Hanging by a thread

-- Ahhh, and Blogger decided to eat the post's title, fun fun! Grrr. --


Most people who are mentally ill aren't in a good way. Not collectively. We treat our mentally ill poorly overall. Closing American mental hospitals was a rotten start to this century.

From NPR's review about The Great Pretender; the review concludes:

' The Great Pretender is an essential book, and a plea for the world to come to terms with the way we're treating some of our most vulnerable people. "We are all hanging on by a very thin thread," she writes, "and some of us won't survive our fall." '

She's right. :(

In 1992, I was in one of the last mental institutions that got closed: Clinton Valley Center in Pontiac, Michigan.

Morning in kitten-land.

Her Worship was all comfy on Her Throne, and calming down, grooming. Then Misty saw a string! It was sneakily hiding under some flat object, which she didn't care about. String! Oh yeah.

A little drawstring bag's cord. And she had to have it, she HAD to.

I persuaded her to accept something else and carried off the bag.

It is currently hiding in my pocket so I can send it to another home outside our house. :p

October-2: kitten update.

Queen Misty and Digger/Pocito are just rocketing around the house lately. Let alone yesterday, when I looked up to roomie saying: "The kittens, they're both outside." Just like that moment in Jurassic Park when they find the raptors are inside the room with them -- that's how I'm sure Jack and Sweetpea felt!

Amazingly, we got 'em back into the house. Pocito seemed a little shell-shocked by the yard; Queenie acted like it was no big deal. As she stalked Jack. Who looked appalled, frankly.


Annnnnnnnnnnd the kittens climbed the blinds on this night.

Her Majesty was the primary perp, and I got her off the blinds. She was upset, not just to have her fun wrecked, but that I was clearly Not Happy.

::  But the cords, such temptations, such a grand toy!  The texture of the blinds! ::

No matter that I've put the frickin' cords behind the blinds, they can be SEEN, and lusted after, if one is a kitten. =rolls eyes=

Kittens today.

Cheetah is still very snuffly, and sleeps more than his sister, likely due to his awful sinus infection. :/

He likes to cuddle up with people, and/or onto a Soft Place to sleep. To his great delight, I have set up plush throws for him to sleep on the LR couch and the basement futon.

Double cat trouble.

Today my roomie [SL] and I went ostensibly to drop off stuff -- for the barn cats of Saved By Zade, our local cat rescue.

Little Cheetah began smooching my fingers. I thought I was lost, and then some little girls took an interest in his cuddliness. I stepped back, but no... their mom backed out.

Yeah, we came home with two kittens. How did you know? :P :P :P

Random autumn update--

Normally I post in Septembers past about rate changes. Sometimes I mention other things, like milestones.

But you know what? I began copyediting in 2007. I may post later about milestones, and I may just talk about cons [like CVG or Dublin Worldcon] or my cats, or something else. I don't know yet.

October relaxacon and onward...

Last week, because apparently I cannot control my hypomanic* impulses, I suggested twice that I create a FAQ page for Fiasco 2019... which I keep typing today as Fiascon.  Urm.  Clearly "con" is meant to be part of any con name in my lizard brain.  Figures.

This relaxacon is just Friday and Saturday, 18-October and 19-October, held by Metro Airport.

NOT a weekend-long three-day con.

Angry Robot's female writers: 2013.

Considering how some outcry existed this year about oh noes, men don't get into the Hugo awards anymore, but they write! as if it was men and not everyone else who had been kept out for so long, I thought it was a nice theme to discover sff by women. Maybe I'm biased?

Nah!


So back when I was freelancing for Angry Robot Books, sometimes I'd read their blog a lot, sometimes not.

I am rather an erratic person on stuff like that. Also, have you been on the Internet? It's wicked huge!

I missed this post back in 2013: Discover some great SF by women writers.  Where Lee said, "We’d like to help promote some great science fiction by our own female writers, to show the incredible quality of SF that can be enjoyed, whatever your gender."

Weirdness medical: o_o

~~ Weirdness medical: the details ~~

A few mornings ago [Thursday?] I had odd numbness. I get the usual stuff everyone does -- feels like you slept on your arm. Normally it's my right hand, sometimes left also or instead.

