Here: https://www.tumblr.com/massachusetts-official

My insurance has an online therapy benefit. It’s an 8 week cognitive behavioural therapy. Learning skills to cope with the way my life is. Had the first session today. Learned I am coping rather well, surprisingly enough, but then I have had 25 years with chronic illness to learn. Interesting things: Setting goals. I don’t have goals. I cannot have goals because I live in the moment, and almost never think ahead or plan ahead, because I never know even in the same day if I am going to be able to do something I had agreed to do. Decide to go shopping with a friend this afternoon? Have to cancel because when I agreed I was physically able and before the time arrived, I was no longer physically able. Chronic, painful, exhausting, debilitating illness can be fun. Not. LOL Reaching out: I am terrible at that, because I always think the other person has their own problems and they don’t need to be listening to mine. Also, I was cut out of a friend’s life once for being ‘too needy’. I wasn’t, but she saw it that way. Therapist today said maybe she was projecting on me problems in her own life, but that just makes a stronger argument for not reaching out. Going to work on that next time, I think. Asking for help: kind of the same as reaching out. Don’t want to be a burden or get cut out of someone’s life again. Intellectually I know that people like to help, but emotionally I am still at the point of losing my best friend. Back then, I did not give up and called to ask why she was no longer speaking to me, and we worked it out and are still friends, only in a different way now. It hurt, and it still hurts if I let myself think about it. Which I don’t. Most of the time. I am very good at repressing and not allowing myself to think about things. Works for me, or so I think. I may find out different with therapy, but that’s life, right? I am very, very wary about asking anybody for anything. And when I do, I am always waiting for the dreaded loss of contact with the person. Even when I am reassured it will not happen, over time, contact slowly becomes less and less. Life is hard sometimes. Really hard, but you just have to live with things as they are, I guess. 

But I did surprise myself with how well I am managing being alone over 99% of the time. Not being able to do what I need or want when I need or want to do it. Not being able to go grocery shopping, or just shopping. Or pretty much anything. Somethings I can do something if a friend goes with me (and provides the transportation), but that happens less and less often, as friends tend to spend time with friends who CAN do things. I’m pretty sure that anyone with a chronic illness or disability will tell you that even good friends tend to drop away over time. You get left behind as their lives go on. And I cope with that. Pretty well, so the therapist says. Yay, me. I am a person whose brain figures things out while I talk about them, and I have not had anyone to talk to for quite a long time, so am looking forward to this. Seven more sessions to go. I may have mentioned that Gertrude the Cat is not a very good conversationalist, so no help there. LOL

Be safe. WEAR YOUR MASK. Save someone’s life.

I was quite disturbed recently that a book had been banned in my town, because ONE person asked for that to happen. One person can decide for an entire town what is and is not allowed. ONE PERSON. How is this justified? How is this reasonable, rational, sane? Was then delighted to learn that enough people spoke up to protest this and the ban was rescinded. Does not change the fact that it happened, in my town, here in a very enlightened and progressive state.  Here’s an article about it. https://turnto10.com/news/local/north-attleborough-school-district-reverses-book-ban-amid-criticism-southern-new-england-massachusetts-january-23-2024

is a disgrace.

Got my ears checked and it seems I need hearing aids. They are very delicate about suggesting it, as it seems people are very sensitive about the subject. Why? I want to hear, what’s so hard about that? Deafness is not a personal failing, after all But the bonus of this is that it seems one ear has something odd about it, inner bones are wrong or something, so I am getting an MRI. Finally. Have been wanting one for a long time, because something is wrong in my head and I keep getting a sort of brush-off when I bring it up. I had an MRI when I first got fibro, because they thought I had something else at first. Seems I have lesions on the brain (little white spots) which can be an indicator of MS, but I do not have MS. Be interesting to see if anything has changed in that respect. More lesions, did they disappear, what? 

