Small Health Update

I saw my kidney doctor on Monday, and asked if I should be considering getting a booster shot of the vaccine, since I got the Johnson and Johnson single shot version on April 6th. He said not to worry about it yet, but keep paying attention to the news and, "if you don't trust the news you can call my office and ask."

He then noted that a number of his patients have refused the vaccine. Remember, these are people with kidney failure. He said three of his patients have caught COVID and ended up in the hospital. One had been vaccinated, and the case was mild. The other two had not been vaccinated. Both of them died.

This is anecdotal evidence, and I'm telling it to you second-hand, which means I may have gotten the facts slightly wrong. But even so, I saw the sadness in his eyes as he spoke and can't forget it. No doctor wants to lose a patient. Especially like that to something that - at that point - was preventable.

Pokemon Go and Cameraphone Zen

You may have noticed that I've been posting images in the last week that I simply label "Cameraphone Zen". The original concept of my Cameraphone Zen is just a slightly interesting image that I saw while out walking or being out in the world that I caught with my phone. My first phone didn't have a camera, so having a camera and being able to take photos with my phone was cool. As a result, most of my Cameraphone Zen in the past has involved me being out for exercise - a nice walk or something.

This past week I started playing Pokemon Go with my new phone, which I got on August 28th. There was a slight kerfuffle figuring out that GSM coverage really sucks in this area, so I switched to a CDMA card that Ting thoughtfully sent with the phone and the GSM card and I have excellent coverage now. Ahem. Anyway, I'm playing Pokemon Go and walking at least a half mile almost every day because the obsession with the game is nicely motivating.

The phone on the left is my new Moto G6, on the right is my faithful old LG.

The Cameraphone Zen photos I have posted so far this year each represent about a half-mile walk. I am proud of getting out and walking, since I was despairing of ever getting the motivation to go out again. I don't know yet if I'll be able to lose weight with Pokemon Go, but I needed something to get me out and walking, and this game has definitely worked that way. It's not even that I "gotta catch 'em all", it's that I'm having fun cursing the ones that get away and visiting the various Pokestops around town, most of which are at statues or memorials or churches.

So, my new phone is basically my new personal trainer, insisting I get more Pokemon and Pokeballs and stuff. It's kind of crazy if you think of it that way, but hey, whatever works to get me moving!

In addition to Pokemon, I'm also getting LOTS of photos of Inkwell, who cannot avoid me having a camera I'm happy to use (the LG's camera was difficult to use). I have been posting them to Facebook, but at some point I'll make a nice compilation post of Inkwell for folks to enjoy here, as well.

Air Quality

Thanks to fires north and south of us, the air quality in the Yakima Valley has been a bit dicey over the last couple of weeks. I have an air purifier that's been running non-stop, and the air conditioner itself helps with some of it. That said, I've been trying to figure out ways to determine how bad the air actually is, because my body has been over-reacting to it.

So the rest of this post is partly just for me... to remind me what I've learned so far.

Heat!

Living out in the middle of an irrigated desert isn't too bad. We have city water that comes from wells drilled into the aquifer, irrigation water that comes from the mountains, and this lovely invention called "air conditioning" which allows our houses to be out in the open and yet still be habitable.

And all goes well until one of the technological supports fails.

Like yesterday morning, when I noticed it was getting increasingly warm in my room. I checked the temperature, and sure enough, it was rising slowly. Then I checked the air vents... uh oh. The air coming out was about the same temperature as the air in the room. Which meant the AC was broken.

I quickly moved my work space downstairs. I had too much to do to be delayed by heat. Then I suggested to hubby-Eric that we call the AC service. He was temporarily hesitant - money flow issues - but agreed when I noted that there was a really good chance they wouldn't be out right away, and getting a call in sooner would be better.

I was right, for once, as my first attempt to call resulted in a busy signal. My second attempt resulted in them scheduling an appointment for today, because they were all booked up for Monday.

So the only thing remaining was to survive THE HOTTEST DAY OF THE YEAR SO FAR with no air conditioning.

No joke, we had an excessive heat warning yesterday. And yes, the outside temps got to 106F (41C) according to our thermometer.

I worked in the living room, getting through as much of my stories as I could manage in a slowly heating house. We usually have the temp at 75F (24C) in the summer, and that's tolerable. I noticed that it was getting hotter about the time the gauge hit 79F (26C) upstairs. Eric made us a nice cool lunch (sandwiches) and we avoided using anything that might increase the heat of the house. Inkwell reveled in the comfortable warmth, although he drank a LOT more water than usual.

The temps were about 86F (30C) and I was unable to think clearly at about 5 p.m. I had already decided to go out to the town next door to get a story, and Eric decided that he would go with me. I'd go do my photos and interviews and then we'd visit a restaurant I'd been wanting to visit for a few years, but just hadn't had the opportunity.

We left the house just before 6 p.m., after feeding Inkwell and making sure he had extra water, just in case. He seemed amused, and stretched out on the carpet. I think he genuinely liked the heat.

