It's is a very bad idea to listen to lyrics.
Dear Mary J Blige
What does a man buying a woman material things have to do with her falling in love with him and him treating her like a woman? Since when were love, identity, and sexuality for sale? Since when could they be bought with shoes and a bag?
Also wth is up "Now I only want to do what you tell me to." Like? What the hell? Who owns your sexuality here? Or is this more about a woman's place? Huh?
**feels ridiculous for having the music for going on 2 years now and only just having the lyrics pop out**
Ok. I'm gong to bed. I must have my head screwed on wrong. Cause I'm all "Shake down, I'm robbing you for your love, don't put up a fight." Just keeps making me go WHAT THE BLEEPING F*CK??.
So clearly it is not that the world is filled with messed up messages about human interaction and just that my brain's wired weird and somehow sleep will fix that. Or maybe just closing my eyes and being horizontal.
It's magic.
Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
 |
|
I feel mean, or rather I was feeling mean. When I heard about the newly married couple stranded in Germany because Expedia.com told them they wouldn't need visas for Russia; I couldn't help pondering Americans and international travel and lack of awareness. I just couldn't. I've been traveling since I was a baby and there's a hard edge of privilege there of 'How could you not double check that???!'. It's possibly also blended with "America is Not Rome!" and also "Are you a Commonwealth citizen? No. Is Russia a Commonwealth nation? No. Then WTF?"
But I felt much less mean when I heard that once the whole hullabaloo fermented, Expedia compounded matters by not switching their tickets over to any other destination, refusing them emergency visa assistance that was within their power to do and only paying a third of their overnight hotel stay while things were sorted out.
So many thoughts in my head, chief of which is 'always get a name'. It can be difficult to remember, I know, because for many things it won't much matter. But someone stating in an authoritative manner their expertise on a subject where you know nothing - demands writing down a name and the time and date of the call.
The other thought in my head the more I thought about things? Expedia's greed. Booking a flight to a country that requires a visa, without knowing whether or not the customers have the visa and then making that booking nonrefundable? That's not customer service. That's a con game.
Somehow or the other business practices have forgotten the concept of the repeat loyal customer and just go for "fleece 'em while they're standing still" as if the customer base is so huge, the market so big, that it doesn't matter how many people they piss off and cheat, there are more newbies waiting in the wings. This business practice seems even more irrational to me in this age of iPhone, Twitter, Facebook & Blogs. A company's name can get out there, and gain a disreputable notoriety in a matter of hours, given the right organized base. Who is actually big enough to withstand that? I mean if even Amazon went "Oh crap, we just shot ourselves in the foot with a lavender gun"; Can Expedia really afford to have twenty-somethings associating them with horrible trips, international abandonment & strandedness and mean officials who make brides cry?
Really?
That's their marketing plan?
ETA: My mother just mentioned how in countries outside of the US, one can't even get a ticket bought (to the US) without proof of a US Visa.
10 Comments | Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
Do. Not. Read. Boy's Love Fandom Thoughts On Rape In BL & Yaoi.
Just don't.
*shudders*
It's like a convention of Polanski fans.
( Memorable WTF Statements )
6 Comments | Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
 |
|
Haven't read all your comments, I am sure someone has pointed out that part of the reason the Japanese elements disappear is that the Japanese elements are seen, by a lot of those consuming the animan(ga/hwa/hua) as fantasy elements already; due to them seeing the characters as white.
So of course it's noteworthy when someone brings (back) the Japanese culture to fanworks. And of course they feel perfectly validated transferring the stories of the, in their minds, white characters to a (white) setting that is more comfortable and pleasing for them.
I just flat out do not read fanfic anymore, have cut it out of how I fan, because it tends to immediately drop the characters of colour into background flavour and/or erase the non white history of the piece completely.
Having intentionally thrown myself into anime this time around (as opposed to a more passive interaction as a child) I'm even more aware of how intentional the ignoring of the Japanese(and other Asian) cultures is; The Tale Of Gengii comes up as legend being quoted in other works via style or plot (sometimes even in the author notes). The various periods of Dynasty for each country in that region also come up - at least, in scanlations. I've observed that American English publishing rights via varied publishing houses, come with a white-washing and American culturalizing 'for a broader audience' or 'to make it more relevant' that neatly slots the Japanese culture that cannot be cut and Ameri-culture grafted on, into odd elements, leaving them to become aligned with whatever supernatural or fantastical elements also occur in the genre as a whole, if not in that specific work.
