Chickens Being, and turkey butt

Turkey butt. I was netting fish on a claim I was clearing on server and looked up, cracked me up.

It wouldn't be the holiday slide without something throwing monkey wrenches like my bank being acquired into another bank and breaking my auto payments. What I thought was money working out beautifully was a major payment being missed, so on my birthday, when I finally get more money, I've got to make a final double payment and then that one is over.

I have 4 days to get my driver's license renewed. Don't let me forget that. I know one year I blogged about being happy I remembered it and then promptly forgot and missed it.

I'm otherwise doing really well with my xanax taper, weight is holding steady this month after dropping 6 pounds, switched to organic blue corn chips after nearly two weeks of no nachos at all (no more supporting the big corn companies), and nearly doubled my vegetable intake over what it used to be. ASTYM therapy on my hand was like a magical breakthrough, going up and down stairs on my knee without any problems now, did I mention I'm already talking Christmas tree? Basically, having one of the best Octobers I've had in many years. Allergies are ridiculous between the trees forgetting to turn and suddenly dropping dried leaves during a cold rainy spell, but no problems with ears and glands complications like I used to get regularly. I'm an antihistamine machine this year.

I'm thinking about pumpkin cake for my birthday. I haven't had really good cake in ages, and y'all know I can't use regular flour so cake is a big rare deal. People who blow off gluten free and wheat allergies, try using flour or baking mix that is nearly $10 a pound. I have to make sure the flour is processed in a nut and peanut free facility (you'd be surprised how much gluten free is cross contaminated in manufacturing), so that cuts the cheaper ones out. Also discovered lasagna is fantastic with cabbage in place of the noodles, so I really enjoyed some good old fashioned homemade comfort food lasagna this month. Going to make more this weekend.

My sleep schedule is topsy-turvy more than usual lately, so I'm just going with it. I'm up when I feel like it, sleep when I feel like it, and barely keeping up with anyone in real time. I have been more relaxed lately than I have been in years, so I guess my body has finally turned off alert mode that I used to constantly live in, with all those anxiety and panic attacks and constant self monitoring and powering through and whatnot. I'm actually feeling like I'm enjoying myself just living now. That's never really happened before. I think a lot of it is solid consistent pain control and finally getting much needed surgeries and recoveries out of the way. I'm physically able to just chill and veg now without anything nagging my system constantly. It's nice.

Ten years ago I wrote Chickens Being.

Had a dream about the chickens last night.  Somehow they were people, but not like us.  I don't remember any more.  I've been wondering for some time what the world view of a chicken is like, what it's like to live like that.  You really have to bend your brain around just to think about not having hands, having such a flexible neck and moving your head everywhere without being disoriented, having feathers projecting from every inch of your body.  I think that would be terribly cumbersome.

And then to think about never being able to say how you feel to someone, never having real contact like a hug, the only comfort you ever get is simply in being part of a group, being near each other and hearing each other when you're scared or feeling sick.  What would it be like to not know more, not understand the possibility of these things?

I've been trying to wrap my brain around the concept of 'being' since I was a small child.  I was terrified very early that I had bones in me (grew up on a farm), and that the bones weren't *me*.  They go everywhere I go, make it possible for me to do and feel things with my other tissues, but they are the sign of death in every culture.  I carry the sign of death around inside of me.  I think I was dealing with that before I was even 10.

I won't go over everything I've thought since then, I'm sure it would make a book.  But I still think about it a lot, about 'being'.  About the possibilities we can't imagine, about the limitations we take for granted, about the horrifying thought of seeing ourselves both from the inside and the outside with our perspectives.  I think a lot of people can't really do that very well, and I don't know if it's the Asperger's, but I can peel away perspective and put it back together in different shapes and forms, and wonder how in the world can we be stuck in our bodies this way?  It seems impossible.  Yet here we are, experiencing.

I was always intrigued by the old testament guys who got to 'see God', or at least come close.  They always fell to their faces and couldn't move, and had to be stood back up by someone else.  The experience of being able to see outside this dimension of thought and mind was enough to disable them, either from terror or being so overwhelmed that they couldn't respond to the new sensations and realizations flooding their minds.  Maybe being aspie gives me an edge on thinking about it, because so much has been so overwhelming for me in THIS body in THIS dimension of being.  I want very badly to be able to go beyond what we are and see all this for myself.  I'm sure someone will have to stand me back up.

lyrics

down time

click for South Korean memes

My biggest mistake is opening the fridge door with the surgery hand. +_+

click to get lost in pinterest

I tried a little singleplayer last night, it hurt. Not back on game yet.

click for surgeon skin in minecraft

Caught up on The 100 yesterday, 3 left for Killjoys, probably watch that today.

click for a Canadian TV blog

Got my Halloween wallpapers on a slideshow screensaver. This was on Google chrome search for 'Halloween bats wallpaper'. I tried several variations and got a few really good ones.

Decided to custom order Christmas cards this year because cheaper than the store. I think I'm done looking around for pix right now.

curious about the sales pitches

Stuff.

Bout fried my phone on this next one hiding the glow under the covers and falling asleep. The upload is viral. I wrote a tweet and a FB status about it earlier, and I pinned it. Is it coincidence it came out the day after the anniversary being talked about in the above video?

