staying positive through the negative

allthethings

I'm so bubbly full of wordy words this morning that I'm feeling impatient. Too bad I can't just press my head to the screen and think it out to here. #waitingforthebrainchip

First of all, yes, really had a mountain lion ON MY STREET IN FRONT OF MY HOUSE this week. You twitter people ignoring that are just jealous as hell, that's all. @bonenado set up the wildlife cam in the front yard hoping we'll get a repeat sometime this summer. I think all the fireworks going off night after night flushed it out. I live among the slightly better off and extremely patriotic. It's their right and duty as 'Muricans to try to burn these woods down.

@bonenado's brexbist today. Remember that speed vine I retweeted a couple times? That. It works. I need to refresh my muffin tins, though. Using paper cups wasn't ideal.

My internet is slooooow. Wild storms galore, tree down next door, got lots of hail in the pour, now I stay in my door. Ok, let's skip along before I spring into limericks and haikus.

Quickie touch base assessment on howzit going. Cut another 2 inches off my hair this morning. I had cut 3 inches last week or so, couldn't tell because my hair has gotten so long, so I figured another 2 inches would be ok. I can't believe I've taken 5 inches off now and it's still down to my lower shoulder blades. Remember when I got so excited 3 years ago that it was growing back? And then I talked about dealing with all that, and then brought it up again in 2015. Despite the length, I've been losing hair steadily again all spring, but as far as I can tell, it's root regrowth. Hair grows in cycles and people generally don't notice randomly shedding hair and regrowing it year round because it's usually thick enough not to create empty patches. My hair didn't start growing back in until I pretty much doubled my protein intake (sometimes triple, my pre-lifestyle change diet was pretty abysmal), and now I can tell it ebbs and flows when my body is under stress. April was the hardest on my hair this year, and it's starting up again, so allergy seasons and spiking histamine levels definitely affect my hair endurance, which for me means inflammation levels.

I have been tolerating increasing sinus and ear pressure discomfort for a couple of weeks again, decided last night it's time to go back to the twice a day zyrtec, and all it took was that one boost to drain my sinus and clear my skin again just overnight. I come from very white yet red skinned people, and I've lived with an autoimmune flush most of my adult life. When I take prednisone I turn white like magic, and that one zyrtec last night did the same thing. I got whiter through the spring again while I was so miserable with tree pollen but on all that extra zyrtec, and as I tapered down again the last 6 weeks, I flushed up again.

I looked back through my medical history this week, noting dates on certain tests. I used to regularly score 1:16 on ANA titers (positive speckle) (I hit 1:32 years ago and even 1:64 once) and lived with continual moderate SEDs for years (mostly 40-80ish), but we've watched that go away the last couple of years, so I've been negative ANA and normal SEDs for 2 full years now, yay!!! Interestingly, this coincides with getting very stringent with my antihistamines. I started noticing over the last 3-4 years that histamine spikes set off fibro and autoimmune flush flares, but it's getting so obvious now that I'm able to control severity somewhat with diet and antihistamines (and I've had definite input on this from a real allergist, who called it an autoimmune reaction disorder).

I have no idea if this will help other people. I'm NOT saying antihistamines cure lupus, just like changing your diet does NOT cure diabetes. I'm just saying I'm noticing that I seem to have some control over the overall tissue response. I've had other tests scary-spike, like C reactive protein the year I had to be crashed off 2 different hormone therapies, or AST and ALT liver enzymes during steady medication years, and antihistamines don't fix any of that, so don't be dumb, ok? Just saying I'm noticing a correlation between a more rigorous antihistamine regime and autoimmune flush lightening up. You still have to take care of yourself.

Pain, on the other hand, has been off the wall again this month, pretty sure it's mostly weather related. The morphine helped knock it down last weekend but it's a fair bet it made the 'never do again' list after the difficulty I had with it, and then I ground down on daily mobic this week to keep the pain level down a little bit more, but it's just not enough to stop it. I felt great going into the chiropractor a couple mornings ago, but a very sudden wild pop up rained like a lake dumped all over us while I was in there, and I almost limped out of there feeling so rotten all over. I can't take air pressure changes, especially hard and fast, it just destroys me and there's no pain medication or treatment in the world that can stop it from happening. And I noticed last night that I'm seeing phantom light flashes in the dark again, which means I hafta back off on the mobic again before I start seeing auras. Mobic raises blood pressure in the brain and puts pressure on optic nerves, so I normally take it every other day, but this last week has been daily. Doesn't take much of that stuff to do me dirty.

Ok, I'm done with that part. Aren't you glad I don't go on about this every day? I'm just thrilled that I'm not popping into ER every other month nowadays. I've been very lucky that I've never yet been hospitalized, but it's because I obsessively pay attention to patterns over time, like I do with everything in my life.

Enough of that. Back to minecraft! This is an undisclosed location on Kai's realm. I'd never used brick before. It's a special coordinate combo using my fave number, so I planted roots there.

And it happens to be fairly near an uber giant mushroom! That realm is still survival (although I play creative more and more there lately so creepers won't activate), so I'm in process of establishing self proclaimed boundaries and I'm going to light that forest up like crazy and fence it off. Maybe I can make it look elvish or Hobbity or something. Incidentally, I've never run across so many naturally occurring giant mushroom roofed forests as in Kai's realm.

I got 4 hours of sleep last night, so I'm not sure how the rest of the day will pan out. I've actually been up doing random stuff for 7 hours already. I've got cool stuff going in my own new realm, but no pix yet and I'll put them on their own blog later. Getting Bunny pix in from a water park, maybe I'll share them later.

I'm on the verge of taking my mouse apart because that button is sticking so bad now that I lost whole sections of this just hovering over. Little sticky hands, my bad. I'm lucky Jawn's keyboard is still fairly free of problems, although he stopped going full shut down because someone changed a setting somehow. As long as the internet isn't erased, we're cool, but maybe the sticky police need to pay more attention to the tech.

