some things make a post
Jul. 30th, 2018 10:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaberett1. I've been complaining a fair old bit, over the past few months, that I've been feeling very resistant to writing up therapy notes but I couldn't tell whyyyyyyy and it didn't make any seeeeeeeeeense. It turns out that, as ever, brains are sneaky little buggers, particularly in self-defence, and the reason I was so reluctant to engage with therapy notes is in fact exactly the reason I go to therapy. Which is: I want to have a responsible adult around to spot me while I do a bunch of emotional heavy lifting, and as it happens part of why I find writing up therapy notes so useful is that it makes more stuff cohere, i.e., it's more emotional heavy lifting. Only I try to do it all in one chunk without a spotter. And over the past few months, when the reluctance has really set in, I've by-and-large been stable enough that I've actually been digging into long-term change, which is much more intimidiating than short-term fire-fighting when it comes to looking at it solo. Well done, that brain, but it's okay, I promise, we got this.
2. A was away this weekend, which meant that I... spontaneously woke up enthusiastically sometime between six and seven in the morning all three days he was gone, and got up and did several things before running out of steam and going back to sleep. The last time this happened was in May, shortly after I started thyroxine, when I... once again was not co-sleeping with A (because I'd sodded off to Cornwall). In another round of Brains What Are They Even For, as far as I can tell this is actually because I sleep worse when not bed-sharing with A: the thyroxine is giving me overall enough of a boost that I actually have a vaguely diurnal cycle, but if A isn't around I wake all the way up and can't get back to sleep and crash a little while later when the chronic fatigue catches up to me. When A is around, I presumably have the microarousal around 6 but am sufficiently relaxed and safe-feeling that the rest of my subconscious bludgeons me back to sleep because I need the rest, okay. ON THE UPSIDE this means that the thyroxine didn't abruptly stop working shortly after May, and that I am in fact still getting positive effects from it! (Not that... there's any other evidence for that at all, whatsoever, of course. See also: brains.)
3. I remain amused that my Screaming Social Anxiety mostly doesn't get read as Social Anxiety in some specific settings, because it... manifests as Monologuing Amusing Anecdotes. I have good delivery, I do in fact entertain the room (I get a lot of laughter-at-anecdotes and it is not in fact polite Will They Ever Shut Up laughter), aaaaaaaand it gets me continuous positive feedback without me particularly having to actually engage with anyone in the moment. And comes with an appalling emotional hangover and long-term Everybody Hates Me, obviously, and I probably need to do a better job of remembering that Having Some Knitting To Do helps distract me in a way that is much less emotional hangover, but... (a) brains! at least I recognise what they're doing these days! and also (b) existential crises aside going to my cousin's for a party yesterday evening was genuinely lovely, even if I did wait for A to get home from LARP and drive me there because I was categorically unwilling to cope with public transport + a taxi. (Plus showing up late means I get to console myself that at least people had more time socialising in the absence of me monologuing than in its presence.) Mild amusement: my uncle was very taken by my describing something as "entirely beknownst to them", which just seemed the right thing to say at the time but which I have decided I am probably going to keep. (Also, Alex, your cousin was joining in with the anecdotes instead of telling you to shut up. It's all good.)
4. I have, for the past week, been eyeing up the house over the road with the skip full of wood on the front drive. On Sunday I finally screwed up my courage and wrote a notecard with my phone number in asking very nicely if I could make off with it, and dropped it through the front door, shortly after which I received a phonecall (from someone with a posh accent even by my standards) cheerfully inviting me to help myself. This is fine as far as it goes (give or take the unexpected phonecall) but the particularly amusing bit is that, this evening, I got another call from the number. "... what," I thought to myself, and answered, with Great Trepidation. ... he wanted to tell me that there was another skip with big bits of wood in it on the next road over, in case I was interested. WHAT EVEN; I am charmed; I will be paying it a visit tomorrow.
