It has come to my attention, even though I am under this rock of mine, that Sarah Palin is still getting a lot of media coverage and for some reason still considered a candidate for the presidency in 2012.

Ok, I really, really, really REALLY need to know: HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE? I thought that when she resigned as governor of Alaska she had shot herself in the foot and conceded her political defeat. You can't claim you will be a good president of an entire country if you can't even complete your promised service as a governor of a state. How is anyone even remotely taking anything about a run for presidency seriously?

I want to believe that Christian conservatives and other people who might have supported her during her vice presidential run are not complete idiots and she just spoke a language they could understand better or something, but I am hard-pressed to find something charitable to say about people who honestly believe that someone who couldn't hack it as governor could do a good job as president.

What the eff?

I need to go back to sleep. I am cranky and in pain.


P.S. Why do people refer to her book as "a future best-seller" instead of just...um, I dunno, whatever it is? Using the phrase "best-seller" indicates, uh, the book was...a best-seller. I had assumed that by some magic the book was an actual best-seller until I caught the word "future" and went...buh?

Current Mood: confused

MY THROAT HURTS >:(

DO NOT WANT.

Not happy not happy not happy not happy not happy not happy not happy not happy not happy not happy not happy not happy not happy not happy not happy not happy. :(

Current Mood: scared

Still sleeping!

Finally starting to keep track of it, using ShoveBox's 'Quick Jot' feature. Timestamps each jot, it's as easy as sin. And most of the time, sin is pretty damn easy. Anyway, so I am trying to jot down everything I eat and when, jot when I lie down to sleep, jot when I wake up, etc.

Up for just enough time to eat, and then I'm back to sleep. Goodnight!

Current Mood: sleepy

Soon begins my sleep experiment. Which I am kind of looking forward to since the outlet for my creative and intellectual thing has recently become somewhat stressful and vexing, and it gives me a break from that piece of angst.

It is hard to see a good thing die and know I can't do anything about it, and know that I have to let go of it soon. I know by now that hanging on when it's become a caustic, negative thing for me is the wrong thing to do for my psyche and health. I don't have the energy to waste. Even if it was once awesome, and I will be sad to let all of the accomplishments and relationships and all that go. I just don't know how to let go yet. I guess I will figure it out.

...It makes me feel kind of bad for the players of my game, though. Watching this has made me realize what I let happen to my own place. I wonder if it's worth it for me to try to go back and fix things on Sneezy. I mean, it's not exactly the same. In fact, not much is the same at all. The atmosphere and culture are very different. I would love to bring the good things that drew me into this other place with me back to Sneezy and try to build something fun again, but I'm not sure that the culture of Sneezy is changeable from the top down.

I accepted a while ago that it would require the players to want to make change, and I gave a lot of opportunities and I offered a lot of help, but in the end most of the players would rather hang on to old bitterness. Granted, I now have the tools to completely, literally ignore the players that bring nothing but negativity to the MUD, but they still influence the culture. The game is nearly dead; do we really NEED to keep around the total assholes that bring nothing?

But I'm kind of jumping the gun here. What I would really like is to have fun again where I am and stop feeling... what's the right word? Afraid, kind of. Nervous is a better word. Nervous, self-conscious, but right now it's mostly demoralized. The wind is gone from my sails. Woe. I am loathe to try to find another place of some sort that will offer me creative/intellectual stimulation on demand on my terms. It's not so easy!

In the meantime, though, I'm going to embark on this crazy two-week-sleep thing. I'm not sure if I talked about what a disaster my appointment with my PCP was, but wow. It was. Upside is she told me I had nothing to worry about trying to sleep my way through the majority of two weeks. And my psych today was all for it, too.

There is something appealing about trying to figure out some advocacy stuff for fibro/CFS but god damn, that's not in any way fun. It's depressing.

I want to play a game, I want to have a social outlet. I want to live a fantasy life away from this one, because this one I just can't handle sometimes. There's far more pain here than most normal healthy people would ever imagine. I mean, it's hilarious what I consider normal. And I mention in passing a something-something and a healthy person says, "Oh my god, have you seen a doctor about that?" And I'm all, lol, that's the least of my worries. Shit that happens to me would send normal people to a fucking ER. So, really, I need to have an available fantasy life where I can get out of this one and pretend I'm not me and I don't live here and I don't have this body.

MAN, I am so resistant to change and letting go. I just wish certain things could always be the same so I could enjoy them forever. I know everything changes, people move on, other people move in, things become different, and I have to choose whether I can handle it or not. But I am Taurus, hear me roar. I don't like change. I want to hang on to what was. But oh, dear me, it is another one of life's lessons that says to me, "You cannot hang on to what was. It may never come again. Find something else, and appreciate it while you have it.

