Kicking It

Inspirational song: Slow Motion Riot (98 Mute)

On the road to better health, we are having mixed results. I'm still adjusting to this whole "going to bed earlier" thing (it's 11 pm right this minute as I write), and Mr S-P is burning the candle at both ends during cold and flu season, which is never a wise choice. I'm still holding in there, gently adjusting my circadian rhythm while he is crumbling into the crust of the earth. I'm not sure how much I can do to offer aid, other than be on top of it providing quality nutrition on time, and taking small tasks around the house off of his plate. I'll do my best.

I need to shut down now to hold to my promises. I'll conclude with a much cuter ass-kicking than watching a grumpy old man coming down with a chest cold.

(Harvey's face when I told him I was posting a video of him)

Horrible Mistake

Inspirational song: Welcome to My Nightmare (Alice Cooper)

Last night one of my worst fears came true, and I'm still shook, y'all. I gave up the PR job for Rotary eight or nine months ago, but I'm still one of the admins on their Facebook page. I keep my hands completely off of it, and let the people who are actively holding elected office in the club decide what to do with it. At least, that's my intention.

Yesterday Facebook changed how the menus look for posting links yet again. Every few months they tinker with it, improving nothing, just to see whether you're paying attention. I get particularly irritated when they change how the photos post. I did notice yesterday that they went back to asking me to select my own photo for the link, rather than automatically putting up the first one (which has sometimes led me toward awkward placement in the blog, out of chronological order, so that the best ones appear on the link.) From there, I did what I always do: create a post on the Scenes From Smith Park page, complete with a weak, vague caption (I'm almost always spent by the time I write that part and it always sucks), and I post it. Then I change the icon saying who I'm posting as to my own personal page, and I share it there. They've made me carefully check the box that says "include original post" so the weak sauce caption goes too, because there is no way I'm coming up with a new, unique one by that point. Only last night, it didn't share to my page. It shared to the Rotary page. I had a heart attack and wanted to throw up and black out, all at the same time, I swear. It was super hard to get to the feed of the Rotary page, and then it took me hitting buttons and refreshing pages over and over, trying to find the damned post. All the while I'm imagining who in the world is seeing my goofy personal post about D&D (and I do mean in the world--we have followers from our Open World program from Russia and Ukraine). I was shaking the whole time, and it probably took me five minutes to get it deleted from the page. Then, once it was removed, I tried to share it properly, and discovered that Facebook was defaulting to sharing to the other page, fighting me getting it done correctly. Why on earth would they do that to me?

Two nights ago I talked about making a point of going to bed early for one whole month, trying to improve my quality and quantity of sleep. Last night's mortifying error woke me the hell up. I was wired for hours after that. I had the lights out, but the TV on, and I worked a puzzle on my iPad while I let the news anchors drone and watched a recorded episode of Colbert. I was awake until 1 am, trying to calm down. I have got to ask them to remove me completely as an admin on that page. I never want to go through that again.

Ready for Battle

Inspirational song: King of Sunset Town (Marillion)

I know I was supposed to have my Pathfinder character finished last week, but I still had details to work out. They were the small but potentially powerful tidbits that I never figured out for my last alter ego, the capricious male dwarf who dressed like Dolores Umbridge. I knew I needed to work out feats and skill ranks for him, and I never did. I wondered how the rest of my party had such amazing bonuses to their abilities, while I seemed so basic. Everyone else had fleshed out their characters while I was procrastinating, that's how.

Last week when we met, we presented our backstories to the new game master (GM), and he gave us each a bonus ability based on what we had created for ourselves. Then he placed us in a setting where we could get introduced, and that was all we had time for. He and I talked about the feats I should take, and how they would affect my fighting abilities, but all I did was jot down a note, tossing aside my character sketch at the end of the evening and forgetting about it.

Tomorrow we kick things off for real. We are a motley crew assembled from wildly divergent timelines and worlds, from the ancient to the magical to a real-world accounting department. My man is from a traditional fantasy realm (and as I've mentioned, heavily influenced by The Hound from Game of Thrones). For the first time, I've done my homework. I found a fillable PDF form online for his statistics sheet, and this time I chose one that calculates the important stuff for me. I didn't have to struggle with an obnoxiously complex rulebook. I plugged in the first few numbers and saw how it did the math. Suddenly the stress lifted, and it was no longer an onerous task to select feats or assign skill ranks. My bonuses and penalties appeared in the right boxes. I'm basically done, except for figuring out how much money he starts with, to know what equipment he has beyond weapons and armor. Now I can focus on cleaning house and figuring out what snacks I'll be providing instead of panicking about last-minute work on my character. Anything to reduce stress--I'm all for it.

(Apropos of nothing in the text, I wanted to explain tonight's song choice. 30 years ago today, the second lead singer of my favorite band was hired, completely changing the trajectory of their musical evolution and creating a schism between the purists among the original fans and those of us who were more open to change. At the time, I was basically living under a rock in Oklahoma, and had no idea the first guy had quit the band, nor did I know that the new guy existed. I was just so excited the day I bought their fifth album on a cassette and popped it into my car. The first song, above, had a long musical intro. Then this unfamiliar voice came on, and I had to pull over, confused. I looked at the artwork. I studied the lyrics. What did all the symbolism mean? Was the first guy dead? I was distraught. It took months for me to ferret out the story in the pre-internet days. Since then, I have had almost 30 years to marvel at one of the strongest, most unique voices I've ever encountered in rock and roll. I loved the old singer. The new one changed my world. I just wanted to acknowledge this anniversary.)

Remedial Self Care

Inspirational song: You Gotta Be (Des'ree)

This isn't a new year's resolution, per se, but this seems like a good time to step back and reset how I am taking care of myself. I've been loose and sloppy with my pill-taking, horrible with my diet, and I haven't allowed myself good sleep in months (not that my body or brain would cooperate anyway). I'm taking myself back to school, so to speak, and letting in a little hokey internet advice about self care. Some conversation or other that I googled made lots of things pop up in my ads and video suggestions. So while I was on YouTube with nothing better to do, I watched a few of those "signs of iron deficiency" and "what to take for adrenal fatigue" kinds of videos. No, I'm not running out saying "That's it! It wasn't lupus, it was (X trending disorder) all along!" But they did shame me enough to want to change a few basic behaviors.

