Azure Jane Lunatic (Azz) 🌺 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
azurelunatic) wrote2016-12-28 01:11 am
azurelunatic) wrote2016-12-28 01:11 am
Entry tags:
About two weeks' worth of update...
Wednesday the 14th: Saw psychiatrist. The replacement one is a dapper fellow who dresses very sharply, complete with bowtie and cufflinks. He was pleased that my global distress score has improved since last month. He has started communicating with the sleep neurologist.
I mailed a holiday package to my partner. Yay.
Neither of us gets quite enough sleep, I think. We've been leaning on each other to remind us that sleep is good.
I had dinner with Purple. We talked werewolf shenanigans. I can't name all the notes in his scent. I'm not sure there are necessarily English words for it all, but I identify it as him.
Thursday the 15th: My car's registration renews in December. I tried to renew online.
It turns out that if you lose your license plate and have to get issued a new one, that you'll have to renew the registration in person as well. (And it has to be a separate trip.) And Thursday was really the only uninterrupted weekday time I was going to have before Ev arrived.
So I figured I'd brave the storm and brave the DMV. On my way to get ready to go out the door, I called my mechanic and asked for a smog appointment. They had one at that identical instant, or Saturday (none Friday). So I grabbed some festive cheer (nonpareil chocolates and espresso beans and a decorative brandy cherry) and packed those up for them, and was on my way.
It turned out that the wind was strong enough to half rip the door off the Starbucks.
On the up side, Vash did not need any fixing to pass the smog check (always an item of worry for an older car), and the DMV and its parking lot were relatively un-crowded. And I got my Costco membership renewed, which gives me access to the cheap gas. (Yay.) I refueled in advance of Friday, and continued my pre-Ev-visit tidying.
Friday the 16th: I didn't call Mama, even though I should have.
It was beer bash day; I went and met up with Purple and Mr. Tux. We hid out in the milkshake bunker and chatted.
Somewhere through that evening, I put my hand in my left pocket looking for lip balm and felt a slender tube with an opening and screw threads at one end. "Oh, shit," I said, or words to that effect, and withdrew a glitter-covered hand and empty vial with its lid missing. I found the lid and screwed it back on, but rather in the way of securing the door to an empty barn.
There had been a critical containment failure of a vial of cosmetic glitter, the stuff that I use one fingertip at a time as eyeshadow.
When I got up, there was a halo of glitter around my chair. I am never going to be able to take this jacket into Kat's presence again.
Dinner with Ms. Antisocialest Butterfly followed. Service was slow and bizarre. The server seemed to only be able to process one action at a time, leading to us making a game of waiting for him to come back with (whatever he was coming back with) and then intercepting him with the next (single) request before he could vanish. This was effective, but took forever. The tip ranged between 10 and 15%.
Saturday the 17th:
Frantic finishing of Yuletide, and cleaning.
Sunday the 18th:
Cleaning. Then I picked up Ev from the airport, with the requested frozen berries. She was shortly installed on the air mattress on my floor, with seven blankets and a heating pad. She would snuggle the heating pad for the duration of the visit. (I could not find my space heater, which surprised me. It had become uncommonly cold.)
Monday the 19th:
Ev decided that a fun project would be helping me tidy! This manifested as her taking up a position on top of my two-step stepstool, and handing me down things from the upper shelves in my kitchen/hall closet. Things were sorted. Things were thrown away. Things were put in much more accessible spots.
Tuesday the 20th: Much better sleep. Ventured forth to the doctor with Ev. Wandered through shops for a while, and then had dinner with Purple, at the place with the really excellent pastrami.
Wednesday the 21st:
Solstice! Ev went through my perfume collection and sniffed things.
Thursday the 22nd:
I woke up in the middle of the night, at the four hour of sleep mark. As I started to try to get back to sleep, I was seized with dread and woe of a most distressing sort. Happily, as I was weeping quietly into my phone, my partner woke up and petted me. I asked them to please remind me that today was not a good day for a crisis. They obligingly did so. Today was also the day that a companion animal of long standing (to their ex) took its final visit to the vet. And (after I woke up again) a day for me to visit my therapist. Which was excellent timing, since the Night of Woe was the sort of thing that a therapist would want to be called about.
My aunt dropped off a holiday card while I was out at the therapist. I came back with Ev and we regrouped, and ran a few last errands before game night with the Infamous Cousin.
There was a thing that I'd been planning to do, involving my refrigerator and its outlet. It lives in a niche that's just barely too small for it. The outlet is behind the refrigerator, and you need to either be on a ladder with long arms, or literally on top of the refrigerator. "Either I need to file a ticket," I thought to myself, "or maybe when the kid is home from college..."
Folks? If you're ever presented with this dilemma? FILE THE TICKET.
