaterial life. I'm in a nice house, yes, but most of it is filled with hand-me-down furniture and decor, and not much of it matches. I'm not house-proud. I could (and have) easily lived in trailers and much smaller houses, and even slept on floors and in a car. I just have this really strong feeling that wealth is a trap for the mind, and that it ruins what we are supposed to be doing here.

I think the missed point is that every person is important. Every person is a wealth of potential. Every person is why we're all here, and it's the only common denominator in every other possible variable in our existences. To shun other people for things is to completely miss the point of existing as life. We may be autonomous beings, but we are still an interwoven part of each other in so many ways we can't even imagine.

For instance, I'm very aware in this life that other people create the things I enjoy. Other people labor over the food I buy, other people labor over the clothes I wear, everything I touch and see all around me is because other people are living lives and laboring. To cherish finery without acknowledging that people create it is, honestly, a bit silly. To hold oneself above others over materialism is about as silly as it gets. The materialism wouldn't exist in the first place without other people, the being above them certainly wouldn't exist without them, and the above ones can be ridiculously estranged from the very essence of humanity if they can't see this.

If I really was that old lady in a past life, I'm grateful I got past that. I'm glad my idiot choice to kill myself before I saw other people take my precious finery didn't ban me from going on to live a full life of loving people around me and learning to work together to solve our daily problems.

That was a bit off track of where I want to be 5 years from now, but I'm suddenly leaping to wonder where I'll be 5 lives from now. o_O Wow.

I know what I don't want 5 years from now. I don't want to be an idiot. I don't want to lose people over petty selfishness. I don't want to grow bitter and I don't want to wallow in being sad. I'm going to do a bit of thinking this month while I deal with this tummy ache that won't go away, and maybe I'll have some cool dreams in the meantime.

I want to still be here in 5 years. I want to be a positive force to reckon with.

I can tell this is important because I'm crabby

I got up and wrote this at 1:32 a.m.

• Waking up disappointed that a memory of a game I played once wasn't real, and waking up from THAT going aw, man because it meant the game I was still playing wasn't real, either.

And now it's after coffee and I'm quietly thinking.

I need to assess before I go down in flames.

• Neglecting my foot injury is stupid and I need to get to my podiatrist, like I've been saying since last summer. I'm now using a cane part-time after I'm especially stupid doing too much.
• Moving appointments over and over and over has got to stop. I have a broken tooth and since I pay cash it makes more sense to fix it NOW while it still hasn't got a cavity than do a root canal later and pay ten times more.
• Living without any kind of anti-inflammatory whatsoever (med intolerance) and continuing to carry on through outrageous amounts of pain above and beyond what I agreed to has got to stop. I'm the one with the disability papers. Me doing all the laundry and dishes is a courtesy that I'm not being compensated for, and it's costing me health points. I don't mind doing what I volunteer to do, what I do mind is not being compensated in any form for doubling the child care hours over what I agreed to. We're not saving money if I wind up in surgery, point blank.

I'm not 30 years old any more. I remember being 30, raising 2 children on top of chronic illness and college and later on jobs, and the cost/benefit wound up being me sacrificing everything I am so other people could keep doing what they want. I've worked very hard on not feeling bitter about that. Also, cost/benefit nowadays has a little more death at my door kind of slant to it, and I'm not comfortable thinking about going early like my mom.

I understand loss and pain and finding new paths. I am happy to support new paths. I wouldn't mind a little support back, and I don't mean telling a 4 year old to pick up after herself when someone else clearly doesn't model that behavior.

Oh, and on our 4 day break we are going on a big, bad spider hunt. Apparently the warm moist towels and dirty clothes on the floors is really drawing in the brown recluse population, and food all over the house will soon be supporting thriving cave cricket and ant colony surges. I really don't like bugs in my house.

lyrics Inochi wa utsukushii – Nogizaka46

a sprinkling of brain things

I came out a little over a year ago in this post with my diagnoses on my disability papers. I didn't link them to anything, but I'm doing that now. Each one will click to an explanation or article.