My hand hurts like hell, but my typing is already getting better. Also, my throat really hurts to swallow and I finally looked in there and found a small area that looks weird, wondering if I got a small sore or scratch when I swallowed the little airway hose under anesthesia.

Why Does My Throat Hurt After Surgery?

So I got back up out of bed after sleeping an hour and a half and I'm eating Italian nachos so I can get vicoprofen down. For my hand, not my throat. The hand thing is an ongoing problem from the last Pinky blog, if you're new.

Proof that FB is uber intrustive. The other day I bounced on a post from a publisher and next thing you know they are calling my cell phone. I don't put my cell phone out for view, even for friends, and I didn't friend that publisher page. I checked my settings, and sure enough, my phone number was viewable by friends, so I had to reset that to only me. Check your privacy settings, guys. They had another big update rollout, so just check everything. Also, really creepy that a nonfriend was able to hack that and then leave a recording on my phone. Once is bad enough, but still another publisher calling and leaving a message out of the blue within that time frame, and both of these repeat calling really ticked me off. Real publishers don't solicit by phone. Don't worry, I didn't pick up.

So the blocking begins. Again. I wanted to report for harrassment, but FB doesn't allow me to describe what happened, so how would they even know it's going on outside of FB?

Bunny got a cast change on the same day in the same building at the same time as my carpal tunnel surgery. I thought that was cool. 😎

My knee still doesn't hurt. I had to rewrap the compression bandage, definitely swollen and apparently a bit bloody under all that cotton wrap, but I keep it up a lot and use a cane 90% of the time so I'm doing ok. I have felt it squish in there a couple of times, kinda slide a couple more, and click a few times, no pain at all with any of it, even though the pictures the surgeon gave me look pretty impressive.

The best part is the vicoprofen. I hadn't had hydrocodone in any form since 2014 until my gall bladder removal last fall, and that was overwhelming because I'm like a permanent protracted withdrawal person, clenched muscles and mild hallucinations when I have to take it nowadays because I was on low dose vicodin for nearly 30 years. Today has been lovely, though. I asked for a lower dose since I tolerate pain so well, and I'm feeling wrapped in beautiful fuzzy blanket kind of love. Going to suck stopping it again, so I'm already alternating breaking pills in half. So far I'm needing every 4 hours on the dot for the hand pain, but dang it, I keep forgetting and automatically doing stuff. Every little grasp and tug is horrible and barely functioning, or like using that hand for leverage getting into bed earlier, yowza that sucked.

I spent pre surgery eating plenty of vegetables, alternating salads with cabbage soup, pan roasted brussels sprouts, microwaved sweet potato, crockpot corn on the cob, and I'm focusing on more proteins and yogurt while I'm healing. They gave me precautionary ancef (cephalasporin antibiotic) in my IV during sugery. Also got decadron (corticosteroid, precautionary for inflammation, allergic reactions, and edema), fentanyl (narcotic), lactated ringers (aggressive fluid replacement during fluid and blood loss), lidocaine (numbing agent), midazolam (benzo that induces drowsiness and acts like a roofie so you don't remember), zophran (for nausea, I'm a documented puker during and after surgeries), phenylephrine (antihistamine, also raises blood pressure), and propofol (" a short-acting medication that results in a decreased level of consciousness and lack of memory for events").

And that was on top of a serious lack of coffee and calories, so the first 48 hours are my body cleaning all that out on top of serious healing from intrusion. I'm cautiously already following slow withdrawal guidelines on the vicoprofen. Part of the jolt for a lot of people recovering from surgery is not understanding the meds going on.

From Legend of the Seeker:

Sorry no click to merch, I think it was a short-lived flash sale.
The back has the wizards rules.

Wo, stood up to do something and I'm so wasted I barely made it across the room. Funny how sensitive I am now to small dose anything after decades of handfuls of meds that I spent over 2 years cleaning off of. I felt like I had a little tiny bug crawling in my shirt nipping me, usually a protracted benzo symptom for me, but turned out to be petechaie. Every time I have something done I get new ones. I have a petechia for every spinal tap I've had, stuff like that. Some of them never go away.

I had some super cool dreams this afternoon dozing off and on. Going to try some stuff on Mo Creatures (minecraft server) when I can log back on. I'm generally not a very creative builder, even though I have huge claims with builds on them. The stuff in my dreams was like TIME TO REMODEL. I'm very excited but really can't do that till I start the therapies.

I've gotta get back to bed while the pain level is back down. See ya.

Presurg stressing

Doing this on my phone because I put the laptop into storage till bandage comes off my wrist. Arrival time for double surgery tomorrow is 6 a.m., so I'm getting up at 4 to get that last hibiclens shower.

No coffee. +_+ Scott's life will be in danger. I'll be sweet all medicated up afterward.

I'm also already hungry just thinking that I can't eat in the morning. I rarely eat very early. It's the idea of it throwing my brain-to-stomach relay a curve ball.

I can't wait to see what it feels like to live without a half inch bone chip sliding around stabbing inside my knee in there. All these years. Oof. Wish I'd said something sooner.

K, I've fought with blogger on phone long enough, need YouTube so bad.

white noise

Up at 3 a.m. and my best friend is youtube. Trying not to make coffee yet. Been 30 years and craving a cigarette, craving anything. Not sure what's up with that. Blogger on my phone is making me sleepy. Wonder if tech has a hidden addiction. I need my tiny dose of radiation. Weird, but probably true.