A Message to 2015

Hello, 2015. I would like to let you know about some things I DO NOT WANT.

I do not want nights where I am so stressed out that I can't sleep.

I do not want sickness that is so bad I am bedridden.

I do not want to have occasions where I wonder if I am going to live.

I do not want to know my pain threshold. Seriously. That sucked.

I do not want to know what it is like to be so weak I can't walk my driveway.

I do not want to spend frantic hours wondering how I am going to pay for things.

I do not want to spend frantic hours getting stuck with needles.

I do not want to have more cancer.

I do not want to spend so many hours crying that I have a headache for the next two days.

I do not want to be stranded.

I do not want to be terrified and alone.

I do not want to be at the mercy of systems.

I do not want to be naked in front of strangers.

I do not want to be on pain medications.

I do not want to be so sick I can't walk.

I do not want to be pushed past what I thought were my sanity's limits.

I do not wish to be unsure of how to handle the problems.

You know if you can just manage not to do those things, we'll be great!

Sims 4 Deaths in the Family

Memsi has this huge social media thing going on. She takes pictures all the time. Most of them are selfies. When she's feeling generous, she'll take pictures with her twin or with Don.

I'm not really sure if the social media stuff offers any real benefit to the sim. I let her do the activities every day, but I can't see they are doing her any good. I guess in that way, it' s like social media in the real world.

Even still, it makes her happy to take pictures of herself or with her sister or boyfriend. She never takes pictures with her parents. Actually, now, she really can't. Her mother recently died. The girls weren't all that upset about it, but their father is devastated. When I don't have him doing something else, his constant activity is weeping at his wife's urn. This is one way in which emotions really are more complex in Sims 4. In previous versions of the game, when a sim died, people were upset for a few days. In four, grief is handled more like it is in real life. For some people, it never goes away.

 Speaking of more complex emotions, when the girls (and Don) aged into adults, the annoyance Clara seems to feel about their relationship continued. I often find that when they're being loving and happy, she'll come in and sit near them, with this just deeply unhappy look in her eyes.

 The problem with that is it's keeping her from doing the things I wanted her to do. For instance, imagine my happiness when we found a very rare cowplant seed in the river behind the Goth's house! This was so great! Clara, who was the only person in the house with any kind of gardening skill (Don often trims the bonsai, but I think he just likes the fact that the interaction is called 'trimming the bush.') has been taking care of the plants. Except, I looked over at the cowplant and it was dead. Dammit, Clara, you had ONE JOB. ONE!

My guess is that she'll soon let the rest of the plants die as well. While Memsi and Don were on one of their dates, she rolled up the want to propose. I let this happen, and even let them elope while they were in the bar. It seemed like something Don Lothario would like.

Of all the things that have been included in Sims 4, I think I like the dating option the best out of all the other incarnations. It has more to it than the blah that was in three, but it's not as complex and insanely impossible as it was in 2. When you choose the interaction, it takes you to a loading screen so you can pick your public place. Both sims show up at the same time. There is one large goal and then four or five smaller ones. On my first date, I didn't complete all of them, but on all the dates since, I have.

Anyway, so Memsi and Don are married now. Even though he has a complicated relationship with past generations of her family, my cheating ways have led to him leaving HIS cheating ways. In fact, his current aspiration is to become soulmates with Memsi.

Goals for the Year

Today wasn't easy. My hips are shifting again and there was a lot of pain. In fact, I woke up in the middle of the night to the pain. I know it's part of the process of my body changing. That deals with the fear factor of it, but not the pain itself. My body is a difficult place sometimes. We have our issues.

I've been thinking about what I want to change in the new year. I talked about the practical goals, like drinking more water and cutting some things out of my eating. I think I'm going to make a couple of more emotional/social goals as well. For one thing, I want to be more embracing of my life. If someone asks me to go do something, I want to be more open to doing it. If someone offers me a chance to do something different or adventurous, I want to be more open to it. Normally when these things happen, I worry so much about them that often decline the chance. This is no way to live one's life.

I guess this one runs hand in hand with that one, and, with everything else really. I'm going to try to be less caustic and angry about my body. I'm going to do my best to process the pain without grinding my teeth about it. I need to do this. I don't hate ME, but I've started hating my body. Not because of the way it looks, but just because of its issues.

I've noticed in the last year that I've developed this resentful attitude about my body. My body causes me pain. My body gets ill and forces me to go see doctors and talk to people. My body won't heal the way I would want it to. My body, basically, just causes me a lot of problems. I feel betrayed by my body. I feel fearful about what it will do next. It makes me panic.

I think it's understandable that I view myself this way. I also know that it's probably not productive. This is just going to lead to more disassociation. I don't need that. I need to really learn to live in this skin without anger and fear. It's hard though. It's really hard.

So I have no idea how I'll do this. I guess I can talk to my therapist and do some online research. I have been doing a thing were I try to understand how my body feels right now, but that's more about accepting the physical than accepting just the......whatever this is. I'll start trying to figure it out though.

Young Sims in Love

This is Memsi and her live-in boyfriend Don Lothario. Don is somewhat of an infamous cad in Sims, and this is clearly even worse in 4, because he's been paying attention to her since she was a little girl. He was an elder at the time, and it kind of squicked me. I knew she liked him though, so I used a cheat to de-age him back to childhood. Then I realized he would be alone in his house, so I moved him into ours. As kids, they were the best of friends. As teenagers, they won't keep their hands off of each other. I keep trying to make them gain skills. All they want to do is go mess around or make out. I have a feeling they're going to be rather unproductive teens. Sigh.

This is Memsi's twin Clara. Clara loathes Don and can't understand what her sister sees in him. Every time she sees them together, she gives me this look, as if she's wishing I'd just kill him off or something. It's possible that I should have, but for breeding purposes, I'd like to see how well his perfect little nose can counteract the nose that Memsi got from her father. I don't think Clara is pleased with this at all, but then again, she likes the nose. While her sister is busy snogging on Don, Clara spends her time learning skills and figuring out a path for her life. I don't know if she'll ever be interested in romantic encounters. Memsi and Don may have scarred her for life.

Oh, there is a point to this. I successfully raised these two kids from babies to teenagers. And, I have to say, even though there are flaws with Sims 4, how they structured childhood is certainly not one of them. Childhood was fun! The children had aspiration goals to work through, which gained them decent levels of points to use for rewards. The aspirations also add depth to their personalities. All of this makes childhood more challenging and complex than in the earlier versions of the game.

In the past, Sim children basically just did homework, went to school, and learned skills. They tended to be pretty generic. I'm playing my game with long life spans, so I was able to do all four aspirations for my kids, but if you play with a shorter span of time, you're going to have to pick and choose. This mean your kids' personalities will be even more geared toward a certain kind of life.

So my verdict on Sims 4 Childhood is that is the best childhood experience so far. And yes, I tweeked a little and altered Don Lothario's life in the process, but it was still pretty grand.

Fearing 2015

We made it through the Christmas food today. I suppose that is the end of the holiday stuff, other than what we may do for New Year's.  Then we're on to the fresh hell that the new year will bring. My roommate wants out of this year, but after having a tax scare two years ago and then cancer last year, I'm somewhat horrified to see what 2015 may bring. Right now, I expecting taxes AND cancer in some kind of kaiju form. It robs you of your ability to sleep through the night and makes you shoot blood from all orifices. Somehow, it also makes you dumber.

Whatever the case, 2015 is almost here and there isn't one damned thing I can do to stop it.  Whatever hell it's going to bring with it, I am just going to have to try and live through it. Do I sound despondent? I am. I am horrified, almost to the point of a panic attack, about the new year. I actually cried about it today, because I am that down about the whole thing. It just seems like a reset for the scary.

What would I like for 2015? I would like to have a GOOD year! I would like for that tax/cancer kaiju to, instead, be a wonderfully sweet kaiju that brings opportunity and experience and amazing memories for me. I would like to go through this year and wake up feeling excited about the day. I would like to think about the coming months and be excited about the good things that were being planned. I would like to just enjoy the year, feeling like everything was on the upswing.

Will that happen? I doubt it! I bet it will just end up like the last two, where horrifying shit happens and I try my best to live through it without having a nervous breakdown. I don't think I'll find a way to have more money. I don't think I'll find a new activity that is fulfilling to me. I don't think anyone will look me in the eyes and tell me how much they love me. I know that stuff happens to other people, but I really don't think it will happen to me. Am I feeling sorry for myself? Probably. But I can live with that stuff not happening if only I wouldn't have the cancer/tax/other scary shit happen instead. Or at least, you know, maybe there could be a balance?

Balance would be nice.

The Birds

Today when my roommate and I got back from the store, the trees around us were covered in chattering birds. This wasn't just a casual 'birds sit in the trees and chatter' kind of thing. This was profound.  They were making so much noise we had to almost yell to hear each other. And they were covering all of the trees. It was one of the neatest things I've ever seen.

This was one of those moments when I was hyperaware of my surroundings. The sky was gray and very overcast. This made most of the trees look gray as well, which let itself to the birds blending with them. They were so very loud and I felt like I was a part of that.

Sometimes I really feel at odds with nature . . . usually when I'm dealing with bugs. Today, however, I really felt connected to it. I felt in awe of it. I'm glad I had this experience.