• 2007- Axis I clinical disorders of adjustment disorder with anxiety, axis II deferred but with narcissistic feature, axis V GAF of 60.
• 2008- depressed mood with congruent affect, Asperger's, GAF of 50.

My psychiatrist would like a harder diagnosis since I've progressed into dissociation issues with my psychologist, which I've basically lived with my entire life but never talked about. He asked for it last winter, and my psychologist said not yet because I was up and down dealing with pain med adjustment problems, and he said that could affect the testing and the diagnosis would be permanent. My psychiatrist reminded me again lately that he'd like that done, and now that I'm more evened out with the pain med situation and another successful set of physical therapy visits, I guess I'll see what my psychologist says.

There are a number of brain things sprinkled throughout my family. On my mom's side are Alzheimer's, schizophrenia, depression, Munchausen by proxy, OCD, and personality disorder. On my dad's side is a strong inclination to autism spectrum.

I am of the opinion that anyone on the planet could be diagnosed with some level of mental illness under the right (or wrong) circumstances. I knew I was having problems as far back as high school, and I walked into MMPI testing of my own volition in college and apparently passed just fine. Years later I asked my primary care doctor to refer me to a psychologist after I learned about Asperger's. Anything mentioned in between to family or friends was mentioned back as me being a hypochondriac just wanting attention, to which I replied I actually dislike attention anyway, so to purposely seek out negative attention seems a bit stretchy, especially since I'd been corporeally punished and lectured at length throughout my childhood and never got enough positive benefit from that to want to seek out more. Well, I didn't say it like that, but you know what I mean.

I have never been hauled in for evaluation. I have never caused disturbances that required interventions. I have never self harmed (typically, visibly) or harmed others (in ways that would get me caught). I was rigidly raised to obey, behave, and don't be embarrassing. I took longer than most kids to catch on, but because of that, I learned to self monitor and avoid unwitting consequences.

I have developed the opinion that beating, humiliating, and scaring children into submission is a very big mistake, but I can see how mentally ill people living in dysfunctional families manage to survive in society that way. Being raised to have too much pride to wind up in jail was a powerful motivator for me, although that was never said in so many words. I actually turned down a lucrative offer based on the fact that I'd eventually wind up in jail, because I personally detest being confined and told what to do. I didn't choose correctly on moral principle or because I might lose custody of my child over it, no, I chose correctly because I had a deterrent I didn't want to tolerate. I was smart enough to at least avoid that by walking away from the offer (which was actually a dangerous thing to do, and I knew it, but I had such a flippant attitude back then that I didn't care).

I'm old and wise now, like Gandalf. I see people all around me who are like me but toe the lines so their lives don't get stupid. They stick to rules and reasons for why they have those rules. I personally think most of the rules are rubbish because the reasons are even more rubbish, but whatever works, right? The goal is to function successfully enough to survive, not win a logic debate. It's easy to see how not toeing the line can go all bad real fast, and that implies stupidity, and many of us would rather not be caught being that stupid.

I've noticed that very few people have actual moral principles, and even when they do they betray them without an eye blink if it serves their momentary purposes. Human mental health is relatively new on the long term scale of human development, and survival traits often include the more cunning virtues, like being able to lie and cheat well, learning when to fake or steal without being caught, jumping into opportunities without sharing them, and more. Part of human intelligence is cunning, and cunning isn't necessarily emotionally healthy.

I think neurodiversity is in it's infancy, and I really hope it doesn't go through a sweeping genocide because of 'mental illness'. It's possible that some level of mental illness might actually be a positive survival trait for some people. For instance, my narcissistic attitude as a child about other people being stupid kept me from self destructing into self deprecation and the nasty consequences of self harm, corroding addictions, and suicide, as per discussion with my psychologist. It's true that some people benefit from help with tweaking brain chemicals, but it's also true that some of our greatest art, literature, and science leaps were borne in mentally ill brains.