I'm starting slow. One of them said swear to yourself that you'll be in bed by 10 pm every night for a month, you can make it a month, come on, it isn't so hard. (I'm paraphrasing here.) I thought to myself, I can do that. I just have to blog earlier, and stop putting off even deciding the topic until midnight. There are a couple of foods to cut out, some easier than others. I'd find it easier to cut out caffeine than sugar and dairy, but I'll tell myself I'm making the attempt. There were some herbal supplements that looked like they might calm stress while I'm waiting for the runaround to catch up with me on my last diagnosis (no phone call from the rheumatologist today, despite me wishing extra hard to hear from her). I haven't decided whether to drop money on any new pills, though, what with me skipping the ones I'm supposed to be taking already.

I've already done myself some good cutting my coffee consumption in half by swapping out golden milk for part of the coffee in each cup. I mix mine with equal parts of ginger and turmeric, and a heavy hand of cloves. There's cinnamon in it, too, but I barely taste it. I've reached the point, after six weeks, where I am thrown by plain coffee. It doesn't taste right anymore. I'm willing to try to swap out the dairy milk for almond or coconut; I just haven't done it yet. I downed a cup of it right before retiring to my room early, in the hopes that it would calm me down and let me slide right on in to this going-to-bed-by-10 concept. It's just one month. Come on. I can do it.

Young CRO

Inspirational song: Old Crow (Fish)

I've gone on at length about the drive to and from Albuquerque this weekend, but as yet I hadn't written much about why we were there. It was a special occasion, and we were quite happy to be a part of it. A young member of our family has completed a long series of training programs, and this was the final big piece of it. From here he moves on to a more active phase of his career. The party Friday night was his graduation celebration.

It's not everyone's cup of tea, but I always loved these kinds of events when I was a military spouse. Every air force ball, airman leadership class graduation, base awards ceremony, or any other excuse to go out to dinner at the club, I was there for it a hundred percent. It's not that I loved overly salty ranch dressing on salads or pretending I wasn't dying in low heels (although both were a feature of every single dinner party), but these gave me just enough of a sense of pageantry and tradition that I felt like I was part of something special. I insisted on attending every one of these dinners I could, and I applauded and laughed at every speaker's jokes and every group's special shout-out. It didn't matter if we weren't part of the loudest, funniest squadron, or whether I knew the recipient of any given honor. I was there, and I loved it. It was nice to revisit that feeling this weekend.

These young men Friday night have signed up for duty above and beyond what most citizens encounter in their everyday lives. They have gone through rigorous training to be pararescue or combat rescue officers. They will be expected to perform at a higher level than many of their fellow airmen throughout their careers. They look different because they are -- and they wear a different uniform to denote that. I have nothing but respect for the jobs they intend to do. I don't know how much I'll ever get to learn about what my nephew does over his career, but I'll be interested in every unclassified detail I am offered.

POW/MIA table. A feature of all military events of this type.

Receiving beret and graduation certificate.

Berets on, trousers bloused (it was a race, and you didn't want to be last).

His name is Charlie. Apparently stealing him and taking him back to different units is a thing.

Proud parents

From the hotel lobby. If you see it, you'll understand why I took the picture. And I still don't know why it exists. I'd rather not think about it.

Left Turn at Albuquerque

Inspirational song: Road to Nowhere (Talking Heads)

A thousand miles in a weekend -- that used to be nothing to us. Twenty-plus years ago, we thought nothing of driving a state or two away, spending one or two nights (usually imbibing great quantities of adult beverages) and then driving home to show up to work that Monday. It seemed easy, and just what one did on a weekend when one is in their twenties and thirties. By the time we had moved to the east coast for the first time, and were driving down on a weekend with the kids to visit my parents, my dad thought we were nuts for making that long of a drive only to be at his place for 36 hours, and he wondered aloud why we didn't stay longer. That's just the way we were (young, usually broke, and without a great quantity of paid vacation on my part).

Working in that same paradigm, we assumed an easy jaunt down to Albuquerque would be exactly like it was in the old days. It wasn't hard to get there. Ten miles to the interstate from the house, four hundred and eighty (ish) to the exit to the hotel. Easy-peasy. Shoot, compared to the old days when we were camping out with our friends for those weekend getaways, checking into a Marriott felt like cheating. We didn't even get drunk. (His one beer and my one old fashioned were nursed over the entire evening.) This morning we had a leisurely breakfast with an old friend and his new wife, and left around 11, thinking we would be home in time to feed the dogs and cats dinner.

It took a little longer than we calculated. We tried to take a different route home, and to shave off a few miles, we turned on a B road to meet up with the north-south highway we were looking for. Except I read the map wrong, for having my phone screen set too dark and not double-checking my turns. I made him exit at Moriarty, and we still ended up going past Santa Fe, the twisty east-west section we were trying to avoid. Whatever. It was a pleasant, quiet drive in the middle of nowhere, except for Drunky McWeaverson who we followed for ten miles or so before we finally got a chance to pass.

Traffic was horrible from Colorado Springs onward, as it always is now. We got home maybe an hour after we thought we would, and felt every mile traveled in our bones. He's been fighting a cold for weeks and losing, and me, well, unless this is your first time reading this blog, you know what my health is like. We instantly changed into jammies, and the rest of our evening was divided between sitting in our favorite chairs playing tablet games and dozing. I have a funny feeling I'm not going to be good for anything outside of the house tomorrow, and I can only hope he doesn't overdo on his side-gig, knowing he's got to prepare for Monday's classes. I'm starting to see these weekends from my dad's perspective, all these years later. It IS a lot of driving, for one short visit.

West of the Pecos

Inspirational song: Like a Rolling Stone (Bob Dylan)

We moved away from New Mexico in 2011, and once I drove away, I haven’t been back since. Mr S-P has come through to check on our house a few times, making repairs in between tenants, but I hadn’t come up with a reason to roll through, until now. We came down to attend a graduation for our nephew. This is a quick down and back trip, but it is long enough to stir up memories for me. I’m rather enjoying that.

When we lived in the far eastern part of the state, I drove up to Boulder roughly once a quarter while our daughter was in college. I became exceptionally familiar with every mile of the highway between the two locations. This afternoon kind of threw me, realizing it has been nearly eight years since I made that road trip. How on earth did time pass so quickly?

We didn’t go to Clovis on this trip, and probably won’t, even if driving past the rental house would mean that we could write off the expenses on next year’s taxes. Putting that many miles on my car and on our mature bodies doesn’t sound appealing. Instead, we came straight to our hotel in the Q, and after breakfast with an old friend, we are going to go straight home.

I traveled light, with just my iPad to write on. I can’t post pictures from this device, and I didn’t take many until tonight’s graduation dinner party anyway. I’ll cover the dinner tomorrow when I’m back, and I’ll see about taking highway pics on the way home for later. I was behind the wheel for the first half of the drive down, and when I moved to the right seat, I was more interested in re-learning how to use the sock loom I bought a month ago, and resting my cramped arms. If the trip home is less of a rush, maybe we’ll stop once or twice, where it’s pretty.