On a note of not letting go of things past, this is a song I learned and performed in college and it haunts my heart to this day:






It makes me want to sing again.

I am greatly dissatisfied with life. Things are difficult to explain. But it's a time when I could really use a low-stress safe space to have fun and challenge myself. So. Gotta figure that out, stat.


Tomorrow is purpling.

Then, sleeping, sleeping, sleeping and forever sleeping. Hopefully nothing goes wrong. M will be out of town the first two days.

Waiting to fall asleep kinda sucks. Hate lying down to wait for it.

Current Mood: Random

New official documented diagnosis in my chart: CFS.

Honestly, while obviously I meet the criteria for fibromyalgia as diagnosed by two rheumatologists, I feel CFS (while I dislike the name they have given it) is a better, more fitting diagnosis.

It's not like it changes anything immediately, but it may become important later.

you thought by now you'd be
so much better than you are
you thought by now they'd see
that you have come so far

hold on
one more time with feeling
try it again, breathing's just a rhythm
say it in your mind until you know that the words are right
this is why we fight

Current Mood: crushed
Current Music: One More Time With Feeling-Regina Spektor-Far (Bonus Track Version)

So, I was reading this (PDF), and realizing... I'm not getting better. I'm getting worse.

For a while, before reading the (very long but worthwhile) article I linked to up there, I kept thinking to myself, "Every time I get sick, I don't recover. I have still not recovered from getting the flu in...in...in..." And then I am reminded how much my cognitive abilities have degraded.

I used to have an exceptional memory. Exceptional. It is what allowed me to be the best at nearly everything I did. I have recently had to admit...that's gone. It's gone. I can't remember things well anymore. I can't remember yesterday, last week, last month, last year.

My aphasia has returned, even when I am not having a migraine. I desperately cling to participating in an online text-based storytelling game because it keeps me thinking and writing. I try hard to understand what I am reading and I try just as hard to write good sentences with proper grammatical structure and style. It is, in a way, the perfect mental challenge for me at this point, because each "round" of this storytelling game is short. As in, someone writes a few lines of text, I read it and then write my own couple of lines of text in character. I play this game a lot because a) it is fantasy and I need the escape b) it's the only thing I have left that I can do that challenges my mind but doesn't demand things from me on a particular schedule or timeline. I can say, "I don't feel well, I need to go" and leave anytime I need to.

But even then, I've noticed lately that I can't remember my words. This isn't because I'm not using them often enough to remember them. It's just because...I can't. I sometimes spend two or three minutes struggling with a simple word. It would be a lot more embarrassing if it weren't an online game where no one can see me struggling with it.

I can go out twice a week. TOPS. I went out on Tuesday and Wednesday this week. Today I was supposed to attend Matthew's mom's birthday party, but in spite of loading up on caffeine, provigil and alprazolam (the latter is to even out the shakes from caffeine and to reduce the pain in my hips and stuff), I couldn't quite make it past taking a shower. I was so exhausted that... well, to be honest, I'm not really sure what happened. I'm going to guess that I was just too tired to stand anymore and couldn't walk, so I just laid down on the floor between the bathroom and bedroom. I can't really remember doing it, but I remember Matthew coming upstairs and almost stepping on me and then having to haul me up off the floor and put me into bed. And even though I had just had a bunch of stimulants, I fell asleep within minutes.

I go to my doctor every month. She's great and I love her, but she doesn't know what to do with me. She sees me every month to monitor my medications and talk to me. To make sure I'm not about to commit suicide. She's basically acting as another talk therapist.

But no amount of antidepressants and talk therapy are going to make my body any better. I was at one point feeling incredibly better, emotionally. I was really coming to a point of acceptance and hope. I'm not sure what happened. But my body never got better. My depression can get all the better it wants to, but my body is not getting better. And exercise is not going to make me better. That's all the national health/disease organizations can come up with. Treat with antidepressants, psychotherapy and exercise. That might help if you only have depression. But I have a real physical illness in addition to depression that can't be explained by depression or treated with the same remedies for depression.

I just don't know what it is.

And no one else truly does either.

So I can't be fixed.

And I'm getting worse.

It doesn't matter how many times people want to tell me that fibromyalgia is not degenerative; I am getting worse. I used to be able to drive to Kirkland to get my electromuscular therapy. I can't do that anymore. I stopped being able to after that bout with the flu that knocked me out for a while. I never recovered.

I have to do an elaborate song and dance with medication and planning just to take a fucking shower, people.

There is something. wrong. with. me.