Merry Christmas

My roommate and I ended up at diner for lunch today. It was one of maybe three places open in the town near us. Seriously, if you want to make money during the holidays, have your business open during Christmas. You'll have a crowd all day. The place was kind of a dive, but I found that charming. I always like places like that because I assume everyone is there for the same kind of fringy reasons we are.

I was less happy at the movie. The place was crowded as hell. I get why people go to the movies on Christmas. If you have family you don't really know how to talk to, the distraction of a movie is great. However, it's kind of insane to think you can bring 8+ people to a theater and expect that all of you will sit together. That just isn't going to happen, especially if you show up five minutes before the movie starts.

My roommate and I have a very practical approach to our movie watching. We show up at least 30 minutes ahead of time. That way, we can get concessions, use the bathroom, and more than likely secure good seating. Back when I was less capable, I really didn't contribute much to this. Now that I can walk longer distances, it's usually my task to secure the seating while my roommate gets the drinks.

We have a certain place we like to sit. I will admit I'm disappointed when we don't get that spot, but I don't complain about it. If the theater isn't too crowned, we keep a seat between us for my purse to sit. That way we both have enough arm room. I'll give up that chair if need be, but usually that doesn't have to happen.

Even today, we didn't have to give it up. The theater was crowded,but not to capacity. It wasn't so much about people, just the fact that so many came in huge groups. The people who sat next to us came as an 8set and then added like seven more later. There was really no way they could all sit in one row.

In the end, it all worked out though. We saw our movie and ate our diner meal. Then we came home so we could start recovery from the holidays. Hopefully that will happen quickly.

Christmas Eve

My birthday has come and gone. The day was mostly uneventful. I had to do Christmas Eve at my grandfather's house, but that was okay. My dirty Santa gift was nice. Part of it included a very soft and lush blanket throw. I doubt I'll get to claim that as mine. A cat has already taken possession of it.

Overall, the holidays were pretty nifty this year. Mostly, I suppose I just happy they happened at all. Merry Christmas, everyone. Til next year.

Goodbye 40

This is the last day of my 40th year. This is the last day of the year that changed so much about my life. It's funny in a way. A thought that 40 would just be this panic about all the things I'd not accomplished yet. I thought it would be a year where I felt like a lame ass failure. Hah! I didn't even have TIME to do that.

In January, I almost died from blood loss.  My uterus began to flush out absolutely everything it could. I was bedridden for days and ended up in the ER. Eventually, my doctor put me on birth control to deal with the bleeding. This began my climb back into strength. Nothing weakens you like losing your blood.

A few months later, I found out I had uterine cancer. It sucks that this happened, but I'm very, very lucky that I found out when I did. It was early. It could be handled by removal. It could be dealt with. Still, as the reality of it sank in, a deep, primal fear began to dominate my life. I basically had to function on auto pilot. Life became a series of steps. All I could do was think about what happened next and just try to survive it.

I did survive. I survived the removal of my lipoma, which left a scar down almost all of the upper part of my arm. I survived staples and a drainage tube and spitting stitches. I remember the day the staples were removed. We came home and I slept so hard, resting more deeply than I had in weeks. I knew I didn't have to deal with doctors for a couple of weeks. It was bliss.

People rallied around me and took care of me. My friends and family supported me in so many ways. Even if this year has been scary, it's also been one where I have felt a great deal of thankfulness. I am loved. I have no doubt about that.

Though there were moments when I felt more alone than I ever have. There is no time when one feels so profoundly alone as when one is waiting for surgery. Even if someone is sitting with you, you still feel like they are miles away. You feel like all the lights are on you and as much as you want to escape, you can't.

I also experienced the most intense pain I have ever felt. As I have mentioned before, the muscles on my right side were damaged during my hysterectomy. The ride home from Tulsa was rough and by the time I made it to the house, my life was just pain. That night was one of the worst of my life. I honestly didn't know if I could make it. I really thought the pain alone was enough to just kill me.

I survived though. I survived and didn't end up addicted to my pain meds. I didn't have weird complications (that I know of) and I didn't end up unable to leave my bed. I survived, despite the odds, despite my fear, and despite the pain. I survived and I am damned glad I did.

I would be lying to say I am the same though. I am not. As I have mentioned before, my creativity feels unreachable sometimes. My emotions are still unpredictable. I am often sad. I'm sad so much that I usually don't even say anything about it. Sad is somewhat of my natural state now. Sad is better than hopeless though. The days when I feel hopeless are hard. Hopelessness is even more difficult to battle through than the physical pain.

The fear has also stayed with me. The moment they tell you that you have cancer, whatever foundation of security you had is gone. You stress about every cough. You worry about each fever. You obsess over any unusual bowel movement. A lot of people like to say they beat cancer. I don't feel I beat anything. I survived something and probably just by the skin of my teeth.

I walk now, farther than I have in years. I do other physical activity on a far more consistent basis than I ever have. I may not eat as well as I know I should, but it's something I'm thinking about with a more healthy and practical mindset. I can make changes without being resentful about them. This body that is scaring the hell out of me is probably more healthy than its been in quite a while.

I leave 40 with an awareness of how complex it is to be human. I feel stronger than ever before, but am more terrified. I am grateful for what I have been given, but horrified at what happened to me. I love that I lived, but often struggle with why I should continue. I am liminal. No longer a Maiden, never a Mother, not quite yet a Crone. My Croning years come early, which means I should make the most out of them. I hope I can.

I also hope 41 is damned boring, lacks drama, and passes without notice.

Merry Monday

Somehow or another, the heater ended up being an easy fix. Ol Boy took it apart, cleaned it out, sanded down some stuff, and everything worked again. I'm guessing that heaters, much like fans, need the occasional clean out in order to keep down the gunk of everyday life. Mind you, the heater is about three bastards' worth of trouble to take a part, so I don't feel bad about paying someone to do it. Besides, there was a gas line involved. It's best to leave that to professionals.

I'm back to feeling normal-for-me again. I plan to make some changes to my intake habits. Including adding more water. I'm honestly doing better about the water than I have in a long time, but I could do better still. I'll probably wait until after Christmas to start it though, as I don't want to spend Christmas Eve at my Grandfather's needing to pee. I've also gotten into some snacking habits that I'm going to stop. Those will be pretty easy though. The stuff just won't be bought.

Another thing I want to change is how I travel. My roommate always takes water with him, even if it's just for a short trip. I sometimes do, but tend to find the whole thing a bother. However, I think I need to reconsider that.I often find myself having the most dehydration symptoms on days when I've been out for a while. If I keep water with me, I may not drink as much as I would at home, but I'll certainly drink more than I have been (which was very little to any at all).

I played Sims 4 more today. I've decided I like the aspiration system better in this one. Instead of just one central goal, you have a lot of smaller goals to accomplish. Ones you accomplish them, you can switch to other aspirations. I like this because it seems to fit better with how people truly live. I was playing one character who started out with knowledge aspirations, then switched to financial ones,  then, as I had decided it was time for her to settle down, she switched to family ones. This process suited the direction of the character and gave me a lot of points!

However, I also realized, quite by accident, that if you have two families that you are playing, they will age even if you're not messing with them. I left one sim as a young adult and saw her at a bar as an elder. There is probably something in Settings that can stop this, but I haven't explored that yet.

Anyway, for a Monday and a day when I had to have something worked on, it wasn't so bad. Hope your holiday week is going well.

The Things You Can Live Without

I received a copy of The Sims 4 as a gift and decided I would do some posts about how the game. I know a lot of people still haven't gotten it and are curious about what it's like. After all, all we've heard for months was either company propaganda or horror stories about how awful it would be.  Actually, we've heard little of either, really. People aren't talking about this game all that much.

One of the interesting things about seeing a new version of a game is realizing what was actually important to you and what wasn't. For instance, 4 doesn't have toddlers. I kind of hated this idea in theory, but now that I have the game, it really doesn't bother me. Not dealing with all the potty training and teaching little needy things to walk and talk is kind of nice. You can keep a baby around as long as you wish, but age it into a child when the novelty wears off. As it turns out, I rather like that.

I was also a bit disappointed by how empty and tiny the neighborhoods are. One of the things I really loved about 3 was the richness of the towns. They felt like real places, each with its own character and personality. In 4, the two starter towns are so small they're more like settlements. It's just a few areas of houses and then four or five public spaces. There are no rabbit hole buildings. No city hall. No schools.

However, I've noticed that in live mode, each area you visit has a pretty large open space around it. This is where you can explore for collection items and plants. There are lots of pathways and parks that don't show on the map. There is also a lot of access to fishing.

It's possible that the towns are small to make way for expansion packs. I have to admit that the farther we went with expansions, the more annoying towns became. So many new public buildings were added with each expansion that towns became glutted with items. Perhaps this change was an attempt to handle that problem. Everyone starts out with a bar, a gym, a library, and a museum. There is also a park. I have to say that I'm probably okay with this, though I do wish there were cemeteries. My sims always like those.

So these are some of my first major impressions. I'll give more over the next several days. Maybe not everyday, but as I'm busy learning the game, it's going to be on my mind a lot.

Rough Week is Over

I didn't write last night because I was exhausted. The last week was rough on me. I was out every day and on a couple of those days, I was out from early in the morning to pretty late that night. I know most normal people do that all the time, but I'm not really in any range of normal. It's taken a toll on my body and my mental state. I may have better stamina that I used to, but not enough to do stuff the whole week. That can't happen again, not for a while.

