“Later, sandwiches become sweeter, Enderwick says, with sugar added to bread and sauces. ‘That was part of the plan by companies to sell more.’” Haven’t I always been saying this? Sugar is addictive and in the U.S. it is added to everything so you will buy more. Other countries do not put sugar in everything. I have read comments from visitors from other countries that say our bread is more like cake. We are all about the profit in this country. For shame. Quote is from here: https://www.theguardian.com/food/2023/nov/01/from-compressed-yeast-to-cream-cheese-and-cornflakes-one-mans-search-for-the-worlds-greatest-sandwich

Last night I spent two hours, two, texting with my family, two daughters, one grandson. OMG During which I learned that there is speech to text, and it is amazing because I just cannot type on the stupid phone keyboard. Of course, it gets what I say wrong a lot of the time, but it was so funny. At one point I was laughing so hard I could not read the screen. My grandson is super snarky. He got it from me. My friend Tess says I am the Master of Snark. Yay, me. We are all very funny, too. Also got that from me. 🙂

There is also a little voice recorder so you can speak your text and they can hear you. How cool is that. It’s been there on my Moto all the time, but I never noticed it, but grandson pointed it out to me on my Samsung. I love that phone. Seriously. But I also discovered that you can make long recorded notes or whatever. As long as you want, and then supposedly can send them to people. I am recording what I remember of my life. My oldest daughter asked me to. It’s amazing what I remember, but I think that is partly because my friend Ed asks me the most bizarre questions and most of them spark a memory about something.. Who would even think to ask if I had a pet snake growing up in Colorado. Did I ever see a porcupine in person? Do I like Chef Boyardee? Ewwww. I don’t remember ever having canned pasta. Ick. But really unusual questions. There is a lot of laughing. Laughing is good. But who knew you could do that on your phone? I googled tape recorders and came across the info somewhere. It uses the Voice Recorder app. Free. Free is good. Just so you know.

It is gray, gray, gray again. And raining. Yet again. Wettest year in a long time. Good thing I like rain, and live on high ground AND on the second floor. First floor, if you’re British. LOL

Oh, here is a picture of my full-spectrum bulbs. They are too big to put the cover on the light fixture, which I think would negate the full-spectrum-ness anyway. I would have done a picture of my desk, but it lives under a mountain of paperwork and stuff at the moment. Oh. well. 🙂

So over fuzzy headedness. Allergies are worse than ever. Hard to get anything done with pain, let alone not being able to think clearly.

BUT, I discovered I have been making coffee wrong. Not enough grounds, not steeping/perking long enough. Much better now. I only have one cup a day, so I want it to be the best. I use two heaping scoops, mine is a tablespoon, for one mug, and let it do it’s thing for 7 minutes once it’s started turning brown in the glass lid of the percolator, or I pour the just-off-the-boil water into the french press. Perked takes longer, but if I heat the water in my kettle first, it takes a lot less time to make. I like perked. I have a little one-mug stove top percolator. Heat it on not quite high heat, once it turns a bit brown in the glass thingy, lower heat to just above med low (electric stove) and leave for 7 minutes. Should be doing a slow perk. Turn off heat and let stand for a few minutes to settle. I also pour it through a melitta brown filter into the mug. Wet the filter first. And that’s how I make good coffee for one. 🙂

Another gray day. And then it’s going to rain for the next few days. We have had so much rain, after the severe drought two summers ago, and not much rain last year, we are def making up for it. Flooding alerts almost every day. Fortunately, I must live on higher ground, because it is not a problem here. But not that far away it has been pretty bad for some people.

My lovely helper person is on vacation, and no homemaker anymore, so am depending on friends yet again. To take out the trash and get the mail, because I am just not up for trekking downstairs to the mailbox. Too much pain makes it very hard to get around.

My Asus laptop has given up showing anything on the monitor, and the HP keeps going black screen randomly, so I hauled out my older Dells. One is okay, but kind of wonky, but the oldest one, the really well-made Dell, works perfectly except for being so unbelievably slow, which is why I replaced it in the first place. I have cleaned it up as much as possible, but it take about a minute to load gmail, for example. Or anything else, really. But it has win10, so I am learning patience. I hope. Oh, I also discovered why I have 2,000 instances of each category, like Documents in my file explorer. You have to go into the Documents or any other folder, choose ‘view’, ‘options’, and ‘change folder and search options’, ‘view’ and check ‘don’t show hidden files, folders or drives’. Voila. Just FYI.