Bought some cooked shrimp and cocktail sauce from the grocery store. Have not had shrimp in years because I am not sure how to buy it or cook it. Anyway, next day I had major,major pain. Was it the shrimp? Better today. Also determined to go back to 5 mg prednisone instead of six, because more pain/awake all night, I will go for the pain for now. Being awake all night and then needing to sleep half the day is not my idea of a good time. 

Sometimes, I just feel like I cannot catch a break, but never give up, never surrender. Right? 

And, it’s yet another gray day. This is so like February in New Hampshire, where it felt like the sun did not shine for the entire month. Sort of saps your energy when it is all gray, gray, gray. Not that I have that much energy in the first place. LOL

Be safe, people. Wear your mask. Please. I am thinking of putting a sign on my door: No Mask No Entry. Almost nobody wears a mask, even at the doctor’s or the hospital.

From a post on Bored Panda:

“…And if you really want to talk about real life, be it COVID, the flu or common cold, you will get exposed to the virus, it will go through this process over a day or so, then you will be infectious but will not yet have symptoms. You are infecting others before you know you have millions of virus particles inside you. So if you are at work and a coworker has a cold it is good to avoid them, but if you interacted with them the day before when they had no cold, you were potentially exposed and may get the cold yourself. And as I teach students, the symptoms you experience are not due to the virus, but your immune response to the virus. Otherwise you would not be asymptomatic yet have the virus raging inside of you. When your body recognizes the foreign invader you start to get symptoms. One last tid bit, you are sick longer than you are infectious. With a cold you might be infectious till day three or four of symptoms or so, then no longer, but you still have several days of symptoms to go.”

Sort of. Cold, cold, cold. It was 13 F this morning. 21 now. Winter is here. For now. 

Hurt my leg. Nothing I am aware of doing, but stood up and oh, my. Could barely stand on it or walk. Went to clinic, went to hospital for x-ray, slight inflammation and of course, arthritis, but it’s just a muscle thing, it seems. Already better but had to take celebrex AND 2 extra strength tylenol to be able to walk. Slightly better today. Yay. 

Did I mention my homemaker’s work screwed up her schedule and she could only come once a week? NOOOOOO. Got my caseworker involved and now she is back to twice a week, except Mon and Thurs instead of Tues and Fri. Don’t like Monday, because that’s the holiday day, but better than only coming once a week. I really like her, so glad it worked out.

I am in a NextDoor thing for my town and am appalled at how many of my fellow townies are MAGA idiots. Very disturbing. Why on earth people actually seem to worship that orange disgrace is beyond me. I think it truly is a cult. Brainwashed followers think he can do no wrong in spite of all the proof of all the wrong he has/is doing. How can people be so willfully ignorant is beyond me. Want to just live my life and be happy and safe, but you can’t do the ostrich thing in today’s world and pretend nothing is going on. Genocide, homophobia, misogyny, xenophobia, so many things wrong that are happening all the time all around us. It is very disheartening. I have no idea what to do about it, even if I was in a position to do anything about it. Which I am not. I sign petitions. That’s my big contribution to the world. Kind of useless, aren’t I? Oh, well.

Day before yesterday, with the help of my homemaker who prepped the potatoes, I made corn chowder. Last week, with her potato help again, I made tuna soup. Homemade soup is so good, and you have meals for two or three days. It’s a good thing. Corn chowder is so easy. Cube and boil potatoes, add creamed corn, let heat a bit, add a can of evaporated milk and a scoop of bacon grease for flavor, heat again, don’t boil, add a butt-load of pepper and you’re good to go. I like pepper. Tuna soup is boil the potatoes in V-8, add canned tuna, bit of oregano, heat a bit, and again you are good to go. I have a lot of soup recipes that I can make now that I have someone to do the prep work, which I cannot do right now. 

That’s it for now. Wear your mask, vote BLUE, and be kind to your fellow humans. Be kind to animals, too. Just be kind. It is not that hard. 

