Masks

A while back, I got a subscription to a facemask delivery thing. I get four masks per month. I honestly don't think my face can handle more than that.

However, I think the masks and the facial wipes I've been using are doing some good. The skin issues that I often have due to the nightly contact with my CPAP mask are subsiding.

Hah! Using one mask to fight another!

The Week Ahead

I am, admittedly, a little nervous about the week ahead. We have to get our second covid shots and last time I had a not-intense-but-still-noticeable reaction to it. We also have to do the renewal for our benefits. This is always a nerve-wracking process and I hate it.

People often think that being on disability is easy. It's not. It's often terrifying. Right now I am terrified that some kind of glitch will happen or something will go wrong and everything will be lost to me. I know a lot of people feel this way, even people with jobs. I think the general financial insecurity that a lot of us are in tend to help bubble up the paranoia and insanity in our societies. I wish there was a way for us to just be more secure about stuff. 

I certainly need that. 

Interesting Update

My step-mom called me today, asking about something that wasn't important, but still wanted my opinion on. I think maybe she talked with my dad about the childfree thing and just wanted to reach out to me. That warmed my heart.

Childfree Issues

Today my dad asked me if I felt left out of things and/or not taken as seriously as a woman because I never had any children. He brought this up because my step-mother, who is a very good step-mother, feels that her sisters (all mothers) do not regard her as their equal because she never gave birth. 

I told him that yes, at times, I do feel that way, though not as often because my close circle of birth-givers is basically like two people. Mostly it has been around family functions where I felt slighted.....great-grandchildren given things by grandfather, meaning those families got stuff and I did not. 

Outside of that, it was rarely a problem. I realize it's different for me because I CHOSE to be childfree, as I did not trust myself as a mother. 

I then reminded him that while my step-mom may not have given birth, she IS a step-mother and a grandmother.....and I think being a grandmother without having to raise children is a pretty glorious lifehack. 

I also reminded him that in the vast chaos that can be blended families, she has been a stable and calming force of a step-parent. I value that a lot. 

Given the issues that many women with PCOS have when it comes to fertility, I feel rather blessed and sheltered that I had no serious desire for children. Being childfree, as with being unmarried, is something I view as a lovely part of my life. I wish more people could see it this way. I wish others would encourage it.

Pain

I was in a lot of pain today. Serious amounts of pain left me breathless a couple of times. Mostly it was in my hips. Hips are truly traitors after a while.

The pain basically dictated my day. I held a cat and read. That was about it. I'm hoping things will be better tomorrow. 

Fickle Weather

It's in this weird in-between time of the year when I can never decide if I'm hot or cold. Or both. Today I left the back door open for all of three minutes. It was glorious out there, the sun was shining and making everything warm and lovely. Then suddenly it was cold again. I shut the door.

Spring is always an odd time. It just never seems to understand how to function. Honestly, the ONLY season we have that really does what it's supposed to do is summer and it does it way too well. 

A Good Place

I know I talked about this the other night, but my spirits actually are fairly good right now. Maybe I just function better under obsessive conditions? Is that a thing? 

Anyway.

LIke I said, I'm in a good mood and I've been pretty inspired. I've written some, though nothing I'm ready to share, really. We'll see.

No Burn

Ughh. The slow burn book almost ended up being a no burn. They did it all of ONCE before one of them died. I think they deserved better than that. I deserved better than that.

At least there were other, happily sluttier characters to keep things fun. I use the word slut in its most positive context. I honestly don't think I'm cut out for that level of slow burn. A year maybe? A few months. Not thousands of years. Stop that.

Anyway, that was my weekend. I have a letter to write over the next few days. It will be far more uplifting than where my brain has been. 

ALTHOUGH.....

One nice thing about reading all the smut is that my depression isn't active. So yay for that.

Bing BANG Bong

So I've been reading long-form m/m elf erotica and I find there is something I don't like about it. I will concede that with erotica, the idea of the slow burn is a very important concept. People don't just have sex all at once. There is a build-up, a dance. And that's fine. To a point.

