anagram of brat

So I mostly "wrote" this post with the Dragon Dictate app on my phone. I downloaded it at the recommendation of Ruthy, who apparently uses it for everything. Since she swears by it, I figured I'd give it a go. It'll be interesting because I speak very differently from how I write... I sense there will be a lot of editing in post. (ETA: Oh dear gods yes wow my spoken rambling makes NO sense written down, lol.)

So, what's been going on... Ferguson. *sigh* It's been really upsetting me, for reasons that should be pretty damned obvious. I don't really want to write too much about it, honestly, both because upsetting, and also because people out there and on the ground have already written, tweeted and livestreamed quite a bit about it in the past couple of weeks as everything unfolded. But yeah, it's... it's been bringing me down, so much that I can only take twitter in small doses now. It's also deeply affected Drew - the other night we had a talk about how he came to the realization I'd been kinda carrying since Trayvon Martin was killed - that if by some miracle (or if we accepted Nuke's still standing offer on paying for a vasectomy reversal) we had a kid, that one day it could be them dead in the street for little to no reason at all. Needless to say, it threw him for a loop, and he got further thrown realizing that I've lived with this constant threat all my life. It's funny, almost anyone else I'd be all *raised eyebrow* yeah, welcome to my life, have a T-shirt, it sucks. Not so much this time - I guess what I'm feeling regarding that discussion is less the usual racial schadenfreude and more of a "ohh, he actually really gets it." I mean, yes it sucks major balls carrying the knowledge of just how much the world sucks around. They're not kidding about ignorance being bliss. (And judging by some of the shit I've seen online, there are a lot of very blissful people out there.) At the same time, it's on some level a relief knowing he does think about it and understands some of it. Not going to lie, it's a nice change from several years ago and him being irritated by the very idea of privilege and how it applies to him.

In other life and adulthood suck news, lol... actually I have some reasonably good news on that front. Reasonably because money still sucks and is going to temporarily suck a bit more than usual, but the suckage will be in service to money ultimately NOT sucking in the reasonably near future. I know, that was clear as mud, and how about I say reasonably a few more times? I guess lets just say I'd been avoiding handling a particular chunk of financial stupid and it had been feeling like an anvil about to drop on my head, but I finally gathered my gonads and dealt with it this week. Again, the dealing with it is still gonna make life annoying for a little while, but at this point I will willingly take being slightly annoyed and inconvenienced over the weight I'd been dragging for the better part of two years. So go me? I guess? Ugh. After rolling around in the relief of finally getting that handled I fell into a sulk about the various little ways my life has been slowly spinning out of my control lately. In slightly less melodramatic turns, even before this week I've noticed there's been a gradual uptick in anxiety/avoidance/self-sabotaging behavior on my part this year. Well, really since about when Dad passed, but its lately gotten to the point where if it hasn't already, its gonna start marching up my pants leg to bite the inside of my ass. So I need to get a firm handle on the plates I already have spinning, safely remove a few, and then seriously sit down and start looking for therapists again. Because fuck this shit.

There has been Massive Monkeyspace Drama on Facebook this week too, which got to such a patently ridiculous level that it looped into hilarious. I'm sure modern incarnations of the purity tests we used to forward around in college have a question concerning "have you ever lost a friend in an online fight?" and I'm also sure I'm down that point as of Monday night, but honestly considering how things fell out I'm okay with that. While the actual drama itself was eyeroll-worthy at best the aftermath seems to be causing some old previous relationship scars to flare up again which just adds some delicious flavor to the mild suck soup that is my head right now. But, eh, it will pass and I will deal with it. I don't really want to get into it much further than that.