I need to get moving.

aspienado selfie kind of a day

Fluid-filled ears, TMJ, and bacon. That's all there is today. Every time I walk into another room, my brain falls out. I'm going in circles. I keep coming back to the bacon I cooked up, so at least there's that. About two hours ago I thought I'd better go put some clothes on. I just realized I'm still in my pajamas, so I'm going to go put some clothes on. BRB.


Yes, I had to write out instructions to myself and go follow them. I'm back with real clothes on, matching pink underneath my orange FINAO tee. I meant to tell you guys several days ago my fave sock ever finally bit the dust. Yeah, the green one sticking its tongue out.

And now I'm getting supper cooked up ahead because it's just too hot to cook later. Italian chicken fingers, yay! Which we'll have with salads this evening. I feel like I need a vigorous back massage with brass knuckles, or at least a few nails jabbed in for homestyle acupuncture, so let's just keep distracting me while stuff cooks. I got this the other day, too. It's really hard to get a good pic where the gray actually shows up. That's my wizard hair. I'm a wizard.

My mom was all white by this age, so I don't know what's wrong with me, it's still all brown and red except for those very front pieces trailing back.

You guys probably won't believe me telling you I already knew when I was a little girl that I wanted wise old woman hair when I grew up. I've always thought white hair is awesome. I mean, aside from blue hair. I've ALWAYS wanted blue hair. Now that I'm so allergic to makeup that just watching these makes my eyes puff up, I realize I missed all the fun. It's worth clicking out and reading the description for this one, lotta people have skin challenges.


My parents would have freaked completely out over this.

I think this is my all-time fave baby pic in the family.

I didn't know 'goth your baby' is a real thing. I also didn't know Is Your Child a Godless Goth? is a real thing. O_O *wow* Seeing's how I live in the bible belt, I feel quite comfortable suggesting the maybe 'goth' is a reaction to *cough* overzealous parents *cough*. History of modern Goth. What was that, a music lesson? Here we go- History of original Goth.

"Since histories have relied primarily on Roman sources to present the history of the Goths, these people are frequently equated with the concept of the "uncivilized barbarian" or the "noble savage". In fact, they were neither. As Wolfram points out, their history cannot be claimed as that of the ancient German people nor of the Slavic people nor of any people presently living (74-75). The Goths entered history at a pivotal moment in the decline of the Roman Empire and played their part in that drama. With the empire gone, they ruled over two great kingdoms: one of Odoacer and Theodoric the Great in Italy, and the other in France (that of Theodoric I). In Totila, the last great king of the Ostrogoths, they produced one of the most brilliant military leaders in history, a match for the legendary Belisarius of Rome, known as the "Last of the Romans'. With Belisarius' victory, the history of the Goths ends. It is therefore difficult at first to determine exactly what the legacy of the Goths is to the modern-day world until one realizes that, without them, there would not be one. The kingdom of Odoacer preserved the best aspects of the Roman Empire and that of Theodoric the Great maintained that preservation. Western civilization continued after the fall of Rome, an entity that was disintegrating daily and would have fallen anyway even if the Goths had never set a single boot on Roman soil; it was the Goths who preserved the light of western civilization, even as they helped to topple the empire that had given rise to it."

Even on days where I feel like my brain keeps falling out and don't feel like I'm getting anything done, I actually get a lot done. Research counts. Moving pictures off my phone counts. Practicing my writing skills counts. I learned from Chris Hardwick that all that counts. That's why I don't get so depressed any more over it. I'm still inching forward. I'm still creating content and sharing my soul with other people who might be stuck today.

Back to some fun stuff! Bunny got pictures made the other day, this little outfit knocks me out, I love it. Like a tiny flapper girl.

Batman is partially indigenous to this country. I grew up near a reservation, so it tickles me to hear him doing a circle chant without any prompting or even being exposed to one. Native American Prayers


I guess I need something besides a couple pieces of bacon in me. This might be a good day to go watch a Sherlock ep again and notice more background stuff.

Things to Do on Your Phone When You Can't Sleep

Last night was one of those long can't get comfortable and wake up every two minutes nights that finally got so bad I made myself sit up so I'd stop doing that. I'm an insomnia expert, have tried everything from pills to 'sleep hygiene' to writing to watching TV to cleaning my house at 2 a.m., but sometimes the easiest way through it is to just get lost on the internet. This is a sample of me handling severe insomnia last night.

Dug up celebrity hair shrines, devoted fans do the rest, easy 10-15 minute distractions. I've been doing this for years, amazing how many hair shrines there are out there.

Click to see way more awesome

Withdrawal Symptoms of Sex Addiction
Skidded right off my search on symptoms of a med taper into sexland. O_O *wo* Right off the bat I was falling off the couch over the user who named him/herself "Banjo". I mean, not to mock, I'm sure this is a very real problem for some people, but my curiosity is so piqued over whether some of that guilt has anything to do with kids, pets, bodies... 30 minutes flew right by before I remembered I had a weird headache and was worried I would die from prednisone withdrawal.

Sorry no clicky, comes from restricted site.

And then I remembered I'm getting obsessed all over again with Khan backstory and decided I was too flippant on my the wrath of the search for spirk post a couple of days ago just throwing a wikipedia link out there, so I apologize to everyone who seriously wants to know more and really don't have the kind of time on their hands to do deeper research like I do (evidently @bonenado missed a whole buncha stuff in the movie, too). Here's your link trail through all things Khan/alt Khan in the Memory Alpha and Star Trek Wiki.

Original Khan history dates back to the 1950s genetics experiments in the story line and back to 1967 in our Star Trek viewer history. Please note that in the original (prime) timeline, Kirk's crew are the ones to wake up Khan's entire crew.

The Eugenics Wars are a series of novels that fill in Khan's backstory before he met Kirk, much of which happens during the 1990s. There is also much more to read on the wiki about the Eugenics Wars so you can shortcut the novels. You also find out why and how Khan and his crew wound up in cryostasis.

Arik Soong is a geneticist in the Enterprise series who comes after the Eugenics Wars but before the waking of Khan. We learn more about Augments (genetically enhanced humans) and what happened to the embryos after the wars.