However

Even though folks live for thousands of years, this does not mean that they should wait for basically ALL of those thousands of years before the sex starts. It's annoying.

I mean, they've known each other for over 3000 years now and they've gone as far as long anguishing smexy looks and ONE handjob. One. That's just insane. 

There is a point where the slow burn just gets annoying. BANG, my dudes. It's been centuries. Realistically, you both would have exploded by now.  

End of the Week

The weather was all over the place this week. It was hot and cold and then unpleasantly muggy and then really colder than it had the right to be. 

This wasn't easy on us. I wish we could live somewhere with stabler weather systems, but I'm not sure those exist anymore.

Not Buying It

I had to force myself off of Facebook today because people keep spewing their hatred and insanity. All of the conservatives keep talking about cancel culture. I find this very funny, for two reasons.

1. Online, I have more liberal friends than conservative ones. None of my liberal friends have said anything about how they want Mr. Potatohead or Dr. Suess or whatever else canceled. And yet, basically, every single one of the conservatives has made post after post after post about this. It's their main focus at the moment. 

2. When I was a kid, people tried to cancel things all the time. They wanted to be rid of Dungeons and Dragons. They wanted to stop rap music. They wanted us to burn all of our fantasy books and destroy our rock albums. It was NOT the liberals doing this. It was the conservatives. 

So my takeaway here is this. There are, of course, some factions of liberalism who do feel certain aspects of culture are outdated and awful. They probably have spoken out against it. Do I think they're correct? Personally, no. I don't believe in censorship. I want to know where people stand. If someone is a bigot, I'd like to know so I can avoid them. If you don't want to look at a thing or support a thing, that is your right.

However, I will never ever ever ever ever ever EVER seen conservatives in America as the champions for a free and open society. Ever. That's just insane. They're only connected to this right now because it's something they can cling to. Given a chance to be back in power, they would begin to snuff out the lights of anything they don't agree with all over again. It's NEVER about freedom with them. It's about control.

Snappy

We went to the store today and someone wouldn't stop their car alarm. It went on for the majority of the time my roommate was in the store. It gave me a horrible headache. I still don't feel that great, even now.

It made me snappy. I yelled at a cat. I could feel my voice being harsh about things, even as I tried to stop it. The worst part was, even trying to stop it made my headache worse. I probably should have just stayed in bed for the evening. I'm sure I was miserable to be around.

So listen, please, shut off your stupid car alarms. No one needs that. 

Weird Weather Day

Today we had to use the heater. Then later we had the windows open. Right now I have a fan on, but I'm also sitting under a blanket. This weather makes no sense.

I don't think Tinkerbell felt well again today. She was grumpy and didn't enjoy being moved. At all. At least I received no new cuts. 

I shall leave you with a bastardized version of a children's nursery rhyme, now transformed into Silmarillion erotic fanfiction. 

Beloved Mairon?

Yes, Melkor?

Eating sugar?

No, Melkor.

Telling LIES?

..........why yes, Melkor.

*chuckle* Open thy mouth.....

After Pi Day

I did get pie today! Yay! We were off to a slow start in the shopping because of the time change. When we got home, I slept hard for about two hours. I'll probably sleep hard again tonight.

There was a lot of wind and it scared my kitty Tinkerbell. She basically stayed on me as much as possible until the wind died down. Now she's wandered off and I plan on spending my next few hours reading and knitting. 

So After Pi Day ends well.

Pi Day

I received no pie. Yes, I know the difference. Daylight Saving Time started. What a disappointing day.

ShowSquirrel

We've not had Wendy's in a long while so today we decided to go through the drive-thru and sit in the parking lot to eat. This parking lot backs up to a large wooden fence with some trees on the other side of it. It's nice and shadey. 

It is also home to the Showsquirrel. The Showsquirrel was probably, at some point, a normal squirrel. Since Covid, Showsquirrel has a job. It basically does little bounces and dances and darts over the fence and collects donations from all the people who now eat in their cars (and watch the squirrel). 