Incremental Progress

Inspirational song: Keep Yourself Alive (Queen)

It shouldn’t be this hard to get medical care. I’ve done the rounds of four different doctors, since I identified the symptoms almost a year ago. A month ago I got a diagnosis, from the highest tier specialist I’d seen. And now, as of today, I have spoken with three of the four docs about getting the prescription recommended for what I have. I still have nothing to show for it. The best I can say is that I’m incrementally closer. I showed my rheumatologist the printout from the Anschutz neurologist who diagnosed but passed me off to my regular neurologist. I told her how the regular doctor shut me down with “I don’t treat that.” I conveyed my suspension that this neurological disorder might be as controversial as fibromyalgia, in that some doctors don’t accept it as real. That’s the vibe I got from the last doctor visit, anyway. And I told my rheumatologist that I was at my wits end.

I feared I’d be turned away this time too. She doesn’t deal with this either, but she did listen to me, and she seemed sympathetic to my dilemma. She said straight up that she has never prescribed the recommended drug, and has to do more research to know how to dose, and whether to do it at all. She looked for side effects and whether it would react poorly with lupus. But until she gets the notes from the two neurologists, she isn’t going to act. On my way out of her office, she asked for permission to discuss my case with one more neurologist, at home, over dinner. I enthusiastically granted it.

In the meantime, the little muscle spasms/micro seizures are getting worse. They hurt more and last longer. Once the sun goes down, the frequency of them goes up. I don’t want to wait until next week for the doctors notes to reach her, but I have no choice. It sure would be nice to break free of this electric chair that I’ve been permanently attached to for a year.

Lonely Roads

Inspirational song: Alabama Song/Whisky Bar (The Doors)

It didn't seem like it was all that much bourbon. Truly. It was D&D night tonight, and we were next door. Our neighbor saw that my foster daughter and I were just drinking sodas, and he pulled out a tasty but cheap bourbon that he would be okay with us mixing with cokes. Technically, I was drinking Kroger brand Dr Pepper (the "Fizzicist"), which was very sweet, so I had trouble gauging how much bourbon was mixed into it. I also was running on ridiculously little sleep. I was watching Game of Thrones all night, concluding the Red Wedding at quarter to four this morning. I tried to sleep after, and was back awake fifteen minutes later. I couldn't sleep late this morning, either. I had things to do, and my brain woke up and stayed. Fatigue and booze slammed into my face, and I now find myself a little drunker than I typically want to be on a random Wednesday night. All I want to do now is go to bed. Now, now, now.

I tried to go down to see my rheumatologist this afternoon, having scheduled a short-notice appointment. There was miscommunication with the office person, and when I arrived today, she said no, it's for tomorrow. The doc isn't even in that office on Wednesdays. It's a pity, since that location is about 30 miles from my home. I have to turn around and go back tomorrow.

The wind this week scoured the skies, and everything was as clear and blue as could be. There was still a lot of wind over the mountains, swirling snow up like whipped cream on a sundae over Long's Peak. I couldn't take pictures on the highway on the way home, so I pulled off on a rural road, and started framing my shots once the pavement ended. The colors were intense. The road was horrible and pock-marked. It was cool though. A happy accident that I might need to repeat sooner than later.

Pinterest Fail

Inspirational song: Art Decade (David Bowie)

I spoke with an adult woman today who had never heard of Pinterest. I know they exist, but I hadn't encountered one in the wild in years. I thought we were all thoroughly corrupted by that most exquisite of time wasters and expectation raisers. Yet there I was, spelling p-i-n-t-e-r-e-s-t to her, telling her it wasn't a place to buy things, per se, but a digital scrapbook for ideas. I think she got it, but I turned her over to capable hands. I have met her teenage daughter a couple of times, and my friend assured me she intended to talk to her about it. I predict a "Mom, of course I know what it is" is coming. "Look at the board I have for recipes I want to try..."

I want to cry that Pinterest lied to me today. It didn't. I tried to substitute something that wasn't chemically equivalent, and the failure was my own fault. I learned last month that the Shrinky Dinks of my childhood are a thing again. Now, I didn't get very creative with them back in the 1970s. I was rather unsophisticated with my crafts back then, as prolific as I might have been for a kid. So when I saw the videos on Pinterest today of all the wild shapes and goofy things people make with shrink plastic now, I realized how pitiful my game was back then.

There were plenty of pins that claimed you can reuse food plastics to make these sorts of crafts. They showed pictures of salad clamshells and soda bottles, saying you can use these, but then in the text somewhere it says to use a number 6 plastic. I had a lid from some Udi's gluten free muffins and an egg carton from Costco to choose from, both number 1 plastic. Surely I could use these, I thought. I wasn't about to put a whole lot of time or effort into the test run. I just grabbed a couple of Sharpies and sketched out the first thing that came to mind (a Harry Potter lightning bolt and Deathly Hallows symbol). I cut them out, and dug out some all steel pins to poke holes in them, just in case. I warmed up the oven, and dug out a scrap of parchment paper I'd cut away from something and shoved in my kitchen drawer. Maybe I shouldn't have peeked so often. Maybe I should have had the oven hotter. Or maybe I shouldn't have imagined the number on the plastic container wasn't important. They shrank only the tiniest bit, and curled significantly. They might be salvageable with the iron, but I had just put it and the ironing board away from the craft room after it sat out and took up space since the Rotary Christmas party. I wasn't about to bother pulling it right back out. This was just a throwaway experiment.

I could totally hear my old friend's voice in my head, when I looked at the mangled, un-shrunk plastic bits, that looked nothing like the pretty things I saw on Pinterest. "Nailed it!"

Circuitry

Inspirational song: Computer World (Kraftwerk)

This was a rough day for technology in the Smith Park household. These come around more often than in most families with whom I am acquainted. Computers die ignominious deaths at alarming frequency here. I'm almost afraid to describe how the Mr's laptop two iterations back died, but its retirement was expedited with fists and lots of swearing. It's only through sheer force of will and a lack of disposable income that we keep hanging on to cell phones past their expiry dates. Otherwise, I suspect they'd be hurled at the wall when they start crapping out like our computers, tablets, and laptops.