Why do I keep saying that? Because even I don't believe me. Because medicine doesn't believe me. Sure, right now, I am willing to accept that my psychological conditions (hypervigilance, anxiety, depression, past trauma) can exacerbate my existing health issues.

But they aren't causing them. The entire medical community seems to want me to believe they are. They're not. I promise you, they're not.

I have so much...so much more to say, but I've run out of energy to say it. My mind has gone blank, I'm as mentally exhausted as I am physically exhausted, for no apparent reason and with no solution in sight. I'm so frustrated and so scared.

I remembered something I wanted to say. I am considering doing something odd. I am thinking that from November 19-December 1, I will do "sleep therapy" wherein every night early in the evening I will take an entire muscle relaxant (note that even a quarter or half of one will knock me out for like 12 hours) and zolpidem and sleep for as long as humanly possible. When I wake up, I will do the absolute minimum self care - I will perform basic hygiene, drink water, eat food, interact with birds and possibly Matthew (if he is not at work by then), and then perhaps attempt to do some reading or the game playing mentioned above (or maybe I'll get rid of my computer for that entire time and play Brain Age on my DS instead), see if I'm sleepy, and if so, I will lay down and go back to sleep. Basically, I will try to remain sleeping for 13 days. Thirteen is not a magic number, it's just the number of days during that time that I do not have any appointments. The only exception is Thanksgiving.

Where did I come up with this nutter idea? I am remembering that one experimental therapy for chronic pain is an induced coma. It's extremely dangerous and can have terrible side effects. But the idea is a major change to the system, something that allows the body to do its regenerative stuff. I don't know if 13 days excluding Thanksgiving will be long enough, or if I should start again from Dec 3-15. Or maybe more, I don't know; the appointments I have then are psychotherapy ones; if I've been sleeping the entire time, maybe I won't need them. Who knows. All I really know is that I want to be present for Christmas somehow. I want to have a happy Christmas eve, Christmas morning, Christmas dinner and the annual Boxing Day shopping with my aunts.

And I want to have anything, anything, anything that might make me feel better and I am feeling like I'm just at the end of the line and I have no idea what can be done. I'm not being treated, there's no treatment. There's just no treatment. How can I ever possibly expect to get better? I mean, what's left, here? If what I have is a virus, can I get antivirals? Who would even help me with that? Would my doctor? I'm seeing her soon enough. Electroshock therapy? Seriously, I'm not even joking. I need something. The migraines are getting worse again lately and I can't stand this life anymore.

Do you know how awesome I used to be? Once upon a time I went to school full time and I was a budding artist. Once upon a time, I walked around a large campus, to and fro and fro and to without a second thought and I felt fantastic when I wasn't being stricken by migraines. Once upon a time, I danced the Lindy Hop six out of seven days of the week. Once upon a time, I worked full time...and then I started to unravel. Once upon a time, I had acupuncture and started to regain some functionality and went on to work full time somewhere else. Even the headaches decreased. But then I started getting flus and colds all the time. I got tons of infections. I passed out at work. My grandfather died of cancer rather suddenly. I couldn't reliably see my acupuncturist anymore because my work schedule was so erratic and I rarely got schedules in advance enough to make appointments. And then I was too tired to go anywhere after work. Work, sleep. Work, sleep. Work, sleep. And then I was in too much pain and distress to keep working there so I got a different job. And I was still awesome, I still knew everything and was sharp mentally and I was working. But the migraines got worse, the hip pain got worse, walking became more and more difficult. Simply getting out of bed in the morning became difficult. I started becoming quietly suicidal because of the increased migraines and fear over my declining medical condition. I lost my job. I became so depressed I was dead inside.

But once upon a time, I was an incredibly bright, energetic, bubbly, happy, driven and ambitious person. Even with the migraines. Even with the past trauma. Even with the latent depression and anxiety. I was highly paid, I loved my work, I loved my clients, I loved my co workers, I loved the freaking world, man. I loved art once, I loved ... I loved.

Now I'm even afraid to love. I'm afraid of everything and I am mourning, mourning, mourning the me that died several years ago.

The state tells me I am fine! There's nothing wrong with me! That I must just be too lazy to work or not want to work. I WANT TO WORK SO BAD I COULD KILL. But I can't! I WANT TO. I want nothing more than to be the bright and energetic person I was once. I want my life back, I want me back.

