1. About twenty minutes ago I thought something to the effect of "hmm, okay, I want to do something intellectually engaging this evening, now what sha-- HOLY SHIT MY ANTIDEPRESSANTS ARE WORKING." This is a glimmer as yet, but thank fuck. ( PHQ-9. ) I'll have been at 30mg for two weeks come Sunday.
2. Woolstack continue absolutely brilliant - the colourway I'd asked them to special-order came in today, and Lisa-who-seems-to-handle-communications-at-least-with-me sent me photos of all ten skeins so that I could tell her which of them I wanted for my specific project. (And then in the follow-up e-mail commented enthusiastically on how good my chosen colours looked together!) They're going in the post Monday - I just missed today's post - whereupon I'll be able to start making the skyscape shawls.
3. In related news, I am utterly baffled that my quick and dirty picspam of those shawls is the most popular thing I've ever put on tumblr by, like, two orders of magnitude. (I mention this in part because it's picked up another 150 notes in the past 24 hours.)
4. Braided nylon hoses for track pumps exist. I have contacted the UK importer for the pump I currently own asking if there's an appropriate part; if not I'll sell it on ebay (resale value high) and buy myself one of the brand that manufactures the hoses I got linked to, because holy shit being able to top up my tyres without worrying about allergen exposure. ♥_♥ (Context for those of you missing it: I've gone and done that thing where it's super easy to develop a contact allergy to latex, and it's easier still if you've got a bunch of other misc autoimmune/autoinflammatory bullshit going on. The hose on my current pump is latex, which is A Pity. This is additionally the context for the one-line story about The Time I Made An Unauthorised Purchase Of Latex-Free Gloves Using A NASA Grant.)
5. Food! ( Read more... )
2. Woolstack continue absolutely brilliant - the colourway I'd asked them to special-order came in today, and Lisa-who-seems-to-handle-communications-at-least-with-me sent me photos of all ten skeins so that I could tell her which of them I wanted for my specific project. (And then in the follow-up e-mail commented enthusiastically on how good my chosen colours looked together!) They're going in the post Monday - I just missed today's post - whereupon I'll be able to start making the skyscape shawls.
3. In related news, I am utterly baffled that my quick and dirty picspam of those shawls is the most popular thing I've ever put on tumblr by, like, two orders of magnitude. (I mention this in part because it's picked up another 150 notes in the past 24 hours.)
4. Braided nylon hoses for track pumps exist. I have contacted the UK importer for the pump I currently own asking if there's an appropriate part; if not I'll sell it on ebay (resale value high) and buy myself one of the brand that manufactures the hoses I got linked to, because holy shit being able to top up my tyres without worrying about allergen exposure. ♥_♥ (Context for those of you missing it: I've gone and done that thing where it's super easy to develop a contact allergy to latex, and it's easier still if you've got a bunch of other misc autoimmune/autoinflammatory bullshit going on. The hose on my current pump is latex, which is A Pity. This is additionally the context for the one-line story about The Time I Made An Unauthorised Purchase Of Latex-Free Gloves Using A NASA Grant.)
5. Food! ( Read more... )
First Charing Cross appointment survived as of Wednesday lunchtime! Barrett did an excellent job of walking the line of the non-actionable; he was determined to tell me lots of incredibly irrelevant anecdotes about his time working with youth offenders, but fundamentally I treated him like an incompetent and irritating supervisor who considered me incompetent and irritating, and this worked well. (Case in point: I successfully rendered him temporarily speechless by telling him very politely that naturally I understood that he had to take a conservative approach...)
Outcomes: I now ~understand~ that ~gender neutrality~ is like ~anarchism~ in that it is inherently unstable and will inevitably collapse into one of democracy or dictatorship (YOU'RE WELCOME); I note that "people find it too difficult to present as gender neutral in ~~~real life~~~" is not in point of fact an argument that gender-neutral identities don't exist, and you position yourself uniquely to believe that in fact they do not; "but what if in a decade's time you don't feel comfortable taking your shirt off on a beach!!!" is not in fact an argument against giving me top surgery now; etc etc. Not dreadful, nothing I couldn't cope with, and next time I possibly get to see Lorimer.
My mental health has improved markedly since starting the vitD, which is extremely pleasant. I am so, so much better; it's a great relief - I'm back down to PHQ-9 score of 8 (from 18 when we tested my bloods). (8 is operating-within-normal-parameters for me -- I am scoring quite highly on the fatigue questions because I've had a long lab stint, and have been in work every day yes-including-weekends since sometime early last week.)
( The rest of the ten good things! )
Outcomes: I now ~understand~ that ~gender neutrality~ is like ~anarchism~ in that it is inherently unstable and will inevitably collapse into one of democracy or dictatorship (YOU'RE WELCOME); I note that "people find it too difficult to present as gender neutral in ~~~real life~~~" is not in point of fact an argument that gender-neutral identities don't exist, and you position yourself uniquely to believe that in fact they do not; "but what if in a decade's time you don't feel comfortable taking your shirt off on a beach!!!" is not in fact an argument against giving me top surgery now; etc etc. Not dreadful, nothing I couldn't cope with, and next time I possibly get to see Lorimer.
My mental health has improved markedly since starting the vitD, which is extremely pleasant. I am so, so much better; it's a great relief - I'm back down to PHQ-9 score of 8 (from 18 when we tested my bloods). (8 is operating-within-normal-parameters for me -- I am scoring quite highly on the fatigue questions because I've had a long lab stint, and have been in work every day yes-including-weekends since sometime early last week.)