I've had it explained to me, that for the most part, voice work acting for dub is a chicken scratch industry where part of the Americanized voices is failure to act and part of it is bad direction in attempts to convey dialects and locality accents which ends up further giving the impression of whiteness; because of the underlying 'white is the default' alongside familiar Midwestern and East Coast, Surfer Californian & upper crust British accents. (And yes I know that a British accent doesn't automatically mean white. But I also know that Britain has more than one accent in the first place).
For my own part I've observed a difference in translation of intent in dialogue, such that character traits come across as American exceptionalism and NOT as traditional Japanese virtues. But I've done some reading lately that makes me think that while industry neglect or lack of talent and funds may well be a factor, a likelier or heavier factor is, again, intentional (and likely very much taking advantage of any neglect). Because anime and manga are brought to the US to be consumed, and marketers have determined and actually have a stake in perpetuating 'everyone in the world is just like the US, but with a few quirks'; because it makes things simple and the simpler a thing is, the more easily it can be consumed.
Thus essential Asianess, whether it is Japaneseness, Koreaness, Chineseness, and others, etc... is presented as similar to Midwesterness, East Coastness, Southerness etc... a geographic peculiarity with local legends and quirks that is essentially American.
This is not a new tactic. The British Empire thrived on this; women making saris into 'sari cloth' and having their very British dresses made from it. The spices of the region becoming a peculiarity of some British taste, vs it being the cooking hand of a completely different culture, etc. It is Colonialism plain and simple; though instead of the header 'We Will Make Them Just Like Us', it is put across as 'They Are Already Just Like Us'.
A Colonialism of the mind is much more palatable than occupation and enslavement of a native population. Let those thought of as 'Others' be seen to 'freely' give you their resources; via treaties, loan agreements, the building blocks of a global free market etc... Let those who are under your rule think of those resources as their right, thereby creating the market's need and sustaining your current practices.
All that is left, is to marginalize the voices who do not believe the creative endeavours of another culture are theirs to exploit as they will. Have them mocked as taking things too seriously, being too PC, being over sensitive.
---
And now an aside: For those who will want to comment to me that I am being too oversensitive, too PC, taking things way too seriously, it's just anime and wow, look at how I'm claiming some kind of conspiracy - I say this. Capitalism does not need to be a conspiracy as it is already a well established THEORY (of economics), with several schools (and schools of thought), and many published works. It has fermented rebellion and overthrown dynasties. It has condoned slavery. It has started wars and prolonged occupations to. this. day. Why on earth would I claim such a thing was a SECRET?
5 Comments | Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
 |
|
It is late. I am in pain, would like to sleep but can't. And something flits across my surf of the internet and turns into one of those last straws.
Here's the deal, the next time someone says "It's not like I'm a Nazi wanting to exterminate the Jews / It's not like I'm a KKK member / It's not like I'm __ insert whatever extreme hate group they want to use to benchmark their own isms__"; the next time someone says something like that? I suggest your reply be this.
"Yeah, it's not like an abusive spouse is a serial murderer; it's not like a violent cop is Josef Mengele; it's not like a school yard bully is someone who abuses and kills dogs!"
Cause what they're doing is another form of Oppression Olympics. Only the competitors are the actual oppressors. And they believe they or whomever they're defending didn't even get the bronze; so why are you even saying anything? So it's a good idea, to at least state publicly what the fuck it is they're doing with their twisted logic.
Cause seriously?
"It's a Halloween costume, is not like someone kidnapped you and placed you in a living SAW movie." Is someone who is not you, trying to measure your pain, heartache, discomfort and rage. And y'know, doctors can't even do that shit. That's why they came up with the frigging PAIN SCALE (it is a clearer way of taking the patient's word for it). So a non medically trained person definitely needs to SHUT. THE FUCK. UP. And if they are medically trained, they do not deserve their licence.
And before someone comes and tells me how white people/ straight people/cis people/able bodied have pain too; Y'know what? a) I don't care and b) not like in my (or your) head they don't. They don't feel the personalized, history compounding experience that is mental scar tissue on me or you.*
Cause again? Benchmarking? IS IGNORANT.
The fibromyalgia having individual, does not compare his or hir or her discomfort to the chemotherapy cancer patient. The person with the broken leg, does not compare themselves to the person who had to have invasive surgery. When physical pains are understood at least part of the time as individual and unique in both circumstance and person it is pure willful ignorance to think psychological pain doesn't as well.
[Current pain due to lack of social justice: immeasurable]
______________________________________
* This statement is about what they lack to assess things. A lack that often has them deciding on what is or is not painful based on what they feel, all cocooned in the cottonwool of said lack.