Getting to the fairgrounds just after 6 p.m., I wandered around to get my photos and story and chatted with people and ended up in the wonderfully cool main office (oh, AC, how we missed you!). They gave us ice water. I love fair and rodeo people. They know how to take care of you. Then Eric and I headed to Eli and Kathy's restaurant. Again, wonderful wonderful AC in the store. It was the first time I'd been in the place, but I'd heard plenty of good reviews. It was a standard burger joint, with lots of shakes (Eric got a cherry shake, I got a chocolate peanut butter shake) and BIG portions.

After a decent meal, we got a banana split to share. It was HUGE. We weren't in any particular hurry to get home, so we took our time. My only complaint about the restaurant is that the booths were too small for me to sit really comfortably. There were some tables with pull out chairs, and in retrospect I wish I'd picked those to sit in.

We headed home after dinner. I fully intended to write up my story last night, but I was stuffed and overheated. Once in the house, I opened all the upstairs windows and we prepped the hide-a-bed downstairs to sleep in, since upstairs was just way too hot. About 8 p.m. I found myself unable to stay awake. It was 90F (32C) in the house and a couple of degrees warmer outside. I just opened all the windows and collapsed onto the hide-a-bed in a sweat.

Eric moved the floor fan to aim it at the hide-a-bed, and connected it up to one of the outlets controlled by a light switch. As it turned out, this was useful. very early in the morning it finally cooled down enough that I had to turn the fan off.

The house was blessedly cool in the morning, only 70F (21C) and I closed the windows facing the sunrise. I had breakfast and wrote my story from last night, then closed the rest of the windows because it was already 80F (27C) outside and getting warmer. The service tech for the AC arrived when the inside temps were just getting up to 80F.

The AC had a broken capacitor. Apparently a LOT of capacitors on ACs in town have been going out due to the recent heatwaves (we've had temps of just over 100F (38C) for a few weeks). Within minutes of replacing the part, the house started to cool down.

I ended up having to take a nap to make up for lost sleep due to the heat, but overall it was a painless experience. The house only got up to about 90F inside, which isn't too bad, and we made it through the night. Inkwell seemed unbothered by the heat, but then he's a cat. I haven't finished the work I intended to do, because I'm still recovering brain cells (I figured writing this all out would help the process) but otherwise I think I'm fine.

Yeah, it's not too bad, living in an irrigated desert. Not too bad.

The Bees Knees!

I have a knee problem. I have had it for a long, long time. When I lost a lot of weight, it went away for awhile, but it decided this past week to come back with a vengeance.

The way it was described to me back when it first cropped up was fairly simplistic. No doubt the doctor tried to put it in terms I could understand. The way he explained it to me was that I have slightly unusual kneecaps. My kneecaps have an annoying tendency to not want to stay in the "groove" they are meant to be in. Which just means they float around a bit more than more people's kneecaps.

The results are varied. Most of the time I don't notice it, except I can hear the cartilage scraping a little when I climb stairs. That's not even all that unusual, I gather.

Sometimes a knee will do what one of my knees is doing right now: Screaming in agony. The bone and cartilage are pushing up against nerve endings (again, vastly simplified) and causing me immense and ongoing pain. In order to correct the pain, I just have to keep flexing the knee on a regular basis until it stops pushing whatever nerves it's found and starts to act normal again.

The worst, however, is when the nerves decide to send an incorrect signal. Again, something is pushing against them, or not pushing when it ought to be, and the nerve endings say, "Oh, wow, the lower leg has disappeared, we'd better tell the brain!" and send a message up to my brain which replies, "What's that? No lower leg? Oh crap! EMERGENCY STOP!" and I fall over. This usually happens while I'm walking. And those messages are sent instantly, in milliseconds, without my knowledge, so I have NO idea it's going to happen until I'm literally on the ground thinking, "What the heck???"

What all this means is that I have to walk with a cane when I'm having knee issues. It's not that I need the cane to walk. In fact, most of the time I'm fine without it. But if I go out without it and my brain sends that emergency stop signal, I'm going to be on the ground. And I'm getting to the age when falling is much more serious than just "oopsy!"

All of which is just to say, I really really hurt right now and I'm annoyed because for the next couple of weeks I probably should keep my cane with me and I hate having to haul it around. I really hate when people tell me I'm walking fine and I shouldn't be using a cane since I clearly don't need it. Argh!

Yeah, oh well. I got it lucky. At least I can walk.

Some Links (Linkdump!)

I'm going to start today with curses and damnation at the NRA for turning into a gun-selling organization bent on preventing all reasonable gun laws. I also urge everyone who reports on the shooting in Santa Fe to NOT repeat the murderer's name. He should have a nickname, like Stupidface Murderscum. His true name should be forgotten.

Ok, let's get on with less painful stuff...

One of the truly horrible things about chronic pain is that most of the time no one can do a thing about it, so why would you want to burden someone with your hurt? This society requires us to nicely ask after other people's pain, but doesn't provide guidance on what to do once you know someone is hurting. So those of us who literally hurt ALL THE TIME tend to stop telling the truth about our pain after awhile because it just stresses out our loved ones and bores everyone else.

