An Equalist, a planner, and rabbit holes with a side of pain.

I've not felt good the last couple of day. Fibromyalgia has been kicking my ass as of late. No, I'm not off the fibro medication yet, but as of tonight I will be. My doctor wants to see how I feel over the next two weeks before he does anything else. *sigh* Right this moment I am dreading the two weeks of withdraw since in past every time I missed a dose I could tell. Which is damn obnoxious! But I'm trying to remain positive and focus on other things. 

Today, I have been busy. I've made several calls, looked up directions for Francis, been to the local library to get a new card, taken Amanda to work, and not all in that order. I've also spent some time researching medieval historical element such as what exactly kings and queens attended to on a daily basis. Some of it I already knew from school or had gathered from reading books or watching TV, but I wanted the actual details. I also looked at some castle construction because damn it, I might have a map drawn out for the story I seem to be gravitating toward, but I don't have a clue as to what the castle layout is like and it is driving me nuts. More importantly, I wanted to know where the best location of the city it should be in (you know for strategic defense) and so forth, you don't want to read about that.  And then I somehow fell down a rabbit hole wherein I stumbled across a Quoara answer author Mercedes Lackey had about Mermaids and if they draw breath when they were born. According to her, they don't because they don't exist. Actually the whole of her answer gave me a giggle, but then again, how does she know? The ocean is a big place... just saying. 

Office: north wall. It's not finished yet, things still have to go up and eventually we're painting the room gray and purple.

I found my planner yesterday. It was buried under some stuff on Amanda's desk, which is the one with the ship picture above it. Mine has the lamp on it with all the collage pictures (and my manifestation boards) on the wall under the shelf. Anyway, I've missed it. And, I don't like it. I miss decorating it with planner stickers and I miss making planner sticker too. That's a kind of self care ritual I'm going to pick back up again. 

Also in yesterday's news, I saw something on facebook about a feminist art show that's soon to go on. I thought, maybe I would try to go, but when I was reading their about section I was a bit turned off. They claim to be promoting equality and not against men, but it doesn't really sound like it to me the further down I read. I know that all groups have their zealots, but there are some feminist groups that sound more like man hating bitch clubs, than anything else- not that this group is or could be. I haven't met them, I'm just saying they don't sound as equal as they proclaim. And hey, at one point in time, I used to be part of a man hating bitch club, but I was in high school and I have sense grown up. Instead, as I was trying to describe to my Dad in our conversation yesterday, I'm more of an Equalist. Skin color, race, gender, sex, clothing, social status, financial status ect... shouldn't be an issue. What should be an issue is whether or not you're an asshole, break the law, hurt people ect... My Dad hadn't heard of the term and I said that's because I made it up. He thought that was clever. Which, quite honestly, is a nice complement and not something I'd heard anyone say to me before. 

When I was telling Amanda about she said Feminism is about equality. At least, it is supposed to be. We talked about it a little bit and also talked about affirmative action, which was something else my Dad and I talked about, given that he was the one who hired for the correctional facility he worked at. My personal thought is, if the person could do the job, I would hire them. But Amanda brought up a point that in a retail environment that doesn't always work because you want who will make the customer feel comfortable around- which, yes, I get. But that's retail. She also brought up that a prison isn't likely to hire a skinny girl as a guard because big guys could beat the shit out her. But then again if said skinny girl holds a black belt in some martial art and knows how to defend herself, she might just be the person for the job. Anyway, those are just my thoughts. 

Lastly, I've had to restart my computer to see if that would help the issue I am having with my printer. Some times it doesn't recognize that they are connected. I unplugged the printer just for good measure and am going to try again for the few things I need to print off. Tomorrow, I need to address some issues with my friend's kettle corn website and see what I can do to fix it. I also have to read about dialectical behavior therapy- something my therapist wants me to look at before Friday. 

As promised- new doctor and birthday weekend.

Nene Thomas art statue

I'll begin with the new doctor. For one, he's from England and really nice. Two, he doesn't want me to cast any spells on him to make him lose his accent because that's all he has going for him, he says, and he really doesn't want a Texas accent. This was because I was wearing my Slytherin cardigan to my first visit with him. Three, he doesn't want it to get out that he's a bit of a nerd because he has a reputation to keep. We get along pretty well and so far, he's actually listening to me and working to help me get to where I want to be. 

The very first thing he wanted to do was run all of my labs, including allergies. Everything looks good except triglycerides (a sort of easy fix although my Dad says he and my Grandma both deal with that and like them, my cholesterol is low). I am very allergic to a native grass around here, go figure. I love nature but nature doesn't love me. More tree and weed types showed up on the test as being "insignificant" but honestly if they are showing up they must have some element that irritates me. My peanut allergy showed up the same and he said I could try a little, see how I do and then maybe try a little more. Well. I tried peanut butter cup hoping I would be fine because I love peanut butter. I even turned on a movie so I wouldn't be paying attention, but I still got crazy itchy and worse, I had a horrible time sleeping that night. 

There were some things I already knew I was allergic to on the test as well, but a couple of new things showed up, of course as supposedly being insignificant but just how much or how little are they if they are showing up? How bad would they be if I were eating a lot of boxed and packaged processed foods instead of making a lot of stuff myself? A friend suggested I request going to an allergist for the scratch test and I am wondering if that really isn't a bad idea. 