I am not ashamed of a single one of my diagnoses. I didn't even know I was this much of a mess until I sought out help for a very real personal problem that bothered me very badly. I wanted a friend. A real friend, a friend who would accept me and respect me and care that I walk this earth and not just toy with me or use me. Real life isn't like television for most of us. Most of us feel lonely a lot more than TV says we should. Most of us don't have laugh tracks following us around like we're so cute even when we're dumb. Most of us live like facepalm cliffhangers that never get resolved because the show got cancelled.

Most of us remain undiagnosed.

Side story to make a point. @bonenado has shingles. He is dealing with a level of pain I've been living with for years. He has suddenly taken an interest in a little research, so I sent him a link with a list of shingles symptoms. I have been living with every one of those symptoms for years, minus the rash. I am not afraid of shingles. That doesn't mean I ever want them or that I would blow them off if I got them, but it means I'm a seasoned veteran with experiencing nerve pain and therefore don't feel that tingle of fear around the word shingles.

The idea of being mentally ill doesn't frighten or upset me. I have apparently been living with all of this for a very long time without knowing there were names for it. My life has gotten better and even easier since I found out about them. I was struggling so hard for years with why is it so hard for me to be nice. I really did try, and everywhere I went, one hour into whatever and I was in defcon migraine level hate and badly needing escape. Why? Once I found out it's because my senses are so easily overwhelmed and that my natural coping mechanisms are faulty, I stopped being so hard on myself. All I have to do is simply remove myself from a situation before it gets overwhelmingly ugly for me, and people all around think that I'm nice.

Learning to live with mental illnesses is like learning to live with chronic illnesses. You develop rhythms and lifestyles that help you stay balanced and learn to navigate the disruptions that upset that balance. I happen to need a lot of quiet time in order to cope well, and when that becomes impossible, I have fallback modes I can go into to focus my way through until I can reach a place of quiet. A lot of it is about preplanning for sensory overload, which triggers all kinds of personality issues when I don't stay smart about how I want my day to go.

It's not a piece of cake. I live with both mental and chronic illnesses. Sometimes it's really hard to get through life sucks, but sometimes everything goes all wrong and I'm fine with it. The most important thing about each moment is keep moving. Keep breathing, keep minecrafting, keep doing my laundry, keep checking on people I love, keep keeping. Enjoy the little things, treasure the moments, love all the nouns (people, places, and things).

I don't know if this will help anyone, but I believe honesty and transparency are becoming even more rare and precious in this super socially saturated world, and the more we just say our stuff, the more we'll not feel alone.

💟

resuscitation

I wrote this on Sunday afternoon of the 28th when Pinky blog was still closed.

click for wallpaper

So I put myself on bed rest, because I'm terrible for grinding myself to an actual standstill even when all the sirens are going off and defcon warnings are going on system wide. I've made it, what, about 3 years now since an autoimmune flare? I'm in severe fibro flare, and some kind of spinal nerve trunk flare, because my left leg and foot ache really bad and all my toes feel like I broke them on a coffee table or something, but so far so good on appetite, sleeping, and the usual restlessness. I'm trying to medicate more, y'all know I really hate that and any doctor would heartily laugh and then go, Yeah, NO, like this, and then triple everything I'm taking and then I'd morph into a lethargic reptile. I mean, no offense against reptiles, but srsly, I'd be like that.

Played single player for a little while in between surgey power stuff because big storm last night shredded the forest a bit and threw a few branches around, hit a bored jag and dug through wallpapers for awhile, then played around with the search bar, plugged in variations of Pinky, by the way here's other Pinky if you really wanna check her out, she's actually pretty cool.

Anyway, I'm flipping search engine pages and run right into 'pinky, guerrero, hypertorus, rulz- giphy' and thought, hm, I've never loaded anything to giphy, what's up with that? So I went over there and saw that, indeed, there was Pinky blog listed as a source for this thing.