Having said that, yesterday was pretty great. My best friend picked me up early and we went to her house. We exchanged gifts and watched Black Adder. Then we tried to decorate a gingerbread house and my brain kind of exploded. I can do a lot of crafty things. Gingerbread house isn't one of them. Still, it was neat to get to do that with her and her kids. All in all, it was a good holiday for us.

My brother and his family picked me up and we went to my dad's house. My dad has only one chair in his living room because the other one was damaged and he got rid of it before my stepmother could find another one. So they  have a recliner and a lawn chair. They set up a card table and the card table chairs so everyone could have a seat. I sat in the recliner, because it was probably the best one to hold me.

Everyone liked the gifts I got them and I loved the gifts given to me. I now have a Crazy Cat Lady soup bowl! I feel blessed by my gifts and loved by my people.

However, I would like to say that for people who are ill, it's okay to feel relieved when the holiday obligations are over. In fact, it's okay for ANYONE to feel that way. This can be quite tiring. And as I said, I may have more stamina now than I did a year ago, but I've also been through a lot. There are depths to my fatigue and it's something I need to keep in mind.

If you have people in your life who are ill, don't be offended if they can't handle your parties or only stay a short period of time. Even showing up for an hour or two may take days of recovery for them. Yes, they want to be there. Yes, they wanted to be there for the whole thing. Sometimes, however, they just can't.

In what seems to be a theme this December, my living room heater is trying to mess up. I get it. It's old. It probably needs a part or the whole of itself replaced by now. However, this just really isn't good timing. It took what was supposed to be my day of recovery and turned into a day of 'how the hell will we pay for that?' Sigh

Female Trauma

I spent a great deal of last night freaking out about my appointment. It wasn't because of the cancer test, though I am sure that will begin to freak me out later. It was because I had to get naked and let someone stick their fingers (and objects) inside of me.

I still have major PTSD about this whole ordeal, and a lot of past trauma about people touching my vagina. I hate it. I really, truly hate it. Unless I know the person very, very well and am super comfortable with them, I basically believe in no touching, especially not there!

Yes, I understand that doctors are not doing this for pleasure. Intellectually and rationally, I realize this is part of their job and part of the process needed to insure my continual recovery. Let's face it though, trauma reactions have very little to do with rationality.

Before the exam, I sat in the waiting room and tried my best to just distract myself with television and watching other patients. I tried not to fidget and I did my best not to cry. When I went into the room, even though I knew what was coming, I still felt a little bit of horror when she told me to get undressed. While I was undressed and while he did the exam, I did my best to just disassociate. It's funny how I try so hard NOT to do that anymore, but find there are times when it's the only way I get through the moments.

After the exam, I went to the bathroom and locked the door. I sat on the floor, letting the coldness of the wall try to sooth me. I let myself cry a little, knowing that I needed to get up and go. My brother was waiting for me outside. The rest of getting out of there was a blur.

By the time I was home, I was just in a tizzy. I was exhausted and probably a bit dehydrated (even though I drank water like it was going out of style during lunch). Most of all, I was just in jumpy, horrified reaction mode because of the exam. I kept it together until I went to bed, then I let myself cry some more. By that time, I was so nerved out, my torso was having heatwaves of nausea and stress. I curled into fetal position and just wished this whole thing was over.

In a way, it was almost easier when I was still very much facing the cancer. Cancer was such a looming, scary thing that pelvic exam trauma was just pushed to the back of my mind. Now though, the full force of how much I hate this is slapping me repeatedly in the face. It's probably going to take days for me to calm back down.

These days, there is a lot of discussion about rape and sexual assault. There is a larger conversation about consent and what that means. I think one of the problems that people who have never experienced sexual trauma don't quite understand is that for some people who have experienced it, even giving consent still doesn't make you okay with the situation. As I said, the exam was not sexual and they certainly had my consent to do it, but it didn't stop my body and mind from reacting the way it has. Some of us are damaged and the usual way of doing things just doesn't work so well.

Trip is Over

When I left for Tulsa today, it was sleeting. By the time I got home, it was a steady, nasty rain. It took us forever to get back because we had to slow down so much. Visibility was questionable at best. Still, nothing bad happened. We didn't wreck. This counts as a good trip.

I had to do a pap and that wasn't fun. I felt really sad and vulnerable afterward. I kind of wanted to cry and run away. I really don't like having people look at me in the Down Theres. Not at all.

Anyway, I'm tired from the evening. I think I just need to relax and get some sleep.

Responsible-ish

I actually managed to do some responsible stuff today. I ran errands. I got my meds. I made sure my plans for the trip tomorrow were set. I made sure I had directions, phone numbers, and addresses. The gifts were wrapped. Okay, that's about it, but for me, that's pretty good.

My brother is taking me tomorrow and I'm happy about this because it's supposed to rain and his truck can probably handle that better than my van could. I won't say I'm looking forward to the trip, but I'm letting myself become a bit more accepting of it. It's closer to being over. That's awesome.

Part of the problem is that I'm scared they'll tell me I have more cancer. Now, this is an illogical fear, because, honestly, if they're going to tell me that I have more cancer, what better place to do it than the Cancer Center. You know, the place where they actually DEAL with cancer.

Anyway, I'm going to try my best to get some decent sleep tonight and try to be as capable to handle this trip as I can tomorrow. Hopefully I won't start crying or peeing at some point. It's always about leaking with me.

Words with Junkies

It's actually a little scary how addicted I am to Words with Friends. Yes, I know, I'm wait late starting the game. I may have started a while back, but didn't really do anything with it. Now? Oh man, I'm just so caught up in it. I'm a total junkie. It's fun as hell.

The interesting part of this for me is that I can't spell for shit. This normally leads to much frustration when I play things like Scrabble. But Words with Friends won't let you spell stuff wrong, so that isn't really a problem. Usually, my only problem comes when I have a collection of sucky letters. I almost always have sucky letters, but that's just the luck of the draw.

What I'm enjoying about the game is that it's stimulating some part of my brain that clearly hasn't been poked at in a while. It isn't even about winning the matches. I usually don't, because I'm playing with people who are far more experienced that me. It's more about puzzling out what you can do with your letters. I love it when I have options and can just sit there and mess with them until I see what gives me the most points. The whole process makes my brain feel good.

However, waiting for other people to play their turn is killing me! I realize people have lives and they need time to get back to their little casual FB game, but dammit, I want my fix! I'll find myself going back to the game many times a day, just to see if I can play again. I'll tap my fingers as it is loading, hoping to see that it's my turn! Ohh, the joy I feel when it is!

Like any good junkie, I've started doing whatever I can to get more. I've let myself play multiple games at a time. I'll even play with strangers! I'm serious about that. When all of my people are gone, I'll let the game randomly select someone for me and I am happy to let it  happen!

I probably need an anon group for this.

The Last Day of Rest

My weekend wasn't the best it could have been. Emotionally, I've been all over the place and for some reason, I can't seem to shake this headache. It may have something to do with the weather. There have been a lot of pressure changes. Maybe it's just stress over my doctor's appointment on Wednesday. Whatever the case, this is basically my last day of being in the house for a while. I have to be out doing something every day this week. Mind you, most of it is stuff I want to do, so that's fine. It's just going to be tiring.

The cat has decided to occupy the ottoman again, which means she is mostly spending time on my feet. When she thinks I'm not paying attention to her, she'll snap at me (sometimes literally) and give me accusing looks until I pet her. Of course, once I do, she acts offended that I touched her. Cats.

Tomorrow I'll be wrapping gifts. That's always amusing. I never really got the hang of wrapping things well. Usually, I go for gift bags, but this year I have a lot of square things, so it only makes sense that they be wrapped. We'll see how it goes. One would think at 40, I'd be able to figure that out. Then again, that could apply to a lot of things.

There is a lot of stuff I need to be reading right now. It really frustrates me that I can't seem to focus enough to read for any length of time. Probably just part of the healing phase or my meds making me wonky. I really don't know. I just wish it would stop.

Betterish Friday

Aside from grey weather and a continual drizzle outside, things were somewhat less awful today. Nothing broke. Nothing cost me a lot of money. I had a chance to kind of revive and collect my thoughts again. It was enough to make me feel a little less fragile and a little less vulnerable. I hate that money can make such a huge difference in my life, but that's just part of reality.

It's twelve days until my 41st birthday. As I said before, it's somewhat amazing we've made it this far. This time last year, I was blogging about a bobble hat I'd made. I whipped it up in just one night, as if such a thing was easy to do and not a problem for me at all. There was no thought of cancer even in my mind. There was no clue that I would end up in the hospital several times, go through a couple of surgeries, and spend days facing life without feeling like myself.

The irony is, in many ways, I am better off than I was this time last year. The lipoma is gone from my arm. I'm not having to deal with various degrees of 'female trouble' or concern myself with bleeding all over things. I weigh less. I can stand for a longer period of time. I know my body can heal quite well.  And no, maybe I don't quite feel like myself, and maybe I wake up terrified sometimes, and maybe I can't access my imagination as much as I used to be able to, but I have to believe all of that is temporary.

