cassaclyzm

I've had a stupid recurring health issue this summer that I'd hoped I'd kicked after taking antibiotics for the ENTIRE month of July, but it reared its ugly head again last week and required actual medical intervention. Of the "go to the hospital and make them fix it" kind. And while I've continued to be fully ambulatory and able to mostly put on a guise of being normal, it took a lot out of me.

What's funny is that I didn't even really notice at first how tired and out of it I was, especially when things came to a head Monday-Thursday this week. I hadn't washed a dish in forever. I meal kits in my fridge waiting to be made but I couldn't bring myself to go through the steps of making them. Stupid little messes popped up all over my house. It was a bit like the odd time when I have a depressive mood - my environment starts to be a reflection of what's happening in my head. This time my head and heart were not feeling great either, thanks to the pain, and the uncertainty, and the worry. I very keenly missed my grandmother this week. She'd have known what to do, or who to talk to if she didn't. She always made things better.

Yesterday, after getting a couple of hearty doses of antibiotics and getting this thing on track to actually heal, I just found myself... tidying. Seeing mess and actually doing something about it. Little bits at a time, because I still get tired easily. I cleaned my sink so I could wash my hair in it and get something resembling a bath.

Today I worked a full shift for the first time since Tuesday (though I did it in three chunks of a couple hours each - I don't think I could have handled seven hours straight). I went and got my dressing changed. I did all of my remaining dishes, even the cast iron pan that needed some scrubbing. I cooked a meal kit and put away the leftovers for tomorrow. I thoroughly washed and picked through some produce that my landlord gave me from his garden.

It feels REAL NICE to be functional again.

Tonight, I had a choice between pizza and pea soup.

I chose pea soup.

(I would have had to cook a pizza in the oven and then store half of it away for later, and I had a salad that I was going to eat with it for some ruffage. Pea soup was fast and tasty and I got to eat a delicious dinner roll with it.)

I'm still fighting the tail end of last week's flu, which made grocery shopping tonight a real slog. I only got a dozen things, but I'd forgotten something in produce and remembered when I got to the freezer section, which is A MILE AWAY, and looking back across the store I just... sighed. And then had a coughing fit on the street car on my way home. I need to remember to keep taking it easy.

Pizza tomorrow night, and I'm making a chicken soup to have later in the week. I don't even have to cut up vegetables for it. I do need to make some sandwiches tonight before I go to bed. Which should be shortly.

I may be boring, but being able to do things again (in fits and starts) is pretty nice.

I completely forgot about my writing prompt book the past few nights. I'd been pretty good about getting a little prompt written every evening for the first week, but the excitement with the new bed must have thrown me off. I think I'll take a little time to catch up over the next couple of days, rather than try and blast through them in one sitting. I might need to set myself a little reminder on my phone, too - something that has the # day of the year. (I'm counting entries up to 365, which will get harder to track after January.)

The forecast today called for warmth and rain in the morning, freezing rain at noon, and bitter cold in the evening, so I worked from home. It's so very nice to have that as an option. I don't want to make TOO much of a habit of it, but wow. Having that dread about getting myself home just... go away? IS NICE.

Also I figured out how to patch the work phone system into my cell phone, so I could make and receive calls. It worked remarkably well. I'm surprised that I'm actually... wanting to be able to call people?? This is something I couldn't imagine while I was in the drudgery of customer service. It makes a huge difference that I'm the one in power - I need information from them, and I call them because I want it, when I want it. I'm not at their beck and call anymore. Clearly I AM DRUNK WITH POWER!

I think I might make resolutions this year? Mostly because I feel like it. A few things are bubbling to mind. I'll decide by the end of the week if I want to articulate them into specific goals, but I might just go for a mild shift in attitude instead.

One thing I'm definitely doing is writing a little every day. A friend back home gave me a book with 500 writing prompts and space to write. Usually just little reflective questions - the one I did yesterday was "What makes you nervous? What do you do to calm yourself down?" They have different lengths, some 1/3 of a page, some 1/2, some a full page. Nothing overly daunting. Instead of going through from start to finish, I'm going to open to a random page every day and pick one that I like. This will get trickier as the year goes on, but I think I'd rather do that then plow through the front 2/3 of the book and have a bunch of empty stuff at the back come year end.

The long weekend was a nice chance to do some meal prep for the week. I went through my freezer and fridge and came up with some meals that used up things that were languishing in there - a few wrinkly potatoes, some black frozen bananas, portions of soup and chili and rolls to go with them. I think I'll clean the fridge out this coming weekend once it's well and truly empty (aside from condiments and, like, onions.) I need to clean my oven, too. We'll see if I get up the gumption.