I'm trying to get disability so I can pay for stuff like a housekeeper to help keep the house clean because I can no longer do it. For cab fare to get me to doctor's appointments or maybe back to electromuscular therapy. For some kind of no-impact, compact exercise equipment that I can use for...thirty seconds a day. Then a minute, then five. I can't get dressed and go to a gym. I can't get dressed and drive to a pool. I can barely make it downstairs every day. I want disability so it can pay for my psychotherapy that isn't covered by insurance. I want disability so I can see a psychiatrist (not therapist/counselor) so I can be prescribed provigil because my doctor won't. I want disability so I can pay for the experimental things for which I can work up the courage to try that will inevitably not be covered by insurance. I want disability because I paid into it for ten years and I deserve it now. I want disability because I hate being so entirely dependent on Matthew. I want disability so I can stop being so humiliated by my utter lack of contribution to the household.

I don't want it so I can laze about the house and do fun things on the government's dime. I wish I could laze about the house and do fun things. Instead, I spend all day uncomfortably shifting in my bed trying to prevent my hips from seizing up, struggling to keep my mind active, struggling to participate in mentally challenging activities, struggling to find things to distract me from my pain and suicidal ideations. I spend my day planning meticulously for the days I must go out to see my doctor and my psychotherapist. I spend my days working up the energy to go downstairs and care for pets I really don't have the energy to care for anymore. I spend my days trying to ignore all the things I wish I could be doing and carefully calculating what I can do without making myself sicker. I spend my days scared of the future and wishing there was a way to magically erase myself from existence so no one would be upset if I killed myself.

Yeah, state of Washington, I'm really trying to pull one on you here, with this super fun invalid life I'm leading after once leading a very active and fulfilling life. Jerks.

This post rambled but at least I feel...a little bit lighter.

Current Mood: distressed

Sleeping with a toy on his head.

A little rawhide bone. He shifted himself around quite a bit just so he was perfectly underneath the bone and it balanced on his head.

( I took pictures, duh. )

Literal version!

YAY!

The baby bird likes to drink from my water bottle.

So much so that she'll try to do it even if I'm not there to help her.

She flew over and managed to land on my water bottle and proceeded to chew mightily on the cap in hopes that water would come out.

( Peekchures. )

Dude. Wil Wheaton is going to be on Big Bang Theory WEARING THE FRUIT FUCKER T-SHIRT. Holy shit, that's so hilarious. I cackled.

The vitamin D has one obvious, undeniable affect on my body: My fingernails grow properly now!

They were getting really long, like, TOO long, so long they were interfering with Doing Stuff™ (it was humorous trying to wash the ice cream scoop, because the pads of my fingers could not touch the inside) and typing was getting weird, including that I cut a hole in the keyboard cover over the E key. Bummer.

( So I trimmed them and gave myself a nice manicure. )

So, one day some jackass makes an EA.com account using my gmail email address. I go take control of the account because duh, that's my email address, not yours - and the "forgot your password?" link sends ME an email, not you, jackass.

Once that's done, I go looking for where I can delete the account. Lots of places where you can make accounts let you delete your account. I see nothing. But I do see some customer service thing. I fill out the form. It requires I select a platform and a game. I randomly choose something, and for my request, I write:

Customer 09/25/2009 06:10 PM
Someone has used my email address ((my email address)) to create an account on the EA site. I would like to delete this account. I don't know where to go to do this. Please assist?

( No one in support is actually READING anything I write. At all. )

I guess we'll see. This is kind of insane.


Edited to add: Holy shit, they finally understood!

Greetings,

Thank you for writing to EA Games Support.

I have made the necessary changes and delete your EA account name "joolie@gmail.com". Now you will no longer be able to access/use this EA account and any game or features associated with this EA account.

If you have any further questions or concerns, you may reply to this email or visit our extensive online knowledge base found on the following web site: http://support.ea.com.

Thank you,

Rafael
Customer Support EA.

And guys, this stuff doesn't seem like canned responses. If they were canned, they would have correct spelling and grammar and stuff, but they don't. "We like to inform you" and "I have ... delete your EA account" or the nonsensical added "you can access this account," at the end of one missive. Just...weird.

Current Mood: frustrated

Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) says insurance policies should all include basic maternity care. Response:

"I don't need maternity care, so requiring that on my insurance policy is something that I don't need and will make the policy more expensive."
Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ)

Stabenow replied, "I think your mom probably did."

Kyl, dismissively, "Over 60 years ago, my mom did."

I have so much to say, but I'm so filled with anger it will come out jumbled. Idiots like him are why illnesses that affect mostly women are still misunderstood and often left untreated. Why so many of those illnesses are seen as mythical diseases that are simply attempts for attention or a free ride.

Idiots like him are why 'pro life' arguments are bankrupt. People like him do not want to teach proper sex education in schools, do not want to cover contraceptives, want to outlaw emergency contraceptives, want to outlaw abortion, but DO NOT WANT TO COVER MATERNITY CARE, do not want to provide health insurance and do not want to pay for social services that would improve the life of the INEVITABLE SINGLE MOTHERS his policies create.