When the squirrel is not dancing for meals, it is chasing away birds (the competition) so they don't eat its fries and other assorted goodies. 

I have never seen a squirrel look so glossy, happy, or fat.

The Favorite

So which is my favorite of Feanor's sons? Which of the blood-soaked Oath Swearing Doomed Noldor idiot princes is the one I love the most? (We all know Feanor would say Curufin.) Also, I'm just using their Sindar names because it's the more common and what they accepted as theirs in the end. 

Maedhros. 

He's my favorite because he has the best Rescue the Princess story in the world. He's my favorite because he has the most tragic friendship/love story (depending on how you look at it) in the world. He's my favorite because the closest he came to redemption was raising Fingon's twice removed nephews as if they were his own children. He's my favorite because he knew what his father asked of them was impossible, that he was trapped, and still he continued on until finally killing himself. 

Maglor.

Maglor is my favorite because it's so clear he didn't want to be part of this. Maglor was just bloody awful at being High King. Maglor barely held his lands. Maglor probably spent his off time composing war battles to keep his people alive because he knew it was the best he could do. Maglor composed a lament for all the shit he and his brothers had done and would sing it before they took to the battlefield.

Maglor would desperately write letters to Luthien's family and beg them to give the Simaril back and then weep when they refused. Probably the only truly happy time of his life was raising Elrond and Elros with Mae. In the end, he tossed his Simaril into the sea and wandered the shoreline, singing his sadness. 

Celegorm.

Celegorm is my favorite because even though they claim otherwise, I'm pretty sure his Sindar name translates to 'silver-haired asshole' because we all know 'cele' means silver, and the rest is his damned personality. Celegorm kept them alive because he was the best hunter. He was so favorited by the God of the Hunt that he was gifted with a special magical hunting hound. He was then such an asshole that the dog left him. 

Celegorm is my favorite because he's the most gungho, non-elf-acting elf. He's just awful through most of it, yet still loyal to the people he loved, in his own asshole way.

Caranthir.

First of all, he's my favorite because I think he hated all of them. Caranthir was the only one who managed to be constructive and make a decent life for his people (until he couldn't). Caranthir was angry most of the time and practical and probably angry because he was practical. I also love him because I ship the hell out of him and the human woman Haleth (who refused to become his vessel) and headcanon that they had a kid anyway. She may not have told him.

I also love him because he tends to be the most ignored. He's not Oldest One, Music One, Prettiest One, Favorite One, or Twins. He's a bitter Jan. It's awesome. 

Curufin.

Curufin is my favorite because how can you NOT like the disdainful Daddy's Favorite. It's pretty clear that he's the one who hated that Mae gave away the throne the most. I love that he tried to manipulate Finrod and eventually lost his chance to stay in that kingdom because he was such an asshole. I love him because he was so awful his kid left him.

Oh. And also. I love Curufin because he fathered Celebrimbor and without Celebrimbor, we would have no Rings of Power. (Or Silverfisting)

The Ambarussa

I'm keeping Amrod and Amras together because Twins should be. They're my favorite because they were the most neglected in all of this. In some versions of the story, Feanor was so neglectful of them that he let one of them die at Losgar because he was too much of an insane dick to check the boats he was setting on fire. One dead twin, one twin who loses his mind and mostly just runs wild after that.

In other versions, they live, but they're rather feral. They'll show up at the battles and the kinslayings, but that's about it. In this version, they die together in the 3rd Kingslaying when Elrond and Elros are adopted by Mae and Maglor, kind of as a way to replace the twins. I love the twins because they're just random shadows in the story, in the family. Their mother only gave them one name. When Feanor insisted she give them separate names, they still called each other by the first name and nothing else. 

So yes. My favorite is all of them. They're all a massive trainwreck of messiness. Glorious. 

Bloody

My eyes have been watering so much that they have cuts on the sides. One of them decided to bleed overnight. I guess it's a look, right?