Took a picture of my messy living room. It is a work in progress. My helper and I have been doing the kitchen cupboards, but will get to this next. It actually looks kind of cheery. I must have had the sun on when I took the picture. I have full spectrum bulbs in the overhead light, which I turn on when I get up on the dark days, and leave on for 3 or 4 hours. Makes a huge difference in my mood. Once I was working at the table with my back to the windows, and when I turned around it was dark outside. I thought it was still daytime because it really does seem like the sun is shining. They are Phillips curly bulbs, and I have had them for at least a decade. I should probably order some back ups just in case, but then I’d need to get someone to replace them. I have high ceilings. I love high ceilings. Okay, Rambling on. Later. Oh, second pic it was in slightly better shape. So was I. Second Gertrude had just moved in. When I moved in, I had the table the tv is on, a big brown basket, a plant stand, the blue chair, the table and chairs, the shelf thing in the hallway, and my desk, which is in the bedroom. I seem to have accumulated some stuff in the intervening years. LOL

Look at that blue sky, too. New phone has a MUCH better camera than the old Moto.

Saw an article about how low-income people are eating less and less fast food, because it has become too expensive. Low-income is below 45,000 per year. That is 2 and a half times my income. And yet, I make too much money for a lot of programs that are designed to help low income and disabled people. I may have mentioned that my soc sec increased I think 3.2 percent this year, so my food stamp benefits were cut by 20 percent. Your government at work. I’m not sure I understand the economics of this, but I do know that there are people in our government who resent the little I do get, and want to take it away. It matters who you vote for. It matters that you vote, because people always vote for the Red Guys, and the only way for the Blue guys to get more votes is for you to actually vote for them. People I have personally spoken to do not seem to understand this. Is US education THAT bad? I think so. Not voting is saying yes to the other guy. Go right ahead and take our benefits, take our freedoms, take our education, take our money. Take, take, take. They do give, but only to their rich friends, not us.

https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/fast-food-companies-seeing-low-income-diners-pare-orders-2024-03-27

Those buds I showed you a picture of earlier in the month have still not opened. I think the trees are going to go right to leaves again this year. Last year I did not see one single flower. First time ever. Climate change. It is not a good thing. More bugs, longer allergy seasons, fun times.

My new organizer person came yesterday, and we redid some cupboards, to make items more accessible, as I no longer have enough strength to move heavier things for higher shelves. I tend to ‘all or nothing’ and she just said move some of these here, and then put those there, instead of just relocating entire shelves worth. Worked. Some bowls are on the glasses shelf, some glass measuring cups are where the bowls were. I can easily access everything I need, and the higher shelves have small light items only at the front so are easily reachable. Got rid of some things I never use, too. She is not a pro. She is just doing this because I asked for someone on NextDoor and she replied. She does a lot of good works. Drives people to dialysis, among other things. I really lucked out when I found her. She is becoming a friend, too, which is nice, cause I only have two couples as friends now. Very good friends, but not a lot of them. Which is fine. I am not really a people person, as I think I’ve probably mentioned several thousand times. 🙂

Ordered in. First time in a while, as it is too expensive now. But one place has good food at still reasonable prices, and I actually have cash on hand, so lunch. I usually only order for dinner, but I was hungry and too not together to do any lunch prep. Open package, eat contents. Works for me. I tip well, too, because they bring me food. What’s not to love? I used to order a lot from Papa Gino’s, cause you don’t need cash for that, but the quality of their food has fallen as the prices have risen. Not worth it. At all. Same with Chinese food now. So expensive, and not great quality, so not doing that again. There is a really good Indian place up the street, but I don’t think they deliver, so would have to use Door Dash or some such. Had a bad experience the one time I used Door Dash, so not eager to try it again.

