I have no idea what that line is actually from, but it’s running through my head.
I met with my therapist on Tuesday. My wife had the day off, since she’s a state employee and it was election day, and when I got home she asked me how it had gone and what we’d talked about. And then she got this weird look on her face and said “Well, unless you can’t really talk about it, or something like that.”
“I’m a blogger,” I said. “I tell 20,000 people what happened to me today three times a day. Yes, I will share my discussion with my therapist with my wife.”
And I did.
And, uh, here’s the problem: I’ve got a hell of a lot I want to talk about, but damn near all of it is embargoed for some reason or another, most of them having something to do with my real life and counting unhatched chickens and various things like that. So instead I’m going to just write this frustratingly ambiguous blog post and leave you with a music video, since it’s Friday no goddammit it’s Thursday screw it you get a Friday song anyway.
Medication’s screwing with me again today. If I was a computer game I’d be lagging– I turn my head, and it’s like it takes a while for the world to turn with me.
…who’s doing NaNoWriMo? I’m not, at least officially, but I do plan on getting as much of the Skylights sequel done next month as I possibly can. Who should I be encouraging/occasionally poking fun at?
If we were having coffee I’d be on my third cup of the morning already, because I had two right after getting up. It’s kind of a sleepy, crabby morning around the Siler household this weekend, because Halloween tonight is probably going to be a washout and that’s putting all of us in a bad mood. It’s already raining and the hourly chance of rain for the rest of the day bounces back and forth between seventy and ninety percent. Should I be thanking Hurricane Patricia for this nonsense? Maybe. I know at least one actual meteorologist; maybe she’ll let me know.
Last Halloween, you may remember, we had a blizzard. Tonight, a torrential downpour. I’d rather have the blizzard; at least I got to stand outside in that, and there are few things that I dislike more than being outdoors in the rain. I have no costume and I didn’t carve a pumpkin because my brain fell into this annoying feedback loop where I wanted to come up with something neat and creative and I couldn’t so I just didn’t do it at all.
I am starting to think, after several weeks of these posts, that I am not a very fun person to have coffee with, and I’m kinda tired of that, too. Then again, if I remember right, I started writing these right after my medical bullshit started up and maybe I shouldn’t blame myself for all of it. I’ve been less fun for the people around me, too.
If we were having coffee, I think you’d probably be able to tell that I start work again next week. It occurred to me yesterday that if I made it through my mom’s surgery without an episode, I can probably get through a week of work, but I am noticeably blechy and jumpy at the moment. I need next week to go smoothly, and I need to not end up in the hospital again, and in particular if the hospital thing happens again I need to just start thinking about taking an entire grading period off, because I have no idea what the hell’s going on. For once, I want to go back to work.
I’m tired of writing posts where people feel like they need to wish me well in comments, honestly.
Later today or tomorrow, depending on my mood, I’ll talk about Searching for Malumba‘s launch. The tl;dr version: surprisingly successful! But more details later.
“You were just on your phone,” VJ said. “Bam. Signal everywhere. Tied straight to you. You turn off the GPS yet?”
“Dunno how,” I said.
“Just turn the damn thing off.”
I did. I’d ditch the electronics a town over, switch to burners. No updates anywhere. Radio silence. It’d be okay. Until I needed money, and used a card.
“You ever robbed anybody?” I asked. At least stolen money was clean.
“Just the once,” VJ said. “I’ll let you know if we get away with it.”
Word Count: 100
Friday Fictioneers is a weekly blog hop hosted by Rochelle. She posts a photo prompt then challenges readers to write a 100 word story inspired by the prompt. It’s a fun challenge. Give it a try! Check here for the info then write your story and post it, link up and enjoy the other stories!
Saw the doctor today. The people in the office are starting to recognize me; that’s how often I’ve been there lately. The receptionist just waved me off without formally checking me in today. That many times.
Everything’s fine! Except that my brain is still screwing with me. So we’re trying Clonazepam for a little while, because all the test results from last week have pretty definitively ruled out my adrenal glands as the culprit. I’m out another week of work, too, because she’s expecting the drug to hit me kinda hard. Seeing as how I stopped taking the last one because of side effects, I’m not super excited about this. But the Lexapro is definitely out of my system– I can tell, because I’ve been nervous and twitchy all day today. So we’ll hope that Clonazepam helps where Lexapro didn’t. If not? Well, whatever the next thing is, I guess.
It’s still not lupus.
Anyway.
I keep almost writing a short story about the Dyson Sphere thing, only the only thing I can come up with is basically a dialogue between two characters about it. Which… okay, I can do that, but it’s kinda boring without any actual meat on the bones. I’m just nervous that if I don’t get it out of my system now it’s going to end up as an infodump in Starlight or Sunlight or whatever that book is called now. Which I need to start working on again soon. Just as soon as I finish the three other things I’m working on right now, which… well, soon. That’s all I’m saying.