Also, my doctor is taking me off a medication for the fibro because it makes people gain weight. My depression medication is one that is also prescribed for fibro and it apparently doesn't have the weight gain side effect, so he wants to up my milligrams on that. Then he's prescribed a weight loss drug that is supposed to boost what happens when you exercise but only for three months. Trouble is my insurance doesn't cover it and it is expensive even with the store discount. So, I've got to figure out what to do in that regard. Amanda is also thinking about getting us a planet fitness membership because they have massage chairs and hydrotherapy beds and she's hoping those will help me.

On to the birthday weekend. 

It was nice and quiet for the most part. Amanda and I were going to have a writing day but she decided that we were getting Starbucks, some food, and then we went to Wonders of the World and their bead shop. We bought some gemstones: rose quartz, pyrite, and a rainbow fluorite egg. I picked up two small packages of some incense I wanted to try by Nippon Kodo. And Amanda got me the statue pictured above. It was half off and beautiful and she kind of got to the counter when I wasn't looking. I didn't know about it until the sales clerk asked me which wings I liked better because they had another in the back that had a little more color to them.  

After talking to my Mom for a little bit in the parking lot we went to dinner. While on our way to the restaurant we noticed a lot of police cars zooming in the same direction. Sure enough, the very restaurant we were going to was cordoned off by the police and a SWAT time was there. Since there is a bar attached to the place, I didn't think too much of it and we didn't want to be looky loos and honestly, it's jst best to get the hell out of the way, so we went to another restaurant.  As it turned out there was a man in the parking lot with a machete basically trying to get the cops to shoot him. But they talked him "down" enough to get him to drop the weapon and they arrested him and I suppose got him some help.

On my actual birthday we had dinner a quiet dinner at home with Amanda's parents and cake. 

I've been very spoiled this year. Of my presents, the house got a new kitchen stove, I got a few more pieces to a collection of dishes I am collecting, I got a beautiful letter done in calligraphy, fox and raccoon plushies, an electric blanket the cats confiscated, new silverware, soot sprite cake pops made by a friend, a pretty little metal plaque, tons of wonderful birthday wishes, a book, and some stationary.

In the more present news, I am just about better. I still have a tiny cough and occasionally have to blow my nose, but feel much better. I'm cold today, but not as cold. Amanda decided to try going to work today, but since I was still half asleep when she left, I wasn't able to really see her. 

So much news, sick, flashing lights on my street.

Our house is situated near a fire station to west and police station to the east. We also live on a relatively busy street. There's almost constant traffic and we often see and hear emergency vehicles speeding passed daily, but we don't really mind. But this morning six emergency vehicles zoomed passed and I looked up a news source to find out what the hell was going on. Turns out someone was getting evicted from their home about 4 blocks away and there were shots fired. I don't know if they fired at someone or if the police fired at them, but not long after an ambulance sped passed our house heading the other direction. 

We also had a homeless man walk up to Amanda, startling her, asking for food. She was so frazzled that she couldn't figure out exactly what to give him. She gave him hard boiled eggs. But that was Saturday.

Today, after a night of coughing, crap sleep, and bizarre cat stuff along with some other tidbits, my shit-tolerance level is at zero. I'm also going to try to keep this as short as possible.

Post a lot of frustration, some tears, and internal struggle, I decided that it was in my best interest to quit the Wiccan Seminary I'd been going to. I'd with a couple of lessons, struggled with some structural and organizational elements, and the time I was spending on all of it. Worse, when I tried to not go to as much so I could spend more time with Amanda and do other things, I only felt guilty for not doing school stuff and couldn't enjoy anything else. I even felt guilty for not doing school related stuff on my birthday. That's unacceptable. Granted the guilt part is on me and that's something I fight with all the time, but I don't need one more thing to feel near crippling guilt over. 

Then one morning, at devotional, I was listening to the Charge of the Goddess and had a moment where I was swept up by a surge of "what the fuck am I doing? I'm wasting my time doing this instead of what I set out for myself to do this year". That's when everything exploded in my head. It took me several days of wrestling with my feelings, consideration, and a lot of discussion with Amanda before I emailed enrollment to withdraw. I thought, I can always go back. I can always hop on the sim for events put on by the school, even if I feel like an awkward outsider about it (again, that last part's most likely on me).  

Today, I'm not sure I want to return. I got online to check my school e-mail to see if I had any response or messages and I also wanted to check to see if I the work in my classes had been graded so I at least knew what I got. Only I couldn't and I'm a little pissed about it. It took my instructors sometimes several days to get back to me on homework questions, the dean a almost two weeks to answer a question, my supervisor for the scholarship work two weeks to get back to me about a concern and I didn't really fuss. As in, I only fussed to Amanda and a friend and not even that much, because I understand that people are busy and have lives. However, I send in an intention to withdraw on Friday and by Monday I am shut out cold. WOW, that's rude. I can still access my e-mail from SNHU and I graduated in 2016. Again, this is frustrating because there were things that I was enjoying. 

So, now that I have the majority of my days back, what am I going to do with them? Well, what I should have been doing. Unpacking and cleaning my house, writing, and exercising. I recently changed doctors again but I will talk about the outcome of that in my next post. I'll talk about my birthday weekend as well.

Other than that, I've been sick with something. I tried a nasal sinus rinse and a different cold medicine, both picked up from the health food store down the road. Those combined with tea have helped a lot. I'm still a little icky, but not nearly as bad I was. So yay there! 

Oh and my Mom and her older sister seem to still be doing well.