And it does click to the post I used it in, but MY post sources it correctly from blingee. I don't know how and why stuff like this happens, no idea if it's auto curated or someone manually loads.

K, just discovered I have more followers on Quora... I never go there. Not even going to link it.

Yeah, I know I'm talking to myself because Pinky blog is still dark, I'm just waiting for it to flatline. I mean, srsly, my stats have looked like a heart rhythm for months. Too bad most of it was from one source or that might've been cool.

Personally, even being a search engine queen and a super lurker and part time stalker, I have *never* opened up anyone's page multiple times a day, certainly not for several days in a row, much less for weeks and even months at a time, and even though I have actually been lurked hard in the past (my heaviest lurker back in 2008 opened my blog nearly once a day for 8 straight months, and I had full stat details every single time, including location and service right down to street address) by a number of people with no idea how in the world I could possibly be that fascinating, ok long run on sentence where was I. Oh, yeah, even with my own skillz, I've never been obvious. I imagine there are a couple of people who have noticed me because they're like me and pay attention and I was actually stalking a little bit, but dang, I never did it like anywhere even close to this level. It's completely not like anything I've ever seen in all the years I've been blogging. I'm very experienced with stats and being super lurked and even stalked.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now it's Tuesday.

Monday was hard.

Ok, Sunday evening I got some stuff thunked out. This last month I've been snacking. A LOT. Especially this last week. On carby stuff. A LOT. Years ago before I got my diabetes dx, I remember all my joints hurting real bad and feeling miserable, and my doctor back then kept throwing prescriptions at me instead of letting me see an endocrinologist (she finally relented after several months and we discovered my TSH was horribly flying right out of the solar system), and it helped to get that med adjusted FINALLY, but it didn't fix all the things. I remember back then that she wasn't worried about my blood sugar reading, which surprised me looking back once I discovered she had noted my ketones were high. A new doctor in 2011 dx'd diabetes and my whole life changed and I started feeling better, and everything since then has been about recovery and healing and coming back from years of immobility and excruciating pain. My diabetes has been well controlled for 5 years.

Until now. I checked my fasting glucose Monday morning, was 110. There are jobs out there requiring their workers to keep their fasting glucose below 100, so you KNOW that's the best predictor of lost work hours. I started sliding all through May, since my empty nest routine has been skewed into a whole new lifestyle and I'm surrounded by high energy people eating very high energy food. If I really look at what I'm doing, I bet my ketones are going back up and that's why I hurt all over and feel so tired. I'm dragging through sticky blood sludge and backed up getting the trash out of my body, and simply calling this a fibro flare is just me being stupid. Time to get back on track.

Point blank, I did this to myself, and I know better. I created this internal misery that affected all my systems and other health problems and threw my psychological balance off on top of it all because I felt so rotten. I felt in the way, got super crabby and peevish, and we can't just blame all that on autism spectrum complicated with anxiety and depression. Diabetes affects brains. If I don't want to be a drag on my family, NO MORE JUNK FOOD. My brain cannot handle carb loads, and woe be to ye if that's what I'm doing.

Aside from that, Monday sucking was a whole lotta neurodiversity hurricanes going on in my area that would make for great TV. I just stayed out of it as much as possible. I know the brains around me only see the klumsy outside of me, and I don't always make sense, and I don't emotionally connect well, so they can't believe that on the inside of me I really do get how their brain styles shape their world views and that they can't see several moves ahead on the chess board like I can, and they don't remember and learn from the past the same way I do. They don't see themselves objectively, the way they assess their situations is different from the way I assess mine, and their missing gap is a vital problem solving skill set that I was born with because I'm autie. ADD and autie working together makes a great team, but when we're all stressed, it can be pretty disastrous. I know I'd have handled things better if I'd been taking better care of myself physically, and I see controlling my diabetes as first line of defense against life sucking in all other ways. I cannot have a good life if my brain is flailing around in sticky blood sludge and I hurt all over.