Very fuzzy-headed and off balance today. Doctor says it is allergies. I take at least one allergy pill and use my inhaler at least once, every single day now. Did I mention climate change is fun? Nope. Enough rambling. It is finally warming up a bit. Was pretty chill there for several days. 55 right now. Yay. Be safe. Vote Blue. And all that jazz.

https://lifehacker.com/tech/department-of-justice-apple-lawsuit

I know, I know, but it does happen now and then. Saw an article about how the DoJ is suing Apple. Didn’t read it, but it got me thinking. Remember when big companies had mottos? Walmart, was ‘Everything Made in America’. Google was ‘Do No Evil’. Don’t know Apple’s, or Twitter’s, but they must have had something back then. Now, everybody’s motto seems to be ‘Greed Is Good’, except for Facebook (Meta), which as you may know was started by Suckerberg as a way to rate college girls for “I’d do her” ness, so it was probably something to do with that. Which tells you all you need to know about him. I guess it kind of now is ‘Greed Is Good’, too, though.

In a good way, really. First, here’s an article I just came across:

Why can’t we just say ‘Living With’ rather than battling or whatever. I have never been comfortable with being referred to as battling or a warrior. I am living with a so-far incurable illness, more than one actually. I am getting through each day as best I can. That’s all.

I got a new phone. I know, I haven’t taken off that little sticker. It’s too small to see what it says, too. LOL My old one is needing to be charged more and more often and I saw one in Best Buy that I loved, and wound up getting it from Walmart. It is a Samsung. I have always had Moto, except for my first phone, which was a gift from my daughter. It was a Nokia flip phone that I absolutely adored. Star Trek anyone? It’s not the latest model, cause no way am I paying that much for a phone, but more expensive than any Moto I’ve ever bought. So far I love it.

I think I have made a new friend. I hired someone to help me declutter, and she has come a few times and is really nice and we just talk about things and have fun and she clearly wants to come back. I am kind of taken aback. I always think people are not going to like me, and if they do, they will soon change their minds. So much so that I used to find things wrong with people after a while, so that when they cut me out of their life, I could tell myself I didn’t really like them anyway. Yeah, I’ve had a lot of rejection. My fault, as I always manage to say or do the wrong thing without realizing it. Oh, well. Anyway, it’s nice to have a new friend.

I am firing my homemaker service. Well, my caseworker is. I have only had this agency a short time, and I don’t think any worker has come more than twice in a row. I usually get a new one every time. Not happy with the work, either, so am done with them. I have someone who will come once a week to vacuum and take out the trash as a favor, so until a new agency is found (virtually impossible now) I won’t drown in trash. Yay. This is NOT any homemaker I have ever had. LOL

What else? My organizer person completely redid my lower cupboards in less than an hour. Got rid of some things I am never going to need again, since I hardly cook now, and everything else is arranged so nothing is behind something else and I can see what’s there and easily access it. Really important when you are in pain. This is not my cupboard.

I had an amazingly good day Saturday which has not happened in quite some time, so I organized my messy big drawer in the kitchen, the window desk drawer, my coffee table tray where I keep everything I might need when I am in too much pain or too exhausted to get up and go find whatever. Pens, scissors, tissues, water bottle, etc. I have discovered that the bottles Kombucha comes in are excellent water bottles, as they are thick glass and do not break easily if Gertrude knocks one off the table. Inventoried and sorted my backup meds and made a list so I don’t buy something I already have. Pain meds, allergy pills, etc. Also sorted some paperwork and rearranged the table where I have the printer and my laptop. Organization is crucial when you are ill. Not having to search for things or move things makes all the difference. It was a very good day.

It’s been bright and sunny for a few days, too, which really helps a lot. Today of course is gray again. So over gray. In New Hampshire, February was gray month. It seemed like the sun did not shine for the entire month most years. It’s been like that this month here in Mass. I am only about 30 or 40 miles south but the curve of the earth at this latitude really impacts daylight. Amount and brightness. Interesting. Oh, looked it up. You can do that. It is 60 + miles in a straight line, 80+ driving miles. Did not think it was that far. you can see how the curve is above 40 degrees. Can’t figure out how to put the pictures side by side. Oh well.

Done rambling. Very foggy-brained today for whatever reason. Be safe, everyone. Vote BLUE.