I knew one of these digital deaths was imminent. Mr S-P had been playing on a tablet we got on one of those terrible "buy a phone and get a tablet for a dollar" deals four years ago. It came with a contract for an additional line that the sales person at AT&T straight up lied about when we got it, so he was determined to use it until it fell apart. Mission accomplished. Since last summer, it overheated and shut off, and it had to be charged more than once a day. It froze and crashed often. It was so slow we needed to check and make sure it wasn't plugged into a phone line with a dial-up modem. At Christmas, I bought him a newer one, but stubborn man that he is, he kept going on the old one, seeing his plan to the end. Last week, it fell off his bedside table and hit something on the floor (one of the table legs, probably) and cracked the screen. This morning, the colors on the screen were faded. And at lunchtime, I looked over to see him holding it by the edges, twisting and wringing it in frustration. I said "you'll really kill it now," and he assured me that was the plan. With a casual flip, he tossed it onto the floor and gave it a look that said, "it knows what it did." So now he has switched to the new one. His games didn't transfer, as he doesn't like to log into them to preserve the illusion of privacy. I am hearing new noises, which is fine. That Toon Blast music was haunting my dreams. If I never hear it again, I just might recover.

He didn't play games all day. He has to prepare study questions and tests for the classes he is teaching that start up tomorrow. He settled at the dining room table with his laptop and books all around, writing his lecture notes. He had lit a candle on the table for ambiance. I was doing my own thing, when I heard him suddenly swear and start blowing. He had looked up to see the plastic of his computer on fire. He had adjusted the screen at one point, and gotten too close to the flame. This same laptop was on probation anyway. Sometime last year, something fell on it, and blacked out a bar across the screen. It had tried to regenerate, but still made for difficult work. There's a hole burned in the case now, and it was probably only three or four seconds from total system failure. We agreed that he could probably write off the purchase of a new one as a teaching expense, but I don't know when he will pull that trigger. If I catch him smashing the whole thing into the brick siding of the house, that would be a strong indicator that it's time. Not that I'm trying to give him suggestions on how to dispose of the current one, but nothing would surprise me at this point.

See Into the Future

Inspirational song: I Can See Clearly Now (Johnny Nash)

That was worth it. My toes are frozen. No, my feet are frozen, not just the toes. My face is a little numb. My blanket has a little mud on the bottom, and I have to hope it's only mud, as Murray was feeling bouncy and frisky while everyone else was huddled under the blankets that he rolled over. But it was worth sitting out in the cold to watch the Super Blood Wolf Moon. (Do I have the name in the right order? I really am not going to bother to look it up.) It took forever, or at least it seemed to from about 50% to full eclipse, once the cold made its way around my blankets. That last sliver played with my eyes. I swear it shrank and grew a hundred times while I watched. I honestly didn't know whether it was going to be a full eclipse or just most of the way at my latitude, and while I watched that last little bit, it could have gone either way from my perspective. I got uncomfortable, and started looking around the back yard more than looking up at the moon, to take the strain off my neck. I built the four-seasons room around the hot tub in my mind while I waited for the shadow to finish covering the moon. And then, it was complete. The moon was golden, and more spherical than it ever seems when the light is reflecting off of it at full strength. It seemed so much more real to me, and so much closer. It was a golden egg, or a Death Star, or any number of things I could relate to and imagine touching, existing in space at the same time as me. Seeing it in three dimensions, that made the cold worth it. (Full disclosure: the moon pictures below are stolen from my daughter. I only have a cell phone camera, and she has a telescope.)

I can't say the rest of the day went quite as well. I am an admitted addict to the sportsball. Everyone who has met me or read my work probably knows that. I watched the conference championships where I've watched almost every other game this season, next door. I brought beans and cornbread, getting yet more practice with the Instant Pot, and settled in to the corner of the sectional couch, for a long afternoon of crochet and football. I didn't have a clear favorite for the NFC championship, but the Rams had a slight edge for me, and the ending brought me a little joy. The AFC game was something else entirely. I don't care how many people call him the GOAT, I just can't stand Tom Brady, and Bill Belichek can do rude, biologically impossible things and I wound be just as happy. I wanted the Patriots to lose that game so desperately. And that they were going against the team I've been cheering for for the last two seasons only made it that much more imperative that the Pats lose. The first half made us very tense. The second half was thrilling and the room was full of yelling and high fiving and so much swearing. We were frustrated and disappointed that the Chiefs' offense never got to touch the ball in overtime. It was a quiet, sad end to the day.

I think we will look back on this game for many years, as the day things shifted. I will go on record predicting that after next month's Super Bowl, Tom Brady will retire, telling himself he's going out on top. He looked into the face of the future tonight, and he has got to know his time is ending. Patrick Mahomes is the future. At 23, he is already able to hold his own against a GOAT, and he's got a team with talent and promise to back him up. Next year and many years after that have the potential to be a whole lot of fun on this block, watching the team in red. It feels like a dynasty eyeing a torch about to be passed.

I have had a Twitter account for at least five years, and for the longest time, I didn't put a biographical statement on my profile. Last fall I finally wrote one, that says something like "Sometimes I use sportsball to distract myself from the dumpster fire that life is. Don't try to take that away from me." That goes double for here. You've got to find your joy where you can, especially when the world would happily crash in around you if you let it. Let me rave about football sometimes. It keeps me sane, and it makes me happy, at least for a few minutes at a time. I want the same for you too, wherever you find joy.

The Posts

Inspirational song: Come Along (Cosmo Sheldrake)

More and more people I know are chafing under the inescapable digital surveillance of Facebook. They've proven themselves untrustworthy corporate stewards of our privacy and data, repeatedly over the last handful of years. I have soured a little on the sameness of the content of that site (I particularly noticed this during the summer of 15, while we were in transition between the Original Smith Park and Smith Park West), but as of yet I have not found the strength of will to completely walk away from it. I don't have the addiction to it I once had, the one I appear to have transferred part and parcel to Twitter now, but I feel totally helpless to let go of the connections I made and maintained because of Facebook. I doubt I'll let it go and close my account. I'm just less happy when I'm on the site.

The main reason I still open it every single day is to post the link to this blog. Even if Facebook shut down tomorrow, I'd still be writing every day, whether or not the few hundred people I am linked to on FB can see that I tried to come up with a clickbait-type teaser to put over the URL (that's the part I hate). I don't know what else to do to put these journal entries in front of eyeballs. I'd write even if I were shouting into a void, because the writing is for me. I'd be lying if I said I didn't like how it feels like a conversation with people who do read it. But people are inherently attracted to easy things, and if finding this blog were more difficult than clicking a link on Facebook, would anyone continue to track it down? Several years ago, I was struggling with the links not working, so I started the Twitter account, thinking it would be a better place to post links. I stopped that soon after, and now Twitter is where I let my political freak flag fly. (Unless you're interested in reading the lefty rants I retweet or looking at short cat videos, best not follow me there.) Every so often I ponder getting my own domain, without the Blogspot platform, and I quickly remember that I'm easily overwhelmed by things like that now (yay, aging and illnesses that affect my mental acuity). I don't know whether that would solve the problem of putting the links in easy reach of my audience.

