Category Archives: Cool Stuff

>Hello

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>Guess it’s been awhile. Thought I’d posted somewhere in there, but it has apparently flown off into the ether. The ether is getting pretty darn crowded, folks, just from my computer alone.

I’ve been dealing with pain and insomnia, with the odd good day here and there, and I’ve been completely immersed in reading Torchwood fan fiction most of the time. Takes my mind off things that hurt. I went out yesterday with a friend to do some shopping and last night and today I am barely mobile, even with the pain pills. Not complaining, just saying. I’ve been avoiding the news, what with the oil, and the dead and oil-coated creatures all over the gulf, the volcanoes, the storms, and the giant sink hole in Guatemala. I’ll post a picture here if I can find it. What is down there?! That’s just darn freaking scary, if you ask me. Oh, and they had a really massive and unusual hail storm in Denver. I grew up in Colorado, and we used to get hail storms, then we didn’t, but they were never like this one. Oh, climate change, you may not exist, but you are certainly having an effect anyway.

Here is my new favorite quote from here:

http://www.theackattack.net/?p=2007

“Build yourself a bridge and get the fuck over it!”

My favorite scene. I could almost taste the peanut butter. Great acting, Charlie…er, Dominic.

Here is the sinkhole:

>LOST (The Missing Post)

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>NOT lost in the ether, only saved as a draft. HA!

LOST……did you watch it? Wasn’t it just the best thing ever, up until the last ten minutes? I was all “CHARLIE!!!!” “SAYID!! Wasn’t expecting that.” “BOONE!!” And so on throughout. Then came the end, and I was like ‘What???? WHAT???????” And then there was Jimmy Kimmel to take my mind off it. LOLOL

On the illness front, I filled out the survey in the comments to the last post, but nothing happened when I clicked ‘submit’, so don’t know if it worked or not. I’ve been following another plan, too. Today was the third day in a row. But I’ve not been sleeping well, and this afternoon I was sitting here all zombie-like and laid down. Woke up at 5 pm. Otherwise, my plan is helping. Less pain, more energy. Yay, me. I am trying to take a leaf from Ianto’s fanfic life, and make routine, routine, routine my mantra. It usually only works for a couple of days in a row before something comes up, like lots of pain or can’t stay awake or something, that ruins it. I’m feeling hopeful, however. We’ll see how it goes.

>Mount St. Helens

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Thirty years on:

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/05/mount_st_helens_30_years_ago.html

Boston.com is a great resource for pictures of all sorts of things. Check it out.

>Newsweek

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>The West Wing

You know, or maybe you don’t, about the whole Newsweek controversy over gay actors playing straight characters. My goodness, we are so backward, people. Anyway…here is an relevant article by the truly magnificent Aaron Sorkin whose West Wing was the best thing on television. I hope you read this.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/aaron-sorkin/now-that-you-mention-it-r_b_574210.html

Aaron Sorkin

On the illness front, I started taking my vitamins and supplements again on Friday, and am already feeling much, much better. I just kept putting off parsing them out into the pill holder for a couple of weeks. Duh! I don’t know if it’s one, all, or some in combination that works, but here’s what I take. Three times a day.

400 mg magnesium with 15 mg zinc
500 mg calcium with 400 1U vitamin D
l000 mcg B12
500 mg vitamin C
1000 IU Vitamin D

Yes, I know that’s D twice, but I don’t get outside much, and here in New England we don’t get enough direct sun to keep levels good anyway. I think I need that much D. Anyway, there it is.

>Spring in Finland

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>Check out the Moonlit blog in the left sidebar. Some great spring flowers there. My favs are the scilla and forsythia. Nothing like spring to make you happy to be alive.

When I was a kid, lo those many years ago, we would say, “Spring is sprung, the grass is riz. I wonder where the flowers is.”

>Neanderthals

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>According to this, we are all part Neanderthal:

On the illness front, I am still having much leg pain from the other day. Not fun. One can only take so many pain pills, right?