Been advised to get with it and write something. So. Tried a new med, which I think is generic Cymbalta. It is used for pain as a secondary thing, so doctor advised me to ‘stop being afraid of side-effects’ and just try it. Well, I am the one who gets the side effect every time, but decided to brave it. Nope. First pill, I was awake for almost two days. Waited a few days, second pill awake but not as long, but my blood pressure sky-rocketed. I could feel my head throbbing. Have a cuff bp thing and at one point it was 200 over 190. Not sure exactly how accurate the thing is, but the next day it had gone back to 127 over I forget what, 80 something I think. Not taking that one again. I do tell my doctor that if the odds of getting a side-effect are a million to one, I will be the one. I once took a sleep aid that made me hyper, like being on speed, which I inadvertently took once because it was prescribed by my doctor at the time. He did not mention it was speed and I forget why he prescribed it but it was a very interesting experience. Got a lot done, too. Anyway, it did not help me get to sleep. Duh.

So felt lousy for a few days, because I do feel lousy a lot, then had some stomach issues with pain and everything going through me. Four days of that. On the bright side, I lost ten pounds. In the meantime, my new homemaker came. I get a different homemaker almost every time lately. Worst agency ever. Anyway, sent him to store for four (4) items. He did not return. Was kind of freaking out after an hour and a half, he has my security door and mailbox keys, I will have to call the landlord, what if he’s in an accident, should I call the police, what???? Did call the agency but can only leave messages. Someone called me back (wow) and she could tell me when he got here, when he left for the store, but not where he is at this moment. And then he showed up. IDEK. He said the store did not have everything I wanted so he went to another store. But the receipt is from the store I sent him to and he got all the items and paid two hours after he left here. ??? He is very nice though. But then yesterday I was assured he was to come at 11:30 but he had not shown up at 1pm so I called the agency. I should have called to tell then he was late. No, because every time, you say person will come at such and such a time, but when they arrive however much later, their schedule is completely different than what you said. Frustration. Anyway so no homemaker so far this week, hoping he will actually show up tomorrow. Also had to cancel my organizer person because of being sick earlier in the week.

Then, my laptop has stopped loading the screen. It loads half way and then has a bunch of vibrating lines and the bottom half is black. Unplugged, let sit a couple days, no change. Cannot remove battery like used to do with older laptops. Looked up fixes, none of which worked. Cranked up the old HP, which is what I am using now. So small, but as soon as I signed in and it brought up win10, I just gave a huge sigh of relief. I hate win11 with a passion, so am very happy to be using win10 again.

THEN my phone has stopped holding a charge for more than half a day or so. Ordered a new phone from Samsung that I had seen in Best Buy but didn’t get at the time. Excitement. Got an email they cancelled the order because of some issue with my info, even though my credit card authorized the charge. Waited a week, order again. Same thing. Wound up ordering it from Walmart, which was a pain in itself. Really hope it lives up to my expectations after all that. Supposed to be delivered Saturday. My friend will bring it over Sunday if it does show up. I have things sent to her house because packages are just dumped in the outer lobby with not even a buzz to let you know. And they get stolen. So everything goes to her house.

On the other hand, the trees are working on blooming, it is in the low 60’s, and a beautiful day. And I am not feeling too bad today, either. So yay. That’s all.

There is just so much going wrong, in my state, in my country, on my planet. Our planet. Your planet. The only home we have.

Here is Massachusetts, there is serious violence in Brockton schools. Teenagers are running wild and being destruction in Saphora stores. What the heck is Saphora? Not a store I am aware of, but kids running wild in any context is not a good thing.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/call-national-guard-help-high-school-violence-stirs-controversy-massac-rcna139584

https://www.buzzfeed.com/meganeliscomb/sephora-kids-gen-alpha

Apparently, young people are becoming more and more destructive and unruly and belligerent. I get that. Look at the world we have given them. Look at the prospects they have for a future. Religious fanatics taking over their country, rich white men keeping all the wealth and robbing them of even a hope for a decent life with enough food, shelter, etc. So many countries on the planet going the same way. Global warming, whether you can see it is real or not, is happening as we speak, and kids see that the world we knew is not the world they are going to live in as adults. It is already not the world I lived in for most of my life. I would be acting out, too. We need to come up with solutions, and ways to give hope to the generations coming up. But no. We are too absorbed by greed to care about anything but making more money. Profit is the only thing that matters, it seems. I do not know how to fix this.