My foster son-in-law laughed at one of the blog posts I showed him last week, because I had done what I often do, which is to throw in a picture of one of the cats at the end, apropos of nothing. Well, the pictures this time actually are metaphorically related to this mental knot I've tied myself into. It's all about the proper lure. See if you can catch my drift.

Menthol Mishap

Inspirational song: Honeysuckle Rose (Hoyt Axton)

After four or five hours of failing to work up a head of steam to write the topic I thought I had chosen for tonight, I have given up and am admitting defeat. I can't find it in me to care about what I was going to write. I hurt everywhere, but I don't want to be pitied. I did too much physical activity this week (deep housecleaning is hard for me), and then this morning I soaked for an hour in an Epsom salt bath before going for a massage. Slow Hand and I have discovered when I do that, my muscles are actually too soft, and he's able to work deeper than when I come in knotted and cold. I hurt everywhere because everything was stretched and loosened too much. So don't feel sorry for me. I know I'm lucky that I'm able to get the regular therapeutic massages I need.

I did the worst thing possible, thinking I was protecting the deep massage work. I completely covered my legs, arms, and shoulders in Ben Gay as soon as I got home. I then froze for about two hours, shivering under a blanket, swearing I would never apply menthol to that many square inches of my body at one time ever again. At some point I fell asleep, which is good, because that was awful. By the time I woke, the menthol had been absorbed, but my body is now one giant deep bruise from my earlobes to my heels. Man, I hope tomorrow is better. (I have every reason to believe this will be over by then.)

My song for this evening is selected for the Greyhound bus that appears to have run me over. My photo is of my friend's Christmas cactus that is blooming profusely in her window. My brain is oozing out my ear holes. I'll consider going over the topic I punted on tomorrow, if I remember. Not counting on it.

Waiting Area

Inspirational song: Gimme Shelter (Rolling Stones)

Be still my heart! I have just met the handsomest little man in Boulder, and I am in love. Okay, so we only interacted for five minutes, and he happens to be a therapy dog at Boulder Community Hospital, but he captured my heart all the same. His human and I chatted briefly about Shelties, and I told him (the human) how much I wanted either a Sheltie or border collie. He shook his head and said, oh, border collies are so much work. You have to exercise them every day or they get so bored and impossible to live with. I asked whether Shelties are generally good with cats, as that is a key requirement to live in my house. He assured me they are. (I know, it's all in how they are raised.) On the down side, he warned me it's extremely difficult to get a Sheltie puppy, as the litters are spoken for well in advance. He recommended going to the dog show next month, and networking with breeders. If I remember, I'll do it. I'm in no hurry to acquire a puppy, so if I had to put my name on a year-long (plus) waiting list, I would be on target.

I was at the hospital paying the third installment on my karmic debt, of which I have a significant principal balance. I've made people accompany me to many medical procedures, so I would have moral support and a ride home. It's usually been the Mr who had to sit around for my outpatient surgeries, but a few trips have been dependent on other family members and friends. This time it was I who wandered the waiting area, and sat in a moderately comfy chair reading Twitter over a giant cup of coffee, while my friend had a procedure done under sedation. She tried to minimize how much she asked of me, suggesting that she could drive herself there early in the morning, if I'd just pick her up after. No way. I've been on the other side, and I assured her that I would get her there and escort her all the way home. I even volunteered to sit with her in the staging area while she waited, decked in a hospital gown and cotton blankie, for the stressful yet boring part. I've been on that gurney too many times to leave someone else I cared about all alone in that space, where you can easily get too far up in your own thoughts and build tension while you wait. Besides, it was interesting listening to the discussion of how the procedure was going to go, the specifics of what they would do and how, and so on. It's not a procedure I'm guaranteed to have done in my lifetime, but it's one that I could potentially need, so learning what is involved was enlightening.

My friend did very well for this medical experience. I've taken her home after the dentist before, and she's had a hard time waking up from the sedative that guy gave her. The drugs this time cleared her body quickly, and she was coherent by the time they brought me back. I didn't have to worry she'd fall on the way up the stairs to her home, as I did last time around. I have a healthy confidence that she'll read this essay, so I'll say directly to her: It really was no trouble. Don't hesitate to call me again. You're not taking advantage of me. I'm happy to do it. Look how well it worked for me this time, getting to meet that handsome boy...

And We're Off

Inspirational song: Who Are You (The Who)

And just like that, a new campaign has been born. Six of seven player characters sat around my dining room table tonight, each of us waking up in a strange room, not where we were standing last when we lost consciousness. When we got up and walked around our individual cells, we learned that everything except the cots where we had been lying was an illusion. A voice called us to walk down a hallway, compelling us to climb stairs to a large room with tall windows and bookcases, where we all encountered each other for the first time. We circled each other like wary alley cats, not saying much. Well, one of us was talkative, and we all looked at him like he was touched in the head. Other than getting introduced to each other and learning what our general mission was, we didn't do much. We ended having been in each other's presence for at most twenty minutes, after finding ourselves on a hill in a forest, overlooking a large village.

The new group is slightly larger than before, with my daughter and son-in-law joining us this time. They have been wanting to play D&D for a while, in a separate group, and they never seemed to get together to do it. It was my daughter's character Bill who did all the talking. He is a Japanese businessman, her character, who comes from the early 20th century, and he confused all of us with chatter about virtual reality and game theory. Doch, my half-orc, just stared at him, baffled.

My daughter volunteered to be our scribe, taking notes along the way. I've done this in the past, but have had less focus to do it for the last few months. She started with sketches of each character, with a surprising amount of detail for having banged out seven drawings in under an hour. I loved the one of Doch. He wasn't quite orcish, but part of his backstory is that his brother was so cruel to him for being too pretty, taking after his human mother more than his orc father. So the drawing was perfect.

I kind of like how suspicious we all were of each other. I've had campaigns start where complete strangers immediately team up and trust each other, and it didn't feel right. Other than Bill, who wasn't necessarily talking because he was friendly, but rather because he wanted to dazzle with BS to make us lower our guards, no one did much more than frown and size each other up. I can't wait to see where this campaign leads.