Alt Khan was awakened earlier than prime Khan by Admiral Marcus due to changes in the timeline precipitated by Nero blowing up Vulcan. Marcus knew exactly who Khan was and had him surgically altered to be unrecognizable, had some of his memories wiped, and put him to work as John Harrison. When 'John' regained some of his memories, Marcus forced him to continue working in exchange for the lives of his Augment crew, who were all still frozen. Before the film came out, all of this was explained in comic books.

And NOW we are ready for Star Trek Into Darkness. And you can always go back to the wrath of the search for Spirk for continued distraction into fanvid land.

If you are really super hardcore into the alt ST verse, you can also pick up on the Kronos moon Praxis history being changed, since you see a glimpse of it in STID.

Here you go, Benedict having his hair washed, in case you actually do have a celebrity hair fetish.


I also looked up Terminator Salvation because for some reason @bonenado doesn't remember seeing it, and even though we saw it during one of my super sickie years, I do remember it because I was so ticked off about Christian Bale being John Connor. Now, you've gotta understand, I adore Christian Bale. But not as John Connor. Plus the continuity was so screwed that I was lividly frothing my way through it on a med cocktail that brings out my darker side, so maybe Scott just blocked it all out out of sheer survival, who knows. It's safe to say I'm possibly an even bigger Terminator fan than I am a Star Trek fan, plus I super dig explosion movies and will sometimes frame by frame them just to see all the effects (who of us has NOT yet ever slow advanced Darth Vadar throwing the Emperor over the railing and seeing his skull, raise your hands) (do this for all Darth scenes in all Star Wars movies where special effects are going on). That being said, I desperately need to see Terminator Salvation again to psyche up for Terminator Genisys (click that to see awesome trailer O.M.G.), which starts showing on July 1st, and guess what, Salvation is showing on Wednesday June 17 at 7 p.m. central on AMC. You're welcome.


And you guys thought all I did was blog and babysit and whine about my book not being done yet.

Side note- it's always comforting to find lengthy med forums filled with fear-crazed people going through more suffering that you are, and it turns out I'm not actually dying, but at least I know what to watch for now. The internet is awesome in its shared wisdom.

I'm actually bouncing around my house again, even though the pred is over now. Hoping I get a nap later today, because this is unreal, although I have to admit I'm loving it. Maybe a little too much. Crossing my fingers I'm not jaunting into a euphoria. Dang it.

So yeah, my head is all over the place today. In the middle of watching STID for the 4th time this week, catching all the background stuff. I need to find something silly so I can wrap this up and get off here. I love fans.

things going on before the calendar flips

March 2007
egg and feather courtesy of Jaizzy, collectible tray via my grandmother

Random photobucket pix for no reason.

Dec. 30, Saturday

Cut 7 inches off my hair. You can't even tell because it was so long. It's still past my shoulder blades. I talk about my hair more on my spaz blog. I mention it sometimes on this blog, too. If you're having hair issues, I seem to be solving mine naturally if you want to look through those link threads.

July 2007
snapping turtle in our yard, wouldn't let go of the flip flop

Went through my closet and all my drawers for charity donations and discovered that since the gallbladder removal, I'm a size smaller in shirt size now. Nice! (Didn't even lose weight for that, lol. Guess my poor tummy was puffy for a good reason.) I still like big and comfy, but I'm medium chested, so blouses have always fit funny. I might be able to get some sweet clearance blouses at Penney's if I can go down a size now.

I nabbed this many years ago from the original Hampster Dance site

Making chocolate pie for Papa because he's been exceptionally good this week being home with me and Bunny while she's off school. Pudding pies have less sugar than some pies (and way less starch than pastries and cookies!), and I bulk up the eggs from 3 to 5 or 6 (meringue with extra whites and still only a tiny bit of sugar is excellent), and with the milk that's pretty much a chocolate flavored protein pie. I don't do those very often any more, but that's going on today. I'm diabetic and am successfully controlling with diet, which I talk about in several places but lightly recapped into one handy post. I know it's hard, and I really hope I can help. Btw, don't be dumb and plow the pie down too fast. One piece, wait a couple hours before you dive in again. Be smart about controlling your glucose levels.

February 2007
proof that my husband was not the only person there with a camera taking pix of people they love standing in a line
why this was such a huge deal I'll never understand

Working on a new winter/spring syllabus to get me organizeder around here again. For awhile I was really good at daily/weekly/monthly lists and last couple years those have gotten more and more bombed with real life stuffs, so I need to find a more permanent way to keep my lists in front of my face. Bunny has a little chart... I might need to get me a chart going. She'll be jealous of my stickers. I may need to rethink her little chart because it uses magnets and those are kind of backfiring. She sneaks magnets on. Maybe stickers are the answer.

January 2007
I used to mock Scott's Minnesota teams
I know right, baseball Cubbies all month during the Superbowl wait
we're still married...

Dec. 31, Sunday

Watching the fireworks go off around the world on twitter. Wondering if I'll be able to stay up tonight like I hoped. Maybe I can get a nap.

March 2010

I have a long day ahead of me. A new year is nearly here. I can't see my future very well, but I do know that I'm ready to capsize all the boats now. A little toast to 2018, and hopes that I finally say it all. I'm ready to move on to the fun stuff.

Jawn being strip searched just for using blogger

1 tbsp of my favorite chocolate chips has 70 calories. How many chips are in 1 tbsp??? And is that an ounce, or what?

Finally found an answer, from A Comprehensive Guide to Chocolate Conversions, Substitutions and Equivalents- "1 ounce semi-sweet chocolate (chips or square) = 3 tablespoons semi-sweet chocolate chips (or, 54 individual chips) - 1 ounce semi-sweet baking (chips or square) = 3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder + 3 tablespoons sugar + 1 tablespoon butter, margarine or shortening"

And that's my foil in this calorie counting thing. I added roughly 210 calories before I went to bed last night. I've decided after this bag of chips is empty, NO MOAR.