Now, anxiety is pretty bad too, but this woman came up with a list of helpful actions when her boyfriend asked what he could do. I particularly identify with 1, 8 and 9.

Next:

I'm reminded of the Checklist of Early Warning Signs of Fascism. It appears we can, as a nation, check off most of these. Fortunately, some people are still being ostracized for being racist scum, even if the racist scum-in-chief is being protected by the GOP.

And lastly, for the day, here's How Mueller's First Year Compares to Watergate, Iran-Contra and Whitewater. I want Mueller to finish this investigation as thoroughly as possible. I want everything he presents to be watertight. If he somehow concludes that Deadbeat Don is not guilty, I will accept that. But I want every guilty party punished to the full extent of the law. I also truly believe that anyone currently calling for the investigation to conclude prematurely is probably either guilty of collusion or essentially a traitor to the idea and standards of the United States of America.

Trying to recover

My writing lately has been limited to tweets and FB posts, along with the occasional attempts at a writing sample for job applications. It wasn't working.

I decided to try something new, just to get my brain in gear. I've set my alarm so I will get up at the same time every day, and my plan is to write first-thing each morning. This morning I got through part of a fictional story, something I wanted to write that's been banging around in my head. It's not good, it's not even passable, but it's writing. Tomorrow I hope to finish it, then maybe I'll try to edit it. Or I'll start another story. But the goal is to structure my days again, and get back to "normal". I've been letting the anxiety and nightmares rule me for too long.

I don't know if this will work, but I've got to try. I'm sick of being sick.

Some Links

I hope Carrie Fisher fully recovers. She has no idea how many fans echoed her heart attack when they heard about it.

The thing about this story that makes me very curious is why the letters are sent to that particular address in the first place.

Yes Virginia, there is a Spider-Man.

Here's a gingerbread creation I can get behind. I want a C64!

I was delighted to hear a great story about my hometown police department:

"Adrian and I were driving on Lincoln Ave. Towards Wal-Mart when I saw a police car with 2 officers and they were talking to a lady and her little (maybe 3 year old) daughter I thought something must have happened...Well it did in front of my eyes I witnessed these 2 policemen handing the little girl a wrapped present from the trunk of the car...I was almost in tears and I gave the officer a thumbs UP and a Honk of approval and he waved back . It made my Christmas seeing this Act of Kindness in my Town !" -Betty Lynn Garza on Facebook

I love this video that sets two pug puppies against a mostly indifferent kitten. The fact that the puppies aren't sure whether they should be playing with each other or trying to get out amuses me.


I still haven't been able to wrest control of my Twitter account from Inkwell. At least he is still allowing the blog posts to go through.

A new vaccine developed to protect against ebola was apparently 100% effective in a trial during a live outbreak. If that's really the case, it would be an amazing success. A total of 5,837 people were given the vaccine. Two people had serious side effects (including an allergic reaction) while many others had general soreness. The World Health Organization has a good summary of the results. While the vaccine only protects against one strain of ebola, it's a good start and the trial is definitely promising.

Author David Brin answers the question "Is Government Useless".

Question: If you are pro-life, are you for preventing unwanted pregnancies, or are you for punishing people who have unwanted pregnancies? Because there are many ways to reduce abortion that don't involve making it illegal and punishing people who are in desperate situations - but the pro-life movement rejects them all. Which suggests to me that the movement isn't about preventing abortion as much as it is about punishing people who have sex.

Ug.

I shouldn't have promised myself I would post something every day...

Reflecting on the Past

The recent political revelation has led to a lot of attention on the issue of sexual assault. There is a NPR story about a tweet that launched a million women remembering the first time they were assaulted.

I cannot remember the first time. I remember a number of times, mostly petty and small, where a boy rubbed up against me or put his hand where it wasn't wanted. Most events happened when I was in grade school, mostly guys that literally didn't know any better. I didn't either. It wasn't until I was in college that sexual harassment became something people talked about - and it took people awhile to figure out what was normal and what was actually something that could be considered actionable.

David Gerrold has a disturbing Facebook post about learning that virtually all women have a story about unwanted contact.

I've been having nightmares the last few days, remembering things I'd worked hard to forget. I've never been raped. In fact, until recently I would have said the things done to me weren't enough to worry about. But if that's the case, why am I having constant nightmares about them every time I try to fall asleep?

I don't blame the boys. I blame our society. I blame every person who thinks that sort of rhetoric is acceptable "locker room talk". It isn't. It's discussion of sexual assault. Whether or not the "men" who talk that way act on those words, they are enabling rape and assault by allowing that talk and claiming it's normal. And, frankly, if you are inclined to defend those words, I don't want to know you. I don't want to hear from you. I don't want anything to do with you. As a society, we know better now. We are better.

Inkwell left me a present...

Apparently, I haven't been paying close enough attention to him, as he managed to throw up in the front window sill without me noticing. I'm not sure how long ago it happened, as I don't open the front window unless I absolutely have to. In addition, I'd built up a "cat castle" in front of the window, making it a safe space for him to get away from humans.