5. More allotment news: this morning a Plan for the plot finally coalesced all in one go, so now I know exactly how to make it all make sense and how to do an optimal crop rotation, and I spent this afternoon very happily working out what other seeds I wanted and what shapes of wood I wanted to buy to redo the raised beds and so on and so forth, and I am feeling cheerful and bouncy and optimistic enough that even I put up a WANTED on Freecycle on the off-chance. (I have also identified a local-ish source of used 13' scaffolding boards, and might be able to persuade A to drive me over in a small commercial Transit to pick up a stack of those and in the same trip collect a Freecycle greenhouse. In point of fact I have not yet received a response about the greenhouse, but I e-mailed two weeks ago to say "would love to pick up but can't until mid-August, does that work for you?" and it's still marked as available, so I reckon my chances are good, and combining the two trips would work well...) (Have I mentioned that A is v indulgent of my hobbies?)
6. I spent some of this evening pulling nails out of the wood I scavanged from him-across-the-road's skip last night, and am even more pleased with myself for the bits I picked out now that I've worked out what all I want to do with them. They are Very Convenient. I am Excited. (In related Maybe I'm A Butch??? news, my Kenwood broke last week due to some, er, extremely solid sourdough. So rather than panicking I sighed, and dug out the 1950s service manual, followed the instructions to take the relevant bit apart, looked at the shatter nylon gear and went "... well that'll be the problem then, won't it," ordered a replacement in metal for fourteen quid off the internet, and calmly fitted it again with 0 panic, and now it works again. The Kenwood Chef A701 is a magnificent beast, and I think A has possibly not quite realised that if-and-when we get the garage, I'm going to be bringing all of the accumulated chassis and parts up from the Mouldering Ancestral Pile and getting them working again As My Grandfather Would Have Wished. In the meantime, my mother has this weekend gone searching through the cellar for the ice cream maker attachment, and if she can't find it my baby brother will be buying one for me as a housewarming present. And: yes, my stand mixer is 70 years old and still going strong.)
7. There! is 20k of new ybeb-verse fic! and I am SO LOOKING FORWARD to rolling around in it extensively tomorrow!
8. As We All Know I am deeply fond of Ruby Violet. Post-Friday's therapy session I went along for my now-trad ice cream, and got apricot+sour cream plus the new-to-me mint+cucumber sorbet. The latter was amazing, and I think I can probably work out how to make it myself (more or less); I'm less certain of being able to wing the apricot+sour cream, and it's not in the RV recipe book, so I very politely e-mailed and asked if I might have the recipe. Apparently a version for home cooks is currently being tweaked and tested, so I've been sent a PDF and invited to give feedback about the results...!
9. I have now been going to the local gym for five weeks (i.e. five sessions, because I'm currently only allowed one session per week -- I'm currently working on upping the number of five-rep sets I can do on each thing; step after that is increasing number of sessions by one; step after that is increasing number of reps by 1 per session so long as my knee will tolerate it). Rehab is of course frustrating but it is going well and there is measurable progress, and today we Very Pointedly asked when the accessible changing room was going to have a working shower and stop being used as storage for cleaning supplies... and were very apologetically informed that the entire gym will, relatively soon, get closed for a week or so for a major rebuild, and it's all going to be sorted then. So that's progress, hurrah, and apparently we'll have a rough idea of when that's gonna happen when we go in next week. (I am somewhat patient with them about this because they did respond with minimal fuss to my "yo get a ramp" e-mail, and have been generally good about everything else.) I aaaaaaaalso confirmed the times of the Pilates classes (included in membership), and while I'm currently nowhere near strong enough to rock up to those sustainably (even doing modified lowest-possible-impact rehab versions of the exercises), I have confirmed to my own satisfaction that they exist and once I've started managing one session a week at home again I'll probably even see about going along to them.