Culture Rock

Inspirational song: American Honky-Tonk Bar Association (Garth Brooks)

For many years, we've talked about business ventures that would be a whole lot of fun, if we had boundless time, energy, and money to devote to them. We used to always talk about opening a restaurant, and for a while when we were in New Mexico, I gave it some serious thought. I'm glad I didn't do it, but it was real in my mind for a solid six months. More recently, it has come to our attention that there is no mid to large sized venue for rock concerts around here. Yes, there are theaters in Boulder, and bunches toward Denver, and points north. There's reportedly not much in the way of a dance hall, either. I don't dance, so I cannot confirm, but I have been to a rocking party upstairs in a historic opera house where there was a band and dance floor. I couldn't tell you how often they are open nor how many guests the space can hold.

For the last year we have been waxing poetic about how awesome it would be to run a concert hall here. There was an old granary-looking space for sale across from one of the breweries that the Mr said would be cool, even though it was on the small side. Since then, they finally (FINALLY) broke ground on the mixed-use complex that went where the old turkey processing plant once stood, right next to the train tracks. I don't know about you, but I think I would hate life if I had trains running all day and night on one side of my apartment, and a concert hall on the other. I'm sure there are other sites that would work for a honky-tonk sort of setup, but since all of this is really just a "what would I do" lottery fantasy, I haven't looked at anything seriously.

When I arrived at rotary today and found that the program was all about the local performing arts initiative to bring a concert hall/convention center/hotel to town, I was excited. We had a couple convention centers that have shut down recently (one next to the library I *thought* was just being renovated, but maybe not? and one that was way outdated and is being torn down). Now the symphony, ballet, chorale, et al, are playing at high school auditoriums to be able to seat enough people. They have four or five locations they're eyeing, and they are in the proposal/impact assessment stage for them. I don't know whether they've secured enough venture capital or government grants yet, but I've only had a half-hour presentation so far. I need to go to their website to get the full rundown. I asked the person I know who is deeply involved with the local ballet whether there is a social media presence, where I can keep an eye out for volunteer opportunities to do my part to make this a reality. She said only Facebook thus far, plus the website. Come on, friend. I'm more on Twitter. Get an account there too.

While watching the program, I couldn't help but think about that one location we had lottery-fantasized about for a concert venue. It wouldn't have worked at all, but there are other old industrial sites around town that have a similar aesthetic and vibe. There's one that came to mind, a decommissioned plant with silos and a smokestack and a great view of the mountains, that would be amazing for a hip, rustic, industrial, rock and roll hall. I don't know who owns it, and I am pretty sure the town historical society would hate to have it fiddled with. However, there is a 7+ acre plot just to the east of it that is up for sale. It's running a mere $4.5 million. That doesn't count the cost of constructing a venue/hotel/bar/cafe/parking lot though. Anyone know a venture capitalist who wants to bring a little culture and a whole lot of rock and roll to my home town? I'd be happy to spearhead a project.

Horizon

Inspirational song: Perceptions of Johnny Punter (Fish)

Holy cow, is it hard to think about anything other than current affairs. We've been working up from one or two big stories a week, to one a day, to multiple bombshells a day, even on weekends. It's stressful and exhausting. It's tempting to let myself block it out, become numb to the onslaught. I can't, though. There is too much that is awful, but to stop listening is to normalize it. I have to maintain the ability to be outraged.

Today felt like a recap, all day. I'm always on top of the headlines as they break, and have been for a long time. There are enough people who have just come into this story, who don't have all the granular detail memorized like I and my friends. For the sake of the new ears and eyes, most of the people I watch and follow have made a point of aggregating all of their previously written articles and opinion pieces. The teevee people spend a lot of time saying, "And who is that? What does that mean?" They act like they are learning the cast of characters for the first time, feigning surprise and mild ignorance of topics they had reported on a hundred times last year. It feels like being in the same exercise class for years, where new people drop in an have to have all the moves explained, while you're on the side just wanting to get into your usual zone. It would be cool if they had an intermediate and advanced section where those of us who have been watching history unfold as if we were planning on getting a PhD in it could go.

They've really been working us up, though. Like they want to make sure we are all looking in the right direction because they think something huge is on the way, and soon. The talk about the news is changing, in ways both subtle and glaringly blatant. Maybe it's true, something big is about to happen. I oughta make one of those gambling charts like they do for office pools, like who will score first in the Super Bowl or when will the pregnant lady in HR pop. This will just be "Who will be arrested? Who will be cleared? Who will be fired? How many policies will become laws and how long will it take?" Sure, it's weird, but it could be fun.

ATK Cinnamon Challenge (Not the One You're Thinking)

Inspirational song: Sara (Fleetwood Mac)

There's a new recipe for the cookbook that my daughter begged me to write, if it were ever to be fully tested and ready. I had a powerful craving for cinnamon rolls, to take over to the neighbor's for football time. I had created a terrific grain-free recipe more than a year ago, and went looking for it. In the notebook where I was consolidating ideas when it seemed more likely that I'd actually produce the cookbook, there was no sign of it. In fact, there were only ten or so in there at all. (I have an addiction to spiral notebooks, so it will take a while to rifle through the collection, looking for the rest of the recipes.) In this situation, I did what everyone does, and went to Pinterest for suggestions. The second one I looked at seemed promising, but it called for prepared vanilla pudding. I didn't have any, and wasn't about to go out to buy it. It didn't take long to think of a substitute. I had sour cream.

I didn't want to make too much for just three people, so immediately I halved the recipe I found. Then, I only had half of the gluten-free all purpose flour I needed, so I filled it out with equal portions of potato and tapioca starch, and made up the rest with the last eighth cup of chickpea flour in a bag. I heated a little milk and bloomed quick-rise yeast in it. I whisked together some melted butter and an egg. I stirred sugar and vanilla into sour cream until it was smooth. Throw in a wee bit of salt and xanthan gum, and I was set. I folded everything together gently; no electric mixer used this time. The batter was really wet and sticky. I decided I had no interest in fighting it to make rolls. I just dumped spoonfuls into a small parchment-lined pan, alternating it with cinnamon and brown sugar. I threw on some pecans for good measure, and let it rise. I took it next door to bake, while we watched the early game. 350 degrees for 25 minutes, and it was crazy good. It was coffeecake.

Next time, I'll make a full recipe instead of a half. And when I mix the brown sugar and cinnamon, I'll moisten it with a little butter. There was too much of it for the amount of dough I made, and it was a little dry on top. The bread, however, was amazing. I'll retest it soon, and if it checks out a second time, I'll turn the recipe loose on the world. It was better than any Sara Lee I ever had, and once upon a time, that was my dream food. Sara Lee has nothing on this.