THAT is aspienado's problem solving skills. Start with me first, assess, organize, prioritize, schedule. Get my own stuff lined up before I step into trying to fix anything else. Other people's lives are their own business, but I can make things easier by smoothing out the wrinkles as they fly by, and that makes me valuable. I like being a valuable person. I can't be valuable like that if I'm stuffing my face with crap.

So here we go, #transparency. Going to spend the summer getting the fasting glucose back down, shedding a few pounds, getting my workouts going again, and focusing on positivity and feeling better. That's my job. Sliding into depression fueled by carbing out and chain reacting a serious disease across all my other issues is stupid stupid stupid. It's one thing to live with depression, it's another thing to coddle it and support its cancerous growth.

That was fun. What else is going on? Hang on a sec, I need to say something, if stalker person ever actually reads all my stuff instead of just poking me over and over. Dear Person Doing This- I'm not a mind reader, and I don't do head games. I'm busy. You could be Christopher Pike stuck in a chair pushing a button, or you could be a brilliant psychotic enamored with Pinky, or you could be a 5 year old with someone's stolen phone, or you could be... you get what I'm saying. If there is a point to this, it's getting lost. But if this is what I think it is, maybe this (below) will make sense, and if it does, then I hear you. And that is all that needs to be said as long as this continues without real change. All I care about on my end is what I got out of the flatline and then the resuscitation.

brain before pain

I haven't done a boring assessment in awhile, how's it going in my life? Let's look at all the things. Or I'll look while you wander off and find cute animal vids or something. Go get mad at Trump, that seems to be more interesting to some people. I can't keep up that kind of momentum without collapsing into ennui and malaise, so I'm going to dink around with numbers 'n stuffs.

click for fun toupee memes

Took some time, but my blood pressure is finally controlled again. I've got a new monitor that I compare against the old one, and they pretty much agree this morning that I'm around 118/78. They usually disagree by 10 points on the bottom number. I'm going to take them both in today when I see the doctor and find out if either one of them is close to right. I've had the Omron Intellisense since 2012, and this new one is a comparable Walgreens brand. Part of the problem, I think, was the old one clocking me 10 points below reality and I wouldn't take my BP med right, and over several weeks that probably allowed me to super screw myself into miserable. BP meds aren't like pain pills, you don't just pop one and expect results. Takes a couple of weeks of regular dosing to see actual results, and then continuing that to see whether it's working reliably. I used to dream of getting off BP meds, but my doctor told me it'll always go back to heart rhythm anyway. I'm one of those PVC/PAC people, constant bumps and skips even without the SVT. They get disruptive enough to wake me up, so I walk a line on meds that holds my pulse rate just above 'dizzy'. So far so good. I have relatives with pacemakers.

yes, click for more

Lotta cracking going on down the ol thoracics since the medrol pack, so time to get on stabilization again methinks. This has been the weirdest year for not staying on track very well and still making the biggest gains. I'm already cutting the muscle relaxer down very slowly, hope to be off regular use by the end of June. Yep, one of those big warning thingies, watch the mood swings on it and don't stop suddenly or pain reaction probs. It was wonderful in a pinch, but daily use seems to be affecting apneas, so definitely can't get lazy on this one. Slept an awesome 8 hours last night (6 on CPAP), and my report is showing my apneas double doubled. Not cool. Brain before pain. That's my new motto. Also, my first appointment with a certified massage therapist outside of physical therapy is this Friday. I will have a new person outside of official medical notation helping me monitor how I'm doing. I'm on my own now. It's up to me to hold those gains.

click, etc

Big leap to social media. Watched my klout score drop into the 50's. I (amazingly) coasted very slowly into that over several months as my twitter impressions dropped from 200K/mo to 20K/mo, and my facebook just about flatined. Happily, I was able to correct from that lowest score in 4 days flat once I made the decision to care about it.