>Snow

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>

Well, not really. I just came in from the other room and it was snowing petals. The wind had just picked up a bit, and there they went. Still a lot left, but another day or so and they’ll be gone. Here are two pictures I took this morning. Remember to click on any pictures to see them full size.

>It’s My Birthday

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>It’s also a beautiful, sunny day. I, of course, am in a fog since allergy season is in full swing. But it’s my birthday! Yay, me.

Here’s another little left-wing video I’d like to share. We have to fight for the voice of reason wherever we can, folks. Personally, I think there must be something in the water that has caused a lot of Americans to lose their ability to actually think for themselves and apply logic, reason, research, and examination to all the drek they seem to take in without question. Yay, Keith, for telling it like it is.

“>

If you made it through that, here’s a vid of the Iceland volcano, with some nice Sigur Ros music as a go-with. Couldn’t find the embed code.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWRvfPhehKM

>Another Beautiful Day

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>Taken yesterday while seated at my desk.

And here be cute football players. Nice. http://www.theage.com.au/photogallery/afl/footy-players-fight-homophobia/20100410-rzmp.html?selectedImage=0

>Strange Things

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>Well, one strange thing, anyway. I think I mentioned my DD and her ‘light’ treatments. Well, Friday, she did one for me….long distance. Called to tell me. I hung up the phone and proceeded to become engrossed in reading something on here. Suddenly, I became self-aware again (i.e. NOT engrossed in what I was reading) and realized I felt better. Seriously. My shoulders and arms (and the rest of me, for that matter) are always tense. Now they were loose and floppy. And didn’t have that background always-present ache. So I called her to tell her, even though the fifteen minute treatment wasn’t done. I am truly amazed that I actually felt something, especially when I wasn’t thinking about it or waiting for something. My focus was totally on what I was reading. My DD says I put Scully to shame as a skeptic, which is true, but I’m telling you, something actually happened. My arms and shoulders felt loose and pain-free for several hours. Interesting, to say the least. I was seriously expecting to have to tell her nothing happened.

Saturday, Gertrude and I participated in Earth Hour for the second year in a row. We did the same thing as last year, played ‘bird’ with her feathers-on-a-stick toy. It was nice. I wonder how many people participate in this, and how much energy is actually saved. Every bit helps, I think.

It’s another rainy day here in New England. I am so glad I don’t have a home with a basement. There have been lots of problems with flooded cellars, among other things. According to the local station, this has been the wettest March on record.

I can hear Gertrude snoring in her spot under the end table. Cute kitty.

>Beautiful Day

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>I had three good days in a row, got tons done, then two not-so-great days, then another good day today. Went out with a friend to Lowe’s, and a local salvage? store, and Border’s for cappuccino. It was gorgeous outside. Not even jacket weather. I didn’t take all my vitamins today, or have my yogurt with protein powder, so it will be interesting to see how I am tomorrow. The not great days I had weren’t really due to the illness, so I still think the vitamins and powder are making a difference in how I feel. More energy, less pain. It’s a good thing.

Here’s another reason to love the internet. I’m just posting the addy instead of the vid, because there are some interesting-looking vids in the sidebar, as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkGeOWYOFoA&feature=player_embedded

Happy spring, everyone.

>Google

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>DD#2 doesn’t trust Google. I have, as a general rule. Came across this today:

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=9925756&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=1&color=&fullscreen=1

THE BEAST FILE: GOOGLE (‘HUNGRY BEAST’, ABC TV) from Hungry Beast on Vimeo.

I like Gmail, Greader, Gcal, Picasa. Should I be worried? Seriously, I don’t think so.

On the illness front, things have been better. Having a constant headache, sleep is messed up again. Today I got up at 12:30 pm. Yesterday I got up at 9pm and the day before at 8pm. I don’t work nights. I don’t need to be awake all night and sleep all day, but my body just seems to work that way. I’m tireder in general all the time, and having more pain as well. I wish someone would come up with a way out of this mess that is fibro/cfs. It’s getting me down again.