It's just that as you get older, especially if you're pretty depressed, you don't really look at the future and think about what you may gain. Basically, you assume you're not going to gain anything except for stuff you don't want (wrinkles, fat, etc). It's more that you worry about what you may lose. Will I lose my sanity? Will I lose my memory? Will I lose my ability to take care of myself? Will I lose me? What will I do if I lose me?

I'm guessing the next twelve days may be fairly maudlin.

Blue Thursday

I think after all the drama that has happened the last two days, part of me just shut down. All day today, I was on the verge of tears. I've been sad and just genuinely down about everything. At this point, I just kind of feel like the holiday season isn't going to get much better. I'm not even sure how it can. I'll muddle through it the best as possible, and if turns out to be good I'll be happy. I just won't expect things to go well.

The thing is, I don't want to feel this way. I know that emotional states can become habit, so I'm trying my best to push the sad, anxious, and nervous thoughts away. While I realize the value of that technique, after a while it just get tiring. I'm not sure I have the strength to make myself positive again. The hell of it is, I'm taking my meds. This is a bigger, deeper kind of sadness. I just need to dig in my heels and hope it passes.

I'm going to be 41 soon, and while I am very happy I lived to see this birthday, I'm not seeing it as the same person I was this time last year. A lot of my passion is gone. A lot of my creativity is gone. Basically all the fucks I have to give about anything are gone. That may return to me, but it is possible that it won't. The longer this goes on, the more I have to prepare for that possibility.

I didn't have a lot of resources left to handle this week. At first, I assumed that was just a matter of not having the money. But as the days have continued, I'm starting to realize I just didn't have the emotional resources for it either. "Look, this year kicked you in the teeth! Let's kick you in the teeth just one more time!" Not sure I even had any teeth left for the kicking.

And I'm not sure when they'll grow back.

Stark Wednesday

The car repairs ended up being even more expensive than I thought they would. I basically have nothing left for the rest of the year. Luckily, I'm getting Christmas money (at least I hope I am) so maybe that can kind of float me for a while. It's scary though. Damned car fuckery shouldn't happen at the end of the year when my funds are basically gone. This is the kind of setback that can throw poor people into dire situations.

This has left me feeling really depressed and vulnerable. When we got home, I basically just took to my bed and laid there for hours, feeling kind of sick about the whole situation. The worst part is always wondering if something ELSE will go wrong with the cars now. What other shoe could drop, when I've ran out of resources to handle them.

I realize I'm feeling sorry for myself here, but that's kind of the point of a blog, I suppose. Really, I just didn't need this at the end of the year. After all the hell of cancers and surgeries and everything else, I just really wanted to end this year on a quiet note. It's hard to do that when you basically have next to nothing when it comes to money.

Anyway, the car is home. Trash is out. I have blankets and a warm, purring kitty. There are some bright spots.

Bad Tuesday

Uggh. So as I was driving down my street, I got a flat tire. I parked in  the front of the driveway because that looked like the easiest place to deal with it. The roommate and I changed it without too much problem, but then the spare tire was flat too. I just .  . . wow. How the fuck does this stuff always happen? Anyway, we called the mechanic. Turns out the car needs two new tires and an oil change.  This is money I really don't have to spare right now, but we have to make it happen somehow.

I should count my blessings here. I do have them. The car messed up when I was basically IN my yard. The mechanic was kind enough to help. It's fixable (I keep waiting for the time when we send the car to the mechanic and get told we just need to set it on fire). More over, I was able to participate in changing the tire enough to where the whole process went faster than it usually does. I am grateful for these things.

It's stressful though. I have this really, superbusy next week and I just wanted THIS week to be calm and easy, where nothing out of the ordinary happening. This upcoming trip to Tulsa is making me extremely nervous. I think it's setting off the cancer PTSD I've been experiencing. I wish I could be more calm about this, but I don't think it's going to happen.

So that was my day. Tomorrow is going to be expensive and annoying. I'm really hoping that past that point, things calm down and life can just move quietly forward until Tulsa. Please.

Meh Monday

I did not feel well today. I was running a low grade fever and generally just blah. I was fine when I first woke up. I walked with no real problem, though my roommate said my gait was off. However, by the time we were back from shopping, I was just drained. I sat down with my bags of food and just sort of stared at them for a few minutes before I could even consider unloading everything. It eventually happened, but it wasn't quick.

Needless to say, that was my last bit of activity for the day.Past that, I just . . . kinda functioned. I'll be headed to bed early tonight as well because I have a headache. No, I don't think this is the start of sickness. I think it's just sinus stuff on top of it just being cold and dreary. Plus, maybe I'm doing my best not to be too active this week considering that the next couple of weeks are going to be really intense.

The afghan continues to make slow progress. At this rate, it's going to be the end of the year before I finish it, but that's okay. I think it's pointless to make yourself feel rushed about things that have no timeline. Just enjoy and see where things go.

Freak Show

I watched the latest episode of American Horror Story: Freak Show today and found myself a little disquieted about it. Spoilers ahead, so don't read if you don't want to be spoiled.

Kathy Bates's character was killed, leaving the freak show short one bearded lady and one fat lady. Bearded ladies are a bit hard to come by, but fat women are always around. Elsa Mars goes to one of those upscale women's 'reducing' clinics and finds a very fat woman to sign up for her freak show. This woman, whom Elsa gives the stage name Ima Wiggles, is brought into the fold and told to eat as much as she wishes. After all, her weight is now her asset.

How can I put this? As I was watching these scenes, something inside me just kind of began to unravel and then ravel back, twisting into this knot of discomfort. I didn't feel disgusted, just, unnerved on a very visceral level. I felt naked and weird, strangely violated somehow. People talk about trigger warnings a lot, and while I've read some  things that disturbed me or even messed with me for hours later, nothing has hit me quite like this.

This woman was about my size. Or maybe a bit bigger. She is a size I have been in the past. And this very fact of her size made her a freak. As I am at that (or close to), I am also a freak.

And YES I KNOW THIS. I've always known this. I've even kind of maybe enjoyed the fact, the offputting nature of how people react to me. But at the same time, it is so, so very different to face this fact being pushed into your face on television. Freak. Freak. Freak. People are fascinated and revolted by how you look. Freak. Freak. Freak.

I thought I was okay with this. I suppose in the way that I accepted it internally, I was okay with it. But when you are hit in the mouth with the external reality of it, it's shocking. It's a little more difficult to process. It's one thing to be a freak because you choose to be so. It's another thing to be a freak because society assigns that to you. "You can't have agency about your status because we put you there even before you considered it."

I suppose this is one of those moments when the Tyrion Lannister quote truly comes in handy. "Let me give you some advice, bastard: Never forget what you are. The rest of the world will not. Wear it like armor, and it can never be used to hurt you."

Bold words, Tyrion, but sometimes what we are still can hurt us. Maybe not for long, but at least for a few hours of the day.

Edit: My roommate showed me this. Rock on. Aye!

Move Magic

For the third time since we moved over here (possibly the forth), we have had a set of neighbors just up and move out without warning. Seriously. One day they're there and everything looks normal.  The next day, the house is abandoned with tires in the yard. As with the other neighbors who left, this was right at the end of the month, so the assumption is that they were skipping out before paying rent.

I am not going to fault or judge any of these people for their decisions to leave so quickly. Things happen. In the lives of poor people, just one or two bits of misfortune (car breaks down, someone gets sick) and you could lose everything. Living paycheck to paycheck means exactly that. When you don't have one, very quickly, you don't have rent money either.

What I want to discuss is just how baffled I am by how they accomplish this. How do you PACK UP YOUR HOUSE that quickly? Seriously? Moving is like the most gut wrenching and soul sucking experience ever. It takes weeks just to remove all the crap from one room and that is with consistent work. Then you have to move it onto something and take it away. No one can do this quickly!

Not only were there adults in these situations, all of these households had children as well. Packing for a kid is about like trying to make a cat pack. The kid keeps dragging everything you just packed out of the box. They whine and scream and need to be fed. When you're trying to load stuff onto the truck, they whine and scream as well. It's a mess.

And yet, all around me, people are able to accomplish this move-voodoo with ease. What have they learned that I did not? Do they just leave most of their stuff? Do they just keep most of it at the ready to go? Do they never unpack in the first place? I just don't understand. I seriously want to though, especially before I move again.

Cuddles

I didn't blog last night because I started getting a really awful headache around ten. I should have blogged then, but I thought the headache would go away. It didn't. I basically had to sleep the damned thing off. By this morning, it was gone. I'm almost surprised by that, considering the day turned out to be dark and dismal. Well, it was dark and dismal weatherwise. The day itself was pretty great.

I spent the first part of the day with my best friend. We decorated the tree and I either held a baby or a dog almost the whole time. It was nice to spend the morning in cuddles! Later, my roommate and I did some shopping and finalized our plans for Christmas dinner. As far as that stuff goes, we're set.

December is always busy and this one will be no exception. It's proving to be even more complicated because I have two medical appointments. I didn't want to end up with two, but there you go. The medical establishment rarely does what we want it to do, does it? I'm sure I'll muddle through. I just wish I wasn't having to deal with them. However, as I am emotionally reconciled to them, they had best not be rescheduled.

I'm pretty down tonight. I'm not sure why, but I suppose these things don't always have to have a reason. Maybe tomorrow will be better for me emotionally.