Not sure why those two blank things are there, and cannot get rid of them. Sorry. :(

I got to go out and do a bit of shopping. A friend took me. We went to the Dollar Store, the local plant nursery, and Shaw’s. It was fun, but it was also very, very slow, painful, exhausting, and just plain difficult. Even getting in and out off the car was hard. Won’t do that again til I can figure out what caused this and get the miracle cure that must be out there somewhere, right? Probably not. I took Celebrex last night and 2 extra strength Tylenol this morning or I would not have been able to even contemplate going out. So much pain. I am appalled at how much I have lost as far as function, mobility, etc., in just a few short weeks. Not that I was particularly mobile before, I need a shopping basket to hang off of anyway, but I am so much worse. I am finding it very worrisome and somewhat upsetting, because what if I don’t get better from this? How long will I be able to live by myself? Am I going to need care and there is nobody to do that anyway. The thing is, if I am suddenly a bit better tomorrow, I will totally forget how bad I was and that is a really good thing. Have to keep thinking of my motto: ”Never give up. Never surrender.” Thank you, Galaxy Quest. 

Been over two months since I last blogged. Nobody noticed, it seems. Oh, well. I have been feeling very abandoned lately. My kids, neither of whom live near me, at least keep in touch with Signal, a messaging service where we have our own group. Fun. My oldest friend lives quite a ways away, and has some issues in her own life, and does not keep in touch on any sort of regular basis. I understand. My nearby friend has made a load of new friends and does a ton of activities, and there is no time left for me. I get this too. I get less and less mobile as time goes on, and cannot be out and about that much, and the things we used to do like play games are not that interesting for her anymore. Real life is more fun. Chronic, painful, debilitating illnesses are not.

I have also had a lot more health issues. A LOT more pain for whatever reason I have no idea of. I did make a discovery, though. A friend got me some CBD oil, which one of my doctors recommended I try. It works great for back pain, but my all over joint pain (the new crap I now live with) gets worse. A lot worse. If I take Celebrex, it makes the joint pain much better, but does nothing for my back. Cannot take them both together since Celebrex can cause bleeding, and CBD oil ups the chances of that happening again. I had a bleed a year and a half ago and was hospitalized for three days. Fun times. As a result, I have to wear one of those ‘help I’ve fallen and I can’t get up’ things, mainly because I had to crawl from the bathroom where I passed out from loss of blood to the living room where the cell phone was. Cat thought it was very weird, but fun. 

I did get a new homemaker who I like and does a pretty good job. I also hired someone to come in and help organize and declutter, since I am totally physically unable to do that. She will come for an hour a week til I run out of money to pay her. I also hired my homemaker to do the same type of thing, and again, until I run out of money. So hopeful on that subject. The person completely redid my pantry shelf and everything is organized. Veg together, beans canned and dry together, canned and dry milk together and so on, so I only have to look to see what I have in any category. She did it in one hour. ONE. Have some empty jars that were scattered all over because no place to put them, so will have homemaker put the dry food, flour, oatmeal, etc in them. More space opens. Yay. Want to do the cupboards, too, as there are a lot of things I no longer use, since cooking is hard, and some things I know I will never use again. So bye, I hope. Maybe someone else can get some use out of them.

We did have snow one day. Melted and gone two days later. But I had moved laptop back to table by window, so messed about on it and watched snow fall most of that day. Was a very good day. Now I am very tired, so going to couch with my Oasis. Anything that is not an original keyboard Kindle is very annoying with the ‘here’s more books’ and such crap taking up space and you have to wade through it all. Also magazines. I don’t want magazines, but you just cannot seem to stop them coming, and then there is no way to delete them that I have found. God, I miss my Kindle keyboard. So much. But the last battery I bought for it was dead, and came all the way from China anyway, so I guess there is no hope for it. I miss it so much. Anyway, am reading my Torchwood fan fiction, of course, and right now am reading another Harry Grimm book by David J Gatward. Really like these character-driven mysteries. So over and out. Time to collapse on the couch. :)