3 Comments | Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
Despite my grumps and bad mood, I realize I've let something slip in error.
Happy New Year, Blessed Sahmain
All of my pagan flisters and who knows, possibly some lurkers too.
Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
 |
|
So...
Figured out why I was so drained and depressed last night. My littlest brother's called me every night this week to chat and I could hear the house mess in the background behind him. That added to my dislike of the phone and not really being all that chatty on a daily basis (it's a spoon thing) likely led to low energy, drained feelings and emotions -> la la la depression.
Mentioned this to my mom to ask her to get him to email me. But she pointed out that he doesn't get much attention from his other siblings because they're teenagers and he's not. And despite my 'omfg' of last night concerning his animals, he got up on his own this morning, and fed them all and watered them all and cleaned the bird cage and took his dog out to do his business. And apparently told mom that I had put him on a schedule.
I definitely need to figure out now, how to balance my introvertedness and spoon juggling with positive effects of my presence on littlest brother who's all 'I haz a sister and she luuuuuubs me.'
3 Comments | Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
NuKirk apologises to the wrong Orion. On the one hand I'm glad someone decided 'Yeah, let us NOT put that into our final product'. On the other hand, it got filmed.
And I post about it here just as a reminder to myself of why I do not want to get involved in NuTrek fandom past a few icons.
14 Comments | Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
 |
|
Likely distractions from pain and emotional drain and energy issues ( I ordered out, did not decide to starve until I could cook tomorrow and feel better now.)
Like I mentioned before, I like small spaces and read Tiny House, Small House blogs. But I've found myself thinking two things a lot in the past few days as I was getting re-caught up in that section of the blogsphere. None of these houses are designed with disabilities in mind. Apparently if you are disabled it is just too bad for you that so many house plans & designs involve loft bedrooms, no wheel chair or even cane manueverability and the thing that bugged me the most - absolutely no disabled access into the damn house in the first place.
All this thought on maximizing space and dual purpose this and how a person lives that, and green living and energy conservation, and tens upon tens of STAIRS.
The second thing I noticed is how very few people of colour I see involved in the small house movement who aren't 'Those poor people in Brownilla Country Where It's Hot'. White people; get back to basics, pare down, have a small house movement and live less cluttered and ostentatious lives. Non white people are just poor, the dear things.
The thought's been floating around and around in my head that you have to be 'white' and 'privileged' and 'well off' to live a simple life that's called a simple life and not the result of lack of effort & ambition. And when someone on a blog challenged the cost of workshops to learn how to build these tiny houses, they got dogpiled on and told that such and such deserves to be able to make enough to mind his family, and it's a service not something free and there's nothing wrong with making money.
Just like I have no doubt they'd stutter and stammer and stare if someone pointed out all the houses being oohed and awwhed over are impractical for those with disabilities
I also discovered this week that the American West had a culture, a sheep rancher culture, that created caravans that were structurally a lot like Rom Caravans of the early 19th century. And considering that the caravans had a European start, it does make sense that the style would go along with European immigrants attempting to 'settle' the West. (One of these days I need to write out my thoughts on confusion on how a land can be settled that already has people on it. Since I was small I've been confused about the Louisiana and Alaskan purchases because how can you sell something you don't own?)
But back to the 'Small House Movement' - where 'Gypsy Caravans' are showed off, with plans and designs, as possible 'Studios' and 'Meditation Rooms' (Isn't that a clash of appropriations) and 'Play Houses'. They're carved and brightly painted and beautiful and stolen.
What's yours is mine and what's mine is mine. The melting pot. Everything must go in to be shared with everyone. Except the things we the powerful keep for ourselves as precious to us.
American the pickpocket, the hug and handshake to welcome you to the fold, that robs you shamelessly at the same time. And isn't it quaint you thought your belongings were only for you and not meant to be picked over like wares at a fleamarket with certain less 'shiny' things insultingly marked down.
They're not fully formed yet, my thoughts on the specific rejections and the specific acceptance that is co-option and dilution and secularism. But I'm beginning to understand some of my exhaustion.
There's only so much 'don't think about it' a person can do, right?
And there's only so much one can take, to see the death of a pregnant mouse get more sympathy than the tasering of a pregnant brown woman.
Hmmm. I think I need richer and more filling than what I currently have, to feed my soul. Actually I think I'm tired of picking glass out of my mental vittles.