10.rjw76 has very kindly donated some strawberries to The Cause (via Adam, via a LARP field); I need to work out where to put them, but STRAWBERRIES. :D
2. A was away this weekend, which meant that I... spontaneously woke up enthusiastically sometime between six and seven in the morning all three days he was gone, and got up and did several things before running out of steam and going back to sleep. The last time this happened was in May, shortly after I started thyroxine, when I... once again was not co-sleeping with A (because I'd sodded off to Cornwall). In another round of Brains What Are They Even For, as far as I can tell this is actually because I sleep worse when not bed-sharing with A: the thyroxine is giving me overall enough of a boost that I actually have a vaguely diurnal cycle, but if A isn't around I wake all the way up and can't get back to sleep and crash a little while later when the chronic fatigue catches up to me. When A is around, I presumably have the microarousal around 6 but am sufficiently relaxed and safe-feeling that the rest of my subconscious bludgeons me back to sleep because I need the rest, okay. ON THE UPSIDE this means that the thyroxine didn't abruptly stop working shortly after May, and that I am in fact still getting positive effects from it! (Not that... there's any other evidence for that at all, whatsoever, of course. See also: brains.)
3. I remain amused that my Screaming Social Anxiety mostly doesn't get read as Social Anxiety in some specific settings, because it... manifests as Monologuing Amusing Anecdotes. I have good delivery, I do in fact entertain the room (I get a lot of laughter-at-anecdotes and it is not in fact polite Will They Ever Shut Up laughter), aaaaaaaand it gets me continuous positive feedback without me particularly having to actually engage with anyone in the moment. And comes with an appalling emotional hangover and long-term Everybody Hates Me, obviously, and I probably need to do a better job of remembering that Having Some Knitting To Do helps distract me in a way that is much less emotional hangover, but... (a) brains! at least I recognise what they're doing these days! and also (b) existential crises aside going to my cousin's for a party yesterday evening was genuinely lovely, even if I did wait for A to get home from LARP and drive me there because I was categorically unwilling to cope with public transport + a taxi. (Plus showing up late means I get to console myself that at least people had more time socialising in the absence of me monologuing than in its presence.) Mild amusement: my uncle was very taken by my describing something as "entirely beknownst to them", which just seemed the right thing to say at the time but which I have decided I am probably going to keep. (Also, Alex, your cousin was joining in with the anecdotes instead of telling you to shut up. It's all good.)
4. I have, for the past week, been eyeing up the house over the road with the skip full of wood on the front drive. On Sunday I finally screwed up my courage and wrote a notecard with my phone number in asking very nicely if I could make off with it, and dropped it through the front door, shortly after which I received a phonecall (from someone with a posh accent even by my standards) cheerfully inviting me to help myself. This is fine as far as it goes (give or take the unexpected phonecall) but the particularly amusing bit is that, this evening, I got another call from the number. "... what," I thought to myself, and answered, with Great Trepidation. ... he wanted to tell me that there was another skip with big bits of wood in it on the next road over, in case I was interested. WHAT EVEN; I am charmed; I will be paying it a visit tomorrow.
5. More allotment news: this morning a Plan for the plot finally coalesced all in one go, so now I know exactly how to make it all make sense and how to do an optimal crop rotation, and I spent this afternoon very happily working out what other seeds I wanted and what shapes of wood I wanted to buy to redo the raised beds and so on and so forth, and I am feeling cheerful and bouncy and optimistic enough that even I put up a WANTED on Freecycle on the off-chance. (I have also identified a local-ish source of used 13' scaffolding boards, and might be able to persuade A to drive me over in a small commercial Transit to pick up a stack of those and in the same trip collect a Freecycle greenhouse. In point of fact I have not yet received a response about the greenhouse, but I e-mailed two weeks ago to say "would love to pick up but can't until mid-August, does that work for you?" and it's still marked as available, so I reckon my chances are good, and combining the two trips would work well...) (Have I mentioned that A is v indulgent of my hobbies?)