People like him, stupid idiot old white men in power, with potential power over my life, do not give a fucking shit about women unless it currently directly benefits him. HE doesn't need maternity care, so it shouldn't be provided. Fuck you.

You know what? I am not going to need maternity care, either. But I still think it's necessary. Asshole. ASSHOLE!!

Current Mood: angry

...oWWWWwwwWWwwWwwwwWww.

That is all.

Current Mood: Owwww!!

We're handfeeding a baby bird for someone.

A baby black cap conure. It's so TINY. It's a bird that, fully grown, is only a wee bit bigger than a budgie, really. It makes Niko seem HUGE! And Niko is so small!

We're trying to teach her to eat pellets and drink water now. She makes little SQUIRK, SQUIRKLE noises. Micah and Niko DO NOT LIKE HER. I refer to her as her, but we do not know the sex. She just wants to preen the other birds and be preened, but she's too aggressive about wanting to preen them and she keeps trying to get food from them. They don't like that. Niko is scared of her - she tries to land on him. She gets into tussles with them if she somehow gets to them while I'm not looking.

She's still learning how to fly, so she flies like a little hummingbird - like Micah. And I don't think it's that she's trying to imitate Micah. I think Micah just flies like a baby bird out of uncertainty.

She's relentlessly adorable and loves to cuddle and sleep on us. She's a monkey in the cage when playing, pouncing on her toys and shaking them like a dog shakes his toys. She LEAPS to where she wants to go. You can see it in her expression when she's planning to leap. She likes to lie on her back and play with toys.

I can see why people want baby birds. It's thoroughly adorable. Having a little bird in my pocket? In my shirt? Sleeping on my chest? Snuggling my neck? Rolling around with her toys? So adorable.

But I look at her and I know she's gonna grow up and all those things that are so adorable now are going to either evaporate or become unhealthy habits when she's sexually mature. She'll stop playing like a puppy dog someday, probably won't spend so much time rolling around on her back. She'll stop being so compliant about the manhandling and the toweling. When she's sexually mature, she should no longer be allowed to cuddle up to someone's neck or chest or spend as much time glommed onto someone - it leads to an unhealthy bond between the bird and person, in turn leading to territorial, possessive behavior...which in turn leads to aggression and acting out. Unreasonable screaming and biting and stuff.

And it's at that point most birds lose their homes. The honeymoon period for a baby bird is years, so people think everything's so great, and then suddenly for "no reason" the bird "turns mean." Starts attacking people or becoming restless and agitated. It's not irregular at all, it's perfectly normal and natural, but these bird "owners" have unthinkingly set the stage for this behavior and then accidentally encourage it when they try to scold the birds for what they do. Any attention is positive reinforcement. It gets worse. Soon there's ads on Craigslist and other places trying to sell the bird.

The reasons most people give for "getting rid of" a bird is that they don't have the time, that the bird deserves more attention, that the bird just doesn't fit with the household.

What people don't realize from the get-go is that birds are fundamentally incompatible with human habitats. Even the very best bird caretaker can't provide for birds what they would have naturally in the wild.

I work my ass off to provide the best life I can for these featherbutts, even though I'm not well. I put their needs above my own frequently, trying to make sure they get what they need before I do when I go downstairs, which isn't the greatest idea for me, but they depend on me and Matthew. We have had so many "bird people" tell us we are such great bird caretakers, even vets. But even we still can't give them what they truly need.

There's not a day that goes by that I don't wish that somehow I could magically give them the life skills they'd need to live in the wild again and could return them to a flock where they'd belong. Where they could fly for miles every day, forage for food, have a huge flock of birds with which to socialize, have someone preen them anytime, have someone to snuggle with, to breed and raise chicks with. Somewhere they could scream as loud as they wanted anytime they wanted for whatever reasons they wanted. Where they never have to be in a cage. Where they can have a truly varied diet.

They're usually pretty happy birds, sure, when there's a human around to observe them. Because there's a human around to socialize with them. How is it they're doing when there's no one around, when they're in a cage, where they can't fly? When Niko is flighted and stuck in a cage, all he does is scream to be let out, whether or not he thinks there's anyone around to hear him and free him. And I feel both sorry for him and I go insane because I can't live with the screaming, and I also can't have him out all the time when he's flighted.

There's just no way that a regular human habitat will be compatible with a bird's ideal habitat. Not for any normal person.

So I look at this baby bird and I wonder what her future will hold. Who will take her, as ADORABLE as she is right now? And will they understand she won't always be so cute? Someday she'll grow up and she'll behave differently. Will everything still be ok, or will they have instilled in her bad habits and then blame her for them? Will I see this bird on Craigslist? Will I recognize her if she is?