4 Comments | Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
|
| 2009-10-28 09:44 |
| Because There's A Poor Tax |
| Public |
| note to self |
|
Should still be sleeping, but my mother called over an email I exhaustedly typed to her last night about Bank of America Shenanigans. While talking to her I found my own notes and realized the reason I didn't go through with switching banks is because the plumber invasion happened and I'd been unable to think beyond the basics.
I'm not gonna rush around like crazy right now though because I'm exhausted and in pain and liable to make a mistake
But so far MECU looks viable - though it won't enable me to have a second account primarily for online transactions.
ETA: I appreciate that my mom -made- herself get off the phone, because she realized all she'd be doing is cussing about the state of things and I didn't need the stress. Unfortunately I still feel stressed that stuff happened because I wasn't in a place to stay on top of things. And now I can't go back to sleep because my stomach's in a knot.
7 Comments | Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
|
|
My little thoughts on performance of gender, possible owning of desire and how that might be playing out in the Twilight Series thus that it attracts teen female fans - has been picked up round and about and also on LJ's Meta-fandom and I've had two idiotic comments.
One telling me that Jacob was the nice safe boy and that couldn't possibly be racist. And another blubbering something about motherhood and hateful single feminists.
Y'know, Meta-fandom should probably do whiney privileged white women (and other malcontents) the favour of letting them know their ignorance is not going to be appreciated at the linked site.
Two comments of shite is more than my blood pressure needs to handle.
Actually it's three. The first commenter claimed to disagree with me, then agreed with everything I said and started talking about points not under the topic of discussion. It was either a poor attempt at a strawman, or a serious inability in the process of analytical thinking.
ETA: And the race comment and the 'you single feminist bitch' comment are BOTH from 24.228.89.97, if your LJ really is bicrim.livejournal.com you sure aren't classy. I'd say New Jersey sure can grow 'em - but I know cool people from New Jersey and everything has aberrations. And who knows, it might be a mask.
5 Comments | Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
|
|
Look, if you put the word 'Ghetto' into your title (60 Black Ghetto Names), and then claim the list contained therein your video 'Is not racist. It's only a joke' - It's racist, ok. It is. And you're just trying to get by.
If you write the name D'Neijah is: a lovely, traditional African name from the exotic African ethnicity -- You may not be racist. But you're sure as hell IGNORANT.
If you think that you don't want to give other people (teachers, child's eventual friends etc) a hard time learning your child's name and stumbling over it -- You have somehow become the parent of the world and not your own offspring. How'd that happen?
If you think D'Neijah: Will be hell with computer scanned forms because there's no place to put an apostrophe so such a name will cause the. entire. world. problems. You are suffering from a severe lack of imagination. Oh yeah, you're also racist.
If you think D'Neijah: Sounds like a black name, not that there's anything wrong with that. Except, it has to sound like VAGINA and who would name their child that? -- Get thee behind me honkey.
If you write the name D'Neijah is: ... a terrible name. It's right up there with all the other names that sound like women make them up at the spur of the moment! Where on earth do people think up these new names? I tend to think they are high on something when they do! I can't imagine calling a baby by that name or others like it, plus the fact of going through life with people trying to pronounce them! -- Congratulations Racist McRacist Pants! You have won Racist Lotto! Feel free to pick up your hood and sheet at any time, because if that's the only racist you can see, that's the way the world needs to dress you up for the clarification of others (so they can avoid your ass).
17 Comments | Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
|
|
I am not yet a member of ecominded_poc on DW (have no idea how that's happened) or I'd post this here.
I love small homes. I think it comes from growing up in small homes (chattle houses and caribbean apartments). I never did understand why people wanted such large houses during the housing boom here in the US. Really, do you need a den AND a great room? Those things seemed like mansions to me, with people trying to come up with modern names for 'servant's quarters, formal ball room, informal ball room' and having 'formal dining room, informal dining,' and 'eat in kitchen'. WTF? Why?
My love of earthships follows along my love of small spaces (reconfirmed with my current apt which I fell in love with because of its small size and full amenities). But I just tumbled to Por Fin Nuestra Casa. It's an organization trying to make homes for the forgotten out of all those unused shipping containers!
Apparently it's not the only set, according to a quick perusal of Tiny House Blog, but they do seem not to think it's a -shame- for a house to obviously be a reworked trailer. Unlike this example which comes across more as an eco status symbol than a way to provide affordable housing at low cost for all and/or a way to re-use end products currently being considered as waste (ala Earthships and tires) and transforming them into housing.
More Shipping Container homes here and here. Both those links are search results.