Well, he took advantage of it.

I just spent the last half hour scrubbing the area and vacuuming up the remaining chunks. It looks to me like it was a dinner, so it probably happened in the middle of the night sometime. It was dried enough that cleaning it wasn't too bad, it just required some scrubbing.

I have been in a major depression with some anxiety attacks for the past few months. It's been bad enough that I've been trying to stay inside and away from people. I'm going to have to break out of it soon. It's not a comfortable way to live. As a meme on Facebook said, "Depression is when you don't really care about anything. Anxiety is when you care too much about everything. And having both is just like hell."

In lieu of forcing myself to be creative, here's a summary of some of my recent Facebook posts - stuff that I found interesting enough to share.

Andy Borowitz again hits one out of the park with Nation with Crumbling Bridges and Roads Excited to Build Giant Wall. Infrastructure, infrastructure, infrastructure. We need leadership that will rebuild our infrastructure, not make stupid promises about walls on our borders.

U.S. Doctors Call for Universal Health Care. A single-payer system is the only moral system. Companies that profit from denying care, which includes most health insurance companies and many pharmaceutical companies, are basically evil. If the goal is increasing shareholder profits and not saving lives, then the companies should go away. Forever.

CharityWatch ranks lots of charities, including The Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Foundation. Note the extremely low overhead of the Clinton Foundation, at only 12%. The charity gets an "A" rating because most of its money goes to help people. The numbers being used by conservative critics are not false... they simply count everything that isn't a grant as overhead. Since the Clinton Foundation assists people using other methods besides grants, the critics' numbers are misleading and basically a giant lie.

When we lived in Frankenhaus, one of the biggest problems we ran into was keeping the blackberries under control. Well, we have Luther Burbank to blame. I've spent many days at Luther Burbank Park, so I was a little surprised to read the history of the man. Kind of strikingly eye-opening, and not in a good way.

I quite liked this tweet:

So Sarkozy calls the burkini a 'provocation.' Whether women cover or uncover their bodies, seems we're always, always 'asking for it.'

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) August 25, 2016

In case you don't know the backstory, several seaside towns in France banned the "burkini", a full body covering suit that allows Muslim or similarly shy women to go to the beach without exposing themselves. At one beach, a woman wearing one was forced to strip by police. That's right. Police forced a woman being modest at the beach to strip. The French Supreme Court banned the laws, but they are apparently still being enforced and a disturbing percent of the population is just fine with it. On the one hand, I'm kind of relieved that another country is outdoing America for sheer stupidity, but on the other hand, really, France? Really?

Women can't win.

New DeLoreans are being built with original parts. These will reportedly have a much better engine. I'm just going to take the opportunity to note that I got to ride in a DeLorean on Back to the Future Day, something that will stay with me for the rest of my life.

On a very light note, the entire British Olympics team had an unfortunate airport problem. Oops.

I don't know if you'll be able to see this if you don't have Facebook, sorry, but Dee Snider did an acoustic version of "We're Not Gonna Take It" that is just amazing and done for all the right reasons. I'm going to try to embed the YouTube version:


Moving on, Phil Plait got really excited about a new astronomical discovery. What does it mean, practically? Not a lot for the average person, but it expands and changes our knowledge and potential understanding of the universe.

A teenager in Montreal showed himself to be a true man by calmly saving a woman from a kidnapper. If that story doesn't bring happiness to your heart, you're probably dead.

A post by a Fort Worth mother of a note from her child's teacher has gone viral. Basically, the teacher was informing parents that the children would not be assigned any homework - only work they didn't finish in class - and urged parents to do evening activities with their children that are proven to correlate with student success. Activities like reading together, eating as a family, playing outside and getting to bed on time. My response is positive. I didn't do homework. I always asked myself if I could pass it if it were on a test. If the answer was yes, I ignored any homework assignments. If the answer was no, I went to the teacher to get it fully explained to me so I could pass it on a test. Homework never figured into my understanding. It was all just busy work. Pointless and useless. If I understood it, why would I want to waste time and energy doing another 50 problems? If I didn't understand it, I couldn't see how struggling through 50 problems would help me in any way.

If you haven't read the Hugo-winning Short Story "Cat Pictures Please", go check it out now. It makes me want to take photos of Inkwell and post them. If only I weren't so upset at him at the moment for his present he left in the windowsill...

Evening Thoughts

I fell yesterday afternoon. It was after 4 p.m. and Eric was just getting home. I was headed toward the staircase, for what reason I do not remember clearly. I tripped, possibly on my own feet, and hit the ground before my brain had registered that I was falling. My left knee and right arm hit first, I think, followed quickly by my face (the right side) and the rest of me. Based on the pattern of pain, the left knee and right shoulder took the brunt of the fall. My right arm was wrenched, and my elbow is sore. My left knee has an impressive bruise starting to develop. The knee itself feels like I twisted it a bit... not too much, but enough to cause pain. I was sure I would get a fat lip or black eye out of it, but my face hasn't swollen at all.