It's not been all suck either, but a lot of the not sucky things I can't put into a public post and I also have to go put the laundry in the dryer and return to the massive pile of work that still needs to get done tonight, boo. So I will just leave you with the high point of last weekend, which was cosplaying Carmen Sandiego for Bon Appetit Burlesque's "Around the World in 80 Twirls" show:



I can't remember the last time a costume made me so fucking happy. I've been a Carmen Sandiego fangirl since the game show used to air on PBS and I'd watch it with Roy Jr when he was wee tiny. Hell, I can still sing most of the theme song from memory, but that might have more to do with me also being a Rockapella fangirl. If the wig and the hat weren't so bloody hot I'd just be Carmen Sandiego all the damn time, though I am woefully incapable of pulling off national landmark level heists. I got a lot of compliments on the outfit. Desrvedly I think... I apparently can rock a red trench coat. :)

But back to life, back to reality. *sigh* *hatred*

So along with the 75 book challenge (which I haven't started), I have indeed decided to take up 365 again. Lord help me. Also trying to get into the habit of keeping scrupulous track of my money (this should be fun... shoot me) and my calorie intake, seeing as I'm in the weird position of having to try to eat moar.

Wellp, we'll see how all that goes.

Meanwhile cell23 is exploring the strange and amusing world of D&D apps for Sikudhani. He's already found Compendium and a few other things. LOL, again, I'm glad someone's finding good uses for that thing!

• I'm getting better. The whole forcing myself to eat until my body stops treating food with suspicion seems to be working. Balancing it with lots of fluids, which seems to help. Small snacks instead of actual meals also seems to be the right way to go, especially since my stomach still likes to be all like NO after ten bites of anything. Not exactly 3 meals a day friendly right there.
  
  Surprisingly so far what has been pretty well accepted right now is cheese. I would think it would be something that would make me feel horrible but apparently this is not my week to be dairy-sensitive. So the last few days one of my primary nibbles is chunks of hard sharp yummy. grinninfoole treated me to a small brick of Gruyere on Thursday and today at the farmers' market the lady at the Chase Hill Dairy Farm stand gave me the remainder sample chunk of her sold out Queso Veijo, so for right now at least it's an easily indulged craving.
  
  
• Speaking of which, I did indeed go out to lunch with grinninfoole on Thursday, though considering my digestive issues I opted to have chicken noodle soup instead of Bueno y Sano. I do enjoy our lunch dates, it seems to be a nice check-in/how are we doing for both of us and have some frank discussion about depression, recovery, efforts at being more social/adult/goal oriented and how all that's going for us. Other than my health issues, we both seem to be on an upswing at the same time, which is excellent.
  
  
• D&D went decently on Thursday night; after a group consensus that combat and general gameplay needed to be tightened, I think overall we all did better. Apparently putting a chart down on my combat cheat sheet listing all my dice roll values helped me a lot - a fair amount of what slows me down during game, believe it or not, is trying to figure out what 17+26-4 is. We seem to be approaching the end of our campaign, and while I like playing Mare and enjoy the band of characters we've got going, I think I'm in agreement with avalon616 here - epic tier is kinda rough and aspects of it are starting to poke me in the "this is why you never liked endgame raiding in WoW either" place. Starting to. They haven't quite gotten there yet. We'll see how we progress.
  
  
• Work is actually pretty good now that back to school rush is over and the work study minions are starting to know what they're doing. The bad part is that my layout's been accepted so now I'm on the profoundly unfun bit of website design where I have to translate pretty shit in photoshop into CSS. Eugh. And I still have Other job stuff to do so if I can find a bit of time to work on that this weekend, next week should be nice, money wise.
  
  Oh and yesterday (well actually today, but never mind) was my boss's birthday. Apparently most of a slice of red velvet cake doesn't disagree with me either, go figure. ITS does not scrimp on the baked goods, seeing as besides the red velvet there was this cake called "to die for" that looked too much like diabetes on a plate to even want to get near, but damn. Also ITS has a fair amount of Polish folks. There was a rousing chorus of "Sto Lat" as the cakes were getting cut.
  
  
• Kiddos are here, and for the most part, behaving themselves. Kidzilla's missing front tooth is ridiculously cute when she giggles:
  
  
  
  See? Oh here, since Lil'Beast decided to butt into the picture taking have a bonus.
  