The biggest challenges I'm running into with Windows 10 is that it runs more like mobile, and I'm having to cave to dowloading apps for things I normally pull up in search or have saved to desktop shortcuts. Jawn regularly gets into fights with Chrome and Facebook because W10 keeps making it difficult to interface them with my built in programs already running. I have no idea if I'll wind up having to allow Kaspersky to be the boss about how these apps will open once I have them loaded. All I know is that I better be as protected from the world as I am myself, because I can barely move on my own laptop without stringent profiling and interrogation.

STEP OUT OF THE KEYBOARD! What? SHOW ME YOUR ID! It's me, this is my computer. THAT WASN'T THE CORRECT PASSWORD, TRY AGAIN! But I'm already logged in... YOU CAN'T PROCEED WITHOUT AN SMS CODE. Seriously? I was *just working* there.

And then some of the sites start fighting back, because if it's going to be this way, forget playing nice, and they just fold their arms and legs and sit around the table with their noses in the air not cooperating. My pictures folder is getting really tired of being held hostage in corporate takeovers.

I *think* I just downloaded the Facebook app for Windows 10. Suddenly it was all instantaneous and not laborious at all, but I never got a confirmation that happened. We'll see how it goes.

this meme strangely links to all this in google search
(just scroll down)

Ok, things going on and what in the world am I doing with any kind of Plan?

• I need 3 more dimes and 3 more pennies to make rolls. My monthly change haul is already nearly $40.
• I have a beautiful new orange 32 GB Cruzer Glide to load junk over to once I'm done with stuff. Nope, still haven't found all my other flash drives. Yep, actually been excavating.
• I'm really in an orange mood lately, I think it's because I'm ready for autumn. Did you see the size of those webs I posted to twitter? And they're just getting started. I live in Mirkwood.
• I am actually working on real work. I know you guys laugh.
• I've started a giant platform on MoCreatures. Lest any of ye protest that I'm on minecraft too much, my multiplayer was down for nearly 2 weeks, so nyahnyah. And 45 minutes working on a platform isn't being on minecraft all the time. Anyway, I had this idea for a cool scifi story years ago, and I'm actually building what it would look like (kinda). Anyway, the platform will be really big, like raising a town up on stilts. Underneath the platform is already very dangerous for really excellent bad guy spawns. I was killed by werewolves from hell yesterday, they set me on fire and everything, which is perfect because there is a nasty underground thing going on in my story. Up top I want to build with very expensive blocks, so I might need to extend town protection or something before I start on the buildings. It'll be like a swanky shopping plaza with a tram system, and since it's next to my evil lair, the tram will naturally run partially underneath the platform for a scary good time. This could possibly take months...

In other news, @bonenado has been checking out a cricket powered bugracer for Bunny (cricket not included, lol). No idea yet if we'll actually get it.

Massive software update came through on my phone, took forever, so I just shut down and went back to bed. Waking up a second time and no coffee is a bummer, threw my whole morning off, so even though I'm dressed and functional, I feel out of kilter and weird, like I didn't do it right.

Here is the hair regrowth I brought up a few days ago. See that little piece sticking out in the ponytail? It's not break off or from being cut. I regularly regrow patches like chickens do (many chicken breeds will partial molt year round like wild birds), which is actually a really good sign after all the crap I've been through. I'm back on more meds now, so I'll be watching this like a hawk. I've seen loads of forums of people complaining about hair loss after med changes. I still think it's related to diabetes and not getting enough protein, like the body has to prioritize what's more important for protein allocation when the diet is too carby in a dsyfunctional metabolism. All it takes is a med change to throw a fluid balance off and there you go, a cascade of systems readjusting, starting with liver and kidneys because they're the ones that filter the meds. The healthier you can keep your liver and kidneys, the more protein you'll have left for hair growth. Doctors don't have time to asplain this stuff, nutritionists aren't certified to actually say it like this, nurses are simply just run to half to death, and the 'official' diabetes groups are being funded by people who don't want you to know this (seriously- American Diabetes Association receives millions each year from junk food companies, candy manufacturers and pharmaceutical firms). When I was my sickest and most immobile, I was on handfuls of meds and my diet was atrocious. Pills don't save you from a junky diet. They only give you a sense of controlling the downhill slide by slowing it down a little bit.

"The ADA's advice to diabetics is that they can keep eating all the ice cream, sweets and soft drinks they want, as long as they control their blood sugar with pharmaceuticals," Adams said. "It's medically absurd. Diabetics need to eliminate liquid sugars and refined carbohydrates from their diets for life, and in doing so, many of them would find their diabetes disappearing."

I have never bought that guy's book, but I did my own research and figured it out myself, and then almost literally came back from the dead, as it were. You can read more about his approach here. Not being paid to link that.

I think the most important part of this is that patients are told they are 'borderline' when they are already very sick. My ketones were noted 3 years before my diagnosis. The borderline level is (likely, in my opinion) set by pharmaceutical companies, because the second you hit that 126 and cross into diagnosis, you get meds, and by then it's too late, the meds don't keep it from progressing. You just simply live in a controlled state the rest of your life as you slide downhill into old age. They compound it with advocating a very high amount of carbs as being part of a healthy diet in a body that can't properly process carbs, and that keeps you on meds so it won't kill you outright. Carbs are really big business. Think about it sometime.

Some of us are very lucky and don't tolerate meds. Some of us are forced to get healthy on our own if we want to live badly enough. My health was so bad that I couldn't walk through a store or even get in and out of a shower by myself. Diabetes was taking me down hard and fast, and there was only one way to save myself- stop consuming stuff my body can't digest properly. No more sweet tea, no more big breakfasts full of pancakes and waffles and french toast, no more giant servings of rice and potatoes and pasta in restaurants, no more cake and ice cream and pie on holidays. No. More. Cookies. Yes, it's very hard. If you have diabetes (borderline or full blown) or even insulin resistance, your body thinks it needs sweets because the sweet-o-meter is broken (starches count for sweets in the body, you'll crave bread, too), and every two hours that alarm goes off screaming we need carbs or we'll die, and you really can't help it, you've gotta do something or go crazy. The ONLY way to turn that off is to stop the cycle. Proteins and healthy fats, leafy and cruciferous veg, berries and nuts, foods low in starches and sugars. I lost 50 pounds in 4 months barely even trying, and then I felt so much better that I started exercising. I regained my abilities for self care at home and shopping for myself around town. It was wonderful getting those back.