6. I spent some of this evening pulling nails out of the wood I scavanged from him-across-the-road's skip last night, and am even more pleased with myself for the bits I picked out now that I've worked out what all I want to do with them. They are Very Convenient. I am Excited. (In related Maybe I'm A Butch??? news, my Kenwood broke last week due to some, er, extremely solid sourdough. So rather than panicking I sighed, and dug out the 1950s service manual, followed the instructions to take the relevant bit apart, looked at the shatter nylon gear and went "... well that'll be the problem then, won't it," ordered a replacement in metal for fourteen quid off the internet, and calmly fitted it again with 0 panic, and now it works again. The Kenwood Chef A701 is a magnificent beast, and I think A has possibly not quite realised that if-and-when we get the garage, I'm going to be bringing all of the accumulated chassis and parts up from the Mouldering Ancestral Pile and getting them working again As My Grandfather Would Have Wished. In the meantime, my mother has this weekend gone searching through the cellar for the ice cream maker attachment, and if she can't find it my baby brother will be buying one for me as a housewarming present. And: yes, my stand mixer is 70 years old and still going strong.)
7. There! is 20k of new ybeb-verse fic! and I am SO LOOKING FORWARD to rolling around in it extensively tomorrow!
8. As We All Know I am deeply fond of Ruby Violet. Post-Friday's therapy session I went along for my now-trad ice cream, and got apricot+sour cream plus the new-to-me mint+cucumber sorbet. The latter was amazing, and I think I can probably work out how to make it myself (more or less); I'm less certain of being able to wing the apricot+sour cream, and it's not in the RV recipe book, so I very politely e-mailed and asked if I might have the recipe. Apparently a version for home cooks is currently being tweaked and tested, so I've been sent a PDF and invited to give feedback about the results...!
9. I have now been going to the local gym for five weeks (i.e. five sessions, because I'm currently only allowed one session per week -- I'm currently working on upping the number of five-rep sets I can do on each thing; step after that is increasing number of sessions by one; step after that is increasing number of reps by 1 per session so long as my knee will tolerate it). Rehab is of course frustrating but it is going well and there is measurable progress, and today we Very Pointedly asked when the accessible changing room was going to have a working shower and stop being used as storage for cleaning supplies... and were very apologetically informed that the entire gym will, relatively soon, get closed for a week or so for a major rebuild, and it's all going to be sorted then. So that's progress, hurrah, and apparently we'll have a rough idea of when that's gonna happen when we go in next week. (I am somewhat patient with them about this because they did respond with minimal fuss to my "yo get a ramp" e-mail, and have been generally good about everything else.) I aaaaaaaalso confirmed the times of the Pilates classes (included in membership), and while I'm currently nowhere near strong enough to rock up to those sustainably (even doing modified lowest-possible-impact rehab versions of the exercises), I have confirmed to my own satisfaction that they exist and once I've started managing one session a week at home again I'll probably even see about going along to them.
10.
rjw76 has very kindly donated some strawberries to The Cause (via Adam, via a LARP field); I need to work out where to put them, but STRAWBERRIES. :D
(no subject)
Date: 2018-07-30 09:38 pm (UTC)...re therapy notes, applied to self: OH IS THAT WHY
(Cut tag pls?)
(no subject)
Date: 2018-07-30 09:44 pm (UTC)Given how things went last time I think I need to find something I can log my heart rate with though. I suspect there's some degree of cyclic stuff that correlates with mood going on (...), and "if I'd normally think twice about writing at that tempo it's too fast" is a thing!
(no subject)
Date: 2018-07-30 09:47 pm (UTC)Apparently put cut tag in while you were commenting. :-p
(no subject)
Date: 2018-07-30 09:48 pm (UTC):)
(no subject)
Date: 2018-07-30 09:49 pm (UTC)First comment notif did not contain it, second (edited) comment notif did -- I am amuse :-)
(no subject)
Date: 2018-07-30 10:05 pm (UTC)Apricot+sour cream ice cream? yes yes very please that sounds amazing. Cucumber+mint sounds nice, too.
Someone around here is now selling cardamom and I want.