>Cool Stuff

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>Sort of. I seem to have misplaced the March calendar, but on the other hand, I changed the click-on picture for the Moonlit blog to Earth in Spring…less snow cover, in case you couldn’t tell the difference. HA! Found the calendar.

The vid below is by OK Go, a group with some really clever vids as well as good music. I think I posted their treadmill video earlier. I absolutely love Rube Goldberg contraptions and wish I was clever enough to think one up, but they have done it, so enjoy.

>Rain

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>I like rain. I do. It has been raining forever and its going to rain forever more, it seems. Good thing I like rain, isn’t it?

Here’s a really nice song I found here:

http://dispatchesfromtheisland.blogspot.com/

Yes, it’s Jorge Garcia’s blog. Neat. Here the vid:

>Oh, Look

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>It’s our Ianto. These calendars have the weekend on the right. Kind of hard to get used to, but it’s our Ianto, so we’ll forge ahead with it anyway. Right?

>Who Loves This:

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>
,Torchwood, and LolCats http://icanhascheezburger.com/?

If you do, then read this:

http://sam-storyteller.livejournal.com/126227.html

Oh, and the ‘Jean’ mentioned after the story is not THIS Jean.

>One More Thing

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>If you haven’t checked out the “Moonlit” blog at the top of the sidebar, you don’t know what you are missing. So click on the picture, people.

>Great Band Here

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>Tweeted by Zachary Levi, “Chuck”. I love Chuck. I don’t really tweet, but I do follow a few people. Got to keep up, don’t you know. LOL

http://thedaylights.com/

>This is Brilliant

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>And disco-ball top is clearly the winner, in my book.

Found it here:

http://tywkiwdbi.blogspot.com/

>Update On A Book Rec, Illness

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>Quite awhile ago I posted about this book: “Animals in Translation” by Temple Grandin. I just read that HBO has a movie about her. I don’t get HBO, but I look forward to seeing the movie when it gets to Netflix. It was a very interesting book. Here’s a link to the post:

http://strangelypeculiar.blogspot.com/2009/01/recovery-day.html

Now to illness. Good old illness. It’s always there, it never goes away. My pills all quit working so I am just doing the sleep when I can thing. Up all night and then sleep till 3pm yesterday, 2:30pm today. But I feel better. Hmmm. Allergies better today, too, but still taking allergy pill.

Sometimes it gets really hard to cope with all of this. My life is about what I can’t do, which is not what I want for myself. I never wanted my illness to be my identity, so I try to keep an interest in other things besides being sick. Politics, religion, humor. But I realize that the inner ever-present anger comes out pretty strongly at times. It’s been that way recently, I know. I’m angry at the world, at the politicians, at religious leaders who use religion to discriminate and even worse. But at heart, what I am really angry at is life. MY life. After my husband left, and I got over that hurdle, my life had such promise. That job I loved, going to the gym, signed up for classes at the local college. There was so much ahead of me. Then I got sick. With illness came more loss, lots of pain, isolation, loss of dreams and hope.

I was at Border’s the other day with a friend. I used to buy books by the armload when I was working. Before that, I would bring home armloads of books from the library, too. Now, no books. Nothing I want. Nothing that catches my eye. I’m never going to have a garden again, so why buy a gardening book? I rarely cook, so I surely don’t need a new cookbook. I don’t do crafts anymore, so no craft books necessary. I have lost hope. I can’t change anything, I can’t fix anything, I have no power over anything. It hit me in Border’s.

I have lost hope. This is it. This is all my life will ever be. Me, here in this little prison box of an apartment, with my invisible cat. Nothing to look forward to, nothing to hope for, nothing to get excited about. This is depression, people, and I haz it. I did not ask for illness, isolation, loneliness, but I have tried my best to accept and cope with it all. Right now I am not succeeding. There is so much to life, and I am missing most of it. At times like this, I just don’t know how to cope anymore. How to be accepting. How to pull myself up by my bootstraps (bootstraps?) and move on. I just can’t do it right now. I miss my life, my job, my husband, my dreams for the future. But they are all gone and I can never get them back.