Not everyone loses a leg or goes blind before diabetes kills them. My mom died from lots and lots of strokes, and on the outside you couldn't tell she was diabetic. She got skinny for awhile, seemed to have lots of energy, and didn't look unhealthy for a woman her age. At home we knew she suffered- her feet were going numb, it was getting harder and harder for her to walk to the mailbox because she'd be out of breath and fatigued, and she finally started losing her strength as muscles started wasting. You don't have to be fat to have diabetes.

Sorry this turned into a big long thing. I know it seems like I embellish a bit when I mention once in awhile fighting to live every day, but with all the stuff I've got stacked up on me, I'm fortunate to still be here, and I'll be very fortunate to make it as long as my mom did. I'm doing everything I can every single day to reach that goal.

I really need to let go of the chocolate chips...

And I really need to get off this post and get moving around.

gotta see your face some more

*floating*

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

private #FlashbackFridays this date through the years

I'm going to stick to actual Fridays from private blogs.

In 2007, Friday during this time of year was on the 7th, and I was getting ready for my last Cystic Fibrosis walk.

Another dark rainy morning going by, and I'm wondering where my motivation has gone.  Dang, I'm really missing those drugs this morning.  They made everything so easy.  I could have been walking around with a fork in my eyeball and still been able to get things done.  But last week was a bust, and now this week has slipped away somehow.

I have less than a month to contact a costume shop about a Jack Sparrow outfit for the local look-alike I found awhile back.  Every year this is so hard.  Last summer I was dragging to class in the heat on two different antibiotics and was useless, barely got any fundraising done.  Walked into the library yesterday and saw another group's stuff up in a display case and thought, I should have been on the library system a good month or two ago........  I was so hoping the online donation sites would make it easier, but not one cent in.

In 2008 it was the 5th.

Sorry for the gross pic here.  I get the staples out Sunday, so I'm not freaking or anything, but my knee is so obviously irritated.  I made the terrible mistake yesterday of sharply bending it and then nearly falling right on it, and I *felt* the staples tear through some skin.

I'm not going to share the gross pic of the staples in my knee...

There was also a World of Warcraft incident that inspired a letter. I don't write letters any more, because I've learned to talk. Aspienado + super ADHD = very poor communication. At any rate, we both survived being full time step parents living next door to his parents. Why I was ever jealous of this is beyond me now. A person can be married and still become an autonomous being, which I think is a very healthy way to live. I used this letter to be mean, when behind it all I was simply jealous, and when all boiled down, not the sort of person to actually demand that kind of time in the first place. Also, I had come through a really rough illness that lasted several months, which I'm sure would be exhausting for anyone who is both sole breadwinner and caretaker.

I would LOVE to be able to trade places with xxx or xxx.  I would be able to command you to do things, I would be able to whine at you every day, and I would be able to beseech you for selfish stuff and dump all my problems on you, and you would always COME BACK FOR MORE.  I would never have to apologize, I would never have to feel bad if I was taking advantage of you, and I would be able to throw it back in your face if you tried to stick up for yourself.

But because I'm me, and because I keep my mouth shut so much, and because I step aside for other people needing you, and mostly because I don't want to be demanding when I can see you are already so financially and emotionally burdened with other cares and problems, I don't usually bother you.  I feel bad that I'm as useless as I am, and I'm grateful for every crumb I get from you.

But I feel I would get more attention from you if I were a dog.  Or a whiny child.

This would be different if you were a trucker and not able to be home for a week.  It would be different if you were a federal agent like Jack Bauer and got sent all over the place and couldn't talk about your gruesome work.  This would be different if you literally could not be here for me.

I made a joke awhile back.  One weekend.  Just one weekend out of the whole rest of the year.  Just one.  No phone calls, no interruptions, no one butting in on my time with you and taking you away, no one being more important than me.  In some ways it's a funny joke.  In other ways it's a really sad testimony to this marriage.

I know you have things that need taking care of.  I'm not saying drop everything you're doing right now and pay attention to me, because that is stupid.  You have a roof to fix, you have your teeth to fix, you have a trip coming up, you have your daughter's birthday coming up.  And you know I'm not going to accept a spontaneous weekend without planning or forethought, especially if I'm not in on the plans myself.  If there is anything I truly hate, it's that you discuss details with other people and leave me in the dark.  I have a whole list of examples that other people would find astonishing, most of them last minute announcements that I had no idea about but that you'd already planned with other people.

Now it's just all funny stories, the stuff sitcoms are made of. One of the most personally iconic sayings I've ever run across was about pulling up one's big girl panties. Funny how something silly can turn perspective around. Perspective demands that I share that I missed getting to be much of a child as a child, and I was quite jealous of my step daughter having the kind of father I always dreamed of, because I felt so estranged from my parents even in their presence. Once it hit me that I married him and he's awesome, I realized how petty I was being. Step parenting feelings get pretty layered, especially around an extremely opinionated mil. I've learned so much about myself being here, I'd never change it.

Ok, in 2009 Friday was on the 4th.

I remember watching over the sheep as a kid when we let them out to graze the scrub beyond the pasture, with them grunting contentedly like pigs as they moved along in batches, kicking at flies here and there, bleating and catching up, and through it all *fart* *fart* *fart* all over the flock. The constant farting was hilarious.

So today I ate my sweet tato fries, haven't been able to do that for some time since I've had to go out so often, and I'm having this wonderful morning meandering contentedly around my house doing stuff here and there, and through it all is *fart* *fart* *fart*.

Woopsie, the 11th would have been a closer Friday to today's date, hang on. Oh, nevermind, didn't post that weekend. Moving on.

Friday in 2010 was the 10th. Ah, the year @bonenado had hernia surgery.