I still don't have apps on my phone, but I did make it to The Flash live tweet last night, yay! 😄

Bets are on now over whether H.R. or Julian might've used the hologram device to take her place. I'll be honest, I sincerely thought Killer Frost was about to step into that Evil Barry suit and do it herself, but I don't read social cues well and saw a tweet fly by later about her eye color being Caitlin's, so... who knows. Joe's scenes about killed me because I'm there. That's me standing there watching my kiddos now, ready to do anything for them, but dang it, he chose NOT to shoot Good Barry to save his daughter from Future Evil Barry, so he and I can't be friends yet. I'd have taken that shot, but I'm kinda meaner than Joe is.

And  what about you guys? Twitter lets me see 'organic' analytics, which means the followers I personally cultivated and weeded through, and thanks to all our devices sync sharing all our things back to everything we do, twitter allows me to see what your lives look like.

For instance, most of you are college and middle aged

and married

and own your own homes,

over one third of you have higher educations

and good jobs

making a decent living

and living in nice places. (I get a few Pinky blog hits coming in directly from multimillion dollar street addresses in posh neighborhoods, which I prefer to think of as innocence around internet savvy, but twitter doesn't really make a big deal out of that kind of stuff.)

Most of you are foodies like me

and dig the entertainment industry like I do.

And don't worry, this is the closest I get to your personal info from twitter.

Look at the time! Need to run out my door now. Where's my run out the door music...

*multifandom playlist*

lessons

the legendary red rock

3-day cervicogenic headache aside (mimics migraine), I thought our first weekend with Bunny moved in went really well. I have 2 days left in physical therapy this week (doing my usual fibro-flare kickback against all the local stimulation and then sleeping better with my neck in a weird position, plus dental chair for teeth cleaning, yowza to the neck #uffda), my blood pressure seems to be settling around 116/78 kind of stuff (huzzah! CPAP, guys), I finally broke through on that stupid fluid retention from the big med change in January (still can't believe how much that bossed my whole body around), and yay we're finally back to Monday routine.

Allergies- don't wanna jinx myself, but CPAP is super duper for helping control so far. April is my bad month every spring. The air I breathe through the night now is double filtered. So far I'm using only half the antihistamines I was using last year and breathing comfortably, but oak pollen is just now really ramping up (birch is already high), so we'll see where I am a week from now. People around me, meanwhile, are struggling. I've talked before about how quickly pollen saturates a house in a variety of ways with tips on how to manage that.
the definitive last word on living through a ragweed tsunami

Still euphoric, but it seems to be pretty controlled. This is the 12th day, which is usually about where it starts tapering off for me. Feeling pretty confident that I won't go through a crash and burn once it does. I think this is the best controlled big euphoria I've had, and despite all the extra stress around me, I still managed to float through quite a bit of it even though I was controlling the float level.

I'm not letting myself look at work I feel isn't getting done. I'm hugging myself for getting through all this huge stuff intact and not worse off. I think my family is a good team because we know each other so well and we're all into problem-solving, and somehow we all seemed to click into about the smoothest problem fix transition we've ever gone through together.

Number one lesson learned- no matter how smart a 3 year old seems, the probability of treasure winding up in one's tummy is 100%, pretty much just a matter of time. Bunny's amazed disbelief at how in the world it had to and actually did make its magical reappearance still cracks me up. Watching this learning process has been delightful and opened up all kinds of new thoughts about thought processes in my own mind. The conclusion, as always, is that humans in general don't 'know' anything without conscious investigation and observation, and all our knowledge as a species is cumulative. Left to our own devices, we'll always just keep swallowing metaphorical rocks and not know what to believe.

Quick summary- I'm tired, and we've still got a long way to go. I can do this.

This was my lullaby in my headphones last night after everyone else settled in. One of my last thoughts before I finally drifted off was how I never seem to talk about how much the Joker has filled background gaps in my head since I was a kid. I saw all the old Batmans in the 60s, the cartoons, all the movies. I love Jack Nicholson, but I think Heath really nailed it.