( The rest of the ten good things! )
[symptoms log] brain monitoring
Jun. 20th, 2013 10:18 amToday's PHQ-9 score: 3 ("minimal depression", max score 27), at three days on 30mg citalopram. No intrusive thoughts this time (yet?).
... Is there a community for it on DW?
I'm not very okay at the moment, and I'm not sure why. I'm safe and I'm functional and I'm managing self-care and I'm enjoying the world (cherry blossom and bluebells and daffodils and tulips and cowslips, and chaffinches bathing in puddles and wagtails bathing in fords, and silk aviation maps and family and--) and I'm reading and I'm even managing work, but I just seem to be... not very okay. I'm not used to being this kind of not-very-okay, and I don't know how to deal with it, and I don't have tools for it, and I don't know what the problem is. I don't know how to deal with depression that presents without anhedonia.
Hmm. PHQ-9 reckons I'm currently scoring 10, dysthymia/minor depression. I suppose that sounds about right? I just- none of the normal triggers are in place, and I don't know why. Or maybe this is what a stressful situation (viz, Finals) looks like after several weeks of pretty intensive mindfulness training? Maybe I'd be much worse off if I hadn't done (as much of) the course (as I have)? I don't know. I don't know what to do with this.
- Sort of, but not exactly, in that I apparently signed up the day that Open Beta started (belated happy birthday to Dreamwidth, and a simultaneous belated and early happy birthday to me...) but I only really started thinking of it as my Primary Online Home in about 2011, after meeting
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
noldo and getting dragged delightedly into Avatar fandom. - Yep. Oh dearie me yes. And: because it is the show of my heart, because it is beautiful and heartbreaking and enriching and wonderful. Here is my normal pitch for it:
Avatar: the Last Airbender is a mainstream US kid's TV show. Within the first five minutes of the first episode of the first season, a female character calls a male character out for sexism, in as many words, and she is taken seriously.
One of the main characters is a six-legged ten-tonne flying platypus-bison. He is a stealthy, stealthy getaway vehicle.
This is a show that contains no white people, that features disabled people, that is full of a wide range of women, that contains a canon trans character - and that deals with abuse and genocide and war and colonialism in nuanced, complicated, loving, difficult, varied and above all target-audience age-appropriate ways.
There are three moments of Fail that I can point out to you.
That's three moments in a three-season series.
Show. Of. My. Heart. - Yep!
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
white_lotus.
I'm not very okay at the moment, and I'm not sure why. I'm safe and I'm functional and I'm managing self-care and I'm enjoying the world (cherry blossom and bluebells and daffodils and tulips and cowslips, and chaffinches bathing in puddles and wagtails bathing in fords, and silk aviation maps and family and--) and I'm reading and I'm even managing work, but I just seem to be... not very okay. I'm not used to being this kind of not-very-okay, and I don't know how to deal with it, and I don't have tools for it, and I don't know what the problem is. I don't know how to deal with depression that presents without anhedonia.
Hmm. PHQ-9 reckons I'm currently scoring 10, dysthymia/minor depression. I suppose that sounds about right? I just- none of the normal triggers are in place, and I don't know why. Or maybe this is what a stressful situation (viz, Finals) looks like after several weeks of pretty intensive mindfulness training? Maybe I'd be much worse off if I hadn't done (as much of) the course (as I have)? I don't know. I don't know what to do with this.
Thoroughly blissed out.
I don't know quite what I've done to deserve such awesome people and such awesome science in my life, but whatever it was, THANK YOU UNIVERSE.
In vaguely related news, yesterday (among other things) the nice student GP gave me PHQ 9 [pdf, content note: depression] to fill out. It's scored from 0 to 27, with scores of 20-27 being classed as "severe depression".
In January - the previous time I filled one out - I scored about 24.
Yesterday?
Yesterday I scored six, and most of those points were actually clearly attributable to the fact that I've got chronic fatigue and spent the weekend travelling.
I WIN.
One of the things I did this evening was use up a bunch of leftovers. Specifically, there were some strawberries that were starting to turn, so I sliced off the unpleasant bits and stuck them in the fridge while, in a pan, I combined:
... and simmered it all up until it was syrupy.
And then I poured it over the strawberries, to general sounds of nom, and lo it was good and I shall create it again some time.
I don't know quite what I've done to deserve such awesome people and such awesome science in my life, but whatever it was, THANK YOU UNIVERSE.
In vaguely related news, yesterday (among other things) the nice student GP gave me PHQ 9 [pdf, content note: depression] to fill out. It's scored from 0 to 27, with scores of 20-27 being classed as "severe depression".
In January - the previous time I filled one out - I scored about 24.
Yesterday?
Yesterday I scored six, and most of those points were actually clearly attributable to the fact that I've got chronic fatigue and spent the weekend travelling.
I WIN.
One of the things I did this evening was use up a bunch of leftovers. Specifically, there were some strawberries that were starting to turn, so I sliced off the unpleasant bits and stuck them in the fridge while, in a pan, I combined:
- 1/4 bottle red wine (also a leftover)
- small handful of black peppercorns
- star anise
- sprinkle of nutmeg
- one allspice berry
- ALL THE SUGAR SERIOUSLY YOU LOT SO MUCH BROWN SUGAR
... and simmered it all up until it was syrupy.
And then I poured it over the strawberries, to general sounds of nom, and lo it was good and I shall create it again some time.