Scott's incision area clear on down is absolutely black with bruising.  I tried calling him Black Ball the Pirate, and he told me not to make him laugh.    He's much more subdued today, thank goodness.  He was so wired that he didn't sleep all last night, and you know I get up a lot, and I've been up since 4 this morning and hoping we gets naps pretty soon.

Wow, Friday in 2011 was the 9th, just like this year. I'm going to cut miles out of this one, too much personal stuff, but wow was I having a day.

191.  That's 45 total.  Now I can start thinking 190 and my goal towards 50 total.  Wouldn't it be cool if I lost 50 pounds by my 50th birthday.

Buncha stuff cut out. The most crucial thing I didn't know in this next bit is that I'm actually and very officially documented now being allergic to dogs, aside from peanut butter, and this was the last day I ever touched a dog, and after leaving the salon I did discover my face was almost welty mottled red and puffy. Also, nothing against the guy in the salon except I expected a lot more from his obsession with his own looks. Also, we later found out that xxx had full blown PTSD, which I'm sure caused the nerve thing. A word to women- NEVER cover for your men who are having meltdowns. They need help, you can't fix it, and it can get dangerous.

@ 3:15 p.m.

I'm still trying to figure this day out.

It's 10:30.  I'm doing super.  Twink calls.  She's shaky, should she go to urgent care or the ER.

I ask the usual questions.  Have you eaten today.  How long ago.  Could you possibly be pregnant.  Anywhere near your period.  Do you think you're just super stressed now that you're a newlywed and your husband is suddenly working 12 hours days and you never see him.

She wants to know if I can come check her blood sugar.

This is a subject that has come up a few times over the last couple of weeks between her and Scott.  She's convinced she's hypoglycemic.  He's wondering if she's already becoming diabetic, blah blah.

I say sure, I can drive right in.  I figure what the heck, really go see what's going on with her, right?  Her blood sugar when I got there was 96.  Thirty minutes later was 94.  Thirty minutes later was 90.  Nope, you don't have low blood sugar, despite how little you've eaten today.  (A few crackers and a little orange juice for 'breakfast', a "piece of bread" {is that a slice? or a torn off piece?} with some peanut butter for 'lunch'.)  Blood pressure was 123/70.  I didn't see any shakiness in her hands at all, color was good.  Looked tired, but a nap can fix that.  Asked her if she couldn't just make a doctor appt instead of urgent care.  Nope, she has new insurance (it's 3 months old) and has no doctor in the xxx network.  Ok, fine, go to urgent care and maybe they'll refer you to a doctor for follow up.  Well, maybe later, she's going to take a nap right now...  Said xxx could take her to urgent care in the morning.

So we ruled out the usual suspects that doctors ask first thing, and I'm pretty sure she isn't anemic because she's been checked ~~so many times~~.  My unprofessional diagnosis is she isn't getting enough calories.  I told her eat more, she argued every which way that she eats all day long and pigged out just the night before.  Given her obsession all summer with the P90X workout video and all the pictures they got for her engagement and wedding and reception, I hardly think she's pigging out.

While I was there, she showed me a book for doggy recipes, and showed me some of the stuff she made for (dog name).  Salmon loaf with cream cheese and nuts, will take at least a week to eat it all if it doesn't spoil first.  Peanut butter snacks baked in the oven.  The whole book was a culinary delight for canines that basically looked like toned down yet still very high quality people food.  Funny... Twink is 'shaky' all the time now, but feeding her dog like royalty.  I've heard of anorectics becoming obsessed with feeding other people, learning to cook complicated gourmet dishes, obsessing over ingredients, etc.

Anyway, I told her I didn't see what an urgent care of any kind to do for her, she has no obvious infection or injury, they would only tell her to go to the ER to check for something ridiculously major just to rule out anything and everything that could possibly make her feel shaky.  All this over her being too lazy to get a doctor going in the first place.

I was very careful while I was over there not to touch much of anything, even took extra benadryl, but her little dog snuffled my face on the couch, and boy was my face itchy when I left.  I didn't see any puffiness or swelling or any extra redness, just stayed calm and kept my hands off my face.  Didn't even occur to me at her house that her dog could have peanut butter all over her mouth, but dang, it's in nearly every recipe in that book, AND Twink was going to offer her a spoonful of peanut butter as I was leaving.  Decided to use the bathroom at Walmart in Nixa, just take my time going home and make sure it wouldn't get worse.  While I was there I got the bright idea to get my hair cut, surely that would give me plenty of time to make sure I wasn't having an allergic reaction.

Half an hour later, I walked out practically in shock at how badly misunderstood I was by a gay guy doing my hair.  I was scalped.  *Scott* could have done ~that~.  When I walked in, it was the longest my hair had been in at least 4 years.  When I walked out, it was the shortest EVER.  Scott is going to croak.

And.  Yes, there is an and.  I guess just being around Twink popped my hormone cork, boy did I start having cramps the second I left her house.  And being around the gay guy right after her got my girls a-singin', came home and stripped off my stupid peanut butter clothes and discovered the exuberant joy of being female.

And I'm ~still~ having cramps.

You see, I've learned something today.  1- Twink's house is deadly.  Don't go there.  2- There is a gay guy that lives in Nixa and styles hair in Walmart and worries obsessively about a microscopic cuff on his shiny pointed leather shoe and takes himself seriously enough to look absolutely perfect while he sheers the old sheep that come in, and he doesn't even seem to notice he's not within a city block of Times Square in Manhattan.  Don't go there.  3- My decision to go see for myself what was really going on is spot on.  Anyone who feels shaky for two solid weeks (suspiciously about as long as xxx's been working) and suddenly decides to go to urgent care is off their rocker.  EAT SOMETHING.  Good lord.  Regression back to the good old days when she punished xxx by throwing up all the time and running to urgent cares and ERs over and over is one way to handle being married to a husband managing a store, I guess.  Maybe she'll wind up going through another completely unnecessary surgery and scare the crap out of everyone with weird complications again.  THAT gets her lots of cuddly attention and support.  Until the bills come in.