I will be here in June. Get your tickets now! Meanwhile, you’re running out of time– less than a week!– to pre-order Searching for Malumba. The print edition looks fantastic, if I do say so myself; I’m never not using their creme-colored paper again, because it looks so much better than the white. That’ll be available on the 27th if you prefer your books on paper.
One of the tests was for autoimmune diseases! It really isn’t lupus!
I’m about to write a whole bit about all the fun & productive stuff I’ve done today since I didn’t have to go to work because I’m on medical leave. Let me start with this, though: we have an elderly cat. I got her when I moved to Chicago in 1998, so she’s seventeen and some change, not that you can tell from interacting with her. She has been a puker for as long as I’ve owned her. Last night I was ripped out of sleep by the sound of a cat preparing to hork on my bed. I snapped awake and tossed her out of bed, resolving to clean up whatever she did to the floor in the morning (this may be why the carpet in my bedroom is so shitty) and then rolled over and went basically immediately back to sleep.
And then it happened twice more in the next hour.
And the third time it triggered another of the same type of attack/”episode” things that have been keeping me out of work lately. The only difference is this happened in the middle of the night, but it was the same thing: simultaneously freezing cold and sweating, nauseous, weak, shallow breathing, generally awful.
Turns out, when your cat wakes you up trying to hork, it generates a bit of an adrenaline surge, and the third such event in maybe an hour fucked me up bad. I still say there’s something wrong with my adrenal glands, but I keep getting test results from all the blood I had sucked out of me on Saturday and so far everything is normal, so I have no goddamn idea what the hell is going on. I do know I couldn’t have gotten out of bed at 6 if my life had depended on it; I didn’t feel human until 11, at which point I was able to haul myself out of bed and take a shower and start my day.
How do I feel now? Completely fine. Which is the most frustrating thing about this; I’m either completely fine or I have medical professionals hovering over me and telling me to go to the ER. It kinda sucks.
But anyway. I did a whole bunch of shit today! Have the rest of my day up to now in bullet point form:
Went to the bank to clarify some stuff about our recent mortgage refinancing. Turns out I need to pay my own homeowners insurance now as the bank doesn’t do escrow. Annoying, but manageable.
Checked a couple of mattress stores for a new bed for my son, who is now big enough for a twin bed.
Bought my son a bed at one of said stores, which will be here tomorrow.
Had lunch at Five Guys, a rare treat since basically just setting foot in the place will probably kill the boy, who has a peanut allergy.
Went to the Apple Store and scratched my “need a new thing” itch by buying one of these. Almost certainly not the wisest use of my money, but I use two monitors and the massively increased size over the previous version won me over. Using a trackpad instead of a mouse is wonderful.
I’m generally a big fan of Apple’s fetish for minimalism, but it really hurts them on mice and keyboards. I can’t use their mice at all, and this is my keyboard on my desktop.
Actually saw one of the $17,000 Apple Watches in person for the first time, and walked away surprised by the fact that I actually prefer the look of my $250 Pebble Time Steel. The leather on the Apple Watch actually looks kinda chintzy, and the gold is way too shiny for my tastes.
Speaking of surprising things, walking past a Mennonite woman piloting an electronic wheelchair via an app on her iPhone was my moment of Zen for the day.
Hit the grocery on the way home.
Since getting home, I’ve applied for a job and done some light cleaning. I’m making dinner tonight, too. Chorizo Mac and Cheese!
Tonight: Walking Dead! Assuming, like, my son doesn’t jump at me from around a corner and put me in a coma or something. I’m naming my disease Reverse Hulk Syndrome until someone comes up with something better.
An announcement: I’m tired of basically the entire world right now, particularly the American politics and Internet parts of the world, but also including wide swaths of the entertainment and publishing and technology industries. I have this weird Need for a New Thing going on right now that might indicate that capitalism has finally carved an unfillable hole in my soul and may just indicate that I’ve spent most of the last three weeks sitting around the house and not doing much.
Also possible: that I’m just Sundaying. My doctor has already told me I’m not going back to work next week, meaning the next day that I need/get to leave the house to earn a living will be a week from Tuesday, since we’ve got a fall break coming up next weekend. I need, somehow, to put together lesson plans when I have no real idea what’s gone on in my classroom for the next two days and don’t actually have any textbooks or materials handy. That’s going to be interestingly tricky, and by “interestingly tricky” I mean “I very well may try to have one of the other fifth grade teachers write my lesson plans for me.” Which I’m sure they’ll be very happy to do, seeing as how I’ve been totally useless to anyone I work with for the entire month of October.
I need to find something to do today other than kvetching and staring at electronic screens. I have a couple of fiction projects that I want to work on this week but I feel like I probably ought not to worry about them today in favor of… something else. Anything else. I just dunno what.
What’s new in your life? Gimme something interesting I don’t know about that I need to check out.
Blech.
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