Meanwhile I find myself noticing that a shipping container is not so very different from a train and sometimes are even on trains/part of trains (oh yeah, that's the double good of them. Mode of transportation - already built in). I've always thought it'd be cool to live on a train. Too much reading as a child, I imagine.
I'm also worrying thoughts about status, wealth and who needs ostentation - but they're not fleshed out at all.
6 Comments | Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
|
| 2009-10-23 19:42 |
| Twilight & Other Creepy Thoughts |
| Public |
 contemplative |
| thinky thoughts |
|
I think I've figured out the appeal of Edward Cullen.
So I'm reading Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women And The Rise Of Raunch Culture and I get to the part about interviews and interactions with teenage girls (yes, white teenage girls, but hear me out - cause I'm also curious if this phenomenon is universal for all girls in the US, or if ethnicity and culture counter-balance)
The author talks about girls conflicting pretty with sexy (I may have mentioned that in an essay somewhere at some point) but the point she raised that I hadn't thought of before, is that between the media crush to be sexy and the abstinence only programs with a 'hush hush, you don't need to know about that' - she thinks girls have no idea of their own sexual desires. They don't know what wanting feels like, they don't know what being sexy FEELS like. They only know sexy as performance with returns of attention.
And suddenly Edward Cullen made so much sense as a heart throb. I don't know if Stephanie Myer knew this when she wrote, or if he and that relationship really was more an unconscious product of her upbringing. But Edward Cullen is a boy who
a) does not require a girl give a performance of / have the persona of sexy
b) in having that requirement, thus allowed Bella to feel want and lust and yearning
c) saw nothing wrong with Bella having those desires, but respected/loved her and so wanted to wait (sex was not the end game)
It's startlingly to me to contemplate that Edward / Bella is the romantic story of the century (at least right now contemporarily) because the heroine is aware of, and is allowed to feel her own desire and have her own sexual wants outside of the social act of the new female/feminine performance of pretty and the hero gives a damn about it.
But that's not the creepy part. The creepy part is that suddenly the Urban Fantasy genre, despite its, to me, soft core presentation, begins to make sense/be feminist/seem political. These characters are women in leather with guns who allow themselves to feel both arousal and power.
Obviously not everyone will do that well. And some (LKH) will in fact lose sight of that in all the combinations of screw partners and unpolished writing. But UF as a social response to the message that girls are sexy and act sexy but never mind their pretty little heads about feeling want, desire, sexual or sexually empowered for themselves - that is, not thinking of themselves as experiencing sexuality the way a man might - makes sense, even as I sigh and scowl and pout at realizing it is actually serving a social purpose.
UF, showing women they don't have to give up being sexual beings to have power, and that being a sexual being is about a woman's own desires, not her potential attractiveness to a man.
Who'd a thunk it? (I'm betting at least 20% of my flist actually. 'Cause sometimes I'm behind the curve)
ETA: 10/27/2009 - Anonymous people showing up in my journal talking about how 'safe' the male of colour character was in the Twilight series and how they'd never before encountered the noble savage buck who protects (or tries to) the white woman, even from herself - your comments will be deleted. Get the hell out of my journal space and go read an educational book on race and colonial theory.
ETA 3: Twilight fans also need not reply here talking about hateful single feminists (I'm not a white, middleclass cis het woman, so how the fuck could I be a feminist) and who knows what other hogwash. ETA 2 is a comment down below about ignoramuses being deleted immediately.
_____________
And two comments from 24.228.89.97?
The first one telling me to chill on race, and then when I don't, I get a second full of vitriol and inability to rationalize?
38 Comments | Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
 |
| 2009-10-23 10:45 |
| Willow Observes That Entitlement Is A Tricky/Sticky Trap |
| Public |
| i hate people, wth? |
|
When someone calling themselves a feminist uses the terms: evil cunt, Evil Stepmother, etc... to describe how they think other individuals are seeing or treating them - for me at least, it makes it plain that they have an agenda in representation. Mainly they want the other party to be associated with negative words and phrases because they believe the other party to be negative and nothing will change their mind.
It is also difficult for me to see the difference between someone using those terms to describe themselves and someone using the terms; racist and KKK member to describe themselves when having an argument with someone of colour about racism:
I am not the racist you paint me to be, I just subscribe to this point of view and believe I was treated to 'reverse discrimination'. It is also difficult to believe they aren't enjoying the fight when they start to attack an individual's style of writing and how they phrase their thoughts. In my case it has led me to second guess why an individual has been treated certain ways by others. I do not know that there is any further dimension, currently private, about the situation that will change my opinion about one particular older white feminist being a jerk.