So I'm not going to write this day off as a total cosmic misunderstanding.  Sometimes knowing the truth is worth the humiliation of being nearly bald for the rest of the month.

Friday in 2012 was the 7th. Context is I got my pneumonia and flu shots that week. I was almost cleaned off benzo meds for the first time in 20 years and had started months of physical therapy. This is all I wrote that day.

My arm still hurts....

Psyche guy at 8:30, PT at 10:15. 5 hours of sleep last night. Sick of the car. Need to get more salad stuff on the way home.

Got dishes and laundry DONE last night after supper, felt too ugmo to sit and watch tv or do puter.

I'm about due for my once a week 7 hours of sleep, really really hope I get that tonight.

Need to keep getting ready to drag out of the house.

But the next day I wrote this about it. It's significant because I had been doing so much better with my blogging, and I wasn't able to divert into distracting myself. Back then we still had no clue that ragweed spiking histamine levels in turn strongly spike pain levels. I just blindly kept plowing through the pain, really glad I did.

Yesterday sucked. I was doing fine, psyche guy went well. Got on an exercise machine at PT and immediately went downhill, started cycling through severe fatigue and pain, couldn't help crying, had to quit and leave early because nothing was helping, went straight to the chiropractor, and sure enough, I had slipped that disk again. The adjustment was rough, but thankfully worked, and I got on the ice and buzzy things and was able to get to the grocery store after that. Got home and took it real easy, put a chicken in a pot and laid down for a couple hours. I think I'll tell them in PT Monday that I don't want to do that machine again. Sitting with my legs kinda up and doing bicycle motions really screwed me yesterday for some reason. I need to get some more core strength built up first. I'm going to work on my home exercises and stretches all weekend, hopefully that'll help.

I had almost completely stopped private blogging by 2013, so I'll stop here.

This is me getting through ragweed season. Crossing my fingers 2016 is the year I get past it without massive prednisone rescue. If I need super focus again later I'll probably be buried pretty deep in minecraft.

human error

I swear I had to have lived on a different kind of planet in a past life because the dreams are back. I just woke up from one where I could thrust off a little and go right up to the ceiling and lightly come back down, and I was having loads of fun with it. When I was really young, I flew in nearly every dream I had, and I could go super fast or float slowly along, and even hover if I stayed focused. I crashed a lot. As I grew up the dreams were more about not being able to stay up and the crashing grew rather horrifying, so I stopped having those dreams for a long time.

When I was young, I thought the flying dreams were just something I did, but I mentioned them to my dad one day after I got grown up and he got so excited, oh yes, he flies in his dreams, too, and over time he never stopped like I did. He loves his flying dreams. And once internet arrived, I found out that dreaming about flying is a very common thing, too common, in my opinion, to be explained away with meanings. This feels too much like memories to me, something I used to take for granted. Think about it- flying doesn't come naturally to these bodies at all, but it's something we dream of doing and even create characters in stories who can fly. Flying is something we feel like we want to get back to, something we feel in our gut should be a thing.

I've considered that this could be genetic memory from long ago, because fish sort of deal with this sensation all their lives, and the most world adaptive family in the animal kingdom is birds. Many bugs fly, bats fly, even some reptiles and other mammals glide, and flying (or the sensation of flying) just seems like a key part of life. When humans finally really got off the ground, most of us were thrilled. Many of us adapted quickly and love looking out of glass elevators or riding crazy roller coasters or watching documentaries with lots of land flyovers. Some people make careers out of flying, from monster jets right down to hot air balloons.

We could say flying allows the feeling of more freedom, especially for those who need to 'get away' or feel confined to disability, but I was dreaming of flying as soon as I was walking, and I'm not sure how all that got into my head, because I've been able to properly visualize perspective in my flying dreams long before I ever saw it on television or any other way. How did I know what the ground would look like from above? How could I conceive moving through air so naturally if I was barely grasping how to use my body in real life? I loved running and jumping, but I was the klutz kid and shredded my knees a bit.

That dream last night felt really good after the one that had woken me up before...

I dreamed I was watching a little girl, possibly in another country, at least a very different family than mine, partly because the language was different and partly because everyone had black hair. I come from redheads and tow heads with black hair rarely sprinkled in here and there. The little girl was about 3 or 4, and the family was very strict.

One day the little girl was taken into a separate room with a few other children and some drunken men, and they learned to sing a funny song and do weird things, but since the men were laughing it was no big deal. The little boy sang the song while he was playing the next day, and while it was a little shocking, no one bothered him about it. Boys get to talk about that kind of stuff. The next day a mom or gramma (couldn't tell, extended family and everyone had children young) asked the little girl a question and she sang the funny song. This female adult was so outraged and mortified that she screamed at the little girl never say that again, and beat her very hard all over, even her head and face, until she was swelled up and ugly, and never stopped now matter how hard the girl screamed. I had to walk away and not watch because there was nothing I could do to make it stop.

I woke up pretty upset, as you can imagine, but I've had dreams like this before, where I'm a fly on the wall watching other people (aboriginals call this soul traveling), and after a little reflection, decided the adult beating the child must have grown up sexually abused and had held all that in, and once she'd become a mom and then a gramma, no one bothered her any more and she had forgotten it. When the little girl sang the song, it triggered all the horrible memories, and she did to that little girl what she wished she could have done to the people abusing her- make it stop.

I think the underground abuse cycle that a lot of people have been starting to open up and deal with in the latest few generations has a lot to do with the sexualization of children as objects, and sometimes the broken adults around them not knowing how to deal with it when they see it so they hush it up. They have no other way to deal except to shut it down so they don't have to see or hear it.

I know people from both sides of the track, as they used to call it. Some families have no clue what it's like beating children, in other families it's a way of life. It's not always about sex abuse, but it's definitely an abuse cycle. Being able to hit other people is becoming more of a mental illness nowadays. We are starting to say it's bad to hit people at all, whether it's a wife or a stranger, whether we are in school or out in the street. Some people seem to enjoy hitting, and oddly, there are a few people that enjoy being hit.