MZB Adoration

I am not even sure what got me headed down this Wikipedia road, but I spent the better part of an hour reading about books by Marion Zimmer Bradley that I had somehow neglected to read. It's easy to let this happen because she never really wrote her books in any kind of order. When I have the mental capacity to read again, I'll look into them. Her Darkover novels were a big part of my younger years. I think I read the first one when I was in third or fourth grade and they shaped a lot of my ideas about fiction and about life.

MZB's books were the first place where I began to see issues like feminism and gender fluidity tackled as actual points of the plot. I'm sure some people would see her treatment of such issues as heavy handed, but at the time, they didn't feel that way. In fact, even now I feel like there were times when her writing handled these issues with an emotional complexity I've not seen in many other places.

How often do we read about a woman who has secluded herself from men and their patriarchy who finds herself befriending man? How often do we read about a gay man feeling guilt over his sexual feelings for another man when he knows that man was sexually assaulted? MZB explored so many different types of relationships. From siblings who can't seem to find common ground to a father who loves his son so much he would go into exile with him.

MZB also managed to do a lot of interesting things thematically. One that has always stuck with me is how she shaped the different philosophies of her time periods. During the Age of Chaos, psi technology was seen as the answer to all problems, but when this got too out of hand, most of it was banned. In following ages, the psi powers were more regulated and controlled.  Eventually, however, this control became too extreme and things began to shift back to viewing such powers as important. By allowing the philosophies of her people to alter over time, she was able to build a world with far more emotional and intellectual realism.

What impressed me the most about MZB's work was her willingness to open Darkover up for other authors. She allowed people to create within her world. She gave them freedom to explore their own ideas and characters. In a time when I see a lot of authors who act like they hate fanfiction more than anything, it makes me happy to know that some of my favorite authors (MZB, Lovecraft) allowed their worlds to be open, meaning that new life could be given to future works.

Right now, my mind is just in too much chaos to really focus enough to read anything. It's part of the process of recovery, I suppose. I know this will pass. when it does, I'll finish out her books. I relish the idea, actually.

Love and Love Musings

It's cooled down again and I have a cat on my lap. I would be happier about this if she would stay still, but she won't. She's decided to be as difficult as possible tonight. I shall forgive her though, because I love her so dearly. Love often causes us to put up with things we would normally not tolerate. It helps that she's cute.

For some reason, love has been on my mind of late. I honestly have no idea why. It isn't like I'm participating in the act. Oh, I do mean romantic love here. Not the other types.

I think maybe I've been thinking about it because I've seen a lot of people talking about it. They lament that they cannot find love or that they're alone. They worry they will always be this way. At some point after that, they usually begin on this massive list of their ideal person. They talk about what they will look like, how they will act, the way they will behave together.

It's all well and good to have standards. I get that. I think we should all know the things we are willing to put up with and the things that should not be tolerated in a relationship. However, these should be broad, general things. "Person takes baths." "Person doesn't abuse me." It shouldn't be little picky detail things like the color and length of their hair or the shape of their smile. And while sure, those may  be things you are attracted to, they shouldn't make you blind to everyone else.

The problem with searching for an Ideal person, is that it's a losing situation. Either you will never find someone meets your ideal or you will find someone who is close to it, but never really be happy with them. The problem with wanting an ideal mate is that you love the ideal, not the other person. You love how close they are to fitting your checklist, but not the truth of who they are.

In the meantime, how many potential people are you missing? How many 'not so pretty' or 'not that smart' people who also happen to have good hearts and loving ways are being passed by because everyone wants some perfect person? The truth is, when you love someone, truly love them, their imperfections are valued and loved by you as well. You like them because they are part of this person.

I'm not saying this because I feel like I'm being overlooked. I really don't have those 'good heart' and 'loving ways' going on. I'm a sour, mean old bitch who mostly thinks about herself (when she's not staring off into space thinking about some song from the 80s she can't remember lyrics to.) I should be avoided. However, there are a lot of people who shouldn't be. Maybe, if you find yourself being lonely, you should set down your list and see who you actually have chemistry with. It may surprise you. It might just change your life.

A Rebuttal to the Pushback

There has been a lot of pushback against the Fit at Any Size movement. Many critics hate the concept, believing it to be 'enabling' of fat people. They think it gives the overweight an excuse to just accept their size and stop trying to do anything about it. Or something. Honestly, I'm not sure why these people are bitching, other than just to be bitching about fat people for whatever reason. Though, to be fair, perhaps they really don't understand the Fit at Any Size concept.

FaAS does not mean you just sit on the couch, proclaim to be healthy, and go back to the business of eating your potato chips. The idea is that you realize that no matter what size you are, you can begin to live a more healthy lifestyle. You can begin to explore physical fitness. You can analyze your eating habits and think about what is working for you and what isn't.

Now some people might ask how this is different from traditional dieting. I think the best way to look at that concerns how view diets. If you ask anyone, they will tell you that a diet is a way you eat for a certain period of time until you reach your goal weight. Then most of them will glibly tell you that diets don't work. For most people, they certainly do not. Even people who lose lots of weight and reach their goals tend to gain the weight back.

This is because we view a diet as a means to an end. "This is the horrible bullshit I'll put up with in order to be a size six." People hate diets. People feel deprived on diets. People, who do not quit the diet, look towards the end of it with hope and dread. They hope that it will soon be over and dread that they will gain the weight back. In fact, when you diet, you are rarely IN THE MOMENT of your life. You are almost always living for that goal weight . . . or you're sneaking candy bars in your car.

Fit at Any Size is not about an eventual goal. It accepts that you are the person you are right now and that it is possible you may NEVER weigh less than this. Because of this basic acceptance, weight loss is not THE goal at all. It may happen or it may not. The goal, then, becomes the idea of better fitness.

Instead of dieting, you begin to look at your food in terms of how it can be better. Small changes can be made, at a pace you can live with. You never have to feel deprived, because it isn't about limiting what you eat. However, as time passes and you continue to make different choices, you DO begin to eat less. You find that you want a homecooked meal instead of eating out. You find that you like your tea without sugar. You can handle the small bite of chocolate instead of the whole chocolate bar. But because you're doing this because it's what you truly desire, you don't feel like you're being punished for doing it.

Workouts when one is dieting are concerned with burning as much calories as possible. This means that people tend to overtax their bodies and be exhausted most of the time. They do exercise that they hate, in fact, many of them feel nothing but hatred and fear about workouts. If the goals are hundreds of pounds away, the workouts can feel like hopeless torture. Often the only results seen are exhaustion, pain, and injury. I screwed up my ankle in middle school gym and I was HAPPY because that meant I could sit out the class. This isn't a positive outlook on physical fitness.

However, with Fit at Any Size, the idea is to begin to add more movement into your life. It's not about losing weight or burning calories, it's about strengthening the body, building more stamina, and achieving a greater level of physical balance. Sometimes, exercise is merely about pain management and learning how stretching muscles can make the body feel better. The process is more slow and the participant feels like they have more control. Because of this, one can develop a positive relationship with workouts. It isn't about some goal down the road; it is about how you feel better today than you did yesterday.

I may never reach a weight that is concerned normal. I may always be a heavy woman. However, I can be a stronger woman. I can be a more healthy woman than I am now. I can have a better heart rate and have more stamina. I can walk farther than I did today. This makes me happy.  It makes me more healthy.

Welcome December

November passed by very quickly. To be honest, most of this year has, but November seemed especially quick. It's not that it was a bad month. Some really great things happened. My best friend had her baby. Thanksgiving was good. My roommate and I went to a dinner party. I worked on my afghan, the first and probably only project I will complete since my hysterectomy. For the most part, it's been a pretty good month for me.

I'm weirdly unhappy about December starting. I've had a string of bad Decembers and I don't want another one. I've had enough bad months this year. It would be nice to end the year with some peace and comfort. Here's hoping that can happen.

I did some new stuff on the balance ball today. Some of it seemed like it would be pretty easy and it surprisingly worked parts of my legs I had no idea could feel pain. I guess that's good? I was pleased with the new things and plan on making them part of the overall routine. This may not get me up to a full 30 minutes, but we'll be getting closer. I'm hoping that by the end of the year, I'm 30 full minutes on the ball and doing more sets of what I'm doing now. This would be a nice pace for me.

My weekend was nice. I folded a lot of towels and had some pretty great discussions with people. My roommate has an appointment this week and I have plans for Friday. Next week should be pretty easy, but the week after that will be full. The week past that is my birthday and Christmas. December is always pretty busy. Here's hoping we survive it.

Activities

My roommate and I, antisocial beings that we are, actually went to a dinner party tonight. I am very proud of both of us. We drove to a new place, got our directions mostly correct, and interacted with other humans. Yay!

My pies may have not been a hit in our household, but the dishes my roommate brought to the dinner party were. He made a jalapeno corn dish and a cranberry salsa. The cranberry salsa is served over cream cheese. We discussed serving it with Greek yogurt, but that seemed too soft for the purposes of serving. The cream cheese served to offset the heat of the salsa. It did quite well. Both dishes were praised.

We discussed my pie today and decide the best solution is to do it crustless. We'll bake it in a glass dish and serve it with whole graham crackers instead. I think it will work better that way. The grahams' texture will work better than the graham crust did. We probably won't try it again until next year, but I'm looking forward to it.