Kind of blah today. A friend who I hadn’t seen in some time came to visit last evening. We had a great chat. She watches all the shows, the ones that go on about everything that is wrong,exposays, etc. (Don’t know how to do the accent over the e, so just spelled it out.) Anyway, very angry about everything, as am I, but I don’t watch any of that, I don’t even watch regular tv, just streamers, because I would be angry all the time, and life is just too short. I cannot change anything, or fix anything, so why do that to myself. Everyday of my life is a struggle anyway, so why make it worse on purpose? Had fun anyway, though. She brought dinner from one of our favorite restaurants, and while tasty, it was a huge disappointment. Last time we had it, it was huge mound of mashed potatoes surrounded by a thick, meaty Guinness stew. Fabulous. Last night I had maybe a quarter cup of mash in a sea of thin broth with a bunch of sliced carrots and some tough and gristly beef. What has happened to everything? I can no longer get a decent pizza, my local Chinese is astronomically overpriced, and Papa Gino’s no longer carries my favorite dishes anyway.

I am working to get a new homemaker service, because this one is so not working out. My homemaker, who was not the best at her job but tried, and who I got on really well with and we had good convos and laughing, left. The new one only shows up less than half the time and does the barest of minimum. So after discussing this twice with my case worker, and thinking it was fixed after the first time, I had to call again and she is trying to find another agency for me. It is very frustrating, because laundry does not get done, the store seems to have nothing on my list, although another store that she does not go to , does. So I am ordering delivery from Target, which is going exceptionally well so far. I get free delivery because I joined Shipt, but you still have to tip, and I am a good tipper, which increases the cost of groceries. But at least I get them. I had hoped to cook some things, but the body has gone back into the pain and fatigue phase. The good days never last. Never. I am normally lucky to get one good day in a row, but a couple of weeks ago I had several. Then they were gone. Oh, well.

It’s gray. It’s been mostly gray for some time, which always puts me in a funk, even though I turn on my sun when I get up and leave it on for a few hours. Full spectrum bulbs in the overhead light are a really good thing in the gray days. It is like a sunny day in here while they are on. These are like the ones I have. The cover does not fit on the fixture, but I so don’t care. LOL

I realized that in four more days it will be exactly two months since I have been out of the apartment. How I long for a balcony, at least, but no. I miss outside. I miss getting my own groceries, I miss a lot of things, but it is what it is. I know people hate that saying, but it’s a valid one. It is what it is. Accept what you cannot change and make the best of it. I have my Kindle and my streamers, which I have been watching more of lately. Especially the MHz Choice channel with French and Belgian and German tv shows. Countries look very different that you think based on American shows. One show was filmed in the Dolomites, and I was stunned at how beautiful it is there.

One in Paris has Notre Dame just as part of the everyday scenery shots.

Like it’s just there. I guess when you live with something, it doesn’t seem the big deal for those of us who only see it in pictures or as tourists. Anyway, I am quite enjoying that channel. I hardly watch any American tv any more, except right now I am doing a rewatch of Eureka. I like Eureka. But current or even recent programs are just really of no interest at all to me. I am kind of rewatching The Big Bang Theory for the zillionth time. I loved that show before it became the Whiny Sheldon Show.

My allergies have been horrible lately. Just saying. Wear your masks, be safe, keep others safe as well. It’s not all about you. Over and out.

And it got cold. It’s 39 right now at 9:30 am. Was very gray earlier, sun came out, more gray is moving in from the west now. Had to turn the heat on yesterday.

Still doing okay. Not as good as I was there for a bit, but still better than I was for a very, very long time. Today I need to go downstairs and get the cat food I ordered. It came a couple of days ago, so I hope it’s still there. My homemaker didn’t come yesterday, or she would have brought it up. Deliveries used to come to my door. No more.