And I can sit here and watch my favorite tv show, enjoying my snacks, petting my cat, being safe and warm and sheltered, while at the exact same moment, people are being massacred in Palestine. And not only in Palestine. Other countries are suffering the same fate. Genocide is occurring at the same moment I am laughing at a tv show. How do I cope with this? How do I integrate the knowledge that some of my fellow humans are seemingly gleefully murdering other fellow humans? Making videos of cooking and eating the food left in the houses of the people they have just murdered. How does anyone deal with this? We seem to have regressed as a species to something that should have sunk into the mud and vanished eons ago.

We have serious problems with the climate. Once the earth warms to a not-life-sustainable for humanity level, none of the crap people are doing to one another is going to matter in the least. Survival will be all, which again will just engender more genocide, because we always fight over resources, instead of coming up with ways to help all of us. Instead of working to change what we are still doing that is causing the global warming in the first place. No, it’s everything for me and to hell with the rest of you. Humans do not seem to know how to work together for the common good. Look at those rich white men who have more wealth that they could possibly ever need even if they were immortal. Do they use it to better their fellow humans? Any other life on this planet? Nope, they hoard it and work to get more and more. They are the embodiment of Scrooge in his vault playing in his money. I keep telling myself not to care about any of this, because I cannot do anything about it so why just make myself miserable. But children are being denied food and health care and women are being relegated to second-class citizens with no rights yet again, and people are being persecuted because of their skin color or who they love or just because they have no money, mostly through no fault of their own. Because whole populations are being murdered indiscriminately right now, this very second, and how can I ignore these things and still call myself a human being? I just want to give up. But I cannot allow myself to do that without destroying my very being.

Concurring with the majority opinion, Chief Justice Tom Parker wrote: “Even before birth, all human beings have the image of God, and their lives cannot be destroyed without effacing his glory.”

From here:https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68366337

I believe religion is not meant to be part of government, and passing laws based on a particular religion, which not all citizens belong to, is especially offensive. How is this even allowed to happen?

Couple quotes from OMG Barry Goldwater. DuckDuckGo him if you have no idea. Even people we don’t like can sometimes have good opinions.

“The specter of single-issue religious groups is growing over our land. … One of the great strengths of our political system always has been our tendency to keep religious issues in the background. By maintaining the separation of church and state, the United States has avoided the intolerance which has so divided the rest of the world with religious wars.

Barry Goldwater“

“When you say “radical right” today, I think of these moneymaking ventures by fellows like Pat Robertson and others who are trying to take the Republican Party away from the Republican Party, and make a religious organization out of it. If that ever happens, kiss politics goodbye.

Barry Goldwater“

Unfortunately for the rest of us, they seem to have succeeded. This is very bad for our country, people. We do not need an American version of the Taliban. It matters that you vote. It especially matters who you vote for. Vote Democrat. Please. Biden is not perfect, but OMG he is so much better than the other democracy-destroying choice. Unless of course you think living under religious rule is a good thing, in which case, maybe consider moving to a country that already does that and leave ours alone.

Everything connected to the internet; laptop, phone, firestick, is so so so slow recently. For a month or more. And getting slower. Is this because I have a discount price due to being poor? Is something up with the router? I have reset it, but it did not help. So anyway, i did some speed tests. Here are the results. I just did them all, just now, one right after the other.

spectrum says 223 and 371 Next one says 403 and 421 VERIZON says 907 and 942. Surprise, surprise. Verizon is my provider. And I cannot crop the pictures, or get rid of them, so replaced them with my own brand of ‘OMG, this country is such a disaster.’

So here is my disaster of a post for today. It is not going well people. Not going well at all.

From Tumblr. Like any of this ever happens. Not in my experience, anyway. And a new homemaker just showed up. Was unaware she was coming, because the agency never tells me anything. Oh, well. No mask, no gloves. That is just not on so now she is wearing a mask and gloves. Sheesh! 

Doesn’t matter a whit, but I am watching ‘Julia’ on Max. I love Julia Child. I learned a lot watching her show. I even made her French Onion soup. Once. Caramelizing onions is NOT a quick and easy task, regardless of what today’s youtube videos tell you It takes a LONG time. Anyway, Julia. Here is her in real life, on The French Chef tv show. A tall, slim woman. 

Here she is as portrayed by Sarah Lancashire, an actress I actually like, on MAX.

Personally, I find this offensive. They try to replicate her high voice, badly, and made her seem kind of ditzy at points. I don’t know. I am watching it all the while I am hating the portrayal of an icon who taught zillions of us how to cook. Just saying.