1 Comment | Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
 |
|
Hybrid Cars May Add Car Tones.
As someone who finds most vehicles far too loud, the thought of silent/quiet cars enthuses me. And now I learn that people think that's a problem. And rather than spurring new auto-safety protocols, movies, ads, promotion etc, they're going to add car sounds on the quiet cars.
So apparently the hearing community can't learn anything from the deaf community about how to relate to traffic. They need fake engine sounds. And there's even talk about personalized car tones, like ring tones.
Another - for the sake of the general population - idea that makes me feel more and more alien in my rejection of it.
--
Fines for 'disorderly conduct in school'. Fines? Tickets? First people get tickets for being 5 minutes tardy on the way to school in California to the point where parents keep their kids home if there's any possibility they'll be late. And now tickets in school? This is how counties/states are handling the recession or what? Is this just a Texas thing?
How out of it am I since I'm avoiding a lot of the news? What the heck else is going on out there in American-land?
--
Damnit. Everytime I try to peek out at the world, all I see is crap spiraling down a blackhole. I don't want to be uninformed about my environment but it is bloody depressing. Even the uplifting stuff is depressing, because it's usually about how one individual has managed to overcome some tentacle of the crap monster.
7 Comments | Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
 |
| 2009-10-16 22:06 |
| PSA |
| Public |
| + ijay |
|
S'up peoples.
If you have OpenID and hadn't been able to comment in my journal for say oh.. a week or so. My bad. There was an anonymous spammer and I'd turned off anonymous comments to avoid constant deletions. I totally forgot it would mess up comments over here on iJay.
Aside: DW making OpenID registered accounts = registered users = smart thinking. *sighs*
Anyway, it's on now so OpenID comments should go through.
Note for self: I did try to download my DW account again with comments and it stalled out the server. DW still not viable.
Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
 |
| 2009-10-14 08:21 |
| Now The Trick Is To Remember To Tell My Doctor |
| Public |
| contemplative |
| pain scale 7 |
|
Yesterday was painful. So painful I went to bed at 8 and attempted to sleep straight until this morning, because while unconscious I wouldn't be feeling the pain (consciously at least).
Yesterday was so painful that I think I figured out where a portion of my pain comes from. Someone on my flist mentioned Sciatica and a particular path her pain follows. I looked it up and bam. But more than just bam. I think it's very possible that my coccyx pain causes me to sit with pressure on the opposite buttock, thus compressing the nerves there and causing me to have pain in that buttock and thus days where both sides are incredibly inflamed equal days like yesterday where I ( potentially triggery pain reaction from me here ) - just for something else to concentrate on. (Yes, my brain's weird).
So now it is to tell my doctor and get this checked out - as well as to admit that I endure pain rather than talk about it, at least to mental health officials. And thus my doctor may not have an accurate accounting of what kinds of incredible pain I'm talking about / dealing with - thus there's nothing to cause her to think about what could be causing it so much. I don't know if this much pain affects my blood sugar, but it sure as heck has to affect my blood pressure even if only a little bit.
And yeah, what did I classify my pain yesterday? In the 7's I think. While today I'm classifying things in the 7's and admitting yesterday was a 9. It just seemed so melodramatic to label stuff a 9 then.
In other news: My hair's long enough to get in my food if I don't pin it back when I'm eating. So weird. No wonder I preferred a pony-tail when I was younger.
Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
Is it pain? Depression and pain? Just depression?
I don't know. Since I woke up I've been experiencing jags of emotions and it's all ugh. I have therapy today. I also need to return an overdue library book (I'd like to collect a couple more to read) and pick up some groceries. However, right now? Right this second? I just want to take an aspirin and curl up in a corner and cry.
Do I cancel therapy and try and rush in a grocery order before noon?
Part of therapy has been for me to work on pain issues but not much got done - really. My new therapist had to think on some things and I've not been back since that last session.
...
Now have a cart of groceries and don't know if I should go through and set it to be delivered today or tomorrow. Have gone ahead to have it today - if I can make it to therapy, I'll just be late.
Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
|
| 2009-10-12 20:34 |
| -- |
| Public |
|
There are people on my flist/reading list breaking out in published authorship like a rash this year. I've got to admit to joy and jealousy.
ETA: Right now I just want to be able to focus enough to finish a story.
Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
 |
| 2009-10-12 11:27 |
| Oh iJay |
| Public |
| + ijay |
|
iJay is no longer showing comments by iJay users in Recent Comments. I am getting comment emails in my inbox - at least I was last night. However, if I've not replied to you and you have an OpenID account, it might be because Recent Comments is no longer working for me to find your comments.
