No More Excuses

In the midst of all the heartache, here I am believing I have no more excuses to ignore my few, precious Dear Readers. So here I am in the midst of a post-truth, post-Trump mindset. Here are the things I am working to accomplish:

Nissi at rest. She is maybe 6 months old here, black with tuxedo like white markings. Here she is napping on the corner of a grey couch. 

• Training the puppy is going well. She is so much smarter than I thought, so it is much more like having a toddler in the house than usual.
• My head hurts. 
• My teeth need attention. Professional attention. I am working on it, appointment after appointment - now I have to see a hygienist four times a year to try to save what I have left. I am starting to sometimes actually look forward to being rid of them some day. 
• I need to write more. A lot more. These brain droppings are cluttering up the works and so I exorcise them with you.
• My gaming will never be better than the upper echelon of mediocre, and it is only very rarely even that good.
• Learning Spanish is slowed to a stop, but I have not given up. Thanks, Duolingo.
• I have the fortune to discuss the nature of reality with the author of Quantum Sorcery - have you read that yet? I learn, aid, and keep the candles stocked - apprenticeship!
• I can now draw a sad coffee cup that other people can recognize and say "nice" without appearing to bullshit me. That is kind of cool, will keep working on it.
• My cleaning projects had unexpected progress, which is great. Our black carpets frequently get vacuumed before they turn grey from pet fur.
• Woot! My craft room is accessible and useful again. It does need some work. It will always need some work. D valiantly offered to get a new sewing machine if I got the room right again - I will be talking about that soon.
• I gathered all the stuff to start learning recorder, but there are too many people home all day for me to feel comfortable going back to fourth grade right now. I can read music and I played clarinet for a decade, this so not be super difficult. But thanks to my teeth (see above) I cannot play clarinet without killing my head, so recorder it is. Well, it will be once I have some private time on the regular again.

My Buddhism may be causing this existential crisis. I have not the resources to take any great practical leap: week or month long retreat. Hell, I can barely afford a new read. But I feel like I am on the burning edge of something... I am not sure if there is much difference between a leap and a fall - besides the landing.

Sometimes I feel something... precious. Dust mites in the sun glinting like diamonds, special in their transience, their worthlessness. Connection to the suffering of others, an empathy uncontrolled in reach and depth, dangerous without the rest. 

A frustration with the things I own owning me, but raised too poor to give away all that I should, let alone minimizing as I sometimes want. Once a poor person has a thing, unless we must leave it behind it is very difficult to give things up. 

An unnamable desperation to stop feeling so fucking desperate. A coming together that keeps falling apart. 

I hope you are getting by, Dear Reader. Find comfort where you can. We are regulated to the fringe again: Outlaws that have done nothing truly wrong. 

Bright New Year 2014

PatientC, winter style. 

Ready to start the New Year? Well, the first month of it is almost half over already! What are you going to do with it? That is what I am asking myself, and taking stock of where my ambitions took me last year.

The smoking cessation quest is at an end. I have one or two clove cigarellos (cigarettes) a day, thanks to vaping, eCigs, lots of support, and a lot of willpower. 

This blog turned four, I think. I did better than the previous years regarding getting posts up for your reading pleasure. But I am nowhere near where I want to be. I want to post at least twice a week, that is my goal again for this year. I wrote about a lot of things, and while I think it is important to show that disability is just a way of living and not life itself, I do want to get back to some basics on that front.

I finally invited Buddhism into my life in a more serious way, and that is probably one of the most wise decisions I made this past year. It feels like a natural, right direction for me. The Boyfriend and I attend regular meditation! It is the perfect event for the avoidant girl: get together with folks to sit and be quiet and well, meditate. That makes me giggle, but I am also socializing and learning. I am going to continue to travel down this path this new year.

Weight was a bother. I started the year wasting, so I spent a big part of it eating what I could, when I could, and the more filling the better. When I stopped wasting I put on more weight than I wanted. I am battling social pressures about weight and expectations about weight and disability. I need a solid weight/fitness level that will help see me though not just regular life, but my myriad illnesses/conditions/etc... With better pain management I can move about more, so I have hope that with effort I will be better able to not just manage but own my own form.

I have become a better advocate for myself when dealing with the healthcare community, but I still need some work here. It is so much easier to stand firm for my Minions (daughters) or the Husband than it is for me, and that is problematic.

Speaking of the Minions, things have been hit and miss there. One Minion is doing so much better in school, but the other is having difficulty just getting out the door to attend class. They both need help, and I feel I am just not getting them what they need. Our relationships are shifting to interacting with them as actual folks while also maintaining child/parent relations - it is confusing and frustrating when it is not exciting.

I will talk about all this and more in the upcoming year. I plan on seeing you more often, Gentle Reader!