Also, we are having a SNOWSTORM. Winter still exists here in New England, thank goodness. Here is the tree across the street last night, looking like it is budding. It’s not even the middle of February, Mother Nature. Sheesh!

And here is today.

Ex-homemaker had to take her mom to hospital, so did not come yesterday. And I have been in a lot of pain again, and it suddenly occurred to me this morning that since I rarely go out anymore, I had completely forgotten about recovery days, that happen after I have been out and about or done a lot around the house. Which almost never happens anymore. But anyway, it is a normal part of fibro, and I just forgot. My friends are coming over today with a few groceries I needed and will take out the trash for me. Yay for good friends. Then I need to load the dishwasher and wash my water bottles in it, and hopefully have enough energy to make fish chowder, which once you have peeled and diced the potatoes is a really easy process. I like soup. Have not made fish chowder in years, and my friend went to the Union Oyster House in Boston the other day and had the chowder, which she loved,and that got me thinking about making it. So there. :)

Going through my folder, I have a LOT of pictures. HAD a lot of pictures, got rid of tons of them. But I noticed I have a lot of pictures of Obama and Biden, and I asked myself why, and why don’t I want to get rid of them. Oh, it reminds me of when we had hope. I miss that. 

Bad night. Lots of pain. More, but different pain today. Do not think it’s related to the MRI, just the walking and whatever involved in a day out, which I don’t get to do very often. But ow. I have had pain at the 10 level. Not fun. At all.

Ex-homemaker is coming today, working for me, not the agency. Just for an hour to vac and take the trash out and all. The agency has totally messed up everything. First, my homemaker was scheduled so poorly that there is no room left for me and a couple other clients. New homemaker was meant to come Wednesday and Friday, but asked to change Friday to Thursday because MRI Friday. She did not come either day. My caseworker spoke to them and it seems she quit and they were unaware. So they told caseworker that they would call me about a new person starting next week. Getting ready to go out yesterday when the buzzer goes. Twice. I do not buzz people in if I am not expecting anyone. Immediately get a phone call and it is the agency saying the new homemaker is outside. I told you I have an MRI today. Twice. Oh, yes, I remember, she says. So is this the new homemaker and when will she come next week? Oh, she is a fill-in, I will ask if she wants to do an hour or so next week for you, she says. She told my caseworker a new person will start next week. Blatant lie, it seems. Caseworker says all the agencies are like this now. So I am possibly left without a homemaker again. Sheesh. AND I got a letter saying that since I got a social security raise, my SNAP benefit is being cut by 20 %. My soc sec increased by 3.2 % if I calculated correctly. Once, I wound up with less money over all after soc sec went up. They recalculate my portion of the rent and it did not go well for me that year. Your government is NOT your friend. I get discount internet because old and poor, and the government funding for that is about to expire, because those rich old white men in the government really need that money more than I do. Or you do. You read about other countries, and what they do for their citizens, even the not old and poor ones, and you realize how badly we are treated in this country. The rich make the rules, which always means less for us and more for them. Vote blue. Biden is old, but he is not evil. He does at least attempt to make life better for us. Trump only wants to make life better for himself. Vote blue. There, I said it again. :)

Had it done today. Not bad. Took awhile, as they injected me with something part way through and did more whatever an MRI does. Had ear plugs and head phone type noise blockers. Did not seem to take as long as it did, either, so that was good. Will find out tomorrow or Monday what the results show. I had an MRI way back when I first got sick, because they thought I had something it turned out I did not have, instead it was Fibromyalgia, but the MRI showed lesions on my brain which indicate MS, but I don’t have that. Am interested to see if they are still there or more or bigger or what. Also interested to see if it shows a reason for the pain I get on one side of my head. I’m having it cause the ear doctor said when they did the test, something seem odd on the left side. So after years of telling doctors that something is wrong in my head and getting the brush off, finally an MRI.  Machine was something like this. I am not claustrophobic and keep my eyes closed the entire time, so it is not at all an unpleasant experience. Was actually pretty comfortable. 

Was a nice day. Needed a light coat, but sunny and not a cloud in the sky. Great to have that after eons of gray days. Got my new socks today, too. So cute. 

And OMG, this is a turtle.

Had to take my mask off for the MRI, but that’s life. Be safe, though, people, and wear yours. Save a life.

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