And if you have an iJay account, and I haven't replied, then it is likely that something's borked ALL my comments.
Come to think of it, the comments I got last night were made on someone else's journal and they were responding to me. So I haven't actually received any comments that might have been made to my journal since Friday.
Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
 |
| 2009-10-11 08:50 |
| Approval Ratings & Upholding The Bush Administration |
| Public |
| thinky thoughts |
|
Last night talked to my mother about Obama's Nobel. She pointed out all the trips he'd taken across the world and speeches he'd given in 2008. She also pointed out that his racism speech is historic (so despite me not thinking he said enough, I'm aware again of other perspectives). The biggest shock for me, however, was how easily 2008 faded from memory. If he'd won at the beginning of the year (2009) I wouldn't have blinked. I'd have thought that his campaign of hope was more international than national - no matter who won he was trying to repair America's flagging prestige.
How quickly his actions in 2009 have dimmed the star he was in 2008 - a star that originally had people around the world cheering.
Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
 |
|
I'm going to attempt to make some noodles and cheese in a bowl in a minute. But I'm not laying all my hopes there. Have determined I will buy some pizza just as soon as the place opens up.
It's Sat morning now. I had a bad dream Friday morning, but have been so distracted by computer troubles I didn't write it down or even try to think about it too much. In fact I got up and tumbled to the computer in search of comfort media and ran smack into the fact it's not working as it should and so ended up rocking myself and researching. ( The dream may be triggery / issues of violence. )
I still have to check the memory - though the fact that I can move the mouse despite the freezing is apparently a plausible sign of software difficulties not hardware. I've done registry clean-up, spyware and anti-virus scans (which I do once every 10 or so days anyway but now had to do mostly online). I've come to the conclusion that I need to buy an additional harddrive and in the future a backup harddrive and have been trying to research just what I need and what is the best value for my money. It finally occurred to me that some individuals might not debate cost the way I do, because they'd use a credit card and extend the length of payment for the product. I want to know that something is covered with a good and solid warranty before spending my buffer money.
I feel odd writing comments. Discombobulated. I miss my music and my calming games. I'm realizing now exactly how much they help me. Last night the landlady's roommate had guests over and despite my going to ring the doorbell and asking her to keep it down (11:30pm) because I was trying to sleep, they didn't leave and stop being noisy until about 1:30am. And I was grumpy the whole time - stress creates pain which wears me out and makes sleeping, which I need to do, more difficult.
I'm trying to hold on to the little end of the rope of cope I've got with as much strength as I can muster. But I really wish life would give me the chance to wind some more cope about my wrist.
Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
|
| 2009-10-09 08:02 |
| Nobel Peace Prize |
| Public |
| omfg computers! |
| twitter-like |
|
Obama?
Any chance this will be a little extra influence to help with healthcare?
1 Comment | Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
|
|
*sighs*
I am having 'a night'. Felt exhausted around 2pm, which was already feeling like 7pm to me. So off I went to bed. Woke up around 7, finally tumbled out of bed nearer to 7:30, turned on the computer and got sucked into: WHY ARE WE USING WINDOWS AGAIN?
I already know the answer is "Cause Willow likes her silly games and adobe photoshop - oh please do not take away my ability to fingerpaint and collage using technology'.
Things what had been working fine, mostly - they were a touch slow, before I turned off the computer have cockled up incredibly for the last 6 hours. It's like they want to win some sort of prize. And lo and behold while I do have a Windows XP cd (all legit and everything) and I do have the recovery disks for this computer (Lunaris who is usually as quite and stoic as her name suggests) - the recovery disks will write over everything on Drive C and the XP Disc is for XP Professional (and seems to imply that it will write over EVERYTHING, including the current drive demarcations (wherein one hard drive has been separated into 2 drives).
After a quiet moment of internal screaming, I remember that Windows is supposed to have a 'boot in safe mode' so I randomly punch some keys on the keyboard since I can't quite remember which one does what. Finally I find it, and it comes with networking so I can actually get online and do some research. Except research has not been particularly helpful. Acer Recovery research seems to imply I need to spend a couple hours backing up the entirety of Drive C, and kiss a couple of programs goodbye that I got from GAOTD.Com. (Apparently I will stage world war three in my own head to hold onto Folder Marker)
And as I start to list what all I would need to reinstall, it becomes draining and depressing because this is now going on three years worth of additional programs that make my life easier. Including the need to reinstall my antivirus and firewall and all those updates OMG, if I set things back to 'Factory Conditions'.
