16ºF, sunny skies: functioning at about 90%, which is about par for the course so I'll take what I can get.
Thrilled with addition of callout boxes in the latest update of Obsidian: helpful visual tool to demarcate thinkings on the work in progress as it progresses or as it doesn't. Case by case basis, etc etc.
The waiting room that is the day awaits.
And here I am, having slept and written – the first chunk at least. I feel like I should make some comment about Will Smith slapping Chris Rock but I just don't care. I've got moderately more important things to think about; when I settle on one, I'll let you know. Another week ahead, hopefully better than last (thanks, NL subscribers, for the kind words and checkings-in; they mean a lot) but I won't bet on anything one way or another. I'm ready to go back to bed, days being waiting rooms until the next shoe drops.
Feeling human-ish, finally. Planned on writing a short MacroParenthenticals given the hell of the last week but have written a 1500-word thing. Still have to get the whole pub schedule worked out so it, the NL, comes out at the same time every week. Might switch to evening? Or go ahead with noon? Write it in W2 Saturday and W1 Sunday and publish? Maybe, IDK. Anyhow. Alive, etc etc. Sending NL in a few.
It is snowing (I didn't learn that in my second waiting trip to the ER in as many days) but at least my mother was fully admitted yesterday and the current health issue is being tended to by hands that are not my own because, while I can keep myself alive with math and uncontrolled substance dosages before each meal and before bed and am a rather excellent cat sitter, thank you very much, I cannot work internal medicine and fix vertebral compression fractures in the back, rehydrate, re-nutrient, or nor can I continue to put up the facade I've put up for ten years, 25 if I'm going to be honest which I might as well be because fuck it.
(When, for two days in a row of early evening gaming, I am able to handle only wanton, plotless mayhem in GTAV, I know I've gone past the point of no return. But it doesn't feel as if there is a point of return.
On top of that, I feel like hell this morning. Tends to happen when a stressful situation has been at least temporarily ameliorated but think it's as much that as it is having to put my own health through the ringer the last couple of days for someone I can barely tolerate. Uneven meal times, weather change: I tend gauge blood sugar first - a rise to 327 in the ER (I hate hospitals - and I was KN-95ed throughout; they made a useful paperbag substitute for the PTSD triggers running ripshod over my person), a drop two hours later to 122, a shitty though delicious dinner, barely rising, then this morning, hungry and a solid 136. The common question: do I feel like hell because my blood sugar is nuts or is my blood sugar nuts because I feel like hell? Until evidence points otherwise, I go with the former. Superhighbloodbounceball strikes again.
RIP Taylor Hawkins.
Not for me, I'm fine.
"Sweetie" seems to be the default phrase uttered from nurse to patient, at least 'round about these parts, in the nomenclature. Also, "honey" as in, "Oh, sweetie, I'm just here for your blood now bleed for me honey BLEED FOR ME."
Perhaps most shittily, I learned what missing lunch with T1D is like: already told K that when, in five to ten years (five, probably, due to my unknown lineage and indeterminate makeup – I'll tell that story sometime) I have to have a colonoscopy and can't eat for a weekend or whatever, we'll tie me up Larry-Talbot-in-ABBOTT-AND-COSTELLO-MEET-FRANKENSTEIN-style and lock me in a room for that day or two for the safety of myself and those around me – hanger, thy name is Tyler.
Non-ER related: HALO debut was solid. Felt like a cut scene in the game that wouldn't let me play the first (awesome) sequence but they made the right decision in taking off the helmet: a needed transition to the filmed series from the gamefeel aspects of the first half, a clear sign that this is its own thing. Cut scene feel vanished once the helmet came off. Loved the audio easter eggs.
We still have heat, hot water, and refrigeration. My car runs. My grandfather's elbow has healed / something to something / turbines to speed / roger, read to move out etc etc the day does whateverthefuck it's going to do, the day the day.
Kirby continues his "I don't wanna eat when you tell me to eat I wanna eat when i wanna eat" adolescent male shenanigans but hey.
This is my forest: Earnest efforts underway at being content to be the lone tree falling, a general acceptance of this being where I am and a general indifference directed towards future or towards past, a comfort with being unknown no matter how much it can sting; a recognition, too, that by feeling guilty over the luxury I have to dedicate myself to The Work, I'm doing more of disservice to K's generosity and belief in me than I am by not racking up perceived results.
Simple - not easy.
My car is home from the car vet, loud as ever – but at least the muffler's no longer dragging on the road and the next service is 5K miles away which should take me up to my desired two years to make the move to an electric given that the primary destinations of my life are within a ten-mile radius down which I travel once or twice a week.
I made my mind up to make a mind map of my path forward: in my head it was an essential labyrinthine representation of a genuine creative direction; in reality, a five-second document that spelled out everything I already decided to do that didn't make a clear path any more clear.