Then there's another type- those that actually enjoy hurting their own offspring. They don't just get angry and lose it, they actually bait their children, lay out psychological traps that lead to physical and emotional suffering. I've seen this with my own eyes in a waking state, and even lived through it to a point. There is something about hurting one's own child that comes with a complete set of matching baggage full of justification and righteous indignation. This happens all over the world, in every religion and even outside of it.

Our dreams of flying come from a simpler life. I don't think we are trying to escape in our flying dreams (unless we are being chased), and I don't think analyzing our frustrations about flying fails has that much to do with the lives we live now. I think we want to go back to the simpler lives we had. This life is much harder, like a higher class level, and we're having to synchronize sensation to all kinds of internal motivation and feedback. We're  having to embrace the realization that we cause pain. I think we were innocent of that realization in a life before on a different kind of world.

I sound like a kook to a lot of people I know, but some of you secretly nod. Even if I'm not right, we wish this were the case. We like ideas that make more sense outside of constantly seeing in terms of this one world. There has to be more going on 'out there' than just this world that feels so hard sometimes.

On really hard days when I don't enjoy this world at all (it really doesn't make sense to me that my body is so easily messed up by plants and sunshine and food- if I live here, you'd think my body would be adapted to all this, I'm like a fish allergic to water or something), I ask- What am I learning here? Several things have been very hard for me to learn in this life. Compassion is one of the biggies. Patience. Kindness is my favorite. I'm not a naturally kind person, but I have learned it, and I really like the idea of it. I like that compassion and patience and kindness give me a kind of power that you don't get with anything else. It's a sweet kind of power, the kind that heals souls and makes wizards of us. I'm not just flying around enjoying sensations. I'm using everything I've ever learned, even if I don't consciously remember it, to incorporate new ways of thinking into myself that progress me forward as a more holistic soul. I experience to learn, I learn to grow, I grow to become.

I didn't read books to get that. I've lived it. I've thought it. I've looked hard at who and where I am and recognized it. I believe this is inside all of us, and that we are all here to learn the same thing. I wonder sometimes if the belief that karma sends us back is one interpretation of feeling stuck on this earth because we haven't learned this lesson yet and get held back for another go at it. Escape into nirvana or heaven is the interpretation that we graduate this world and move on to another class.

I see no other reason for being aware of one's own existence. Everything we do is either right or wrong, loving or hateful, healing or hurting. I think there's only one true way 'out' and that's to embrace these lessons and apply them to ourselves. It doesn't matter what ideology you grew up with or believe, all that matters is that you don't get out of this until you learn something. I think this fits with Christianity just fine, as well, and perhaps the reason we're eating up so much heaven and hell 'smashing' in our entertainment is because we feel like we are literally turning our lives into our own hells and we're all trying to figure out how and what to do with that.

All of us. Rich, poor, super wealthy behind the curtains... Yes, I'm speaking to you, too. Even they have bosses, I'll bet. And turning it all into a mythos to tame the proles and using marionettes to pull the social strings is only a distraction for you too, because we. all. die. You're not winning the game.

I'm loving that my flying dreams are coming back. I really enjoyed that dream.

bcuz CAKE

Still kind of holding my breath, but I think we actually skipped winter this year.

Ok, what's going on with Pinky? What a very long week I've had.

March is my favorite birthday month because of a couple of my fave peoples, so I caved and made cake. Before I share, you must understand that I've not had actual CAKE in a very very long time. I think the last time I had a cupcake was months ago. Even last fall on my own birthday I veered into a chocolate waffles experiment, so the cake craving has grown really strong.

These are a delightfully moist gluten free adaptation of Hershey's Chocolatetown Special Cake recipe. In place of regular flour I used half King Arthur gluten free multi-purpose flour and half Domata gluten free recipe ready flour. You need the xantham gum in Domata for it to rise, but using all Domata turns the batter into bubble gum with the mixer. I also went with a basic cream cheese frosting- one block cream cheese, one stick real butter, 4 cups powdered sugar, 6-7 tablespoons of canned milk. Imagine my first bite of yummy moist cake in forever. I baked it off in giant muffin tins.

And of course I'm diabetic, so I can eat only a bite or two at a time every hour or two, but it was still very pleasant being able to do that.

Anyway, happy birthday to my loved ones. I celebrated. 🎉😁🎈🎂

Have been back on original gabapentin dose (100mg 3xday) for what, a week and half now? My regular doctor is holding me at that dose the rest of this month while I get through physical therapy. I think he'd like me to stay on it indefinitely, and commanded me to touch base with the neurologist about monitoring my dosing. Doctors have a very hard time 'treating' me for fibro and pain the last few years because my PTSD over 'going down' on meds or illness is so bad. I've crashed so hard on handfuls of meds taking down my immune system and spending years recovering that it makes me cry to even just talk about it out loud with my psychologist (#transparency), so from here on out is like walking the line between pain control and mood control. I'm not joking around about any of this, and I'm not saying any of it lightly. I can tell that the darker harder core lurkers hitting me daily are probably in the same boat, and I'll keep saying this forever- you're not alone. I'm here, too, walking the webs in the long, dark nights looking for sparks of hope and distraction, anything to hold onto while I keep hanging on to wisps of myself falling apart.

In the meantime, I've fixed up my skin! Finally! some of you say. Yeah, I've seen some of you stop and stare at me on Mo Creatures, it's been kinda funny. One guy looked me all over real good because my last skin was so sloppy and crap, like a cracked Easter egg that a 2 year old did. Yeah, that's me running around like I just threw any old wrecked up skin on... Anyway, I'm going with this for awhile now, adapted on Nova Skin. The original is from one of the many Galaxy Girls a lot of different people have done. I might go tweak it later on, but it's kinda the colors I want. I'd prefer black hair, but then the eye accents don't work. Anyway, the overall effect is supposed to be like the galaxy hair and makeup kind of stuff people are doing nowadays.

Kinda having a headache, so I'm going to keep moving. Need to get on laundry and get food lined up to cook later, might or might not have a big Bunny day, I'm already getting all over pain control, and part of that is moving around, so here I go.