The cooking has kind of gone by the wayside again. Just don’t have enough energy. I took a weird class once. Not sure the actual purpose now, but one of the things we did was have to write down exactly how to make a peanut butter sandwich, in case we had to explain it to aliens or something, I don’t know. Anyway, you would not believe how many separate steps there are to making that sandwich, starting with opening wherever the bread is stored, getting the bread out, closing that space’s door, moving the bread to the counter. Opening the bread. Taking out the slices, closing the bread, moving the bread back to that space, opening the space, putting the bread in, closing the space (cabinet?), getting the peanut butter from wherever it is, bringing it to the counter, opening the jar, opening the drawer, getting out a knife, closing the drawer. And on and on and on. It is exhausting when you are in pain or have little to no energy to do each step for whatever it is you are doing. When you are healthy, you don’t even think about it, but for people like me, with chronic, painful, exhausting illnesses, you find yourself constantly making trade-offs. If I do this, will I have enough energy to do that, will I have to go lie down for a while before I can continue, if I skip this will it still come out edible. On so on. So cooking anything more than maybe scrambled eggs and toast is out right now. Again. It was nice while it lasted. I like cooking. I also cannot normally cook and clean up on the same day. Exhaustion and pain win. BUT:

Today I want to water my plants, do the dishes from the past two days, call the vet, send an email to a potential therapist, who I hope can help with cope with being alone all the time and not being able to do what I want or need to do, when I want or need to do them. I have been doing this for so many years, you’d think I’d be an expert, but no. Every time things work out that I am alone 99.9 per cent of the time, which happens more than you’d think, I find myself withdrawing from the world.

We are taught to reach out, but it gets harder and harder to motivate myself to do that. ‘They are busy, they have a life, I don’t want to be a nuisance. If they wanted to talk to me, they’d call me and since they never do, I get that message loud and clear. I am better off alone, anyway. I am not good with people. I have no social skills at all. I always say the wrong thing, do the wrong thing, and have no idea I’ve done that. Better not to put myself out there in the first place.’ These are the things that run through the heads of people like me. I have learned to be pretty happy on my own, and even if I get in a funk, sooner or later I am able to pull myself out of it. ‘Never give up. Never surrender.’ Thank you Galaxy Quest. LOL

https://www.npr.org/2023/10/25/1208419749/scholastic-book-fair-diverse-stories-apology

It mentions a ‘small but vocal minority’, which Scholastic gave into, and that is the problem in this country right now, I think. A small but vocal minority are dictating what happens to the rest of us. Giving in to them seems to be the thing right now. Why? If you know they are a small minority, trying to foist their views on the rest of us, why do you allow it to happen? Why do you give in? Maybe it’ just that you share their views that only certain religions, certain takes on what is or isn’t moral or acceptable, certain hatreds for those who are not exactly like you. I don’t know. The squeaky wheel get the grease seems to be very true right now. The louder you are, the more likely you are to get your way. So the rest of us need to be loud, too. Even though it may go against the grain, it may be that we are more accepting of diversity, it may be that we just want to live and let live. But this tactic does not work. We have to speak up and be louder than those who want to impose their narrow view of life on all of us. We have to fight back. Speak up. Resist. Vote them out. Do SOMETHING! Please.

has returned. It is 79f right now. The next couple of days are forecast to be even warmer. We are days away from November. Fresh air is really nice, though.

My friend is coming over in a bit. Today is six weeks since the last time I saw her. First she and her husband got covid, he had foot pain, and it was an infection that turned out to be in the bone and he had surgery, and was hospitalized for several days and now has 3 antibiotic infusions daily. Slowly recovering, but her time has been filled with taking care of him. Will really be happy to see her. She insisted he go to the Er and it turns out that she actually saved his life, because if he had waited any longer, they would very likely not been able to save him. They told her it was almost too late when he came in, and they ‘had to act fast’. Scary. Don’t mess around, people. See a doctor.

I am better again, so that seems to prove that it’s one or a combo of the supplements I was taking that was the problem. I am just doing D3 and fish oil this week, and next week I will do D3 and B. I will wait to start combining more til I’ve gone through all of them to see if any one in particular is the problem.