  
  
  We had a nice visit this morning from their grandparents (chirping_monkey's side) who dropped off a kitchen playset for them. Lil'Beast kept coming down the stairs and serving us invisible cakes. These are the moments that keep me from eating him, I swear.
  
  Every so often I have an "AAAAH TOO FAST STOP GROWING" with them. Between Kidzilla's facial window, having to raise her bike seat this afternoon, and the fact that Lil'beast is now too big for his PJs, tricycle and almost his sandals... yeah. They've both changed so much in the two years I've been regularly part of their weekends on this end of MA. And yeah, I realize it's what kids do, lol, come on, I'm still having issues with my nephew being legal to drink and getting tattoos and macking on women cause he tall and cute. Somewhere in the back of my brain he stopped growing around 12 and his siblings and Alejandra all stopped accordingly as well, no matter what their facebook statuses say. One of those things, I guess.
  
  
• We also managed to make it out to the farmers market, as I mentioned earlier. Came home with ingredients for some ghost pepper chili (which I will not be eating, thank you) and I've been bugging cell23 for two weeks to make potato leek soup, so he got stuff for that too. Noms are afoot. And the kids got maple candy and cheese and cookies so they as usual made out like bandits. I didn't personally get too much this time around, but I'm thinking next week I'll stop by the astarte farms tent, buy up a whole big bag of their end of season tomatoes as well as any I get off Icky and Sticky in the next week or so, plus a few other bits and pieces and try my hand at making an army sized batch of tomato sauce in the crock pot.
  
  
• New eggs in the cave today! I know I know "you still play that game? lolwut?" yeah yeah shut up.
  
  
  

Yeah, that's kinda life as I know it right now. In a few hours it'll be time for me and some of the crew to head down to Northampton for burlesque, and then tomorrow I think there's apple picking happening since we didn't get to go for Kidzilla's birthday. Definitely creeping on up to Fall... cannot wait...

on my way out of New York and back to demanding kitty, adoring Manbeast, and most importantly my own squooshy way too comfortable bed. I honestly don't know when the last time I've been this dog tired was.

Despite the complete and utter exhaustion (I kinda forgot what an ordeal getting back on the regular crohn's pills is and in light of that should probably have waited until next week to start back up) this trip was overwhelmingly a more positive one than the last, probably entirely because of the amount of progress Dad has made since the pneumonia scare and return to Mt. Sinai on my last visit. On the contrary, after a meeting with his rehab team yesterday he's been given a release date of next thursday which is awesome news. Two months of hospitals and rehab is entirely Too Much. Considering how he was when I first went to see him in the hospital in January and where he is now, which in some ways is in better shape than before the stroke, I'm astounded by his progress. The rehab center has a small coffee shop in the basement for its residents, and yesterday we went down together for a late afternoon snack. Dad was up, walking (and not slowly either) with a little help from a walker for his balance, and once downstairs he was being his usual charming pain in the butt self at the lady running the place as well as trading jokes with the nuns on staff. He still loses words on occasion and while he always mixed up the names of his kids/grandkids (and had been known to go through at least five or six names before getting to the right one) that tendancy's gotten a bit worse. Still, for someone who had a stroke seven weeks ago, he ain't looking too bad.

Still I think all of us will be glad when he's out. Well, Ruth'll be more frazzled while he's staying with her, but he'll be if not home, close to it, back in Brooklyn, and I for one will be happy if I never have to take the IRT up the upper east side ever again. Between Mom at NY Presbyterian years ago and Dad ending up in Mt sinai for various and sundry over the years, I've almost never had to be up there for a good reason, and over the past couple of months I've come to utterly loathe having to take the sardine tin that is the Lexington Ave line anywhere and personally can't wait for them to hurry up and open the 2nd Ave line, because goddamn them IRT train cars are NARROW as HELL.

Sorry, veered into subway nerdage for a minute there.