Johnny Come Latelies

Inspirational song: Let's Go All the Way (Sly Fox)

Two of the guys in my circle of friends were really nervous coming into today. They grew up Chiefs fans, so rabid about their fandom that they are basically fluent with all of the statistics of the team dating back to before I was born. They spoke of previous times the Chiefs met the Colts in the playoffs, and those games were so notorious among Kansas City fans that they had names, like the "No Punt Game." Not once had KC gotten past them in the playoffs, in all those years. This afternoon, the guys were deep in superstition, not saying anything that could possibly jinx today's match. When I arrived to watch the game, saw their tension, and took a cleansing breath and said, "It will be fine," they both pointed at me and informed me that I couldn't talk like that. Not until the last second expires in the fourth quarter of the game.

It has been a fun season thus far, watching and cheering for the team with our neighbor. For the last thirty-plus years, I've been supporting the Broncos, no surprise. When T moved in, we resolved to be polite about each other's team preferences, and watch together without malice. While I had Sunday ticket, he would come over to my TV room and scare my cats when he whooped and yelled at big plays. That first year, in October, when his Chiefs' season had already gone downhill fast, he sighed and said, "Well, football season starts in eleven months." He had given up completely. Things looked up a little over the subsequent seasons, but this year has been something special. All of the gang has been warming up to that team, at first for T's boyish enthusiasm, and then for our own independent enjoyment. This year, we are all on board the Mahomes train, and it has been a successful bonding experience. We are only half joking when we say we could rent a large van and go out to Arrowhead stadium next year as a group road trip.

There was a lot of loud energy in the TV room this afternoon. We had plenty of opportunities to cheer. The two lifelong superfans were on their feet every few minutes, woo-hooing and high-fiving. I told T there was no way I would high five today, because he'd hurt me without realizing. It's a good thing he trained his dogs to remain calm when he leaps off the couch and shouts. The quest has been completed, the dragon slain. The Chiefs beat the Colts, and advanced to the AFC championship. I might make a prediction about how that will go next week, but I think the guys will yell at me for jinxing it.

Vegetable

Inspirational song: Comfortably Numb (Pink Floyd)

For the third time this week, I needed a baclofen to make it through the evening. I don't beat myself up about them. It's just a part of my life and I'm used to it. But unfortunately, I took it more than an hour ago, and if I wait until the normal late hour when I usually write this post, I'll be completely unconscious. I have to write early, but I also have to write from a loopy brain. I'm not sure anyone will be able to tell the difference between this and a post-midnight essay.

I'm getting very frustrated with Anschutz. I called them Wednesday afternoon following my neurologist telling me flatly that he doesn't treat what they diagnosed. I ended up with a nurse's voice mail, and I left my name and number, expecting a return call within 24 hours, as the message announced. I called again today, spoke to someone at the general neurology number (after a 20 minute wait in the queue), told her I never got a call back, and gave her a brief summary of my problem. She put me on hold to verify that there was someone on the other end to receive my call, and she transferred me. Straight to voice mail again, the same one. Still no call back. I get to go another whole weekend without medication, without any sort of treatment. Hence the need for muscle relaxers and going to bed early, if possible.

You know, I hadn't actually taken any consciousness-relaxing drugs when I was making dinner tonight. Yet there I was, wondering whether I was a murderer for cutting up a carrot that looked like a human body. I felt like a Wild West villain, pointing a knife instead of a gun, at a poor defenseless carrot and telling him to dance. He was doing it, and I put him in the Instapot with brown rice anyway.

Learn and Grow

Inspirational song: Love Letters in the Sand (Pat Boone)

Sometimes you receive a bit of education, and you wonder how you made it to this stage in life without ever getting in trouble for things you did in the past. Well, I do. Don't know about other people. We had our annual updates class this morning, required for keeping our real estate licenses current. The slideshow came directly from the state commission, and the instructors who give the updates classes (in this case, my managing broker is still my primary educator as well) are not allowed to change anything. One of the first things covered was the topic of "love letters," and how the commission really wants that not to be a thing anymore.

I've written them (the Mr and I for our own property purchases), and I've been totally permissive with my clients who wanted to write them in the past. I didn't see anything wrong with them in a hot market, other than the risk of a seller being inundated with them, and them starting to all sound trite and repetitive. I have seen the light. Love letters are the personal statements that accompany offers to buy, and are usually things like "wow I love your house; I can see me and my dog living here." At least, that's how innocuous they ought to be. Instead, according to the real estate commission, they run right up to and usually over the line into revealing protected class information according to the Fair Housing Act, and that's where the trouble lies. For example, if you are a seller, and you've decided you want to accept an offer based on a compelling letter from a heterosexual married couple with children, and you go on to dismiss offers with letters from a childless couple, a single parent, a gay family, or some combo thereof, you open yourself up to the possibility of being sued for discrimination. And even if you didn't use any of those criteria, but received love letters that revealed details like that, how do you prove that the offer you chose was based on price and the ability to pay, or the likelihood of reaching closing, and not protected status from the personal statements? Even if you can prove it, you might still incur legal costs to do so. To avoid the whole process, there are remedies a broker can rely on, like discouraging clients from writing them, or getting permission from sellers not to present them. I think about the letter we wrote for this house--retiring from military, moving back to home county, need a place for our handicapped dog--and see how easily we could have dipped a toe into a Fair Housing dilemma.

I was a little worried how this class would go. A year ago, I was starting to deteriorate, just entering the neural issues that sucked up most of last year. I couldn't focus on the class, and I really couldn't focus on the test. I missed something like four out of ten last year, and even when I stayed late to go over stuff with the boss, I was foggy-headed. Flash to this year, insomnia has been rough for weeks, and it has only been a couple of weeks since I was up until five in the morning, throwing off my sleep cycle ever since. I took baclofen the last two nights, not just for sore muscles (but definitely for that too), but also because when I'm not used to it, those pills help me sleep. I was able to rise before 6 two days in a row, to get where I needed to be. I was wide awake for class, contributed to the conversation coherently, and this time around I made a perfect score on the test. What a relief. Was tired as heck on the way home though. It was a gray day, which just made me even more mellow on the drive, even when facing that view I love so much, the long shot of the mountains as I approach town.

One Final Volley

Inspirational song: Don't Eat the Yellow Snow (Frank Zappa)

The snow ball story has concluded for one more year. At least, for the most part we will stop talking about it, but there is an excellent chance that the occasional snide remark will slip in, followed by grumbling, obscene gestures, and biologically impossible commands. For the final chapter this time around, I went forward with my previously discussed idea of making "SnoBalls." They weren't perfect. It was based on a cake recipe I had never tried before, one that a friend's mom made around Christmastime, and posted a link online to instructions. (Side note, the instructions were written for a European audience, where they were used to measuring ingredients in grams and have easy access to caster sugar. I bought plain white sugar that I ground finer in a food processor, and I guessed at my proportions for grams-to-cups. Four ingredients: potato starch, caster sugar, lemon juice & zest, and eggs, whipped separately.)