I got ice cream today. Have not had ice cream in eons, as I’ve been trying to be really careful with my diet because of the diabetes type 2 diagnosis. I wanted a pint, but my homemaker got bars, which is better really. Measured doses of the sweet stuff. I got Haagen-Daz white chocolate raspberry. Oh, yum. That’s it for now. Wear your masks, people. Save a life. Masks are not only to protect you, they are to protect others in case you are infected and don’t know it yet. People with illnesses and compromised immune systems can die from COVID, so please, think of others even when you think you personally are immortal. 🙂

I think so anyway. You may not. I am taking some meds that are kind of bad for your stomach, so I quit taking my supplements, except for D3, which I take 2,000 IU twice a day. Been doing that for years and my doctors okay it. I almost never get outside so really need it. Anyway… Have been doing really well for me. Keeping up with dishes and getting minor things done here and there, a lot more active than normal. Then I suddenly was not doing so well again. This always happens, and I can never figure out why. Just the way of the chronic, debilitating illnesses Mother Nature has foisted upon me. But on thinking about it, I realized that it happened when I started taking the supplements again a few days ago. So yesterday I did not take them, and woke up today much better again. So now I am just going to add one every few days to see which it is that caused the problem. I take B vits, iron, fish oil, Centrum, and chewable calcium. Added back the fish oil today. We’ll see how that goes.

Another nice day. Window open, it is 69F according to my weather app. Liking the fresh air, but it is October, nearing November Mother Nature. Trees are finally turning, but the ones across the street, that did not bloom for the first time ever this spring, are looking odd. They must have been really damaged by the drought we had. I am fortunate to live where we haven’t really seen drastic effects of the climate debacle we have caused, and I cannot imagine how horrible it is for people who are in the middle of the effects. Fires, drought, floods. We are only at the beginning of the massive changes that are going to happen because of us. Migrations, because where people are will become virtually uninhabitable. Insects and diseases where they did not exist before. The warmer it gets, the more these things will travel northward. No frosts to kill things, they will become year round pests instead of seasonal. Already allergy season is lasting longer, and soon will just be year round as well. We did this. We caused this. The people who benefit from tragedy, the people who only care about profit, they will tell you this is so much idiocy. It is not. I only have to look out my window to see the changes that have happened in the 23 years I have lived here. We were warned decades ago, and choose to ignore those warnings because hey, it’s the future. I only care about right now. Well, the future turns into today before you know it, and it’s too late to change it then.

This is from here: https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/ And remember, it is major corportations who are doing the damage, not people using plastic straws. Although plastic is a blight on the planet in general. But it is corporations that put it out there. Soda used to come in glass. Milk used to come in glass. So many things used to come in glass or paper and now almost everything comes in plastic. Even the sleeves crackers come in are now plastic. Why? They took away our ability to choose in many instances. It’s plastic or nothing. Blame the right people.

Wear your masks. Covid is not over. I have friends who can attest to that from current experience.

Had coffee day before yesterday. Awake til 7:30am, slept til 9:30am, pretty useless all day. No coffee. Went to sleep pretty early for me last night, and awake around 7am. Had coffee pretty early today, so will see what happens with sleeping tonight. If I have to quit coffee altogether, I will miss it. The coffee I am having right now is also half decaf and half regular. I mixed them together. I just have weird body chemistry.

Another gray day. Yesterday it was five weeks since I’ve seen my friends or anyone except the homemaker for a couple hours a week, and the guys who fixed the ceiling in the bathroom. Good thing I am used to being alone. Me and the cat. BTW, the ceiling had about a quarter size spot with a smaller one next to it, where the leak was that the plumber fixed. For this, the housing inspector failed the inspection. No one came to fix it, so when another inspector came back to check, they failed it again. OMG. A teeny spot on the ceiling. You would not believe. The stopped paying their share of the rent to the landlord, and told him that they have advised me to move (they did not), and what an unbelievably huge deal for a tiny spot on the ceiling. So now he is not getting paid until another inspector comes to see that the spot is painted over. Bureaucracy! Or give people a little power and they go insane. I had to call my caseworker, who apparently only works two days a week, and the person who sent the letter, who also was not available to speak to. I left messages to both of them to say the spot is fixed and please send an inspector to check it. The landlord also called them and had to leave messages.