It's depressing. Here I have this adorable baby bird and she's so great and full of life and SQUIRKLES and stuff, and I'm just depressed thinking about what's going to happen to her because she's had the bad luck to be hatched in captivity.

Bird people would absolutely burn me at the stake for saying this, but by and large, birds do not belong in human homes. There are some species of bird and some homes that may be more compatible with one another and captive birds may be perfectly happy in their homes, sure... my statement isn't an absolute, but anyone who's ever been involved in the 'bird community' even a little can see just how many unwanted birds there are. Thousands upon thousands of birds with plucked feathers, permanent damage to their follicles, picking holes in their skin, aggressive behavior, biting, screaming, general misery. They don't trust humans anymore, they're unhappy living in a human world. It's not fair. People just keep doing this. Over and over. And there's such a LOT of it going on. Birds are so incredibly intelligent and emotionally complex it's fucking scary. They're little people, they really are. I refer to them as flying toddlers.

I am going out of my mind being stuck in my room in my bed, unable to go out and do what I do. Depending on someone else to feed me or having to eat pre-prepared meals if I have to feed myself. I have a tiny window out into the real world via the internet. And as a result, I'm dangerously depressed, anxious and skating along the edge of self-harm.

Whenever people see me, I don't seem like there's anything wrong with me.

But inside, I'm miserable under these circumstances.

Just imagine if I couldn't express my unhappiness verbally or in writing in a way others could understand me.

Then you can imagine a parrot trapped in a human habitat under human rules, stuck in their cage in the house, unable to fly, forage, yell. Depending on someone to feed them, usually eating pellets. In some worse cases, eating only seed (which is, for many parrot species, insufficient nutrition) or other poor nutrition. A tiny window out into the real world, if they're lucky enough to be next to a window. Or a TV. A tiny window of socialization whenever the humans are off work and not gallivanting into their own social/recreational stuff out of the house.

It makes me want to cry.

So now that I've bummed you all out if you've been crazy enough to actually read all that, baby bird:








In other news, today I'm having my hair repurpled.

Current Music: I Feel Fantastic-Jonathan Coulton-Our Bodies, Ourselves, Our Cybernetic Arms

It was awesome.

It's my new resolution to not miss a single thing I want to see at PAX next year. I was brokenhearted to miss Saturday's awesometasticness. ComiCon: Not my people. PAX: My people.

Here's Wil and me with double chins:



Note to self: Grow beard so no one notices double chin. O:) Nah, Wil naturally looks awesome, even when he's totally beat. He was on fire crazy awesome at that panel of awesomeness. Even better than at ComiCon, which is shockingly much less ...just...less. It's smaller, it's less cool., everything is less. PAX is crazy awesome.

Someone with crazy Photoshop skills should get that fucking double chin off me. I can't do that shit to save my life. I am so not photogenic. Also, I think I've gained some weight recently. Suckage. Oh well. Whatevs. Sunday was so awesome. AND...

( A bunch of people asked me if I wanted to be executed. Large image under cut. )

My dad laid his bike down today and mom called me from the ER and left a voicemail that started out, "I don't want you to worry, but..." Then she realized that's the worst thing to start with and amended, "Uh, that probably makes you worry right there, huh?" Me, to the voicemail: OH MY GOD JUST TELL ME!!!

He's fine apart from roadrash where his boot came off. The line was too garbly when I called her back for me to clearly hear what exactly happened, but when I talked to him he sounded shaken and said that his bike was on top of him for part of the slide - something something had happened with the bike, mechanically or something - I heard something like he had realized something wasn't something or other, and then he realized he wasn't going to make the corner, something something. So I'm guessing that he slid a while, and the road and bike conspired to tear one of his boots off, so his ankle got pretty messed up.

My littlest brother had just taken a first aid class, so he patched his leg up and they got him to the ER to make sure he didn't have anything in there that didn't belong and to get him some meds. So his bike is all banged up, his helmet is totally trashed (PEOPLE: FULL FACE HELMETS. I'M NOT EVEN KIDDING. DO YOU LIKE YOUR FACE? YES? MY DAD LIKES HIS FACE. THAT'S WHY HE BOUGHT A FULL FACE HELMET. THAT'S WHY HE STILL HAS A FACE TODAY. YOU MAY THINK IT'S COOL TO WEAR ONE OF THOSE SKULLCAP THINGIES, BUT IT'S NOT...then again, it's your face, not mine...) because he spent some time sliding on his face and head I guess. Ouch, even with a helmet, that's still abrasive to the psyche to to sliding along the road on your head with a several hundred pound bike on top of you.