For almost a minute after I fell, I couldn't think or move. Eric came in the house, and I tried to call him. He heard something, because a moment later he was trying to help me. I don't believe I lost consciousness, but I really hurt myself. Inkwell was even worried about me. It took several minutes before I was able to get up, and then I downed some painkiller, which seemed to work to keep me from moaning the remainder of the night.

Today I've been hobbling around, trying not to go back to bed and sleep it off. I wanted to get things done, but somehow got caught up in watching a stream of the Eurovision contest (that is one bizarre thing). I suppose resting and Eurovision were just the thing...

So, Eurovision. The winning song was "1944" from the Ukraine. It's about the deportation of the Crimean Tatars in by the Soviets in the 1940s, and might have been a little too political for the contest. But it was allowed anyway, and beat Australia in a nail-biter of a final. Personally, I really liked the guys from Cyprus. The Russian song was just okay, but the graphics and performance were fairly mind-bending, and in my case stomach-churning.

However, the absolute best thing in the contest was "Love Love Peace Peace" by the hosts:

Ok, how about some other links?

I've been thinking about my tendency to drop the opening pronoun of sentences, and thought it might be a side-effect from learning Spanish. This article argues it's just the natural progression of language.

I need to reread this article about identity, because my first reading couldn't have possibly gotten all the nuance out of it. The article calls on Miss Marple to explain some of the ways identity has changed.

How many of these seven books that will probably never be printed again have you read?

Boing Boing has a 360 degree video of a tornado. You can actually drag the video around with your mouse to see all around the car and see what's happening in front or behind them as they storm-chase. Amazingly, at one point the chasers jump out of their vehicles to take photos. It's a testament to the insanity of the human race.

Ever heard of a mail-order home? Altas Obscura shares a tale from Reddit of one. Really cool... and some of the Reddit comments are impressive too.

If any man tries to, ever, make me wear high heeled shoes, I will beat him over the head with said shoes. I do NOT wear them, and will not wear them. Ever. Period. End of story. That said, a woman was dismissed from a job because she refused to go out and buy high heeled shoes to wear. That's prompted a bit of a backlash, including a petition to parliament. More at MeFi.

I suddenly have even less desire to fly the unfriendly skies. Apparently the TSA is even worse than it had been, which is impressive, honestly.

If anyone bothered to read my fiction piece on Friday, do you want more, or should I stick with non-fiction?

* * *
A comic con has shot itself in the foot, rather dramatically. Thanks to the magic of screencapping, the whole thing can be read even though the convention took down the post. In short, the official convention Facebook page complained about cosplayers wanting a free ride to the con with a goofy little post showing off a pretend conversation between a cosplayer and the convention. While I absolutely agree with the convention that no one at all should expect a free ride to a con, the message is a teeny-tiny bit unprofessional. Still, not the end of the world, right?

Wrong.

When people complained, the convention doubled-down: instead of apologizing for a post that offended some of their audience, they made things worse, calling some cosplayers "hot chicks in almost no clothes", "over sexual models" and "boob models". The organizer who is posting, who identifies himself as "Jim", also makes the claim that professional cosplayers aren't even fans of the people they are dressed as... in other words, he played the fake-geek-girl card.

Throughout it all, he's completely oblivious why his statements about some portion of cosplayers might possibly be offensive to the cosplayer community at large. Then he even claims he never called anyone names - forgetting his earlier "hot chicks" and "models" comments, apparently.

Jim also decides he's the one who gets to determine which cosplay is "real", saying the people he's deriding aren't real cosplayers, so no one should be offended. *facepalm* Seriously dude? You are going to man-splain cosplay to people? Really?

This naturally made a few people look closer at the convention, and guess what they found? A guest was announced before she had a contract with them... if they'd asked at all. This is a serious no-no in con circles. Conventions who do it cannot be trusted. It's one thing to have a contract then have a guest cancel. It's quite another to promote your con with a guest who hasn't yet been signed.

I hate to see any convention go up in smoke, particularly over something as stupid as a social media blunder. Hopefully the guest announcement was just miscommunication as well. But not matter the cause, this con has some work to do before their actual event to earn back goodwill... and if they don't try, then it's pretty clear they deserve whatever negativity they get.

And to all the con-runners out there: Social Media is a minefield. Do NOT post jokes that insult anyone on them. Someone will always be offended. Always. Just don't. You are a business, play it safe. If you have to rant, get a personal page. And, should you find yourself in a hole, stop digging. Apologize for causing offense and learn from the experience; don't defend your actions because you will continue to insult people.

Whew... I'm going to watch Peace Peace Love Love again to cheer up after that rant...

Social Anxiety

It's becoming clear to me that I was able to use my job as a crutch to get around my social anxiety. I was able to shunt all the anxiety over to blaming it on my job, saying to myself the reason people are looking at you funny is because you are a reporter. This worked. I was able to not feel the terror of being out and dealing with people because I could justify all the fears and panic and everything and somehow put it on my role instead of on me.