Update on the Slightly Creative Bits

The week of Thanksgiving is over. My roommate and I have a party to attend tomorrow night, but other than that, we're pretty good until Christmas. We're still eating on our holiday food and somehow managed to make that an even bigger thing today because we found some great deals on rolls and some pies.

Speaking of pie, I promised a progress report on mine. Hmm. I would say it's a mixed bag. I have no problem with the pie filling, though it tastes more like pumpkin cheesecake than pumpkin pie. I didn't like it with the graham cracker crust though. I just didn't feel like the two aspects of the pie did each other any favors. I'm enjoying eating it, but I'm not sure I want to use that kind of crust on it again. Though, I'm not sure it would work with traditional pie crust.I'm just going to have to think about it for a while.

We took down our small display of Thanksgiving decoration and replaced it with three bits of Christmas decoration, including the snowman I made last year. I was very happy to see them come out. This new tradition I started of having at least some small something to acknowledge the holidays has been good for me.

The afghan is now big enough to keep me warm as I work on it. Truthfully, this is always the goal. It's not quite big enough to be completed, but we're pretty close. I should have it finished by the end of the week.

Thanksgiving Reflections

Thanksgiving has come and gone. I had dinner with my family and then with my roommate. I am full and somewhat over the food already. I know I'll feel differently in the morning. It will be charming again by then. Right now, I really don't want to look at food at all. Thanksgiving fickleness.

I have remained pretty thankful all day. I have a cat sitting by me right now, and I am very thankful for that. I love the comfort and happiness my cats bring to me. They can be TOTAL PILLS sometimes, but when they're good,  they're very good.

It's wonderful that I get to have these moments of love in my life. Sure, the cat thinks it's mostly about her, but I get a lot out of this too. Maybe when I die I won't have memories of children or torrid affairs, but I'll have lots of memories of knowing that animals loved and trusted me. I'm aware that some people would see this as less than, but I don't.

Tomorrow is the official start of the Christmas season. I'm going to do my best to really enjoy it. I'm here to be a part of it, so yay! I'll be enjoying it in my own way, mind you. That's for the best in any case.

The Night before Thanksgiving

My roommate and I spent some time today preparing parts of our Thanksgiving meal. Over the years, we've found that it's easier to do this in stages, as to not make the day overwhelmed with cooking. It feels good to know that tomorrow, pretty much only one or two things need to happen. This is good, given that I'll be gone part of the day.

We have two unusual additions to our meal this year. One is a 'just by chance' thing. Several weeks back, my roommate found some roasted turkey breasts on a very good sale. He bought two and we froze them. Today, I shredded them off the bone. One will be eaten just as turkey breast. The other was tossed into the dressing. We usually do chicken in the dressing (and have no turkey at all), but this year, we get to upgrade. It's unlikely this will happen again, so I'm going to view it as a nice little change for this one specific Thanksgiving.

The other new addition will hopefully be staying. When we started planning our Thanksgiving meal, we both agreed we didn't like the quality of frozen pumpkin pie we could afford. We also both knew that upgrading to a better pie was not really in the cards. We knocked around alternative dessert ideas, but finally settled on making our own pumpkin pie.

In fact, we settled on this because I volunteered to do it. I found a recipe for pumpkin pie that used Greek yogurt and wanted to try it. It comes to quite a shock to me that I love Greek yogurt as much as I do. I loathe almost every other type of yogurt, but I adore this stuff. I think it works really well as a sub for a lot of things and I am hoping it works well in the pumpkin pie.

The recipe I found was pretty simple. We altered it some because we know what spices we like and the recipe just wasn't giving as forthcoming with them as we wanted. It only called for cloves, ginger, and cinnamon. We added allspice, pumpkin, and nutmeg. After baking for about an hour, we have what look like pies. I suppose tomorrow we'll know if my plan was a success.

If you're reading this, I hope you have a happy Thanksgiving. I know a lot of people don't do the traditional stuff, and if you're one of them, I hope you find meaning and memory in the holiday in your own way.

As for me, I have a lot to be thankful for this year. First and foremost, I'm alive. There are any number of ways I could have died this year and somehow, none of them happened. This, truly, is a blessing. I am also thankful I managed not to get addicted to pain medication. Trust me, there were times when weening myself off my pain pills was very difficult. I did it though, and I am thankful for that. My friends and family supported me and kept me in good spirits during my hospital comings and goings. People clearly believe my life has value and meaning. I could go on and on about this, but I think you get the picture. I am in awe of this Thanksgiving because I get to participate in it. I am very thankful for that as well.

Of the Conversation

I went to see my best friend and her new baby today. Another one of my friends drove us up there and we had a very good visit. I got to feed the baby and hold her for quite a while. I think I put her socks back on her feet 10 times, but that is the nature of babies.

For the most part, the baby was good. She slept part of the time, but during the majority of the visit, she was awake and rather aware. My best friend remarked that she thought the baby enjoyed the company and liked hearing the conversation and multiple voices. It was soothing to her, maybe even interesting, to see how groups of people interact with each other.

I'm inclined to agree with this. I remember how one of the things I enjoyed a great deal as a child was listening to the adults talk. It really wasn't about what they were saying. I honestly couldn't recall the details of their conversations if you paid me. What has stuck with me is the cadence of their speaking, the ebb and flow of conversation. I was always calm and comforted by them because I knew my mother was happy when she was talking to her friends. She was getting to be clever and funny. She was in her element.

Even as an adult, I find comfort in listening as conversations go on around me. Often when we're in groups of people, we feel this pressure to participate, but it's really not necessary. I think there is value in being part of the conversation without really having to be IN the conversation. Listening is important and listening to two other people talk can be quite lovely.

I'm glad the baby gets to experience listening to us talk and laugh. I think it can  teach her some valuable things about the exchange of ideas between close friends and between people who respect each other. It can also offer the comfort of knowing she is safe within that conversation. That is a wonderful feeling to have.

Love Again

One of the things I love about having really good headphones is that I discover things about music I never really heard before. This can even happen in songs I've been listening to my whole life. When this kind of thing happens, it's like discovering a secret door in the back of your closet. It's thrilling.

Today, this happened when I was listening to Fleetwood Mac's "Dreams." I have probably heard this song a million times. But today, I really paid attention to the acoustic guitar during the chorus. My god, it's magnificent! I knew it was there, but I've always focused on other aspects of what is happening at those points in the song.

That guitar though, it's pretty awesome. I set the song on repeat and listened to it over and over again, so happy to have finally found this new dimension to the song I love. I was at Walmart, waiting in the parking lot for my roommate. It's a few days before Thanksgiving so everything going on around me was chaotic and frantic. Inside the van, however, everything was just that guitar riff. It was beautiful.

So what did I learn today? I think I learned, and this is a lesson I learn quite often, that there is value in returning to the things you love. The reason you love them is usually because they appeal to you on one level at one given point in time. You change, and perhaps they don't seem as important to you anymore. However, as you grow (and as technology gets better), you may discover new aspects of the things you loved. You get to fall in love all over again. That's always fun.

Ball Progress

I finally dismantled the ugly hat I'd been toting around for years now. It will become part of the afghan as a testament to me being able to get rid of things, even if they're my own creations. I should do this more often. I thought I would feel some sadness when I ripped it apart, but I really didn't. As a hat, it served no functional use. As part of an afghan, it will.

I did work on the exercise ball today. I bravely opted to do some things I'd never done before. While I am a bit surprised I was able to pull them off, I'm also happy it happened. It was by no means the workout someone in great shape would do, but it was pretty intense for me. I've been feeling my body protest ever since.

We're heading into Thanksgiving week. This is going to be interesting for me because I have a lot of stuff to be thankful for this year. I may be rather reflective on the blog over the next few days. Or, you know, I may just continue to ramble about this afghan.

Personal Narrative

I was reading an article that a man wrote about how horrible his marriage had been. He was gay and Christian. He was also married to a woman. They were miserable and fought a lot. They wanted to divorce, but felt that wasn't a viable option because they had two daughters and viewed it as against their religious beliefs.

The article was about the pain of being trapped, or rather, feeling as if you are trapped. This man felt trapped by his conflicting ideas about sexuality, but even more so, he felt trapped by the view that divorce isn't an option. He was miserable. She was miserable. Every day, they both woke up to the reality that they had made a mistake and felt there was no way out of it.

At one point in the article, to illustrate how desperate he had become, he confessed to praying that God would kill her, so that he could be free again.  His point in making this confession was to show how twisted the idea of never divorcing had made him. He would rather his wife die than have to face the 'failure and sin' of divorcing her.

To me, this confession was important. It showed how warped a sense of morality can become when morality is set to a rigid standard. Truthfully, when you reach the point where you wish someone was dead in order to get them out of your life, you should walk away from them. There is no love between you and no good will. He knew this. And as he was writing the article (some 12 years and a divorce after feeling this way), he knew praying that she died was wrong. He also knew that is probably something that happens quite often when people feel trapped in their situation.

In the comments, however, a lot of people attacked him for wishing she was dead. They were appalled that he could feel this way. It was one point people kept coming back to, about how awful it was that someone could have these kinds of thoughts.