Apparently I could have had a less brand new neutral recovery backup - but the information about that was so unclear that I haven't looked at it twice in several years and have been backing up old school, disc by painful long winded disc.
Meanwhile the cockups cascade. Sound no longer wants to work. The antivirus is complaining that windows explorer is preventing it from breathing. Error this and error that and a whole lot of 00000's. And I'm now very glad I found merchant shipping costs too damn high on Monday and didn't spend near $50 on 'Gifts For Me' (*le sigh, le sigh, no Batman for Willow. No Animated Superman either) and the perfect gift for one of my brothers. Because now if I have to risk reinstalling and starting from scratch - I definitely feel the need to have an external HD doing the backup.
Right now I'm making myself a little bit agitated over hard drive enclosure + harddrive, or coughing up the money for an external drive with less storage or contemplating if I'm responsible enough to handle a HD dock.
And my brain totally conked out for an hour here so I guess this post is done. Computer = kerblehy. Stirring up old issues. Very grateful can still get online in some manner or form. Worried about what I could lose. And saddened that the process of buying more storage is overwhelming due to the state of my head. Oh yeah and Restore Point actually worked, but made not a lick ass of difference.
This lack of sound sucks beyond the telling of it - as music and or vids are part of how I calm myself down. Hot fricking damn.
Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
The first five minutes of The Princess and the Frog with some animation incomplete Direct link here.
If it's not there, pm me. I saved it. There's also more stuff here but I am lackluster and not at all easily impressed.
Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
Right now it is amazing me what a difference in pain management a 4 and a half hour nap makes. Logically I know that I didn't get enough sleep last night so it had to have helped to get some rest. But the difference! Wow.
*sighs*
I wish I could remember to do that more often when I'm feeling badly - instead of feeling like it is giving in and being useless.
Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
 |
|
My attempts to tidy the kitchen since Sunday night have come to nought, as even three times through the dishes won't get clean. I don't know wtf is going on. I haven't had enough lack of pain to check anything other than trying to stack the dishes differently. I do know I tried to be more ambitious than I usually am in how many dishes I put in there, so that could be the problem. I might try again today.
I need to, because last night there was scratching in the wall of my bedroom that holds the window. Something seems to have gotten into the wall again and is determined to eat or scratch its way through a foot of foam. Have emailed landlady about it. But that's a touch of anxiety because dishes are making a bit of a mess in the kitchen and I haven't attempted to tidy the bedroom in weeks. I've been too busy coping with life (or rather, trying to acquire cope so I could handle life).
Last night's attempt to sleep by the way doesn't feel like it was restful, what with my body tensing up at the intrusive sounds and not finding a comfortable position to sleep in (no doubt from tension) and waking up every couple of hours and other arrgh. And of course I've no doubt been pondering how I'll handle exterminators having to poke around my walls. I'm still recovering from the plumbers in August.
If you think I want to curl in a corner and cry - you'd be right.
At least yesterday I managed to make bread pudding again. It's not as good as the last time - my hand spilled with the anise seed, so there's a slightly stronger flavour than I'd like. And I used less milk. But it was edible and delicious enough when warm yesterday and so I'll see how it is today re-warmed. Meanwhile I'm trying to decide if I can handle therapy today and the need to pick up some protein (as I'd planned to) from the grocerystore downtown. I was in enough pain last night to call my therapist and leave a message that I might not be able to make it.
I think I need heat on my chest, and some patches and possibly some naproxen - it's a juggle. The patches break me out in a rash if I use them on my chest and the naproxen raises blood pressure. I don't hate my body - but I will admit pain, and weaknesses and negative/allergic reactions make it difficult for me to love it.
Last but not least, my bedroom clock says one time and the computer another. I do't know why my bedroom clock would be an hour slower than the computer and a quick search online tells me that DST doesn't end till Nov 1st. So I don't even know.
Oh! - A PS of sorts. I found some of my writing from maybe two years ago and I'm amazed at how much energy was in it, and how easily I'd strung together a unique world to tell tales in. And so I've somehow got it into my head that if I can't do that -now-, it is a function of this year's mental exhaustion and pain issues and not that I was -never- a good writer. It's painful to accept. Very painful. Especially since that mental exhaustion means I can't do anything even with these bright worlds in front of me. It's like a car coughing and sputtering for the engine to turn on when there's not enough gas.
Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
|
|
|
|
|
indescribable
recovering
drained
---