Since leaving the job, I've become a hermit. Except for a trip to Seattle last weekend, I've spent most of my days looking for writing work that will keep me away from other people. It's probably not healthy, and I wouldn't recognize that except for the last four years, eight months that I spent working in a job that kept me out in the community and busy.

I realized that, yeah, I probably do suffer from social anxiety when I spotted a clickbait article online about Illustrations that Perfectly Capture Anxiety. The first one struck me as so *me*... and I had a strong reaction to it. It was a massive and painful gut punch. Then I read the other comics and realized almost all of them matched what I've been feeling. Most of them not quite as strong as the first, but all of them matched.

What I was having at work the last few weeks before I got booted was panic attacks. I called them anxiety attacks because they didn't paralyze me completely. But they were pretty bad. I guess it was a case of not being able to stay, but leaving wasn't the best for me either. I don't know if I can put myself into that sort of a situation again, but I'm not sure what I'll do if I stay at home writing. I need to be out in the community, but I hate being out and involved. It terrifies me.

Now I have to figure out how to move forward, and that's the hardest thing of all.

All I really know for sure is that I want to write. That's the thing that brings me joy. Everything else is secondary.

Thursday afternoon Linkdump

Well, crud. A frozen vegetable recall due to possible listeria contamination has expanded and now includes all the veggies we get from Costco, including one bag that's half eaten. Ug.

Syrian refugees in Canada have very little, but what little they have they are giving to help people affected by the massive wildfires. Via MeFi.

One thing I hated about importing some of my music into Amazon's music app is that, if it thought it knew what song it was, it would replace my music with a "higher quality" version. Because computer algorithms are imperfect, I would sometimes either get a different version of the song or, in one case, a completely different song. An example would be a live duet version of a song replaced by the more popular single singer version that I didn't like as much. Well, at least Amazon didn't delete my original songs. Apparently, Apple Music deletes original song files when you import them into it. Yikes. That's some serious damage to many people's music collections.

Supergirl is in danger of not being renewed, mostly due to the cost to make the show. I really enjoyed the first season, despite some clunky writing and plots. The cast is terrific and I want to see more of it.

How about some ghost stories? Here's a tale of ghosts on a plane. I'm not sure whether to believe the tales or not, but they are fascinating. I'm moderately sure I would freak out if I experienced something like this, seeing as I already have massive anxiety attacks on planes. The last time I flew, from San Diego to Seattle, I needed some serious help to stay calm. I'm not entirely sure I could force myself onto a plane again if there is any other option for getting to where I'm going.

Another interesting story I read today is about two women who just wanted to live without men in a time when women weren't really allowed to do that. But they managed their happily ever after despite the forces around them (and despite being a bit silly with finances).

Trying to trick drivers with an optical illusion might work for a bit, but it generally wears off once drivers figure out what they are.

A woman paints an octopus using 95 million-year-old octopus ink (Google Translate version). Original article in Norwegian. Via MeFi

This story doesn't comfort me regarding medical procedures in our high-tech world. I'm just wondering why the software was set up to do a scan at that point in time.

Every single authority figure failed this child who lost out on her lunch and was accused of a crime for trying to spend a legal $2 bill. The fact that the cop had to go to a bank to figure out it was real shows such ignorance I can hardly stand it. My former boss at Math 'n' Stuff used to get $2 bills on purpose from the bank to hand out as change. I swear I'm going to start getting them myself and spending them everywhere to raise awareness that they exist and are legal tender.

Augie reports that some Marx Brother Movies have been restored, including cut footage. I think I wouldn't mind seeing one of these all cleaned up... movie night!

If I had more money, I'd definitely be supporting a bunch of people on Patreon. One I'd support is Otis Frampton, creator of Oddly Normal. Unfortunately, I'm worse-than-poor at the moment (cash flow is good right now, but soon to be a right mess). So the best I can do is pass this along and hope someone else supports him until Eric and I get our feet back under us.

People who are thinking about trying to break into writing for comics could do worse than looking into this DC Writers Workshop. I am considering applying, although I suspect I a) do not qualify and b) wouldn't be able to afford the trip if I got accepted. Folks have until the end of the month to enter.

Here I Go A-Gathering Links...

My friend Lou Anders has had a short story published in Boys Life. I used to steal my brother's Boys Life magazines and read all the fiction and cartoons before he even got a chance to glance at them. I still want to read the entire comic adaptation of the Tripods trilogy... I never saw the whole thing.

Ancient footprints are already pretty cool artifacts, but now they are even cooler since professional trackers have been brought in to make sense of them. I love this type of history story... looking at a problem from a different, yet totally obvious, direction.

How about a tale of a very long-running experiment? I've heard of some experiments that have been going for many years, but this is a bit of a surprise. Seeds in bottles, buried in an effort to see how long the seeds would last.

So, Free Comic Book Day is coming. Here's some sneak peeks of Doctor Who comics. I need to figure out what comics we already ordered from DCBS so I know which ones to get when Eric and I go to the store next week.

