hey love, I'm an inconstant satellite

And cat care. These are the themes of my working at home so far.

I have had a non-patchy tongue for the first time since I can remember. I'm eating my vegetables. The cats can yell for fresh food when they need it and will actually eat, so they're seeming much stronger. I have enough money to buy clothes I've been needing and enough energy to do the shopping with.

Not everything is perfect -- I need to sort out better ergonomics and more exercise, COBRA is an asshole, and my allergies are still present enough to have given me a mild sinus infection -- but this feels like progress and like recovery. I nearly went dancing this past weekend, which I haven't felt up for in ages.

And I have a paper on DNA barcoding of wild kiwifruit to read and edit next! (This morning I carefully edited a paper on hysterectomies for trans men to avoid calling the patients "woman" or "she"; they had only messed up a little and their language doesn't use pronouns, but it's important.) I'm learning how to edit to a specific standard, I'm building stamina and speed, it's effort, but this is fun.

I'm still sad and afraid and lonely, but I have something really good to do while I keep working on recovering.

1. My assistant, whom I have gotten hooked on Hidden Sweets in Harvard Square, went there last week and texted to inform me that the beloved grapefruit gummi candy of song and story has been discontinued, and that HS was already out. After partially recovering from my shock, I went to the internet and ordered a 3-lb bag of them, which has now arrived. Next step: confirm their correct identity by eating a precious single one. Then I can set up a safe-deposit box.

2. I felt really good today. I've been managing energetic or physical well-being or motivated lately, but today I felt like me, pretty much all day. It was wonderful. It's been way too long.

3. Now I just need something to do with this ridiculous upswing of libido. (Total Prince immersion maybe not helping here.)

4. Completed the writing style guide for the Brightshine Jubilee storybook finally! Now I have something to refer bitches to when they try to start with me about whether "archeologist" is misspelled. I'm really excited about this project, even though it's making me stressed about Flight Rising overall. C came up with it and plans to typeset the whole thing, and I wound up lead writer because I got stuck managing the "omg we can't possibly have a pirate theme pirates are evil" drama into "okay we're having seafaring adventures and here is how it ties to the site canon." And of course since I'm the only person involved with the project who can herd cats, that's where all my energy is going. Please can you do the thing you said would be done a week ago, M, thx. But! Style guide is done, all the pages have been claimed by artists and writers, all I should need to do now is a little light whip-cracking and then final edits.

5. Currently reading Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl by Carrie Brownstein from Sleater-Kinney. I had trouble getting into it at first because her style is a little overdone, but by chapter 2 I was on board. She swings from childhood attention-getting antics to reminiscences of queer-liberal-musician callout culture in 90s Olympia, says she can't call herself a musician and then comes out with deeply considered ideas about the nature of performance. I never lived in Olympia or Redmond, but I'm from nearby enough that I have my own ideas about them, so reading about them is a mix of familiarity and prejudice-confirmation (i'm sorry but evergreen college) that has me grinning over the book constantly.

In getting-over-my-ex news, I have:

• Watched a bunch of Leverage by myself.


• Made waffles (and done some other nontrivial cooking).


• Gotten to where going to the grocery store merely makes me feel badgerish rather than panicky.


• Finally thrown out the food that I had made to share with them when they decided to disappear instead.


• [TMI] Made it all the way to orgasm without accidentally fantasizing about them and veering off into anti-erotic misery.[/TMI]

In general awesome doings, I have:

• Gotten my bike into rideable shape.


• Made an apple pie and won work's (very small) Pi Day contest with it.


• Kept up decently on my job.


• Successfully taken almost all of my absurd medication schedule on time.


• Given excellent presents to people.


• Polled for dragon game festival themes, including having to contact someone I didn't know to check that we weren't stepping on any toes.


• Managed a fuckton of drama about dragon game festival themes, including whipping up a storyline that incorporated multiple suggestions.


• Appeared to have an actual immune system -- still not all the way better but quickly recovered back to generally-crappy instead of getting a bad cold.


• Designed and drawn lineart for an elaborate (representational-plus-celtic-knot) mythical snake design on a bowl, to be further painted in underglaze.

The beauty of my situation right now is that there are so many worst case scenarios. It's really impressively efficient.

I did eat one of the things I made tonight, which was Cook's Illustrated sweet potato soup. The shallots softening gently in unsalted butter with sprigs of thyme were one of the best things I'd ever smelled, and the hot-water soak to break down starches is a fascinating idea that seemed to yield all the textural improvement that the article promised. Our blender lid is a leaky piece of shit, but I managed in the end to blend the soup without actually injuring myself. After getting sidetracked into mopping the floor, which is always a good idea when you haven't eaten in an unknown amount of time, I ate the soup with the recommended maple sour cream, and it was delicious.

The black bean burger stuff is allowed to sit hydrating for up to 24 hours, so I will plan to finish making that tomorrow, when my mother is here, or isn't.

It turns out that, having bounced out of having been down since last year -- gigantic move, new difficult climate, unexpected breakup, worsening chronic pain, major surgery and recovery, death of a parent, heart attack of remaining parent, death of a pet, the thing is I am certain I am leaving things out -- I am having trouble forgiving myself for not being able to do things that I should totally have been able to do. Because now I can do them, so what was my problem?

(Boy, I really did not like it when my therapist forgave part of the cost for the appointment I missed because she figured I couldn't help it, either. I am supposed to be able to fix make do all the things, what is this doubting my capabilities?! Even when I don't, temporarily, actually have them.)

But right. I did not have the energy to do the work that needed to be done. There were weights on every part of me making everything much harder than it usually is.

The trick now is to figure out how to put my energy into the places it needs to go rather than skating along with the habits that used to be more adaptive and now are a bad plan.

Weird, obvious dreams: Taking care of an entire colony of ~bats that kept being different and I didn't know what to do; the cockatiel ones, the kangaroo rat ones, the ones with so many fleas. Actual Bat cat's front legs giving out and him being distressed. :(

Bat's slight jaundice is visible even to me now. I couldn't see it even when I looked for it on Monday, though the doctor could, but since Tuesday I've been able to. I talked to the vet on the phone yesterday, and he says that the meds are doing their thing in that Bat can eat and drink, but the jaundice getting worse is not at all a good sign. His diagnosis has been upgraded to "malignant tumor" for sure rather than just an extensive one, though we did think lymphoma already. I am to call in a week or if anything changes dramatically. Bat seems more like both his old self and a cat who is obviously feeling low on energy. I don't know how long it will be.

rushthatspeaks has been hugging me a lot at some personal inconvenience (though partial compensation was received in the form of hamburgers), and I am doing okayish thanks mostly to them. I also got to see grad friend C yesterday and take her to Shake Shack while she was in town -- she's defending in a week and a half, and we were as comfortable with each other as ever despite the year apart. She hasn't had the best year either, but I realized that our dynamic (which I've summarized as complaining before) feels very affirming. Sure, we bitch about how terrible things are, but look at us being there and unbroken talking about them disrespectfully.

[ETA: argh and now Bat chewed his pill this morning so it tasted terrible and he got freaked out and I have a cat bite injury ;_; ]

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.