hey love, I'm an inconstant satellite

Last night, Cousin 4 was in town, so we went over for dinner. Found out at the last minute that WAY MORE PEOPLE were going to be there, which is always so great to be surprised by. At that house, everyone just jams into the dining room until they can't fit, and it gets really loud, so I retreated pretty quickly to another room. It's nice to live closer to family, I guess, but the ways that people have never understood me are much more obvious when I'm around them more often.

Eventually, I got drawn into a game, which was better. I will talk to humans! All I ask is that there not be ten people all talking at once! And a barky dog that people are aggravating! Please.

Playing a game that a very small cousin made up by himself was the best part of the evening. I was warned about his tendency to actually hurt you if his toy is fighting your toy, and I was not entirely safe even though we started with a board game. (Pencils are swords, and his pawn was an aggressive little thing.) But he was really creative about everything. He can't read yet, so answering the questions on the cards, which is how you normally move, was out. Instead he took the four pawns we weren't using and rubbed them in his hands until one fell out, and each of us was assigned two of their colors, so we got to move when our color fell out. Smart! And then of course we got into purely imaginative play, where the game board itself became a giant shark and the box was houses. (I was responsible for the timer being a cannon, though.)

On the way home, Mom got back into her "recommending things to the chronically ill person" mode. She claims not to be unhappy or disappointed with my introversion, but it's obviously not true -- she claimed I wasn't "my best self" because I wasn't up for full-on family game night (which is like 20 people including six children) less than 48 hours after my cross-country move. Fuck off with that. And I've told her that it's hurtful when people jump in with solutions. So when she mentioned acupressure, and I said I'd tried and it doesn't work any more because my sinuses have been inflamed FOR OVER A YEAR, she literally said "have you done it for long enough?"

How long is long enough to know something doesn't fucking work? If you start from the premise that it's going to work, then I should just sit here using my hands (which are arthritic btw, and this does hurt them) to apply pressure to my face all day every day, until something that isn't working decides to work. And clearly I should also spend all my time on every other thing that someone suggests. 100% effort times the number of suggestions, FOREVER, seems totally reasonable, especially when I'm debilitated, right?

At that point, I was just like, yep, guess I'm doing it wrong. I'm sure that's it. She eventually noticed that I was blowing her off and said "well, I haven't been dealing with this as long, I still have hope."

Really.

I said, "I am doing something, and it's working, it's just not working very fast. And I'm going to keep doing it, even if it involves drinking large amounts of Limonata." (Which she has teased me about before.) She hadn't realized that was a sinus management strategy, but jfc, I'm on a million decongestants and antihistamines, I'm dry as a bone all the time, which I need to not be or my sinuses will get worse, and even I get bored with THAT much water.

So I stood my ground, but it sucks that she didn't listen when we had this conversation before. Yes, it hurts when people jump in with suggestions all the time. You're telling me that you don't think I am trying hard enough. I know how much I can try, and I'm doing it. Just because you mean well doesn't mean you're not hurting chronically ill people with this behavior.

I got done (well. basically done.) with my work for today in good order and decided that, rather than being completely lazy, I would go out to get the Thai food and milk tea boba that I was craving. Going past the park, kids were shouting and dogs wearing lighted collars were zooming around, and a huge, beautiful full moon was rising. I found out that I like the restaurant in person as well as I like it delivered -- I hadn't thought there was good pad see ew in this town, so of course it's right down the street -- and I was amused by the life-sized fake tarantulas still on the windows they seated me next to. I ate way too many noodles and read fanfic (setissima is amazing), then went by the comic store and fell prey to classic manga by women, a cute lesbian memoir, my own comics nostalgia (it's only been 15 years, comics, what are you doing), and the dollar rack. At home, there was a cat yelling at me, as is only right, and a package of pretty things from a friend.

I should probably actually finish my work for today, but that was really nice. I hope the weather gets cold enough to kill the ragweed soon so I can go out more without having to decontaminate immediately and itch anyway.