Anyway, I didn't get everything I had to do done this time around (there is just not enough hours/spoons in the day for all the shit that needs taking care of) I do come home with a grim sense of accomplishment with what I did manage to get done. There was something about finally finding, buying and delivering the four silk ascots after two days of chasing them all over Manhattan that was deeply satisfying. I often need to be reminded that I can be deeply resourceful in a weird as hell pinch. I did manage to keep up with my actual job this week as well as pick up a little extra scratch from the fam, so this week will be somewhat profitable, and I just got a notice that my moderately whopping federal refund was accepted and should be hitting my account early next week. Just in time for PAXEast, not like I'm going to let myself spend much out there, seeing as most of my money's kinda spoken for for at least the next few months. Still... kinda nice to know things are looking up on several fronts for a change.... y'all don't know how thirsty I've been for some sunshine thrown my way. But for now I'm looking eagerly forward to boy and bed tonight. Or vice versa. I don't care, it'll just be good to get home.

Gonna catch a nap now.

I just closed Fisher Price® My First Checking Account™ yesterday. I've been meaning to get away from BoA for years now cause they're fee-happy assholes, but never got around to it and considering I've stubbornly clung to this one since my first year of college (and it's survived four bank mergers)... yeah. I'm still leaving the savings account open for folk to get me funds in emergencies, but I've mostly severed my ties with Bank of America and it's kind of a glorious feeling. Other than the weird sentimental attachment, I don't feel that bad about this. Flo's has been infinitely nicer to me.

I'm more or less back on a regular med schedule for the first time in a couple months. Hopefully that will fix some of the gastrointestinal ick I've been having lately.

Related to that I stepped on a scale this morning... Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit. I haven't seen the lighter side of 185 since just before surgery. No wonder I've been able to snake out of all my pants without undoing the flies lately. Again, a mixed bag here, I'm a girl so on one hand I'm all, "huh, weight loss, that's positive right?" except I know it's just cause I've been sick as hell lately and not eating very much cause it fucking hurts. So I'm actually looking forward to the number on the scale climbing a little bit. If there's one thing I've kinda learned and accepted about myself over the years is that my body seems happiest around 200-210lbs, which yeah, most docs would be all like OMG FAT FAT FATTY FAT FAT FAT but that always seems to be where I feel healthiest. Above that I feel like a distant Hutt cousin, and below that, well. Usually comes with the side effect of being sick as a fucking dog.

Also if I get back there I won't have to go pants shopping. Yes, the lazy/poor informs my health decisions, lol.

We'll see how I do back on meds for a while, if indeed it seems like I can once again actually eat stuff without it killing me three hours later, I may start regularly fishing for people to go to Planet Fitness with me. Exercise is good and all, right?

So verbena76 and aersi tied the knot yesterday.

I left the hatemonger home yesterday, but, much as I suspected, there were others on hand besides the person actually getting money to run around with a camera, so here's one of extrajoker's pics:



Seriously, I haven't seen verbena76 look that happy unless there were eviscerations involved. ;) And aersi was just radiant.

I've spent most of my weekend being an extra pair of hands on this project. Which, as anyone who has assisted with a wedding knows, is by turns exhausting and hilarious (This wedding clearly tended to skew towards the hilarious.) I made some new friends this weekend, including aersi's cute, chatty and interested-in-everything niece (gods I want to lock her and Kidzilla in a room together just to see them bounce stuff off each other). And at the end of the day? I got to see two close friends walk into the rest of their lives arm in arm and glowingly happy.

Things I also got to see:

- coureton shaved. What.

- cell23 in a pinstripe suit. He really can rock the the young republican look like nobody's business.

- A good third of Squire looking significantly less scruffy than usual. There really should have been a bus or something down from here, when walking to the reception from the sanctuary, I was mentally going "oh, I know that car. I know that car. I know that car. That one got a new bumper sticker. Know that car too..." I mean, considering how long verbena76 has lived here it's not exactly surprising - he's one of the Kevin Bacons of the Valley anyway - but yeah.