Me: Dad, do we need to get you an Aerostitch? Him: No, my double-kneed pants did pretty good! But I guess I need better boots. Me: I guess. >:(

Sigh. NOTHING IS ALLOWED TO HAPPEN TO MY DADDY, OKAY? Tears pop up in my eyes just thinking about it. Not okay.

Gonna wrap him in kevlar and bubble wrap and put him in a hamster ball.

Current Mood: ACK!

Are you going?

What panels are you attending?

Who wants to roll with me and matthew?

My MUST ATTEND: Wil Wheaton on Sunday at 2:30pm.

My interested in attending: Desining for Failure: Why Winning Sucks (Friday, 7pm), Medium is the Massage: Story Matters (Saturday, 1pm), The Art of the Dungeon Master (Saturday, 4:30pm), RoosterTeeth (Saturday, 6pm).

Obviously, I can't do ALL of these (and I left out the "Losing Should Be Fun" panel on Saturday morning, ha ha ha Saturday morning doesn't EXIST, everyone knows that), but I am quite interested in the 'Why Winning Sucks' and RoosterTeeth panels, which means a single event every day over three days. This may or may not be possible and I may have to skip Saturday entirely in order to attend Friday and Sunday, but I am superdefnitelysogoingtobethere on Sunday for Wil freaking Wheaton.

Shut up.

Current Music: No Line On the Horizon-U2-No Line On the Horizon

I said this to an online friend today, who offered to let me "vent" and it seems an interesting summary:

"I've struggled with depression on and off my whole life - I have had some bad juju in my past, particularly during childhood, stuff that's hard to shake even when I think I'm "over it" and have a "normal life." But with the onset of this incurable condition that has crippled me and destroyed the life I once had, it's been the biggest struggle I've ever faced. Major challenge, major obstacles.

I have done remarkably well in going from "oh woe is me" to "I can adjust to accept this" and though the struggle has been more difficult than anything I have ever faced in my entire life, for the most part I have been "winning" this battle. I'm never going to get better physically, I know that, so my struggle is no longer physically, but mentally. And the depression was consuming me. There whole months I spent doing absolutely nothing. I sat and stared into space, I hardly ate, I hardly slept, I wanted nothing, I could do nothing.

A few years later and I'm trying to find out what my life now looks like. I see it as my second life within the same lifetime. But the migraines... They have always, always, always gotten the worst of me. And when they stretch on and on, I lose it. The only times I've ever considered attempting suicide were because of migraines that tricked me into believing it would always be this way. The longer they go on, the more convincing they become. It's just not something I can really win, you know?

I'm desperately hoping this procedure will help, but it may be months before I know. Months of possible future desperate times. So, I don't need to vent so much as I need to just... distract myself, be somewhere else, be someone else, be outside of my body and pretend I am not in my body anymore, because I can't be in my body or I'll die."


So, my IUD was replaced on Tuesday. It wasn't really necessary for me to drug myself up to ridiculous levels, but I did. I took a quarter of a muscle relaxant - yes, I consider this drugging myself up a lot. I'm so sensitive to medication. I took tons of alprazolam...and by tons, I mean, a dose most people would consider normal. My pills are very tiny doses. Anyway, so by my terms, I was very, very drugged up. The procedure was as totally no-big-deal as I remember it being even when I wasn't drugged. The nervousness is for nothing. It's so simple. I had to resist asking, "That's it?" I asked that the first time i had it done. The doctor and nurse were very nice, the Polyclinic is such a great facility, I am such a fan. Everything about it was efficient and well done.

They let me see the IUD I've been carrying around for so long! It looked...just like the pictures of it. Boring little white piece of plastic, with two little tails.

Of course, afterwards I was like, yay it's over let's go get something to eat! So we went to get Indian food and I kept falling asleep at the table. I got sauce all over my sleeve and coat because I just couldn't stop drooping and passing out. Matthew somehow managed to drag my ass home and get me into bed where I konked out for hours. HOURS.

The next day I saw my therapist and told her what had happened. I really like her. She says cusswords. I dunno why that makes me so happy. I'm sure she doesn't with everyone, but I've seen her for like fourteen years, so cusswords are ok. She likes to talk to me using my language. My language includes the fuckword.

An aside on my therpist: I like that she seems to like me. I make her laugh. She seems to understand that laughter is a necessity for me. It's the one thing I need above all else. She's happy to share it with me. She is genuine about it.