I stayed up until 2 a.m. reading a book the other night/morning. I haven't done that for ages because I've been too responsible to risk being dead at work, for all the good it did me. But I really enjoyed the book and will be writing about it soon, probably not for tomorrow's reviews, but maybe next Sunday. It was Castle Hangnail by Ursula Vernon, and I strongly recommend it for any young woman, ages 8-18, who isn't very princess-y or girly and likes snakes and slugs and dirt and work. It's very good.

David Gerrold has a post about Hugo asterisks. I just want to say, the asterisks were there the instant the puppies gamed the Hugos. Putting them into physical form didn't make it any worse, since the damage was already done. On the contrary, the asterisks let some of us have a physical memento of their first time voting in the Hugos (me!) and raised money for a worthy cause. The people who were hurt by the asterisks deserved to be hurt because they are the ones who put the asterisk there in the first place by gaming the Hugo nominations. The fact that they still don't get it only proves the point. And it still amazes me that they are stupid enough to think that people gamed the Hugos before they did. The utter willful ignorance of the puppies is astounding.

Below the fold, depressing stories...

Ug

The cold has hit full force. I'm barely able to see the screen because my eyes hurt, and I can barely breathe. I'm going to try to sleep. Goodnight.

I'm still trying to remember where I put all my links...

So this isn't going to be much of a linkdump. I'll remember how to do it eventually, I'm sure!

First, today was the first day I left the house since Monday. Eric took me out to lunch and then we hit the local Bi-Mart to check some prices. Yeah, not a huge trip, but enough to get me out and about. I thought Inkwell was relieved to see me finally go, but when we got back he was sleeping under my chair. Hrm.

I also chatted with my sister a bit. Since I am no longer constrained by my job, it might be possible for me to go see my family this week. That would be nice.

I got a strange call this morning from a number I didn't recognize, and it turns out there's a recall on some veggies we purchased at Costco. I checked the batches and figured out which ones are affected. We have two large bags of peas that are in the recall. I'll be taking them back to Costco some time this week, probably.

I was impressed by this story of how someone cannot visualize and wonder how many other people perceive the world differently than I do. I mean, does my orange actually correspond to what someone else is seeing as orange? But this is even deeper. This is a completely different way of thinking. How can a person not picture things in their mind?

Speaking of picturing things, I want to see this guy's version of Aquaman.

How about a little bit of Judi Dench and Benedict Cumberbatch? I love how, once Benedict gets up on stage, everyone in the audience seems to be recording it with their tablets and phones. Lovely. I also love how he's not really sure what he's supposed to be doing... he just goes with the flow and jumps off the stage at the end.

Judi Dench and Benedict Cumberbatch from Hay Festival on Vimeo.

Note: Yes, I know a new Doctor Who companion has been announced. I don't intend to talk about it much, since until I see the character in action (in more than just a teaser) I won't really know what to think. If I could have avoided the news, I would have. But those kind of spoilers are often impossible to get away from, sadly.

In more grim news, the story behind a well-known photograph, which might change your perception of the photo. Or it might not, hard to say.

750 Words

I've started using 750 Words again, and I'm going to try to keep my streak going. It was a little bit impossible when I was writing multiple stories for the newspaper every day to get myself to write for myself. I'm not sure why. For the last few days I've dabbled in some fiction ideas that have been floating in my head, including what I hope will be an MR James types horror tale... although as my first effort, it's bound to stink. But it's really fun to write for myself again.

It's still the morning, so I'm not sure why I'm blogging, except that I need to keep moving forward, and this is the way I move forward. I write.

Every day that goes by I realize how much the job was draining me and killing me, literally. I feel so much better now it's not even funny. The only problem is that now I have to worry about health insurance and money to get through the summer, which is a pain on every level. I'm fantasizing about winning the lottery or having someone pay off the mortgage, but as pleasant as those fantasies are, they don't help me solve the heart of the problem. I'll need to work out how to solve that before I go much further.

At least I'm getting some cleaning done around the house.

If I had the gumption, I'd go do a little grocery shopping today, too. But I'm feeling extremely hermit-y right now. Gotta go through my alone time. I needed this so badly I didn't realize how much I needed it. Time for myself. Time to be introverted.

I don't think I'm making much sense. That's ok. Hopefully when I go back to read this in a year or so, I'll understand where I was today and learn from it.

We have irrigation out here in this desert: that's how the local farmers grow hops and grapes and keep the cows watered. This is literally the land of beer, wine and milk. But it would be nothing but volcanic ash blowing through scrub brush if not for the water coming from the mountains. Everyone who lives in this area helps pay for the irrigation, whether they have access to it or not. The house Eric and I bought happens to have access to it, for our tiny lot.

The irrigation water comes from a box in the back yard. Originally, I thought it was just a regular concrete box with a pipe leading into it. You connect your hose to the pipe, turn on the water, and irrigate your yard. Easy-peasy. However, I think the box is actually made of metal, and last year I think some sort of critter burrowed into it, because the irrigation box filled with dirt. This is the best explanation I can come up with for why it filled with dirt, but I don't know for sure if I'm right.