#thingsweshouldneverdoagain #householdaccidentswaitingtohappen #kidbackfromcollege #twoextrahandsand65extrainchesofheight #dumbassfridgestunts #thingsweshouldneverdoagain #homefortheholidays #blessed
https://twitter.com/azurelunatic/status/812129936232153088
Game night was Infamous Cousin, his girlfriend, three of their friends, JD, and Ryan, plus Ev and me. And Boat. It was a fun evening. The games were Fluxx and Bang. I gave JD a ride back home.
Friday the 23rd:
Hanging out at my aunt's with Ev and crocheting on the Next Hat, followed by dinner with Purple and Ms. Antisocialest Butterfly. Ms. Antisocialest Butterfly was generally appalled by the tales of Ev's mother.
Ev had warned me of what to expect with her mother, and sure enough, that was what happened. (Sociable offers of dinner that must never ever be accepted.) I deposited her with some concern, then headed back home. (Ev's mother expressed worry about the length of the drive and the lateness of the hour. It was not a problem.)
That house does not look like people can or should live there. It's chilly and ... I was tempted to say "like a museum", but museums are more interactive and inviting. There is unstained white carpet. This is a house that children grew up in.
Saturday the 24th:
It was cold and quiet, mostly. I put a few finishing touches on my Yuletide, and then waited with my partner for the archive to open. Whereupon there was reading.
Sunday the 25th:
The song "Last Christmas" has long been an object of avoidance and scorn in a certain subset of #lj_s alumni. It's like the Little Drummer Boy game: go as long as you can in avoidance of the song, during the season of pre-Christmas Christmas songage. The game ends on Christmas. This year, George Michael died on Christmas. He will be heartily missed, for his presence and his other works. I wasn't tuned in enough to be aware of him as a gay icon or icon for other modes of masculinity besides the mainstream toxic ones, but he was that to a great number of people I care for.
Ev and her family had a lunch out. I got a livetweeting of her mother behaving in such a way that it ought to have resulted in a 5150, had anyone besides family witnessed it. I am appalled (and even a little surprised). This is not what anyone should have to put up with. Ever.
I had dinner with my aunt, cousin, Boat, and
quartzpebble. The "tree" was one of those fractal cauliflowers, which was then chopped and roasted with herbs. Mmm. Monday the 26th:
Another quiet day. Except for the part where DW exploded a little. Both because a web server started behaving badly, and because LiveJournal quietly moved its hosting back to Russia.
Tuesday the 27th:
Upon hearing about Carrie Fisher, I emailed Purple. Later I called him, and we talked about many things. (Ev's terrible mother, anti-androgens, shaving, and I'm sure other related topics.) He wasn't up for dinner this evening. I'd been hopeful for some quiet hanging out (possibly watching Carrie Fisher movies) but he might be up for some hanging out later in the week.
I (finally) called the provider where I could get the CPAP from. Unfortunately, they claimed to have no knowledge of me. Disheartened, I called my own healthcare people, followed by an email to one in particular, on the grounds that the voicemail that I left in the box that I was shuffled to was probably not the most coherent. (I sound like a robot when I'm under stress.) Then I cried on my partner.
Eventually the CPAP provider called back. It turned out that the
Then I ran errands. Yay, errands. And I tried to catch up on my reading page. I, uh. I may be a week behind?
no subject
no subject
no subject
Oh, good.
It turned out that the
magic had been inside me all alongthe prescription had been in their computer systems all alongAnd hopefully soon the oxygen will be in you all night long.
(I am making a vow to Do Something next year about the terribleness of my own sleep patterns and energy levels.)
no subject
Fortitude on your own quest.
no subject
no subject
Things that I am currently doing that are working for me:
* Side-sleeping. This takes a goodly number of body pillows, and wadded-up hard cotton blankets as head pillows, for me.
* Cool room. Harder to accomplish some places than others.
* Blankets that can be configured as necessary when heating and cooling needs require, including a top sheet, a cotton blanket, and a duvet.
* Small fan. Directed at me, with controls I can reach from bed.
* Ice pack wrapped in a towel as snuggle item.
* Steroid nasal spray, which has transformed my nose from one side 100% blocked and the other side 50% blocked, to pretty much normal.
* Neti pot, used as needed. (Rarely.)
* Redshifting apps or settings on all my devices.
* ADHD-friendly games on my phone: just engaging enough to keep me off Twitter, just boring enough that I can fall asleep while playing them.
* Blood sugar in normal ranges.
* ADHD meds, taken first thing in the morning.
* A partner with a firmly diurnal sleep schedule.
New:
* Color temperature shifting LED lights, including one with an artificial dusk when you press the off switch.
* CPAP.
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject