*muffled cursing from the next room*

My back itches, for the obvious post-sunburn reason. Aargh.

Anyhow: ( feelings! )
Also! If you write smut and store your beta versions on gDocs, maybe back all your shit up over the next few days? In your zero spare time and using your negative-numbers sanity? https://www.wired.com/story/what-happens-when-a-romance-author-gets-locked-out-of-google-docs/

This last few weeks I have a to-do list which, despite checking off a lot of big important boxes, has kept growing beyond the point of unmanageable into the realm of ( brain-breaking )

So:
• I have started vomiting out my thoughts onto paper in the day planner that I haven’t used in a couple months. Lots of note-taking and using goblin.tools to break things down into steps and plans is going to happen tomorrow.
• I am checking in with my energy levels, feelings, and mental state every time one of my phone alarms goes off
• I will be asking some irl friends and family to body-double and help me stay on task the next week or two.

And I guess we’ll see how this goes? Bc my anxiety has stayed high-but-not-panic-attack-y the last few weeks (yay hydroxyzine!), and I don’t want that to turn into a mixed manic episode bc those are fucked up and dangerous. I wish us all restful sleep and weightless mental health.

I dislocated a toe from bouncing my leg up and down. Yes, really. And then it swelled up and decided to ache.

In other not-new news: bodies were a mistake, and I want to replace this thing with a robot. Anybody who has a line on the future of brain-in-a-jar / mind-uploading / other forms of flesh replacement ... hit my DMs?

( behind the cut )

Anyway, I’m fine - if irritable and achey and tired. And pissed off at the world. But what else is new. Hopefully next week I’ll have more good stuff to report.

“The world may be broken but hope is not crazy.”

― John Green

Yesterday I dislocated a toe again, and then sat up in bed so fast I slightly pulled an abdominal muscle. In lieu of hearing me complain a bunch, have some links!

New upcoming Star Trek series, Star Trek: Starfleet Academy has been announced.

STRANGE ÆONS - A Deep Dive Into The Return Of My Chemical Romance promises to be hilarious and informative.

A mental health quiz to see if you might want to talk to a therapist, and if so, about what. It did correctly say that I should get checked out for PTSD and anxiety, which I, y'know, have.

An inventory of your stress-management skills to see if there are things you could be doing better or more of.

CONTENT WARNING for medical rage and fraud by insurers Cigna has been auto-denying patients insurance claims. Flames. Flames on the sides of my face.

Greek Farmer Stumbles Onto 3,400-Year-Old Tomb Hidden Below His Olive Grove - The Crete local was trying to park his vehicle when he accidentally unearthed the Ancient Minoan grave.

For my vegetarians, vegans, and friends who don't absorb nutrients very well: You may need supplementation with acetylcholine, commonly found in soy or sunflower lecithin, especially if you have any of the following:

Constipation/gastroparesis, Memory problems, Difficulty with word recall when speaking, Learning difficulties, Dry mouth/eyes, Orthostatic hypotension (dizziness on standing up), Low muscle tone, Depressed mood, Fast heart rate, Chronic inflammation, or Emotional instability.

Y'all take care of yourselves and each other, okay?

My friend sabotabby recommended to me If Books Could Kill, a podcast dissecting books and print media which have a lot more fame than they do good sense or data to back up their inferences. The short breakdown on the New York Times War on Trans Kids is a good place to start. Because she knows me, she also recommended the Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff episode on Gay Resistance to the Nazis, which is next up on my list of things to listen to today while my stomach hurts. I may knit a little while listening if I can concentrate. Fingers crossed.

A friend asked me (several months ago) about non-stimulant ADHD meds. (And then I immediately forgot about it, but ...) Something the silk_dragon_zen's said the other day reminded me. Apparently if you don't have low blood pressure (which I do), you can take clonidine or guanfacine to regulate the ADHD brain's metabolism of noradrenaline.

In other news: do you ever just want fancy silk pajamas and maybe a kimono-style robe to lounge around your house in? Because summer is coming, and I am not sure what I'm going to do to thermally regulate this year. Maybe I'll just buy a bunch of secondhand linen shorts and tank tops, since they're way less expensive than actual silk.

Ugh. My stomach can stop hurting any time now.

Hey, fellow classics majors! Silphium may not be extinct! Uh ... I need them to breed a cheap varietal, bc I want some.

Action crisis and cost–benefit thinking: A cognitive analysis of a goal-disengagement phase - I'm reading up on the steps your brain takes to stop reinforcing things.

If you have ever been to a Torchy's Tacos here's how to make their queso. And if you have never been, you're doubly welcome!

I love Brandi Carlile in the gayest way possible.

The Never-Not-Broken Goddess and learning to be our most amazing, most broken self. Yeah, I said what I said.

How To Ask Good Questions - "Polling my networks helped me realize how many assumptions I’d been making about the wider world without context, and how those assumptions sometimes calcified into bitterness." - excellently written article that I am having a think about.

In DUH news, everything the diet industry has said for the last 50 years has been wrong, AND THEY KNEW IT AT THE TIME. Fuckers. Trigger warning for dieting/diet culture & injustice perpetrated for profit.

---

I spent most of today napping, which was glorious. But now my body is doing the temperature fluctuation thing, and I have the ( sads )

A few hours most days this week and last I’m helping a friend take care of her elderly mother, because their family is Going Through Some Shit. It's not that big a hassle, to me, it just takes up the part of my day where I have spoons to get stuff done, you know? And my adjusting to new meds that make me heat sensitive while having to drive around in a car that was above 120 degrees until the AC finally got its act together today was ... not great. I've never before had my skin sting from heat like it does from cold, but today was like being inside an oven. This is some meteorological bullshit, and I hope that some GOP voters are waking up to climate change now. At least the SNRI appears to be working, which is the lone reason I have not written today off and decided to watch The Last Unicorn on YouTube while sulking in bed.


In other news - ways I have injured myself: dislocating my jaw by opening my mouth to eat a cracker. I didn't even open it very wide. I opened my mouth and gently socked myself in the jaw until it went back into place, and cracked my neck just to be certain, so now that's all over but the anti-inflammatories kicking in. It's still fuckin' annoying, though. Edit: also it went back out while I was sleeping, so that is boo and also hiss.

My mom's sweater re-make is coming along really well, and I will be finished with it probably by the end of the month? I can't wait to post pics of it for y'all to see. It's such a beautiful yarn and it's going to be a great sweater when it's done. The class for the pagan crafting group is written out and seems to have turned out well. And I have a million projects, but now I have a poster to stick to-do post-its onto and rearrange as I like. Fingers crossed that it helps me keep up with things.

The homework page on my Coursera course is down (hopefully temporarily) so instead I am going to start Snowflake Challenge ON TIME for once(!). I think I might be growing as a person?

Challenge #1

In your own space, update your fandom information! Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

So I have made tweaks to my stickypost, my profile, and my AO3 profile.



(It is now below freezing, when it was 69 degrees F earlier today. My joints are understandably appalled.)

A friend of mine is having a bout of insomnia, and I figured I would share my collection of tricks that get my brain to STFU and sleep, despite it’s natural inclination to Be Like That.

• If you are sensitive to being woken up by intense smells or flavors, brush your teeth after dinner instead of before bed.

• Set a bedtime alarm to take your pills (melatonin, Benadryl, valerian root, most prescription meds) a couple hours before you want to fall asleep. Pills are not instantaneous. Plan ahead instead of laying in bed while your anxiety replays all the mistakes you’ve ever made while you wait to fall asleep.

• After that alarm goes off, get off social media and do something that slows your brain’s rate of stimulation. No edge of your seat TV or books that get you really engaged in suspense. You want your brain to calm down and ease into getting sleepy.

• Don’t take too much melatonin. The dose you are looking for is .3 to .5 milligrams. Yes, that low! The doses they sell for adults are ten times what your brain produces for itself, and having too much can cause your brain to dump what it doesn’t think it needs. And sometimes it yanks you out of your sleep cycles to do it. (I recommend taking the children’s kind, which are the proper dose … for adults.)

• Blue, high spectrum lights also tell your brain to kill your naturally occurring melatonin, so get a color temperature changing app for you phone and computer if you use them within three hours of falling asleep. Keep your room dark also, Bc moonlight is enough for sensitive people to have trouble falling asleep, wake them up in the night, or otherwise not get them good quality sleep.

• Stimulant behaviors like listening to loud music, intense house cleaning, exercise, very hot showers, dancing, and some BDSM practices are not recommended during the last two hours before bed. Dial down the intensity to get your best sleep hygiene.

• Meditation, journaling, writing tomorrow’s schedule in your day planner, or setting out outfits and things you will need for the next day can ease anxieties related to preparedness, and if done consistently before bed can become a ritual behavior that helps the brain wind down. Rituals like brushing hair, rubbing lotion into dry skin, or petting animals are also good bedtime rituals.

• For some people, taking a cool, but not cold, shower at the end of the night can help lower your heart rate and body temperature, preparing your brain for sleep.

• If your pets like to climb on you or jump onto the bed, try sleeping with them contained in a different part of the house. (I bribe mine to leave the bed with treats.) Sudden movement and noises can lower sleep quality and cause more restlessness and a higher resting heart rate, so your full night’s sleep should get even more restful without the fuzzbutts.

If you have any tricks that have worked for you, I would love to hear them.