My roommate today said that it's getting to where Spring is the worst season. The weather is so violent and unpredictable and this is coming off of a winter with a pretty nasty little departing gift. 

I still maintain summer is the worst season but I probably wouldn't think so if I had a better cooling system. 

Smoke Gets in your Eyes

So. I didn't post last night because I was kind of ill. They were doing controlled burns around my area and it got horribly smokey and awful. I hated it. 

Basically, all of us were sick. Me, the roommate, the cats. All. All all. 

Anyway, we're more or less still recovering today. I don't think anyone felt super great today. And even if this hadn't affected my home the way it did, I'd still be annoyed by this. A lot of people still have Covid. The smoke had me on my oxygen by 4 yesterday afternoon and by 8 tonight. I can't imagine what the people in the area with Covid were going through.

I really hope they do NOT do that again. 

Losing Tools

I lost a knitting needle today. We looked everywhere for it. A while ago, I pulled out another one to replace it then busied myself with some other stuff. I minute ago, I looked over at the needle and noticed I had two more by me. I did not see them before.

I have no idea if my roommate found the other one and set it up there or if ghost did or what. I'm glad it was found. I have no idea how it got here.

Saturday Observations

Today was quiet except when the cat was busy maiming me. She's been in some pain and I'm her favorite clawing toy. Not really happy about that.

I'm on edge right now and I'm not sure why. Everything feels rough and scary. I'm trying to avoid politics and such matters as much as possible. I don't want to read about it or hear about it. It's just too beyond my threshold right now. 

Seriously. When the cat clawed me, I kind of cried. Stupid emotions.

The Needed Weekend

Ugh. Last week was so busy for us. We were doing stuff every day. One of those days involved needles. I'm tired and spent and more retreaty than usual.

I'm also in that place where I'm just playing the same song on repeat. It's soothing and it's what I need right now. 

Shottage

Today was the First Shot Day! Here are the highlights.

Everything was clearly marked. 
I was able to do the shot in the car, due to my mobility issues. They were nice about it.
They did my roommate's shot in the car as well, so we didn't have to be by ourselves. I was grateful for that and grateful we went on the same day.
The National Guardsman who administered our shot was very nice.
He also looked like he was 12.
The shot did not hurt.
I DID have a weird reaction to it. I kind of felt numb in my face for a few hours. I kept biting my lips to make sure they were still there.
When I got home, I took a nap and things seem to be okay now.

I'll report on any side effects if they arrive overnight. 

The Nerves

Of course now I'm nervous about my shot. 

I'm worried about bad reactions to it. I'm worried it somehow won't work. I'm worried the physical aspect of this will be a nightmare. I'm worried my roommate will have a bad reaction to his. 

I know I'm being irrational. I do. Yet, here we are.

Doc Appointment Discussions

My doctor's appointment went well today. She talked to me about perhaps starting therapy again. She said that once things settle down after Covid, a lot of medical professionals are still going to continue to utilize online stuff and that it might work for me to do zoom therapy. It's an interesting concept. We'll see.

On that same front, she also told me that if I have to have another sleep study done, I can do it from home. They send the equipment to you. You do the study and then send the whole mess back. She says it's actually more accurate because people are so much more comfortable in their own homes than they are at the sleep clinic. She has a good point there.

Anyway, my last appointment before this one was emotionally draining. This one wasn't so bad. I'm happy with the results. 

Deep Geekery

blah blah tired.  blah blah Tolkein elves. blah blah Covid. blah blah shot. blah blah depression. blah blah Mairon/Melkor.

When I fall into a fandom, I fall hard. Like the whole of the ocean is washing over me.....blah blah Sauron ruining Numenor. 

No really. Seriously. My mom read these books to me when I was a small child. I remember her reading The Silmarillion to me. But it didn't HIT ME until just, well, this last month. And now it's my everything. It's been AWHILE since I was this deep into a fandom. I'm more deeply into this than I was in GRRM. I didn't read that fanfiction (often) and I didn't make PLAYLISTS. I have two playlists now. It's deep.