All I know for sure is that we've had to dig out the pipe and the switch several times, and it's really annoying.

I tried to dig it out again this morning before watering the sunflowers, but I didn't get as far as I wanted to get. I feel like I took out a ton of dirt, but I only made a slight dent in the amount in the box. It's turned to mud, because the line from the pipe is leaking. That's not fun at all. When I reached one of the walls and tapped against it, it felt like it was buckled. I'm going to have to excavate it completely before I know for sure. I wish I could hire someone to come out here and put in a pipe and switch that are above ground so even if the box fills we can still use it, and so I don't have to bend over to turn it on.

Inkwell was extremely interested in the glove and the spade once I came back in the house, sniffing them thoroughly. He really wants to go out into the back yard. He really wants to get at the bees.

I had a window open yesterday, I think. Inkwell was next to the screen, staring at the yard, when he started barking and hitting the screen. I came over and discovered he was tracking a bee, which was clearly as interested in Inkwell as Inkwell was in it. Inkwell was going to rip off the screen to get at it, so I seized the cat and held him to calm him down. The bee took off, Inkwell complained about being held, and I decided to keep a slightly closer eye on the cat while he's in the windows.

Well, that's enough for the moment. I should get back to posting links and being my usual obnoxious self soon enough, I hope.

Not a Great Day for the Music World

I won't go into the obvious. It's all too depressing to think about.

Today I got a few things done, including reading and writing reviews for some comic books, taking care of the yard as much as I could, playing with the cat, and starting the search for a new job.

Yeah, I was going to wait until Monday, but I decided to get started today. There are a few local options that aren't completely horrible, but none that I really want to take. I found a couple of online writing mills, but again, nothing I'm particularly interested in. I'll look a bit deeper tomorrow, update my resume and start getting serious, I guess.

Other things I need to take care of include worrying about my health insurance status and possibly applying for food stamps. I hope we don't need food stamps, but if I don't find something fast, it might be wise to at least look into it again.

I also spent some of the day cleaning stuff up, washing the winter blankets to put them into storage, generally tidying the house. There's a lot I wasn't doing because I was sick and depressed from work. I hope to change that moving forward. I just hope I don't find another job that makes me sick and depressed.

Overall I'm not happy with how unprepared I was to be unemployed. I knew it was coming, but it was a helpless spiral and I was fighting so hard to try to actually be what I thought was wanted that I had no energy for anything else.

The best news is that I haven't had an anxiety attack since Monday. That's the longest I've gone without one in four months. Admittedly, they were pretty small at first, but they were getting worse every week. The Monday right before Emerald City Comicon was the worst one, with this Monday's being the second place finisher. Most of the others were less severe. I don't think I'm depressed right now, in the clinical sense. I'm a little sad about not having a job and worried about money, but that's not the same as depression.

In short, it's going to be alright, I think. I don't expect it to get wonderful right away, but I think I'm doing pretty good, under the circumstances. Now if only my fantasy billionaire would casually pay off our mortgage, life would get really cool... *grin*

Total Slob Day

I did nothing today.

It felt great.

Now, as the night closes in and hubby goes to bed, I'm thinking about all the things I really ought to start doing to start my new life. If I think too much, I get nervous. But hey, the daytime today was lovely.

Because I didn't really do anything, I don't have much to write about, which makes me wonder why I'm trying to blog. Except that I wanted to try to blog regularly now that I'm unemployed. Although, once I start job-hunting full time, I'm sure this won't be as fun either. I hate job-hunting.

I just wish some nice billionaire would pay off our mortgage, because then we could probably get by on Eric's salary alone. Not that it's fair to Eric for me to not be working when he is. But maybe I'd be able to finally start cleaning up the house and doing writing and research and... eh. It must be late at night for me to be fantasizing like this.

Inkwell is thoroughly confused by me. He seemed resigned when I took a shower this morning, expecting me to leave at any moment. When I didn't, he kept coming up to me and staring. Then he'd walk away, find a spot to watch me from, and stare some more. Every time I moved he got up as if ready to bid me good-bye, then seemed confused if I just went into the kitchen to grab a refill on my water bottle or just did a spot of cleaning.

I also moved my workstation down from the bedroom to the living room, to a spot I think will work better for my comfort levels. I spent a good part of the day with my legs up, which I haven't been able to do for awhile, and it really felt good.

I did text an ex-co-worker today to make sure a couple of things I had left undone will be taken care of. I didn't have to do it, but it would have been petty of me to not at least let someone know. There were a few other things I didn't have time to do that will just be left for someone else to figure out, if they ever do. I think I was far enough gone that mostly it doesn't matter to me anymore. But I still want my friends at the paper to succeed, regardless of how I feel about the fellow in charge.

Inkwell is now snoring contently in the chair next to me, and Eric has stopped making noises upstairs. I think I'll drink more water, play some Doctor Who Legacy, then head to bed when I'm too exhausted to continue.