I made the potato starch cake and baked individual rounds in a small donut pan. I bought Kroger brand marshmallow fluff, to make the process go faster. I covered each one in marshmallow, and then coated them in coconut. Mr S-P started singing the above-mentioned Frank Zappa song, so I asked him whether he wanted me to dye the coconut yellow. He said why not, so I did. I blended it with white, for fun.

We took the snow balls to D&D tonight, keeping them completely concealed from view of our neighbor, who rode with us to Boulder. Once revealed, everyone at one, but T made sure he expressed his chagrin at the choice of snack. (See photo.) I mean, gosh, T, I know the cake part was a little dry, but that seems extreme. (We all laughed.)

Don't Call Him Michael

Inspirational song: Story of My Life (One Direction)

It has been a while since I had to race a muscle relaxer to get my blog out for the night, but it has been one of those days. Besides, I need to get up early AF tomorrow to get to Boulder for the first neurology appointment of the day, so assistance falling asleep will be welcomed.

I'm trying to apply myself to creating a fuller backstory for the new D&D character, for the campaign my foster-son-in-law (I guess that's the best moniker for now) will kick off in one week. I seem to be good at coming up with flaws for this new tough guy, but I haven't figured out how to create advantages. I freely admit I have stolen a fair bit from two characters played by the same actor, Rory McCann. The actor is a handsome Glaswegian, but I'm modeling my barbarian after the less attractive aspects of his Michael Armstrong (Hot Fuzz) and Sandor "The Hound" Clegane (Game of Thrones). I shall be playing a half-orc barbarian who keeps a whole lot of secrets. Everyone who looks at Doch Mishky sees a rough, ugly neanderthal, but inside he is a self-conscious secret scholar who has been persecuted by his pureblood orc older brother Oursin. Doch was the youngest of three children, but unlike the violent beginnings of a stereotypical half-orc, his orc father married a human woman late in life after his first (orc) wife died, and they were very much in love. Oursin hated the changes this relationship brought in his previously fearsome father, and he held it against Doch for the first seventeen years of his life. He told Doch that he was too pretty to be a real member of their clan, and too weak, and he never gave him a break. He said he didn't deserve an orc name, and instead called him "Michael," as if he were a soft human. The cruel nickname sent Doch into a beserker rage every time he heard it, and even on his own in adulthood, he is still sensitive about it. Doch left home after Oursin beat him with a lit torch, catching his clothes on fire and burning his ribs and right arm. His reach is limited on that side where the scars hold his arm tighter to his side, but he was left-handed anyway, so it doesn't affect his fighting arm at all. He loves to read, but is very careful not to let anyone catch him doing it. Most people only see what they want to see, and when they look at him they only see an ugly barbarian. He rarely answers with more than a couple monosyllabic words (usually "Yarp" or "Narp" -- yes or no).

I have rolled Doch's stats, with the four dice, re-roll ones, take top three method, and they came out extremely high for one of my characters (strength 18, dexterity 15, constitution 16, intelligence 15, wisdom 16, charisma 13). We are starting at 5th level, so he has a hefty 56 hit points already. Now I need to make sure I have his barbarian rage powers down, so I can then select three feats out of a confusing list of about 600 possibilities. This is the part I dread the most. I'll see whether the new DM will be available to help me choose this weekend, when the football games are on.

The muscle relaxer is kicking in now. Too bad Rabbit is spooling up as I am spooling down. She wants to tear her fancy bed up at the same time I want to become one with mine.

Muscle Confusion

Inspirational song: Shattered (Rolling Stones)

How is it possible that Mr S-P is having trouble relating to my crafting compulsions these days? He keeps looking at me funny every time when I show up with a different project in my hands, sometimes two or three different things every day. Over the weekend, he tried to keep the scold out of his voice when he asked whether I was going to finish the big afghan I'm making for our neighbor before I moved on to other crafts. I felt mildly chastised, but I continued to let myself bounce around between things. It only got worse from there, with new activities coming and going from my sphere of interest. The Mr has phases like this. They just don't involve yarn, that I can recall.

Around two o'clock this afternoon, I was tidying my craft room, and found an untouched skein of tan yarn that had fallen to the floor of my closet. I knew I had it, and I knew I had a nearly new one of maroon, left over from one of the Christmas presents. Without allowing myself conscious thought, I took a break from the much-needed, much-delayed craft room organization to start another wearable item. I still had the tab open on my iPad from the hat I made my daughter last month, and I sat on the end of my bed, with the TV on, making the round that forms the crown of that hat pattern. I put it down and picked it up again multiple times over the course of the night. As I write now, it is all but complete, on my head. It took me less than twelve hours to do the whole thing, although I'll wait until tomorrow to tuck in the loose ends and sew the buttons on the sides where the brim turns up. It's a little bigger than the one I made my daughter, but I like to wear my hair up in a bun more than she does, and this way I should be able to wear it in those situations. It's also a little softer, but she chose the purple and green yarn that hers is made from, and I gravitate towards the softest yarns I can get.

As I completed the hat, frantically working the single crochet rows that form the band and brim, hoping to get it done so I could go to bed, I found a way to justify in my own mind why I have to start and stop so many things, and why I'm okay with some of them never being completed. I've started reading up on some of the symptoms of functional neurological disease, and looked for myself in their descriptions. I have discovered that my problems with headaches and full-body muscle spasms are worse when my mind is zoned out, not actively working. When I get a crochet pattern down, for example, I can think less about what my hands are doing. My mind wanders and my tensions ease. You'd think this would be a positive, like meditation, and in some ways it really is. But with FND, apparently meditation is a gateway to the truly distressing ways it presents in my particular case. I have to keep tricking my mind into refocusing, and constantly switching projects is my own form of muscle confusion. It might drive my husband batty, seeing me dropping one thing suddenly and grabbing something new, without guaranteeing that the first ones will be prioritized ever again. But it's keeping me from literally hurting myself, when a bored mind starts sending pain signals in sharp bursts. I don't know about anyone else, but avoidance of pain is a pretty strong motivator. Now that the hat is done, I have a few choices: go back to the afghan for T, try to finish that sock on the loom, or look for something else entirely. You know, I have that quilt I started about four years ago...