I think they kind of missed the point that the author himself was equally appalled that he felt this way. It disturbed him that his mind had gone to this place and he spoke of it, not as a way to justify how he felt or to excuse it, but in order to demonstrate how distorted his views had been. He was saying, "Hey, this 'til death do us part' thing is absolute torture for some of us. However, it's become such a rigid part of our religion and identity that we'd rather people die than us find some kind of civil way to part company."

Increasingly, our culture has a lot of blogs in it. Many of us read blogposts every day. Many of these are written by people who are not professionals. And many of them are written as a kind of confessional. My blog certainly is from time to time. I think it's important to remember that. This isn't journalism. This isn't impartial and professional.

To me, one of the more fascinating things about this kind of personal narrative is that often you can find a deeper level of honesty in it than you will in other types of writing. Sometimes that personal narrative is far from pretty. People use their blogs to talk about their fears and dreams. They discuss their medical procedures. They indulge for days about whatever has struck their fancy. And sometimes, they confess to their darker thoughts. I say thoughts here because thoughts are still in our heads. We can think a lot of awful things and never act on them because we know they're wrong. Even still, just the thoughts can cause us to feel pretty awful.

Confession is a very healing thing. And yes, whatever you confess to online, you are putting out there for people to judge and hold against you. I know that often when I read stuff that I don't like, I also hold it against the people who wrote it.

Sometimes though, when I'm being a bit more reflective, I can see that their confessions aren't about bragging. Usually these confessions are about pain or just a total sense of loathing that they feel after they've done whatever they've just confessed to doing. There is also usually a chain of things (events, beliefs, people) that are part of what caused them to think the dark things they've confessed. Like the author I used as an example, often the process of breaking that chain (walking away from the situation, changing how you feel, removing people from your life) is enough to stop the darkness.

We have an outdoor cat who spent most of the evening trying to get Tinkerbell's attention and she ignored him. Later that night, I caught Tink playing by herself and whining because she was lonely. One would think the solution would be to warm up to the outdoor cat, but with cats (and people), it's never that easy. Sometimes I think the people on the internet are a lot like this. It's just a vast collection of lonely people who keep crying out for someone to notice them and then being hostile when someone does. That's very sad. Perhaps it's another chain we should break.

Goats from the Past

As I've been working on the afghan, I've been thinking a lot about my relationship to making things and where that began. It started with my grandmother, who made dresses and other items of clothing. I still can't sew, though I need to learn how. She also crocheted, and always had a good collection of afghans around. She loved them and I loved to snuggle in them. As a child, they were my favorite kind of blanket.

There is another influence on me that directly ties to Grandma though. It has to do with a book she used to read  to me when I was little. The book is called The Goat in the Rug and it's by Charles L. Blood. The book is about a Navajo woman and the process she goes through to sheer her goat and then take the wool and add it to a blanket. We go through the whole process, from her sharpening her sheers to the actual weaving.

As a small child, this book fascinated me. Three/four year old me was a big fan of learning about process. My favorite part of educational TV was always when they would show how things were made. The goat story was my favorite though, because it was a continuing process. Geraldine (the goat) could provide lots of wool from many sheerings and her contribution was an important part of the household. It showed the interdependent relationship between people and animals and no one was fighting for their lives like poor Wilbur the pig.

Sometimes I forget that when I work on an afghan, or any crocheted project, I am celebrating my grandmother's legacy. These are the skills she taught me and part of the larger connection between us. If there is anything I would want to pass on to a kid, it would be my yarn skills. I feel very grateful they were taught to me.

Deconstruction

The afghan is coming along. I'm kind of in that place where I am worried I'll run out of yarn before I finish. This is kind of insane because I know I have enough. It just doesn't quite feel like I do. Some things will look pretty crazy by the end, but that's just how the end of afghans go. I almost wish I wouldn't have made it as long as I did, but on the other hand, I kind of love the idea of it being pretty big. I want it to be really cozy.

I'm taking apart one of the first hats I ever made and adding it to the project. I'm doing this because, honestly, the hat sucks and no one would ever wear it. I shouldn't hold on to things that suck and serve no purpose just because I made them. Sure, I'll stick a wonky hat on my head. But there is wonky and then there is nonfunctional. Anything that is falling into the nonfunctional group should be dismantled and made useful again. It will help to declutter my life.

Anyway, that's where we are on the blanket. It isn't moving as fast as I would like, but I think maybe I'm purging a lot of emotion as I'm working on it. I knew I would, but perhaps more is happening than I realized.

Yarn Philosophies

The cat has decided to sit in my shoulder. She's even doing this while I type. I'm not sure how long it will last. I fear this will end with her falling and clawing her way down. Ahh, the joys of catdom. She's purring, at least. So we have that.

Today I saw my usual therapist. She is back from maternity leave.  The session was basically about what I'd been doing since she left. I told her about my cancer free status (at the moment) and my lack of creativity. We talked about the ways I'm trying to combat the lack of art in my soul. I brought up the afghan.

You know, I have this thing about afghans. I think they should be garish. Mind you, I have a lot of love and appreciation for the ones that people do with bold, beautiful colors of complex patterns. But at the end of the day, I like my afghans to be crazy. I want it to look like some granny just randomly picked out yarn from a bag, never once paying attention to what colors went next to what. There is a homely, lovely feeling to work like that.

I see a lot of writing by people who want to brag about how men have built our culture. I won't deny their influence, but then again, it's easy to build a culture when you're standing on the backs of everyone else. It's also easy to build a culture when you dismiss or deny the artistic work done by the people who don't fall within your group.

To me, things like afghans and quilts have a lot of value. I love the time and attention people take in making quilts. I love the random beauty (or structured beauty) of afghans. I love that people would add lace detail to pillow cases and make potholders have color. The arts of the home may have been humble and dismissed by the arbiters of taste, but they will not be dismissed by me.

Days of Cold and Cats

It snowed last night. It didn't snow enough to cover the ground or cause a lot of problems, but it was still very odd to see snow in November. Rowan clawed her way up onto my shoulder and stayed there, shivering, for the better part of an hour. The stove was on, so I think a lot of that was just drama on her part. She can be very dramatic.  She's sitting on my lap right now, basically preventing me from working on the afghan. I'm pretty sure she's aware she's preventing me, because she's purring about it.

Tinkerbell is staying mostly on my roommate's bed, but as this is the coldest room in the house, she's been making more trips out into the rest of the area. She never sits in the living room with us, but she'll sit on the outskirts of it. Sometimes she'll go in my room and hang out by the door that leads into where we're sitting. Usually when she's in there, she glares at me.

As for Rhiannon, well . . . she's crazy. Her days are usually spent buried under a pile of blankets on the couch. When my roommate sits down by her, she hisses. When he pets her, she hisses. When she comes out from the blankets and sees us, she hisses. Today, she was behind the couch for a bit. He tried to see if she was okay, and she ran off, hissing and growling the whole way. We're a tad bit worried her mind is slipping. Actually, we're pretty sure her mind is gone.

In any case, the cold is here to stay. Cold weather is probably the reason why cats decided to con humans into thinking we'd domesticated them. We're nice and warm and we have blankets for them. We also keep roofs over their wicked little heads. And there is cuddling.

Warm Legs for Fat Girls

I write a lot about how weight loss, especially large amounts of weight loss, should always be a journey where accomplishments are recorded and acknowledged. I know that some people will roll their eyes at that and say that it's the same thing as Everyone Gets a Gold Star, but fuck them. It's not. This is the celebration of actual accomplishments, that happen after you really do something.

It's important for you, personally, as the one losing weight, to acknowledge your milestones. Yes, it's nice when someone else says something about your weight loss process, but we also know that can seriously backfire. Often praise from others can set off a cycle of resentment. This is certainly the case if it's someone who has their own selfish reasons for wanting you to lose weight (like, for example, they will feel like a better grandmother . . . sometimes I experienced a lot in my life). It's also very precious when you have people around you who you know ARE NOT selfish about their observations and I am lucky to have some of those.

Even if the people around you are good about it, keep in mind that losing weight is a process of healing.  Yes, part of that is about healing your body, but it's also about healing your mind and your heart as well. It's about learning to affirm yourself and handle your emotions in a way that don't involve soothing them with food. So in the same way that you walk to strengthen your legs and your back, in the same way that you lift weights to strengthen your muscles, you should affirm your progress, as a way to strengthen your soul. The stronger you are on the inside, the less you'll fall into the habits that got you fat in the first place. I hope.

My roommate bought me some new sweats. I tried them on today and they fit. They're snug, certainly, but they also certainly fit me. This is a huge thing for two reasons. For one thing, it means I can get pants from the store for a third of what I can get them ordering them online.  This will save me a lot of money and I need to save all the money I can.

Second of all, these sweats are actually sweats, made of fleece, meaning they are actually WARM to wear. None of the pants I have been able to buy since I got really heavy have been warm. They always throw them together with the thinnest materials they can find. Even ones that are supposed to be for warmer weather never really are.

So for years now, I've spent my winters with cold legs. You'd think the fat would keep me warm, but fat also doesn't allow for great circulation, so my legs were never that warm at all. So I had these cold legs covered by pants that really only work during the warmer months. Almost every winter, going outside meant facing cold legs and just doing my best not to think about it. I really didn't see any alternative.