Today, I'm alas, not feeling well - honestly I've been at 70% or less for the past few days, so it's a bit of a blessing in disguise that Hanzo is still kinda stuck. However there isn't much rest for the wicked available, just cause I'm home spanking my digestion into submission doesn't mean that I'm either off the clock or don't have a three million mile long to-do list, so no really help for it but to gird the loins and get it done. But you know, also on the agenda is taking some care of me, which I admittedly haven't really been doing. Also maybe getting a few of the book boxes unpacked too, cause I'm tired of looking at 'em.

It's a Monday. It's a week. Gonna try to make it a good one.

Apparently in addition to it being Fuck You Friday, it's also Shit On Everyone I Know Including Me Day as well. Between this morning's panic attack, realizing exactly (like with actual numbers and everything) how fucked in the wallet I am right now and will be at least until the new year, having several friends get super horrid news, getting some rather annoying news myself (long story short, Hanzo-san is staying home for the weekend at least), and having a major ex-relationship trigger set off in the booj I am amazed I'm sitting here being just angry and stressed about it all instead of cowering in a corner bawling my eyes out.

I'm fine, I'll get through this. But you know, one of these days it would be nice if every mistake I made in the last decade or so didn't rise up to bite me in the ass on the same damn day. JUST SAYING.

On the other hand it wasn't all bad today. I got to go with anothermurray to Dakin this afternoon and have a prolonged OMGKITTEHSSQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!! moment. There was a magnificent large male orange cat that could very well have been Valentino's temperamental younger brother... but really my attention was quite taken with the two tortie long haired kittens in separate cages that climbed the bars and vocally demanded lovins, one of whom got out of her cage and went zipping across the floor when a volunteer opened it to clean it out. She got scooped up by another volunteer who later needed to not be holding her so he could go talk to anothermurray and asked if I'd like to hold onto her while the cage was being finished up.

No I didn't bring her home (did I mention fucked in the wallet?) But it was a very near miss, cause she was purry and hyperactive and hilariously clumsy and FUZZY oh my god. When I put her down she spent ten or so minutes attacking everything in her cage and falling off her box in the most hilariously clumsy fashion possible. Eeee. Someone's going to love the stuffing out of her soon. But I'm glad she was there to make me feel a little better today.

Still need to do something about the raging headache, and squeeze some more productivity out of my day. I may spend tonight chugging caffiene and angstily watching Netflix movies/Torchwood/Sons of Anarchy while I yarn up my head. a) I wanna look a little less like Buckwheat for aersi&verbena76's wedding, and b) the last thing I need to be worrying about in the next few weeks is my goddamn hair. Man, some days I miss my dreadlocks.

• Met my (sorta?) stepcousin last night after 16 years since the last time we met when I went over to her mom and her partner's house for dinner. Turned out to be fantastic - we hit it off and it felt way more like family than meeting a stranger. :) And small fucking world, her mom lives 15ish minutes up 116 from me. Well good goddamn.
  
  Side note - I may actually be slightly allergic to avacado, which sucks, as I've only just now started liking guacamole. Further testing needed.
  
  
• came home and had in its own way equally fun chillout time with another friend who apparently needed it rather badly from what I heard later.
  
  
• Squire's been settled up, now worrying about everything else move-related can officially take over my brain.
  
  
• After bitching on the DC forums (don't get excited, this has nothing to do with comics) about how I've been basically trying to get an Ice egg all summer with no luck, someone messaged me and was all "hey, I just bred one, you want?" O_o, so now it's chilling with my first successfully bred bluna. Which means after the move I can start trying to summon. Whoop.
  
  
  
  
• "Fuck You" is insanely fun to drive to. And belt out at the top of your lungs while doing so. And it's in my range. (So for the record is "Tight Pants.") Oh and 50Cent added a rap to the beginning of it, which is actually funny.

I'm going to spend the next hour eating leftover carbonara and finishing True Blood. I swear, I have not been able to get through Sunday's episode without something coming up or falling asleep or something. Basically, rest on the laurels of the day for an hour or so before girding my loins and officially going into OMGMOVENAU mode.

Thank the heavens for big sisters some days I swear. Otherwise today would have been FAR more failtastic than it was. *twitch*

Gonna salve my soul with jerkface kitten time now. Here have dragons.