After that, I called my mom and asked if we could do something. She had to work but she asked for the day off and we went and did things. Things that involved purple sparkly eyeliner. I pinky-swore we wouldn't go into Nordstrom but I didn't swear we wouldn't go into Sephora. I say, "Ooh! Let's go over there!" *point* Mom: "What's that?" Me: "MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA." Good times, good times. I need new mascara that is not MAC but it's hard to test mascara when a) you're already wearing some and b) man, even with the disposable wands, how do I know someone hasn't gone and, like, double dipped or something? Eugh. But I really don't think I like the MAC mascara, even though it doesn't bug my eyes at all, it's just not... yeah, not. Just not.

Today I am in crazy pain, wow. I think I'll lie down a lot today.

When I started this post a few days ago I think I had some kind of something specific to say but I'm so wiped today that's just not happening.

Summary: Oy. Hi, new IUD. We're gonna be pals. You stay put where they put you, and make my headaches go away and clear up my skin and make me feel better, ok?

Oh, I remember something really importante. I went on the doctor's scale with my boots and jeans and jacket and everything on, and it's one of the super official weighted scale thingies, and it said I was 185, which is pretty much impossible. I've been 195 for ages. But supposedly those things are infallible or someshit. I don't even know. Whatever, I'm not actively trying to lose weight right now anyway, so it's kind of not really as important as I thought it was initially. Maybe later I'll start up the diet thing again.

Oh my goodness, but now my eyes are closing of their own accord again. Zzzz.

Current Mood: exhausted

Waiting for my IUD replacement. Dr is delayed due to delivering a baby. Hee. I'm trying to not be nervous, as assisted by lots of alprazolam. I'm pinning my hopes on this... thinking once this kicks in, the migraines will drop off. I sure hope so.

Current Location: dr's office
Current Mood: nervous

My aunt called me.

I didn't pick up the phone.

I can tell you people on the internet what's going on in my head, but I can't bring myself to talk to my family. I wonder how long that's going to go on.

I re-read yesterday's post today, and in my head, I yelled, "It's a trap!"

What happened yesterday was that depression tricked me. I usually know its tricks. I know it will make me believe that I will always feel like I do. But it got sneakier, trickier.

I knew somewhere in me this was going to happen, or I wouldn't have told my doctor last month that I was "at risk." I knew it was gaining on me, and I thought I knew all its tricks.

But even me, someone who recognizes the depression and all the things it whispers, didn't see it for exactly what it was while I was in the middle of it yesterday. Usually, I can identify it, say, I see you, I know that tomorrow won't be like today, I know that while the pain is real and the problems are real, this particular desperation is not real and lasting. It's not permanent. And knowing that, I can fight it. You know... knowing is half the battle! G.I. Joe!

This is hard to put into words, to accurately describe the entity that is depression and the ways it clouds the mind and causes these desperate feelings that are, in fact, transient.

Not to say that the depression or the problems go away, and not to say that these difficult times won't come again. No, I'm still fighting all the same battles as I was yesterday. But there's a very special quality about the cloud that comes over everything. It's like a living entity somehow - I'm anthropomorphizing depression, sure, fine, but it sure seems to be alive and actively working to harm. Much like the demons in Wapsi Square.

So, even with all the support and tools and knowledge that I have, I was still tricked yesterday. It's like being under the influence of some kind of drug. It's bizarre.

I kind of wish that the crisis counselor person had really focused on that instead of trying to talk about my medical stuff. Because truly, that's not how to get me to feel better; I know the reality of my medical situation and it's not hopeful and trying to tell me that maybe I will feel better someday through different treatments is not going to make me feel better, it's going to make me fel worse. But if she had reminded me of the way depression is so sneaky and tricky and how I was being fooled by it, it would have been a lot more effective.

What did help was when she reminded me to break it down into hours - just get through this one hour. And if I felt like I couldn't get through the next hour to call back. Taking it one day at a time? Days are too much when it's like that. Seconds are hard to get through, minutes agonizing. An hour was the most I could possibly comprehend at that moment. Because, when it's like that, looking down the line is paralyzing. Thinking about tomorrow just made me think about next year and five years and ten, twenty years of this? No way, no way!

I'm not sure where to go from here. I feel like something very momentous happened yesterday (it did), but I have nothing tangible to show for my efforts and no real feeling of accomplishment or anything like that. And it's not exactly the sort of thing you talk about in casual conversation. So, while it's like the only thing I can think about, it's not like if someone was on the phone with me and asked, "So, what've you been up to?" I could say, "Yesterday I didn't commit suicide!" I mean, really.

But fuck it. Because yesterday I eyeballed the fucker and even though I wasn't strong enough to do battle all on my own, and I can hardly claim a real clear victory here, I didn't lose, either.

I wish there was some real way to celebrate that, but I can't think about that because it'll just lead me back around to the wah wah I can't go outside and play shit.

In the meantime. Hi, I'm still here today. That's something.