And another thing. (Apparently, getting up early gets me riled up. LOLOL) Amazon. When I sign in, I get an email AND a text. I used to get a text when something was delivered, after they stopped delivering to my door that is, but no more. I would rather be notified that I had a package, than that I signed in. I know I signed in. I was there. I did it. The richer the (insert disparaging word here) gets, the worse the service gets. Greed, greed, greed. How much money do you need? I mean, all those rich old white men WILL die at some point, and all the money on the planet cannot save them, so why are they hoarding it all? Humanity. We need some serious retooling, I think.

Couple of wows. I have gotten up at 7:30 two days in a row. WTF??? That’s normally the middle of the night.

The other wow? Had my homemaker get me some Ruffles chips yesterday with the rest of the shopping. Six dollars, count them, six, for a small bag of Ruffles. Going to make chips in the air fryer from now on. Six dollars. Price gouging is real, people. Thanks to the Elephant party, the one the orange disgrace belongs to, price gouging is just fine. Corporate greed is running rampant, and I don’t know how people with kids are surviving, even without ever buying a six dollar bag of chips.

Here is a quote from this newsletter I get.

“Interestingly, what people go through with chronic pain has been compared to modern methods of torture, which typically includes both inflicting pain and imposing sleep deprivation.”

I totally agree. Dr. Teitelbaum is an expert in Fibromyalgia. I once had a quite long email exchange with him about my illness, initiated by him when I signed up for a free program on his site. No charge, no trying to sell me anything, just talking about my symptoms and giving advice. I was very pleased and impressed. Anyway, the newsletter:

https://vitality101.com/health-a-z/poor-sleep-and-pain-can-cause-each-other

Sometimes mine is a 2, but rarely. Sometime it is a 9, not as rarely. Mostly it is somewhere in between and can vary daily or even hourly. It is never, ever a zero. Never. I am never pain-free, and meds only make it more tolerable, never cause it to go away. If this is not torture, what is? But it’s your own body torturing you. Life is fun.

A sunny day. It has been gray, gray, gray. Also warm and humid. Ick, Mother Nature. It’s October, you know. It is 59f now. Yay.

I have been doing not horribly awful,and have sorted papers and misc in three small boxes. I may have mentioned when it gets overwhelming, too much stuff on the table or wherever, I shove it in a box to sort later. Sometimes later takes quite awhile, thus three boxes. Actually there are two more, but one is old laptops and things, and the other is I have no idea but it is quite large and piled high, between the table and the end table, and has become a surface of its own. Yes, I have a weird life.

Here’s something good to do, I think:

https://sign.moveon.org/petitions/disqualify-donald-trump-from-holding-public-office-under-the-constitution-s-14th-amendment

“There are only two days in the year that nothing can be done. One is called yesterday and the other is called tomorrow, so today is the right day to love, believe, do and mostly live.”

Dalai Lama

Rght now is the only moment in which you are actually alive. Don’t miss it.

I got up at noon. Noon. I was very out of it yesterday, so much have been over-tired for whatever reason. Guess I needed the sleep. Another nice day. It is 73 f. It’s early in the month, though. The first October we lived here, 1968, a friend and I took my oldest DD trick-or-treating and almost froze, it was so cold. Weather has certainly changed since then, in spite of what the climate change deniers want you to believe. No more three days of slow rain, no more feet-deep snows. Not much snow at all anymore. Very sad.

Here’s a picture I found of properly roasted brussels sprouts, too, in case anyone cares. 🙂 Not a great picture, and these were done in an air-fryer, not an air-fryer toaster oven like I have, or in an actual oven in an iron skillet like I did before I got the air-fryer toast oven thingy. Which I love, by the way. But they almost looked burnt and ruined, but believe me, they are not.

It is quarter past one, and I am having morning coffee. Ha. Which I will regret, because I will be awake most of the night again, and the homemaker is due at 9am tomorrow. In the morning. 9 am in the morning. LOLOL I do not do morning well, people. Not even.