Strawberries! \o/
(no subject)
Date: 2018-07-31 12:12 am (UTC)And am quite happy to hear about the other positive things in your life.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-07-31 02:27 am (UTC)Eeeeeeeee!!!!! {Vanishes Byeb-wards}
(no subject)
Date: 2018-07-31 09:26 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-07-31 12:17 pm (UTC)...which is a contributing factor to me not having found a new therapist here yet (even though i recognize it is pretty dumb, cue brain-spirals of nonsense) so thanks :)
I am very fond of mechanical things where you can open them up and go "oh. well that is clearly broken" and fix the thing. My blender is from the 1970s judging by the aesthetic (I got it secondhand somewhere) and I am similarly pleased with its "just works dammit"-ness.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-07-31 12:57 pm (UTC)And... yeah.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-07-31 12:57 pm (UTC)it is SO GOOD. they also do damson+sour cream when the damsons are in season. :D
(no subject)
Date: 2018-07-31 12:58 pm (UTC)(I have a Librarian Anecdote for your eyes only and should actually grab you to relate it...)
(no subject)
Date: 2018-07-31 12:59 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-07-31 01:00 pm (UTC)It is completely okay to want a trained and trusted expert in the room for this shit. <3
It took all of ten minutes to fix, including me screwing up twice, using tools I already had, by the time all was said and done and arrived from internet orders! It was PRETTY GREAT and I love it.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-07-31 03:04 pm (UTC)~staranise has the actual estimated percentages or whatever, but basically: in the majority of cases a majority of the benefit of a therp is having a safe non-judgemental place to just say all the shit you don't normally say or are afraid of saying or whatever. It's just it turns out that making a space "safe" is a hugely intricate process that often needs years of training and even depending on factors training in DIFFERENT DIRECTIONS (apparently for non-traumatized people the total "I am a mirror for your emotions, I have no opinions of my own" therp thing is . . . helpful? Safe? whereas for those of us fucked up by other humans it just means DANGER WILL ROBINSON THIS PERSON IS PLANNING SOMETHING.)
(no subject)
Date: 2018-07-31 03:09 pm (UTC)And finishing it at least erodes some of the running anxiety of "but what if I suddenly am unable to write/am blocked for the rest of my life BEFORE I GET THIS FINISHED/WHILE THIS IS STILL HANGING I will be a FAILURE."
I expect the anxiety to find something else to fixate on shortly, but hey. Still counts.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-07-31 04:13 pm (UTC)and YAY FIXING
(no subject)
Date: 2018-07-31 04:24 pm (UTC)now if I could just get past the insurance-hurdles and general inertia and hatred of telephones and internal-toddler foot-stomping of indeterminate cause.......
hi yes i would like a replacement brain please this one is clearly defective
(no subject)
Date: 2018-07-31 05:04 pm (UTC)It's almost damson time here. I have my eye on a foraging spot, and if I can sprout any, I will. :D
(no subject)
Date: 2018-07-31 06:35 pm (UTC)I've seen week-to-week variation of 20bpm doing what should have been light cardio while in "better shape" than I am currently, and given the baseline that put me in "go sit down, have people ask if I'm alright..." territory.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-07-31 09:50 pm (UTC)(But I tend to find that going "okay, sweetie, you don't wanna, can you tell me anything about why? okay, well I promise I'm going to look after us" helps, infuriating as that in its turn is...)
(no subject)
Date: 2018-07-31 09:51 pm (UTC)(Have... not managed today. House is Ongoing. I am taking refuge in hitting ants with a spade as often as possible. Still v much looking forward to!)
(no subject)
Date: 2018-08-01 01:43 am (UTC)I just need to get over my "but haaaaard :(" grump
(no subject)
Date: 2018-08-01 02:29 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-08-03 04:27 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-08-03 04:43 pm (UTC)Whether or not there's any future in it, it might be fun to do and log your results, For Science.
(...this has reminded me of how badly I want some P. tormentosa, if I can figure out a spot in my yard they'd like.)
(no subject)
Date: 2018-08-09 04:55 pm (UTC)Kenwood mixers are the best. Though my sister did once manage to make one go up in smoke. In fairness to her, it was Granny's old one, so it had had a good life. And they've all been 901s in our family, rather than 701s.