Numb fingers have been waking me up nearly every day for weeks now. Sometimes it happens in the middle of the night, a change from the hot flashes*. :/

But the odd kind was the normal "gone numb" feeling first... which then went to another LEVEL of numbness. I don't know how to explain it better than "It felt bubbly" -- just like carbonation!! -- which is frickin' surreal.


~~ Weirdness medical: the backstory ~~

At the law firm where I worked in 1989, I reached too far for a file and got a pinched nerve in my neck. Right side.

I had physical therapy back in '89. [Hated the ectoplasm, loved the massage, mmmm.] Nothing more troubled me til late 2003. But that's another blog post.

The second car accident in 2015 put me into a double regimen: MAT / muscle activation therapy combined with chiro. Weekly. The one was out of pocket and therefore reimbursed [such fun that was!] while chiro was covered under health insurance.

In '16, the specialist said I might have fibromyalgia... but not TO ME.  Oh no, heaven forfend! =eye rolls= He put it into his written report.

Sure, it was for my auto insurance -- who wanted to stop paying on my claim for weekly sessions. But was there some reason that doctor could not say, "And hey, you might want to ask your own doctor to look into this?"

What if I was the kind of person who didn't read the documents later on?????

Jack's new vet adventure.

Jack's terrible awful no-good morning last Friday* went like this:

Sweetpea stayed inside all night. Didn't stir til nearly 8am, when I rose. Swapped her for one unsuspecting Jack.

Jack was fine, friendly and affectionate, happy to chow down. Third time this week he's just sat down by door and purred. He clearly hasn't been sleeping well.

Heck, Sweetpea decided to stay inside and sleep all morning! She hasn't done that in a while. So maybe he felt the same -- not feeling well, wanting not to be disturbed -- but hasn't wanted to waste the Great Outside, the playground, what if it rains again, can't miss out--

O Jack, you are still a kitten and will be for nearly another year. :D

Two books, alike in... something.

The first book I officially proofread was a long time ago now. :)

And it was this book. In late 2007, Brothers in Arms was the only Vorkosigan novel I hadn't read. I got a copy of the original novel from PaperbackBookSwap, and set to proofreading.

I had a blast.

The first hardcover edition of Brothers in Arms was published in August 2008 in time for the Worldcon, Denvention 3, where Lois was the GoH.

Cat update -- or, Sweetpea's day RUINED forever.

I let in both cats -- as Sweetie hadn't come in earlier, and this was about to be Jack's third breakfast -- and prepared. They were eating, and I'd spooked Sweetpea by bringing "kitten crunchies" aka the kitten food they both like as snackage.

( Lately I've been adding "crunchies" to their first breakfast as a greeting, to rejoice that they made it to their First Meal, and Sweetpea especially considers this a new and excellent greeting/habit.

( It began about a week ago, so it's a habit for life now. :p )

MORE hypo-medical stupid...!

Briefly, if possible, but perhaps that's unhelpful... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I've been arguing for some time that my doctors should listen to me on meds*. When it comes to mania and near mania and hypomania and near hypomania -- they don't. In recent years, I've gotten wayyyy too close to all four of those latter stages. Multiple times.

Now, I am starting to enter menopause. That could be the other problem.

Thing is, I just don't know. 

This year, I began having really erratic menses, like nothing I'd have before, and/or normal menses mixed in with crazy throwbacks... as in, blood levels from over a decade ago, or even my first decade of periods!

=-=

July 2018 to now.

It's been nearly a year since I posted last. With four posts last year, and this the first posted in 2019--

The short version of the past year is this: Tiny Cat chose to live inside with us; six months later, he vanished; his family nearly all vanished; I've been struggling with depression for many months...

I did get a new shrink. So that worked out. :) Except for the other problem, which is that I appear to be speeding BACK into effin' hypomania. Again. Not my current doctor's fault, he is very good at working with me, unlike the previous few doctors.

More on my health later...


Looking back, I posted about the cats and our cat colony, so I'm glad I documented it at least. :/ Having one beloved cat disappear, and then not just one more cat, but four more--! It takes a toll on you.

Gatito was just a couple days away from his first birthday, dammit!

I tried not to get close to his cousins -- Shadow had her second litter two years after her first -- but I failed.

I loved Cali, little scamp that she was.  She somehow projected an aura of "small human girl in a pinafore" as she rocketed around.  You could feel her determination as she did whatever she wanted, all the time, and focused intensely on those things. Beautiful little bratling, Cali was. Dammit...