1. Sinus CT was pleasant, easy, and painless... except for the part where I decided I should make sure they were inflamed enough to see the problem so I didn't take anything or use the neti pot the night before. Ow. I don't even know if this was necessary. I regret everything. (Appointment to discuss with the ENT is Friday morning.)

2. My pottery teacher was amused by my quadratic formula t-shirt, just like I thought he would be. One begins to wonder if he would bring his deft care, people skills, and nerdy tinkering sensibility to non-pottery tasks. In bed.

3. My home internet is complete shit right now. Most frustrating. However, I finally managed to download Rebuild 3 from Steam, and probably I shouldn't be allowed to play it after 11pm because I didn't get the amount of sleep I wanted last night. I'm not scared of zed, I just want to keep rebuilding Snoqualmie.

4. Std.daff has emerged! Based on my photos from last year, we're running about three weeks earlier in terms of spring bulbs. I'm told that if you average last year's winter and this year's winter, you get a normal winter. Today it's beautiful and sunny and I wore a flannel overshirt on my walk to work, no coat at all. (Possibly some people wouldn't do this in the low 50s? I WOULD.)

5. Currently I'm wrestling with last year's medical bills for my stupid reimbursement thing. I will get hundreds of dollars back, provided I can actually get the bloody hospital to give me a corrected receipt, and of course when I call in either it rings and rings or there's no one available and I should send email they never reply to. Gah.

1. Home from work today. Good thing I got a specialist appointment for Friday: this sinus thing is definitely swinging toward super shitty again.

2. Music mix for friend has consented to be cut down to three CDs' worth but no more. It is possible that I have some feelings of my own that I'm working through here.

3. Came up with a fun minigame for dragon game tomorrow. It's Applejack day of a My Little Pony-themed money-making event, so: profitbucking! Inspired by my teammate's amazing gif magic.

4. I really hate it when I feel too crappy to do things that are fun. I tried to play Necrodancer today but was not smart enough to make decisions in rhythm.

Actually, I also hate it when I feel too crappy to do things that aren't fun. Still badly need to shop for jeans and bras. Can I just stop feeling crappy in general, please?

5. At least the cats are happy, or they would be if there were at least one of me per cat who didn't want to do anything other than sit in the one position they find the most useful and gaze at them lovingly.

... back to crying and going round and round in my head. And now my stomach won't quit grumbling.

Maybe I'll take one of Dad's pain pills.

I am sick. Being sick is no fun. I rested yesterday, but now I feel worse. Must get the rent check downstairs today. Kinda too shaky and feverish to be doing that just at this moment. Nyquil, my old nemesis, let's do this.

Getting work done at work this week.

Good appointment with therapist Monday. After which I went somewhere I hadn't been before, got a Ms. Marvel trade and Squirrel Girl #4 and ate frozen yogurt, and eventually managed to find Good Vibrations. Treating myself and also being a quality person who does things in the world.

Hurt my neck as a direct result of GV visit and woke up with nasty headache. Unsure of cost-benefit here as both make strong cases.

Had an adventure with rushthatspeaks. After being confused by inferior maps and displeased with the hot soupy weather, we did find our rose-garden goal, and then there was a convenient and free train, and ice cream for dinner. Then showering. I remain very grateful for such an excellent partner and also for the central air at my apartment.

Getting real work done really, like, I did PCR today and ran it on a gel and all. Still working out some damnfool crap from my botched reappointment, but mostly doing well right now.

Spate of fun hectic planning on dragon game, unfortunately spurred by bad news of cool people leaving our subgroup. But I drew a trout with which I am pleased.

Today I am feeling too crap to do the work I would like to do, so instead I have paid my medical bills (in the sense that they are now on a credit card anyway) and written to my confusing health insurance people about getting counseling. If that means I cry at work today, then SO BE IT, I am great and anyone with a problem can go fuck themselves.