But NOW, now I am writing this post with warm, toasty legs, covered in nice fleecey goodness! I can walk outside and not freeze to death! I can wander through the house without shivering! It's awesome. It's a very nice little accomplishment.

The Magical Walk

There are days when my morning walk is difficult or annoying. There are other days, most days, really, when it's just blah. On occasion though, my morning walk is amazing. This was one of those days. As I was walking along my driveway, one of the trees was letting hundreds of leaves go. They were flowing all around me, as if I were in some movie. They skittered on the ground, making the cutest little noise. As the wind picked up, many of them blew back into the air, dancing and dancing around me.

I know that this walk lasted no longer than any other, but as that was happening, it really felt like time slowed for me. I know it was only a few seconds, but it was wonderful. Even thinking about it now really fills me with a sense of being caught in the middle of something special.

If you read the blog regularly, you know I usually don't have that great of a relationship with nature. Most of my encounters with nature involve fleas biting me or fire ants attacking me (I still have scars from that) or sunburns. Rarely are my personal moments with nature anything that is wonderful and good.

Today though, today was good. Today was beautiful and magical for me. I'm thankful it happened.

Practiced and not Perfect

The afghan has gained some more inches. The colors are going together somewhat well right now, but I am sure that won't last. When you're doing an afghan just to get rid of yarn, quite often things are ugly and desperate looking by the end. I'm sure this one will be no different. Even though I thought I was watching my count, I'm still getting a jaggedy edge. This may be due to the varying sizes of yarn I'm using. More than likely, it's due to my miscounting.

As I've mentioned before, one of the things I enjoy most about working with yarn is that I'm not really that good at it. Most of my projects turn out askew. They often have an imperfect, screwed up look to them. I don't do this on purpose either. I just have some kind of disconnect about how to follow patterns. . . even as I am trying my damnedest to follow the pattern.

Normally practice makes people better, but I've only seem a small bit of improvement in my skill. I don't work as tightly as I used to, which means my work is softer and easier to handle. I'm more consistent with stitch size. I'm more likely to count and check to see if things are where they should be.  Even with these new skills in place, the final products still look strange.

It's okay though. I'm not good at this, but I love it. I love what I make with my meager skills. I'm wearing a wonky hat I made a few years ago. It keeps me warm, even if the top of it does kind of look like a nipple. The very first afghan I ever made is still in my possession. I made it when I was around 21. It's ugly and sloped, but it's warm and still with us.

I suppose that's the important part.

Practical if not Pretty

Looks like the decision to make the afghan is a go. I was still debating it until around noon today, when a series of events made me just really anxious to start purging the unused yarn into something useful. I've made some headway on it. I doubt it will be pretty, but it will be very warm. Right now, practicality trumps cuteness in almost all cases.

It's been a long while since I made an afghan. I've forgotten how much mental and emotional junk it can purge from you. There is something about adding rows and rows of straight lines that is quite cleansing to the soul. I have a lot of stuff to work through. This could end up being quite good for me.

Even if that part doesn't pan out, at least I'll be rid of the random balls of stray yarn that are left over from other projects. Instead of being moved from place to place and resorted into nice balls after everything unravels and gets knotted up again, all of it will now exist as a new thing. It will be an afghan of random, mismatched colors. It will serve the purpose of keeping me warm. And all the storage stuff that holds yarn can be put away. The house will be a little less cluttered.

I'm glad I'm doing this.

Heater On

We wanted to hold out as long as possible before turning on the heater, but unfortunately, that isn't going to happen. It's not even late into November, but the heater has had to come on. It's supposed to get very cold tonight and we just can't risk the pipes. We did put it on as low as we could though. We have blankets and that should keep us warm enough.

Last year, my roommate bought me some sweats to wear around on really cold days. I could pull them on, but they were fairly tight. This year, they're still pretty snug, but they fit better than they did. I'm happy about this because they're wonderfully warm. They're also very long in the leg, which means they wrap nicely around my socks and don't ride up. Nothing is worse than waking up in the middle of a cold night with half your leg exposed to the chill.

I wandered around all day in a hat I made last year. I'd hoped it would be enough to inspire me to start working with yarn again, but it didn't. Creatively, I'm still in a void. I can't even begin to explain how frustrating that is for me. I really hope I move past it. I'm actually considering just going for broke and starting an afghan with all the stray yarn I have. At least it would get my hands involved in doing stuff and, honestly, it would be nice to get my random bits of yarn out of the way. I don't know yet. An afghan seems like a big commitment. Then again, what the hell else am I doing?

Anyway, for the most part, my day was good. Therapy went well and I got my errands done. I also got to cuddle with the cats because they're cold. That's always nice.

Favorite Documentary This Year

I just finished watching The Chair. It documentary show on Starz about two directors first time directors making the same movie. I have to say, I was very impressed with it. I had my doubts about it, but in the end, I was very pleased with the whole thing.

To begin with, one of the more fascinating parts about this was the way in which one gets to see the whole process that goes into film making. From writing a script, to rewrites, to hiring producers and tech people, to scouting locations and finding actors. There is so much stuff that happens in pre-production that completely alters how the film will be.

There are even things that one might not think would have much of an affect that really do change everything about the mood of a film. For instance, one director brought in only one person to handle the technical side of things with him. He works with a producer on his other projects and she worked with him on this one. Everyone else he hired was new to him. The other director had a small, close group of people she works with to handle this project with her. They were more collaborative in their approach. During the documentary, there are times when one director's choices seem to be working the best, and times when the other director's choices work the best.

Even the way the two directors lived during the filming affected their films. One director rented a house, where she lived with several people working in production with her. They cooked together, had meals together, and discussed the film late into the night. The other director stayed in a hotel. His meals were all from restaurants. When he was finished with the film for the day, he could close himself off in his room and not deal with anyone else. He was able to stay in his own headspace and reflect on the movie in private.

The amazing thing is, both directors managed to finish their films. Two movies actually WERE made out of this. Even if those movies aren't that great, I believe it's quite impressive that they were able to accomplish this. If you enjoy watching how complicated things get made, I very much recommend The Chair. I think you'll enjoy it.

Good Ending to a Rough Week

Last week was pretty stressful and rough. As I wrote about, I had some discouraging things happen, and then just some overly difficult moments as well. However, my best friend's new baby was born, I survived the stressful events, and life moves forward.

It's supposed to get really cold this week, like winter-levels of cold. I need to get out some more of my winter things and get some preparation done for this. That's basically my goal for tomorrow.

For the most part, the weekend was good. It was great to meet the baby. The cats didn't cause too much drama. I am hoping for a reasonably easy week. That would be nice for a change.

Walls of Discouragement

A few months back, I broke the stationary pedaling machine.  I was pretty devastated, as I tend to be whenever I break things, but my roommate just shrugged it off and bought another one. A few days later, noting my hesitation, he asked if I was still upset about breaking it. Of course I was. He reminded me that we'd had it for over a year and that it wasn't that expensive of an item. I felt better about it and resumed my activities.

Last week, the new one broke. It broke in the same place as the last one. This, as you will note, is only a few months after the break of the last one. It's also about the same amount of time that I, personally, was using the thing. Sure, we'd had it for over a year, but I wasn't using it for all of that time. Given that, it looked like the pedal machine was only going to last me about two months. This makes replacing it far more expensive.

This was emotionally rough on me. I had to make a decision to give up the pedaling because I just can't afford to keep replacing it that often.  I panicked about this for a while and then just got really depressed. Even though there are alternatives and I've come up with some plans for ways to move around it, it frustrated me. I felt defeated by the whole mess.

This post is hard to write. I'm sure if I had a lot of followers, this post would go viral and people would snicker about that fat woman who breaks work out equipment. It's actually embarrassing to write this and I feel a bit naked in doing so. I gave this a lot of thought and had mostly backed out of even mentioning it.

Why did I change my mind? I think it's for the same reason I blog about the pain I feel as my body is changing due to workouts. When you start losing weight at the size I was, or even at the size I am now, you think the hardest part is going to be sticking to plan. Commitment is hard and by the time you're in your 400-500s, you've started and failed workout programs a lot.

Commitment is only part of the difficulty though. The world just really isn't set up for people as fat as me to lose weight. Equipment is a big problem. Most of it isn't designed to handle people past a certain weight and it will break if you use it. When it breaks, it's very discouraging. And as much as commitment can be hard in this process, feeling like the world is actively discouraging you is even worse.

I'm sure everyone handles this differently. In the past, even I handled it differently. I used to hit walls of discouragement like this and let that end things. It just felt emotionally too difficult to continue. I would break something or someone would say something or the workout would cause too much pain or make me physically ill and I would just stop. And if I'm being really honest here, part of me was always happy when I stopped. I'm not even sure why.

These days, I'm trying a new approach with the discouragement. I give it a couple of days. I let myself be hurt about the situation. Then, I start trying to see if there are ways around it. Sometimes there aren't. Other times, there are. Hell, most of the times there are, it's just a matter of being brave about what you can manage to do with your body.

Even though more and more people are obese now, the world hasn't caught up with this. The world is still designed for people with average body types and that likely isn't going to change. As always, the fat people of the world need to find ways to adapt to this. It can be discouraging and frustrating, but it is what we have to work with. We can let it defeat us . . . or we can let it defeat us for a while, and then move forward with our plans.