I don't know exactly why, but over the last couple of weeks I've started actually being able to go "I should do X thing" and... do it? This shouldn't be surprising, but here we are. I finally set up the new monitor I got (cue SICK-ASS DUAL MONITORS), did a whole bunch of little household tidying and chores that I'd been putting off forever, and sucked it up and bought a decent budget vacuum cleaner. And I vacuumed tonight, for the first time in... too long. I didn't go nuts - just got the really high traffic and visible areas in my living room and office - but oh god. When I emptied the canister it was like, half a pound of dirt. I am not exaggerating.

I also DMed D&D 5e for the first time! A few weeks ago I decided to buy the Curse of Strahd module so I could see how a module is set up (I've watched a group of players go through it, so it's neat to see what was in the published module and what was altered on the fly or as they progressed to fit the direction of their campaign.) I happened to be talking to a couple friends from back home on Skype later that day who were lamenting not being able to roleplay lately. So I offered to DM Curse of Strahd for them, and in the weeks since we made characters and I have whisked them into Barovia for what I'm sure will be a graaaand old time. It's kind of the perfect month for that module, now that I think about it. I learned a lot from my first session as a DM, but I think I'll go into that in another post soon.

A possible side effect of this "I can function and do things!" bent is that I seem to be having trouble getting to sleep at a reasonable hour. Going to try reeeeal hard to rectify that tonight. Like, shortly.

It's been... a while. I have a lot of thoughts. Too many. My brain
feels full of fuzz. I'm stealing this venerable survey from eeyorerin in hopes that having a logical structure will help
me think through some stuff. This may be boring. No promises.

( Here's the thingie. )

Well. I feel like I got pissier as I went. And speaking of, it's
pissing rain out on the night I finally decided to get out of the
house and go see Rogue One. So. Let's hope nobody asks for a punching!
Because I am IN THE MOOD.

I have an interview for that different position at work. Probably later this week, unless the scheduling people drop the ball, in which case it'll be next week.

It's not a sure thing, and I'll be going in with lots of questions and concerns. But I'm finding that even though it's scary, I'm looking forward to it. It's time for a change. Maybe this is it.

I've never posted by email before. This should be fun. FUN, I SAY. I hope
the formatting is halfway decent.

It's been about a month since I updated. Falling back into old
habits. Anyway! STUFF THAT'S HAPPENED SINCE THEN:

- I built my computer! And then fell into a guilt-depression spiral because
it cost a lot of money. I really like it for the most part, though I am
thinking that I cheaped out too much on the processor. I need a little more
beef in order to do video editing and streaming. Though I am drooling over
i7 processors that cost like 450 smackers, I am probably looking more at an
i5 6500 which with taxes included should run me about 300$. Gotta save my
pennies.

- Work has been okay. I'm slightly on auto-pilot now. I should be pushing
to get interviews in other departments, but that takes... y'know. Effort? I
am not feeling anything involving "effort" lately. My dishes routinely pile
up, I still haven't moved my computer into my office because it will need a
bit of tidying and organizing to set up, etc. Probably compounding this is
that making food is hard, so I am relying on fast food too much. I feel
tired a lot. I should probably make an appointment with my doctor (and for
that matter, book a teeth cleaning and some dental stuff I need to do) but
this requires effort and so the spiral continues. HOORAY.

- Pretty much the only thing I've been able to work on with any amount of
regularity is some speed running of a game called "Refunct." Right now I'm
just barely in the top 20 runners, and that's about 6-7 seconds off the
world record. It's a tight race! It's nice to have a thing to focus on that
feels like it's within my ability to handle and work on and improve at, you
know?

I just had a long weekend in which I got nearly zero things done. No cleaning. No planning. Next to no cooking. That I'm patting myself on the back for making two sandwiches to bring to work for lunches is somewhat disheartening.

I'm not sure what the block is, but it makes executive function hard. Even when I get started on a thing, having to make a decision or any ambiguity in "step 2" of a process causes my brain to go into a total flatline. I spin my wheels for a bit, then give up and retreat into the numbly comforting world of dumb YouTube videos and games I've played a thousand times before. Rinse and repeat.

Having a goal helps, but I don't know how to actually take my own goals seriously. Because in the end, what do I know? I'm just some asshole. Who says my goals are any good?

Okay, so after what felt like four straight months of madness, I was like THIS WEEKEND IS FOR ME.

Usually I over-plan and then feel guilty for not "getting everything done." So I tried something new this time. No plans. No "to do" lists full of exclamation marks. No beating myself up or overthinking.

Instead, I did this:

1) I asked myself what I felt like doing.
2) I double checked to make sure I actually felt like doing the thing. If I did:
3) I did the thing. (If I didn't, I took a breather, then returned to step 1.)

It doesn't look like much? But it's been good. I gave myself full permission to do nothing if that's what I really felt like. But even though there was lots of relaxing time in my day, I got caught up on dishes (I was woefully behind), got some groceries, and took the time to do some really good self care stuff. I feel both rested and accomplished. And I have another whole day! What is this, a WEEKEND?!