TSR0011, my conversation with Buttondown creator Justin Duke, is live; the day awaits.
While most of yesterday was filled with normal mobility, my back continued (and continues) its reign of error last night, the sweetest sound of any time of day now being that of the microwave going off and its signal that my warm towel is ready to soothe for ten minutes which may be enough to give me non-Quasimodo mobility for another ten minutes. Maybe.
On track to release the next TSR, featuring my conversation with Buttondown creator and resident plate-spinning human, Justin Duke, by +/-1200ET. Strange echo in Audacity MP3 export on Mac that isn't present in the wav or on the same MP3 on the iPad. Playing all in Airpods. Wonder if it's a Mac-Airpods issue? Something. Aware of it and taking note.
I've gone back to my old, original methods of writing these: a twenty minute timer: write in that time frame and publish and that's it.
Peter Cushing is in his place of honor in The Sanctum; the day awaits.
The beeping from the neighbor's big backyard project continues: they moved much dirt yesterday, probably putting something on the moved dirt today or maybe moving more dirt IDK. Should make recording the intro/outro for tomorrow's new TSR release a great time.
Day two of the great lab experiment (changing my running time for the first time in 10 years (five pre-T1D, five after) and I'm standing firm in my resolve to make this stick. It was, as I wrote yesterday, truly wonderful to come back from the run and to know that I could go back to work for another couple of hours before the AM of AM is mine, PM is yours turns to PM and theirs.
Note: second cup of coffee will wait until AFTER the run. That wasn't fun yesterday.
My back remains a lesson in abject personal torture but it's nothing that a hot towel can't solve for five minutes after a minute in the microwave… my car didn't survive the trip to car vet: made it back home dragging an exhaust pipe and cursing (executing a 180 turnaround in the middle of the road at the top of a hill when you couldn't reverse down it because you'd rip the muffler off was quite a fun trick). Car vet bringing their tow truck to pick it up later this morning. Beep beep.
TITANFALL 2 = HALO / RED FACTION meets THE IRON GIANT. Digging it. Also, UNPACKING is a delight. Finished Pornsak Picheshote's comics writing debut, INFIDEL, last night. Easily one of my favorite new writers working today: if I haven't sung his praises enough, here's my take on THE GOOD ASIAN..
An approach to publication becoming more and more clear.
beep-beep-beep-beep-beep...
36ºF, sunny skies. Trying something new today: the first change to the timing of my workout (30 minutes of yoga, 3k on a rower, 5k running) for the first time in ten years - and definitely the first since my pancreas switched to manual transmission five years ago. I've grown bored with the routine and I'm tired of my life being dictated by this fucking disease so it's time for something new, different, like the X-Men, circa 1975.
The plan: up at 0445, 15 yoga at waking, work 'til 0715, eat breakfast, write this, let digestion do it's thing, then do the running and the rowing, then back to work until 1145, eat lunch, do the day, then another 15 of yoga after dinner.
In theory, putting this run in the middle of the morning should – assuming blood sugar allows – let me contemplate what I've written in the first, pre-breakfast chunk, figure things out (select a single problem to work out while running), then return with a fresh brain and my manic energy more or less dissipated until lunch. This optimistic outlook depends, however, entirely on my body's capacity to handle the change and what it spells for the rest of the day and my blood sugar management. Still, though, I'm tired of my life being dictated by this fucking disease. So 🖕to you, T1D.
(All, in theory; my body is a lab experiment.)
To figure out: what will be the impact on blood sugar and what will be the impact on insulin requirements? My best guess: less at breakfast since I'll now be running when the insulin is active inside me (nears its peak at +/- 90 after injection) rather than after it's on its downward slope of effectiveness. As for the rest of the day, have to wait and see.
Assuming I don't pass out somewhere along the road, will report findings back, if only to myself.
38ºF and rainy. Trying to make writing these an exercise in in-betweenness, dashed-off in the 15 minutes of back and forth from desk-to-door to get Kirby inside from his post-breakfast "run and frolick" interregnum because I want to get three hours a morning in on the Main Project, the Main Project today being MacroParentheticals0073, which will arrive in +/- 90.
Realization: I have forgotten everything about MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: ROGUE NATION which makes rewatching it all the more enjoyable because I feel as though I'm seeing it for the first time. McQuarrie really is the best thing to happen to the always-enjoyable M:I franchise: they do their job admirably. I remember far more about MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: FALLOUT, mostly Vanessa Kirby (no I did not, in spite of my ardor, name Kirby after her; Jack would be the namesake) and Henry Cavill's 'stache.
Kirby, inside... Kirby, inside!.. KIRBY, INSIDE…
Back to work.